Fine Sense, and Exalted Sense, are not half so useful as CHURCH HISTORY. REFLECTIONS ON THE FIRST CHAPTER. It does not appear that, during the period of which this Chapter treats, there were any written records among the chosen family, from which Moses could have collected the materials of his narrative. From St. Stephen's observation, that "Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," it has indeed been conjectured, that he might have derived information on the early history of mankind from their hieroglyphic, or other sacred records. We cannot say, that this was not possible; but there is not the slighest evidence that he did so, nor is it at all probable that he would. He was evidently assisted by extraordinary communications from God himself, and would be endowed with such knowledge as was necessary for so important a work. And it is not likely, that the historian of the chosen family would take his facts from the records of idolatry. If we must suppose, that he had recourse to human sources of information, there is one channel which would at once present itself to him as suitable, safe, and easy of access; namely, the traditions of the chosen family themselves. The witnesses, who could speak from their own knowledge, or convey, with authority as well as accuracy, the leading facts of Church history, were not only great in the Church, and pre-eminent in piety and integrity, but also very few in number. Only seven persons were required, to transmit these traditions of Church history from Adam to Moses-- namely - Methuselah, Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, and Amram the Father of Moses. Accounts, coming through the hands of such and so few persons, were much more likely to be uncorrupted, and would be in the judg ment of Moses much more worthy of credit, than the uncertain and superstitious records of Idolators. It was most probably from these traditions, that Moses drew much of the materials of his History. But there is no doubt, from the extraordinary manner in which he was chosen by God to deliver and rule His people, and also from God's personal government of the Church in those days, that he wrote from inspiration, at least all the facts immediately connected with the great designs of the Almighty, for the redemption of His Church. We have traced in this Chapter, the direct superintendence of God in all the concerns of the Church -the intention of choosing a family separated from the world to constitute that Church the genealogy of the chosen line carefully noted the frequent promises and covenants made and confirmed to that Church. We observe also as connected with those promises and covenants two remarkable ordinances, respectively types and sacramental pledges-sacrifice being a type of the price of our redemption through the "lamb slain from the foundation of the world"and circumcision-a type of the duties and obligations undertaken by those, who thereby are sealed as being partakers of his covenant. Circumcision was not to the Jews the same as Baptism was to the Christian Church,-a means of admission te the Church, as well as a pledge to the purity required of those so admitted. It was only the latter, not the former. The Jews did not Baptize their own Children. They Baptised only proselytes; and baptized them to admit them first; and then circumcised them as a seal and acknowledgment of the purity required, to continue in that Church to which Baptism had been the sign, and means of admission. They used baptism (and as far as we can learn only by ecclesiastical ordinance without any express direction of Scripture) as a sign that all Gentiles were in a state of defilement and uncleanness-out of the covenant of mercy-and that by admission to the Church they were cleansed from their guilt, and delivered from the penalties of the law against aliens from God. They did not baptize their own children because they were already in covenant, or in other words belonged to the Church. Jesus, to the astonishment of the Jews, as Nicodemus shews, required both Jews and Gentiles to receive Baptism, the admissive sacrament of His Church; shewing that all (Jews as well as Gentiles) were concluded under sin. All that circumcision proves respecting infant baptism is, that there is not only nothing contrary to God's dealings, but that it is quite consistent with His universal rule, and the order of the Church, to consider children as capable of being parties to His covenant of mercy, fit to share the means of grace, and to be sealed with His sacramental pledges of that covenant. With respect to them and all it shews, that, unless they shall faithfully fulfil their part of the covenant, they will be cut off from the Church, and cannot continue in that state of Salvation, into which by these sacramental means God has been pleased to admit them. With respect to the regulations and offices of the Church, God Himself settled the most important arrangements and changes, which the peculiar circumstances of the infant state of society, and the development of His designs for the salvation of the human race, rendered necessary. As far as human ministrations were needed, the church government was modelled to the social regulationsthe ruler of the state, if it may be so called, was also the chief minister of the Church. The form of society was what is termed Patriarchal. The chosen people were not formed into a nation. They were merely a family, or a collection of families, and the patriarch or head of the family, or families, as the case might be, acted as Priest as well as lawgiver—and, whensoever extraordinary emergencies called for it, received special instructions from God. We find no traces of any other order. As we proceed to the history of the people, as a nation as well as a Church, we shall find a change in the Ministry of the Church, adapted to the change of the government of the people-but all, both in Church and State, is directed not by man's caprice or by self-appointed legislators, but by God Himself, and by persons chosen and authorized by Him. And it is to be borne in mind that at the time when Moses wrote the History of the Church, the principle that no man could act in Divine ministrations, but by divine authority, was an established principle of which those addressed could entertain no doubt, and which they would naturally understand to have been the rule of that Great and unchangeable God, who had always regulated the proceedings of the chosen family. If any other principle had been the rule of God's government, Moses would naturally have mentioned when it ceased; if it had been always the rule he would not make any mention, seeing that a people accustomed to it would, as a matter of course, so understand it. THE BAPTIST CIRCULAR. We have, with some trouble, obtained a copy of a curious document entitled "Historic memorials of the Associated Churches. The circular Letter of the Ministers and Messengers of the Lancashire and Cheshire Association of Baptist Churches, assembled, in united sessions with the Ministers and Messengers of the Yorkshire West Riding Association, in West Street Chapel, Rochdale, on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, the 17th, 18th, and 19th days of May, 1842, maintaining the important doctrines embodied in the Scriptures, inserted (for convenience) in the succeeding page, to the members of the several Churches they represent." This precious document (so grandly ushered into the world with a title, of which the tail threatens to follow the head and the head the tail, and thus to solve the problem of perpetual motion, by whirling the reader round in a circle) consists of the following portions, each of which we think afford some amusement and edification. 1st. What they are pleased to call a "symbol of faith" or the thing (we suppose) which in the title, they tell us is "inserted (for convenience) in the succeeding page." 2nd. Minutes of proceedings. 3rd. Resolutions; among which is one, that they mean to destroy the Established Church. 4th. The History of what they are pleased to term their Churches(?) money matters, and statistics. Had they confined themselves to the harmless twaddle, in which they attempt to invest their Lilli |