A FRAGMENT.

"Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you."

UNSPEAKABLE comfort has this text afforded me today; some of those dear friends whom God has united with me in no common bonds attended the house of God with me, and after joining in the spiritual prayers of our church, heard a beautiful sermon on the last four verses of the 2nd of Ephesians. The foundation on which we have built our hopes of happiness here, though only in measure, and of perfect bliss hereafter, is, I trust, the "Rock of ages" spoken of by the apostle; and though differing vastly in outward gifts, and all very faulty and very sinful, fitting, I trust by the grace of the Holy Spirit for the holy habitation built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets: afterwards we knelt together around the table of our Lord, and partook of the symbols of his dying love. It was a pleasure to be there with dear friends, but I forgot their presence while communing with One much better to me than all they—my praises rose to him for all the blessings with which he daily loadeth me, temporal as well as spiritual; I prayed for his grace to enable me to conquer my besetting sins, besought him to continue his mercies to me, and to teach me all his ways-to hasten the time when we should all meet to part no more; unlike this one communion which so soon was

ended. On leaving the House of God, as our prayers and praises had ascended for each other here, we mutually expressed a hope that each had enjoyed the service; I then began to reflect on the friend whom I felt to be dearer to me than all these, and in what respects he was so much better. This friend is Jesus, whom I would love as a counsellor, and in this way too I loved those I had left, for they scruple not to tell me of my faults when they see them; unlike them, He is omniscient, and therefore, can tell me of all I do contrary to his holy will.

He is, next, omnipresent, and while often obliged to be separated from them, he has said, "Lo, I am, with you always, even to the end of the world." They too may change, but He changes not-their love may cool, but He is a friend that "loveth at all times," the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever."

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'He is a very present help in time of trouble;" and while, when my soul is "in heaviness through manifold temptations," their comfort is insufficient; if he say, "Let there be light," directly there is light, the darkness vanishes and ecstatic joy succeeds. I also love him better, because he has done more for me than they could possibly do; He died upon the cross for my sins; and though it is possible they might die in my place, were I a condemned criminal; they being sinners like myself their death would avail nothing. I have always admired Damon and Pythias, and have felt that I could die for some of these were they condemned, and my life would avail; but my life could never save them from eternal death infinitely more dreadful than the death of the body. This would be but an extreme act of friendship; but here I see Jesus, when I lay defiled in guilt and sin, an

enemy to him and to holiness, taking upon him my nature, and dying that I might live and reign with him for ever: "Was ever love like his love!” Oh, then, all living creatures join with me in singing praises to him for what he has done: say, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive blessing and honor, glory and power,"oh, "praise the Lord with me, and let us magnify his name for ever," and lastly, I would love him more than earthly friends, because he has said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, with all thy mind, with all thy soul, and with all thy strength."

E. J. S.

THE ANTICHRIST.

But

As for the Protestants making the Pope Antichrist, I know it is a point that enrageth much at Rome. if the Apostle Saint Paul, if Saint John in the Revelation, describe Antichrist so, as they that do but look upon the Pope well, must be forced to say, as the people did of the blind man in the Gospel, some, this is he; others, he is very like him : if himself and his flatterers do and speak such things, as, if all others should hold their peace, do in a sort proclaim I am he; what can the Protestants do with the matter?-Bishop Bedell's Letters.

A SUPPLEMENT TO

66 A STRIKING CONTRAST."

UNDER this heading, our December number contained some strictures on a sermon preached by the Rev. Mr. Sibthorp in 1828, avowedly against the Romish religion, to which he has apostatized-recently we were going to add; but a pamphlet which it is now our painful duty to bring under review admits the startling fact of his having been what, we will not say, for we could scarcely find a fitting term to characterize it; but he shall tell his own tale, and our readers must draw the inference. Speaking of the Popish communion, he says, "You are aware that in early life I sought admission into that church, and, but for the interference of the law, being then under age, should have joined her. Though upon the closest scrutiny of my own heart, I am not conscious of insincerity in my past profession of Protestant principles as a clergyman of the Established Church, yet I freely confess the remembrance of devotional feelings, I then had (almost the first meet to be so called, which I remember to have had) never entirely quitted me, during subsequent years." This occurs so early as the third page, and would tell very fairly for Mr. Sibthorp's candor, if we could reconcile it with the following extraordinary admission contained in the forty-fifth page. "I

confess, while I utterly repudiate all idea of claiming any degree of pursuit of piety above others of my late brethren, that I sought in vain to satisfy the longings of my soul, with any combination of Catholic forms with Protestant doctrines, OF CATHOLIC deVOTION IN PRIVATE with the ANGLICAN PUBLIC WORSHIP." Thus, by his own deliberate confession, Mr. Sibthorp was privately conforming to, yea embracing, solacing himself with, those very things against which he publicly appeared as a sworn Protester, and on the strength of that sworn Protest still led his unsuspecting congregation in the worship of our church, which solemnly denounces the leading tenets of Popery as "blasphemous fables, and dangerous deceits;" yet, all the while, he assures us he is not conscious of insincerity in his past profession of Protestant principles as a clergyman of the Established Church. Alas for the conscience of man when once the searing-iron of Satan has touched it! The least, the very least that a person honestly entertaining such misgivings as these concerning the truth that he openly professed, and the falsehood that he openly opposed, could have done; would have been to retire from the exercise of his ministerial functions, and abstain from the public teaching of others, until he had wholly satisfied his own mind as to what he ought to teach. Was it for filthy lucre's sake that he continued to officiate in the church of Christ, while secretly devoted to that of Antichrist? or was it we ask in sorrow of heart-was it that he might the more effectually serve the purposes of that mystery of iniquity" to which he had secretly betrothed his soul? We desire to believe and we do hope, that it was not the latter: but God alone can

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