If the motives of the man who stands up for Christian truth are maligned to-day, so was it in the days of Baxter and Calvin, of Paul and of our Saviour. If men to-day bring in privily damnable heresies, it is nothing new under the sun. They did the same in the days of Reformers and Apostles. Jeremiah had to fight with false prophets all his life long.

If in our warfare for truth and right, even good men stand aloof, or fail us in our hour of need, could Luther tell of no such hours of darkness? or could Paul be unable to sympathize with our distress?

Elijah also had to flee from the court of the king to the less hostile desert.

If to-day some find their usefulness hindered by false brethren in the Church, does their experience in that line come up to the measure of Apostolic suffering from the same cause?

Whenever men magnify the past at the expense of the present, there is danger lest they feel that it would have been greatly for their advantage to have lived in some previous age, and that they suffer great injury from that arrangement of Providence that makes them live to-day rather than centuries ago. A man, ere he is aware of it, may thus blame God for casting his lot in such evil times. It is unnecessary to show how unfounded are such complaints, or how injurious in their effects on the complainer. But the indulgence of such thoughts leads directly to these results; and though for a time a man may not be conscious of them, yet they may secretly gather such strength that, when brought to his notice, he may justify rather than abhor them.

Such views also lead to discouragement and despair. For if under the government of the all-wise and omnipotent God, the world is ever growing worse than before, and even the Church degenerating from previous attainment instead of pressing toward the mark for the prize of its high calling, what hope is there of the glorious future so long foretold? And if there is so little prospect of that future which God holds out to us in his Word, can he be faithful in other things more than in this? Can I trust those exceeding great and precious promises to the individual if those to the whole Church fail so palpably? What, then, is the influence of such views on all effort for good to men?

If the Church grows worse from age to age, if true piety is ever losing ground, of what use is it to labor for the conversion of the world? Does not that glorious object recede into the distant future instead of drawing nearer? And what a view of Christ does all this involve? He bids us pray, "Thy kingdom come," and then, "Thy will be done on earth as it is done in Heaven," plainly encouraging us to hope that it shall be so; and yet, according to the views before us, instead of bringing about that result, he is moving everything back in the opposite direction. Who can think so and have any heart to toil or pray for the promised millennium? But, worse than all, what sort of a Redeemer must he be who encourages such hopes only to disappoint them?

cannot be true. The If this is an evil and

Views that involve such consequences former days were not better than these. adulterous generation, we have reliable testimony that it is not the first of that sort. If some who hear the Gospel to-day are a generation of vipers, they too had predecessors long ago. If we find it difficult to meet the obloquy incurred by standing up for the faith once delivered to the saints, would it have been easier to do the same thing under Nero? or under the surveillance of "the Holy Office," or with Puritans and Covenanters in the days of the Stuarts?

What, then, do those accomplish for Christ who deal out dolorous descriptions of Christian degeneracy and make but the one impression: "Things were never so bad before?" Is there any merit in affirming what is not true? Or is there any incentive to effort in believing such teaching? Better far if, taking things as they are, we gird up our loins and take unto ourselves the whole armor of God, that we may be able to stand in the evil day. Thus armed, let us stand forth good soldiers of a good leader in a good cause. Evils there are, but when did they not exist? Men may tell us they abound, but when were they less abundant? Work is to be done, and hard work; but has there been a time since man fell in Eden when it was not required? Sufferings await the faithful servant. But when or where did God leave his people without some test to distinguish the true servant of Christ from the seeker of his own ease? Is there no secret shrinking from "hardness" under this whining about the degeneracy of our age?

It has been said of earthly troubles,

"If you gently touch a nettle, it will sting you for your pains;
Grasp it like a man of mettle, and it soft as silk remains."

And the same is true in spiritual things. They whose chief end is to consult their own happiness, will always miss it. Past, Present, and Future will combine to distress them. But the heart armed with the purpose to follow Christ even in suffering —if needs be — as he suffered, will find Omnipotence bear it along its appointed course.

