of Melchisedec: and if he was a divine person, he must himself be Christ and then he must be a priest after his own order: which is a mere identical proposition convey ing no idea to the mind.

The Apostle is labouring to prove that the Lord spoken of in the 110th Psalm, who is said to be of the order of Melchisedec, and the Melchisedec spoken of by Moses, are really one and the same person. He therefore proves incontestably that they are of the same order of beings, that is, that they are eternal beings, having neither beginning of days nor end of life. He proves also their priesthoods to be the same order, being both everlasting priesthoods. Having proved these points, he has incontestably shown them to be one being, as truly as God is one, for he has proved them both to be God. Therefore, this oath of God that the Lord is a priest forever after the order of Melchisedec, is not an oath that they are two distinct persons; but an oath that they are one and the same person, which was the great truth the Apostle was labouring to prove. This objection then has no weight as such, but has much weight in proof of the point in question.

The second objection arises from Heb. vii. 3. In the description of Melchisedec, in this passage, he is said to be "made like unto the Son of God." The objection is, that if he is like unto the Son of God, he cannot be the Son of God himself.

Now to answer to this objection nothing more is necessary than to be assured of the truth of the assertion that he is like the Son of God; for he could not be like the Son of God, unless he were a divine person, and they both belong to the undivided essence of the one living and true God. But let this mode of objecting be examined a little more at large.

The identity of persons, who are imperfectly seen, or who have been long absent, is often a matter of uncertainty, and such a case is the one before us. The inquiry now, is simply this. Is an assertion of likeness

in such a case a proof of identity or of diversity; that is, can likeness in the suspected person be a proof tha he is the person in question, or an evidence that he is not that person?

When the wife of Manoah told her husband (Judges xiii. 6,) saying, "a man of God came unto me, and his countenance was like the countenance of an angel of God," have we authority to say that because his countenance was like that of an angel, therefore it was not the countenance of an angel? Certainly not, for it was the countenance of an angel, and we can have no right to assert what is not true. When Nebuchadnezzar saw four men in the furnace and said "the form of the fourth is like the Son of God," (Deut. iii. 25,) did he mean to imply that it was not the Son of God?

If there can be yet any doubt remaining as to the futility of this objection, the following instance must remove it. John saw in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of Man. The language of this person leaves no doubt as to his being the very person whom he is said to resemble. "I am he that liveth and was dead; and behold I am alive forevermore, Amen, and have the keys of hell and of death," (Rev. i. 13 and 18,) and before John saw him he heard his voice saying "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last." (Rev. i. 11.) Another answer however, distinct from the preceding, may be given to this objection.

The two characters under consideration, which are said to be like the one to the other, are visibly and externally two persons; they appeared at different times and were known by different names. One of them was before Abraham, the other was the seed of Abraham. One of them was without descent, the other was descended from David. These formed an ostensible difference, and the one might with propriety be said to be like the other, yet this did not prevent their being both of them Divine persons, and as such the only living

and true God, and as really one, as God is one, for the same divine person might and did appear in different forms. When the Lord was about to appear on Mount Sinai in flaming fire, he appeared to Moses as a flame of fire in the bush; and when He was about to drive out the Canaanites before Joshua, He appeared to him in the character of a man of war with a drawn sword in his hand and when He was to appear in the world as the great high priest of God, who was to atone for the sins of the world, why should he not appear to Abraham the father of the church, in the pontifical robes, and by the name of the Priest of the Most High God? There is no real difficulty in the way of the conclusion that Melchisedec was a Divine Being: but on the other hand, to suppose him but a man, envelops the whole subject in the deepest obscurity.

A few important remarks are suggested by what has been said, and merit attention.

