“Repentance and confession of sin are not necessary to forgiveness. A believer may certainly conclude before confession, yea, as soon as he hath committed sin, the interest he hath in Christ, and the love of Christ embracing him.” These dangerous sentiments, and others of a similar bearing, have been fully answered by many writers; but by none more ably than by the Rev. John Fletcher, in his “Checks to Antinomianism.” ANTIOCH, a city of Upper Syria, on the river Orontes, about twenty miles from the place where it discharges itself into the Mediterranean. It was built by Seleucus Nicanor, about three hundred years before Christ; and became the seat of empire of the Syrian kings of the Macedonian race, and afterward of the Roman governors of the eastern provinces; being very centrally and commodiously situated midway between Constantinople and Alexandria, about seven hundred miles from each, in 37° 17´ north latitude, and 36° 45´ east longitude. No city perhaps, Jerusalem excepted, has experienced more frequent revolutions, or suffered more numerous and dire calamities, than Antioch; as, besides the common plagues of eastern cities, pestilence, famine, fire, and sword, it has several times been entirely overthrown by earthquakes. In 362, the emperor Julian spent some months at Antioch; which were chiefly occupied in his favourite object of reviving the mythology of Paganism. The grove at Daphne, planted by Seleucus, which, with its temple and oracle, presented, during the reigns of the Macedonian kings of Syria, the most splendid and fashionable place of resort for Pagan worship in the east, had sunk into neglect since the establishment of Christianity. The altar of the god was deserted, the oracle was silenced, and the sacred grove itself defiled by the interment of Christians. Julian undertook to restore the ancient honours and usages of the place; but it was first necessary to take away the pollution occasioned by the dead bodies of the Christians, which were disinterred and removed! Among these was that of Babylas, a bishop of Antioch, who died in prison in the persecution of Decius, and after resting near a century in his grave within the walls of Antioch, had been removed by order of Gallus into the midst of the grove of Daphne, where a church was built over him; the remains of the Christian saint effectually supplanting the former divinity of the place, whose temple and statue, however, though neglected, remained uninjured. The Christians of Antioch, undaunted by the conspiracy against their religion, or the presence of the emperor himself, conveyed the relics of their former bishop in triumph back to their ancient repository within the city. The immense multitude who joined in the procession, chanted forth their execrations against idols and idolaters; and on the same night the image and the temple of the Heathen god were consumed by the flames. A dreadful vengeance might be expected to have followed these scenes; but