But it will be said, "When we find even good men arrayed against us, what are we to think?" Why, that it always has been so. Had Abraham consulted some good man of his day, whether he should go to Mount Moriah, would his adviser have told him go? When Peter told his Master, resolved to ascend the cross, "That be far from thee, Lord," what was the reply? "Get thee behind me, Satan; thou art an offence unto me, for thou savorest not of the things that be of God, but those that be of men." Suppose Paul had held his peace and not withstood Peter to his face before the Church, where had been our Christian freedom to-day? Or suppose that Luther, instead of manfully doing God's work, had contented himself with berating the times, what had become of the Reformation? If that disciple, whom Jesus loved, testified in his old age, "I wrote unto the Church, but such and such an one receiveth us not," we need not study popularity. In the long run it is easier to please Christ than to suit even good men. If we had more of the spirit represented on that seal, where the ox stands with a plough on one side and an altar on the other, and the motto, "Ready for either," there would be less of gloomy foreboding, and more of wholesome and hearty joy. It is the double-minded man, who is ever glancing at his own comfort, that is unhappy. Paul, when he said, "For me to live is Christ," was sorrow proof. The world has always hated God. The Church has always caused grief to its truest friends, from the days of Moses even until now; and so will it ever be, while there remains a world and the Church is not yet glorified. Often the servant of Christ will find himself like a soldier, left, by the retreat of his comrades, to fight alone. But he is not alone, for Christ abideth in him and he in Christ; and

if he be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, he will find his labor not in vain in the Lord, and the God of all grace who hath called him unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that he has suffered a while, will make him perfect.

ARTICLE VII.

THE ORIGIN OF THE LATIN VULGATE.

It was on the eighth of April, A. D. 1546, that "the sacred and holy, œcumenical and general Synod of Trent, lawfully assembled in the Holy Ghost," passed the following decree :

"Insuper eadem sacro-sancta Synodus, considerans non parùm utilitatis accedere posse Ecclesiæ Dei, si ex omnibus Latinis editionibus, quæ circumferuntur, sacrorum librorum, quænam pro authentica habenda sit, innotescat; statuit, et declarat, ut hæc ipsa vetus et Vulgata editio, quæ longo tot seculorum usu in ipsa Ecclesia probata est, in publicis lectionibus, disputationibus, prædicationibus, et expositionibus, pro authentica habeatur; et ut nemo illam rejicere quovis prætextu audeat, vel præsumat."

"Moreover, the same sacred and holy Synod, considering that no little utility may accrue to the Church of God, if, out of all the Latin editions, now in circulation, of the sacred books, it be known which is to be held as authentic, ordains and declares, that the said old and Vulgate edition, which, by the long usage of so many ages, has been approved in the Church, be, in public lectures, disputations, preachings and expositions, held as authentic; and that no one is to dare, or presume to reject it under any pretext soever." [Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, Buckley's Translation.

The Latin Vulgate Bible, a compilation of translations by known and unknown authors, being thus crowded into the place of the original Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, as the text of common use, authority, and final appeal; and being thus held and used by so large a branch of the Christian Church, it is of importance to know, in outline at least, its origin, history, and comparative purity. It is also a matter of no small interest to notice the beginnings of a book fifteen hundred years old, where

various hands, and without concert, furnished parts, and the disjecta membra came together by mutual attraction. Its increase till every part was supplied; the eliminating, substituting, and interpolating process, by which it was purified; its coming into favor over powerful rivals; its corruptions as it run the gauntlet of the ages, and its pious recensions; and finally, as an aggregation of translations, taking the place of the words which the Holy Ghost teacheth, these things make the history of the Latin Vulgate an exceedingly interesting memoir to the scholar as well as the Christian. The book has had a most eventful life, and came to its crowning after the strange adventures of a thousand years, when the Council of Trent ordained and declared the said old Vulgate to be supreme authority in the one Holy Catholic Church.

The prevalent language of the readers and writers among the Christians of the apostolic age was the Greek. Throughout the more civilized nations of the Roman Empire it was the language of literature, while in Greece, Egypt, and perhaps Syria, it was the language of common life. There is presumption almost to proof that the entire New Testament was given by inspiration in this language. The notion of some, that the Gospel according to Matthew and the Epistle to the Hebrews, were written originally in Hebrew, is greatly wanting in reliable data. And the Old Testament Scriptures, then in common use, were in this language. The most ancient version was the Septuagint, made by Alexandrian Jews, about 285 B. C. This was used by our Lord and his Apostles; one hundred and fortyseven of the two hundred and forty-four quotations from the Old Testament in the New being from the Septuagint. In the first two centuries this version was much used by both Jews and Christians, and so became imperfect through the mistakes of the copyists. Early in the third century, therefore, Origen undertook a revision. In his studies and travels, gathering materials for this work, which cost him the labors of twenty-eight years, he found six other Greek versions of the Old Testament; that of Aquila, of Symmachus, of Theodotion, and three anonymous. So generally did the early Church use the Bible in Greek. It was the text not only in the Greek churches, but for many years the Latins had no other.