We see how little importance should be attached to the Jewish notion on this subject. Many are ready to consider Melchisedec as a mere man, who was a priest and king at Jerusalem, because this was the opinion of the Jews, considering them as fully competent to understand the history of their own times. But we have not the least evidence that they ever heard of Melchisedec till Moses wrote the book of Genesis, which must have been more than four hundred years after the meeting with Abraham. Furthermore there occurred nothing special to call their attention to the subject, till David wrote the 110th psalm, about nine hundred years after this extraordinary meeting, so that they were so far removed from the event that nothing could be learned respecting it except what could be derived from the scriptures, which are as open to us now, as they were then to them. And in addition to this they were predisposed, as has been abundantly shown, to draw false conclusions on this subject. On the whole, their

opinion respecting this character is no more worthy of trust than their opinion respecting the Messiah, or the ability of their legal sacrifices to atone for sin.

We learn that a plurality of persons in the Divine Essence was taught, and believed in the patriarchal state of the Church. If Melchisedec was a Divine person, as he evidently was, we have a convincing evidence of this interesting and important truth.

This Divine Person blessed Abraham in the name of a second divine Person. "Blessed be Abrahamof the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth,” and then he addresses the same Divine Person in a similar mauner-Blessed be the Most High God, who hath delivered thine enemies into thine hand." Such modes of expression can have no meaning, unless there be a plurality of persons in the Divine Essence. This is not a solitary instance; for we find the same language generaly used by this Divine Person, who so frequently appeared to the patriarchs of old, and whom they worshipped as their God. The angel who appeared to Joshua as a man of war, says" as Captain of the host of the Lord am I come." He speaks of the Lord as a person distinct from himself, yet Joshua pays him divine homage, and he receives his worship. This he could not do, unless he were God himself. When John was about to worship the angel, who shewed him the river of life, supposing him to be a divine being, he said, "see thou do it not, for I am thy fellow servant, &c." (Rev. xxii, 8th and 9th.) The receiving worship from Joshua was then evidence that he, who appeared as Captain of the Lord's host, was in reality a divine person. Again, Moses says, the "Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire in a bush," (Ex. iii. 2d.) that is a messenger of God, yet Moses worshipped him as God, and when he speaks, he does not speak as a creature, for he says "I am the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." Again God says to Moses "I will not go up

with this people, lest I consume them; but I will send an Angel before them, and he shall lead them. Beware, and provoke him not, for he will not pardon your transgressions, for my name is in him." (Compare Ex. xxiii, 21 and xxxiii, 3d.) God said that He would not go with them, but would send an Angel, yet this Angel had power to pardon sin or not, as he pleased-And God said that "his name is in him," which is the same as to say that he is God himself, for the name of God means every thing by which

God is known-all his perfections. When the Angel appeared to Manoah and his wife the former said "we shall surely die, for we have seen God." Now whether Manoah was right or wrong in his opinion of the character of this person, his believing him to be God, although he knew that the Angel had just been talking of God as a person distinct from himself, is an evidence that the belief of a plurality of persons in the Godhead was a common one at that early period. B. E. T.

For the Christian Spectator. A Sabbath among the Highlands in Virginia.

It was a Lord's day toward the close of October last, that I passed with a friend among the highlands. The morning was clear. There was a coolness abroad, that was singularly refreshing to a northern constitution, half wasted away by the sultriness of the long summer. All without door was propitious and animating. I therefore cheerfully accepted an invitation of my friend to attend a discourse, that was to be delivered sub dio on the banks of the Rappahannock, by an itinerant preacher of some popular distinction in those parts.

As I was mounting my horse, the breath of the mountain air upon my breast, seemed to make my heart dance within me, and to spread vibrations of pleasure through all my frame-so renovating is the return of autumn to the animal spirits of a stranger, exhausted by the long and unremittent fervour of a summer at the south. Memory and hope smiled upon me just then ;-and every thing combined to render it one of those seasons, when the christian feels a fulness of soul toward the God of his mercies, that he cannot unbosom; when his heart overflows with some incipient gushings of that gratitude,

whose deep spring shall, in another world, swell the river of life and joy forevermore.

