receive. If we may judge of their opinions by the records which remain, we should be convinced that they regarded the Holy Spirit as a divine power only, and not a divine person. As a power, as influence exerted by God himself, is the spirit spoken of in all the writings of the Apostles; as when Paul expresses the relation which the spirit bears to God to be the same as the spirit of a man bears to man; 'What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so, the things of God knoweth no man, but the spirit of God.' (1 Cor. ii. 11.) The mode in which the operations of the spirit are described by them is perfectly inconsistent with the notion of its being a separate person. Converts were said to be baptized with the spirit and filled with the spirit, and they were exhorted not to quench the spirit. By the direction given to 'baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,' nothing more was understood by the primitive Christians, as we learn from themselves, than the duty of spreading that religion which was given by God through Jesus Christ, and comfirmed by miraculous power, though, in comparatively modern times, it began to be used as a form prescribed by Christ. As a form it does not appear to have been adopted by his followers, who seem to have baptized in the name of Jesus only. Like Christians of the present day, they believed the Holy Spirit to have been the same by which the ancient prophets spoke; but, unlike the modern belief, their conviction evidently was, that this spirit was the same which moved on the face of the waters when the universe was called up from chaos; the same which was manifested at Sinai; the same which filled the temple of Solomon and abode in the Holy of Holies; the same which wrought the works which Christ declared were not of himself; the same which was and ever shall be, 'above all, through all, and in all.' They believed the Spirit to be God himself, working in his creatures 'to will and to do of his good pleasure.'

The peculiar endowments which were conferred on the disciples in the apostolic age were called the gifts of the Spirit; and the thanksgivings which were presented for them were always offered immediately to God, from whom every good and perfect gift was known to come. When this Spirit was spoken of as an impersonal existence, as an influence, a power, it could not, of course, be made the object of worship any more than the gifts it brought. When regarded as a personal existence, i. e. as God, it was, of course, the object of direct worship. But, as possessing any power of intercession, we may confidently declare it never was appealed to, till the Christian theology had been mixed up with the principles of the heathen philosophy. Among all the figurative illustrations of the offices and powers of the Spirit, among all the highly wrought personifications and bold metaphors which characterize the Hebrew style of the apostolic writings, we find no intimation that homage may be offered, or intercession made, through it or any existence whatever, personal or impersonal. Even the highly figurative passage which we meet with Romans viii. 25-28, and which is, we believe, the chief basis on which rests the practice of false worship in the Christian world, admits of no such interpretation as is commonly given to it. It needs only a careful reading of the whole chapter to perceive that 'the spirit' there spoken of is not the Holy Spirit; not the immediate divine influence of which we hear so much; but the new life supposed to be introduced by the Gospel, in opposition to 'the flesh' or evil principle by which men were liable to condemnation under the old dispensation. After declaring that the fulness of salvation must be waited for with Christian hope, the apostle continues, 'Likewise this spirit, also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groans which cannot be expressed. But He who searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the spirit, that it intercedeth for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, who are called according to his purpose.' In the weakness of our nature, we know not what most to desire and pray for, but the spirit of the Gospel informs and aids us; obtaining for us benefits which we could not otherwise have enjoyed. And the benefits thus obtained are such as the divine will designed for us; all things thus tending to our good; the divine purposes, the aids of the Gospel, and the circumstances amidst which that aid supports us. All this has a very clear reference, not to any mediation of the Holy Spirit, to which there is no allusion whatever; but to the agency of the new dispensation in delivering men 'from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.'—If the intercession of Christ be needless because the Father himself loveth us, much more needless must be the mediation of the Spirit, even were there such a separate personal existence; and yet more needless must be the good offices of Saints, supposing them capable of rendering such a service to their mortal brethren.

Those who, like ourselves, derive their religious belief from the Bible alone, can scarcely meet on the ground of argument those who profess 'most firmly to admit and embrace apostolical and ecclesiastical traditions,' if the subject of discussion be other than the authority of such traditions. On this discussion we shall enter hereafter. It only belongs to the present division of our subject to observe, that, not admitting the authority of ecclesiastical traditions in matters of faith, and finding in the Scriptures no intimation of homage being due to the mother of Christ, or the holy men who glorified the Gospel in their lives and deaths, we offer no such homage, and that the worship and invocation of such are a direct infringement of the command, 'Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shall thou serve.'

It is not difficult to trace the origin and progress of a custom which, though founded on a natural veneration for holiness sealed by death, is in our opinion more fatal to the purity, and inimical to the dignity of the Gospel that any other which its professors have adopted.—It was a custom in the early times of Christianity, to meet for worship at the tombs of the Martyrs; not for the sake of paying homage to the departed, but because the survivors found their devotional feelings more sensibly excited there. Their imaginations were at the same time possessed by the poetical fictions of the pagan philosophy, which represented the souls of the departed as hovering round the place of interment, and conscious of what was passing near. From this superstition arose the practice of making offerings annually in the name of the deceased, as an acknowledgement that they were still considered members of their respective churches. This practice appears to have been first adopted at the death of Polycarp, and to have speedily grown into a rite scarcely distinguishable from the superstitions of heathenism. Tertullian observes, 'We make oblations for the dead and for their martyrdom, yearly, on certain days.' At this time it was the general belief that the usual abode of the dead was in subterraneous places, or at least 'below,' somewhere near the earth, and as long as this belief subsisted, prayers were offered for the dead,—for their present repose and joyful future resurrection. The Virgin Mary was thus prayed for. As the Martyrs were more highly thought of, however, than other deceased Christians, it began to be imagined, about the