We pursued our way through a country, whose features, not often abrupt, or strikingly romantic, presented a pretty continuous succession of rounded hill and retiring valley. Yet they did not weary by uniformity, but were, ever and anon, developing new combinations of upland and lowland, rock and stream, that finely harmonized with each other. A superficial and savage system of agriculture, has done much to deface nature here, said my friend, but, continued he, it is still a beautiful country, and would be infinitely more so, were it improved by a numerous population, of steady habits, and intelligent industry.

As we approached the Blue Ridge, the hills, seeming to claim kindred with that beautiful range, began to assume a loftier character; and to exhibit, now and then, impending brows of massive rock; and to be intersected by something like deep and narrow glens, where appeared the track of the torrent. We had arrived at the top of one of these eminences, which lay in our route, and from which my friend had promised me a view of the Blue Ridge, as beautiful and impressive, as that portion of highland scenery any where presents,-when

it was suddenly revealed through a glade of the forest in all its majesty, and produced that deep and overpowering impression,-that inebriation of soul, (if I may term it so) which is the exclusive prerogative of the wonder-works of nature. The eminence on which we stood, was divided from the mountains, by a valley twenty or twenty-five miles in extent, gently undulated, diversified with wood and harvest-field, and scattered over at intervals with herds of cattle, groups of wheat-ricks, and negro cabins circling the more stately abodes of the planters. The nearer forests appeared like vast and variegated parterres, such a surprising diversity of brilliant hues had a late frost or two produced in their foliage; while the more distant landscape faded into an air of languor, and paleness, that seemed like nature sinking to repose, after the feverish excitement of the summer sun. Beyond all, rose the deep purple of the far mountains, that changeth not with the seasons, and save that it is sometimes briefly obscured by the morning mast, forms a robe of eternal beauty. We had an unbroken view of the range, through a reach of fifty miles. It passed before us, crowned with a succession of towering summits, as varied as numerous. Its mighty sides were thronged with tributary hills, gradually rising one above another, and the whole was enveloped in living purple. Altogether, I thought it must be unrivalled in beauty, if surpassed in sublimity.

There is no Virginian possessed of any sensibility, and nurtured beneath the eye of these mountains, who does not imbibe from his early years, a kind of mingled veneration and attachment for them, that grows with his growth, and intertwines with, and strengthens all the other ties of home, and kindred. There is here and there one, whose wild and warm imagination can attach to them an individual ity, and an intelligence with which he may hold communion, and friendship, as though a mountain spirit were not

altogether a fiction of the poets. Thus we may have observed, I believe, that the natives of champaign coun tries, where there are no sublime eminences, or shaded solitudes, to impress the imagination, wean themselves without effort from the spot of their birth, and speedily outgrow all the amiable weaknesses of early and local attachment, while those of wild and mountainous regions, are more like one of their own forest trees, that is irremovably rooted among its native rocks, and will thrive no where so kindly, as in that bleak and barren situation.

While we were still a quarter-mile from the object of our ride, the vehement tones of the preacher began to be heard at intervals, reverberating through the woods, and rolling onward with a brazen body and clearness, that reminded me of the superhuman vociferations of a maniac. whom I met with in childhood; and again at intervals, either from the intervention of some obstacle, or from a remission of effort on the part of the speaker, they were lost in the hoarse murmur of the Rappahannock. Near the foot of a hill, that rose with a gentle and green acclivity, from a slip of alluvial meadow, bordering one sidɛ of the Rappahannock, and among some rare set oaks, of enlarged and branching growth, we found a numerous audience thronged around their favorite preacher. He was decidedly in the decline of life, although his high and reverend forehead still retained something of its native whiteness. His sunken cheek left his large light eye, of glassy sheen and chilliness, standing out upon his visage in unnatural relief, and rather revolting nakedness, An ascetic severity, unalleviated by one lineament of earthly feeling, per vaded every feature, and predominated in every expression of his countenance. His life showed outwardly a trance of heaven-ward contemplation, interrupted only by the solemn discharge of, his professional duties. There were upon his face withal, the marks of inward gloom, and strife, in