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ways pray for them in your families and in your closets? Ah! if your families and closets were permitted to tell the truth,but I spare your feelings, in the hope of your reformation. How ever, let me say, that in praying for your ministers, you are in effect praying for yourselves, families, and neighbours, for the nation, and for the world!

But observe the motive to prayer: "For we trust we have a good conscience in all things, willing to live honestly." Dr. Doddridge gives the meaning with much more elegance and spirit: "For we are confident that we have a good conscience, determined in all things to behave honourably." If you there fore observe the ministers of Christ thus conscientious, resolute, and honourable, pray for them, and support them with all your ability in this noble, this apostolic, this Saviour-like career! But without your prayers, their hearts will fail them; and without you reward them for their services, how are they, in times like the present, to behave honourably? See to it, that you do not oppose their having a good conscience in their ministrations! See to it, that their determination to live honourably, be not prevented by the illiberal and unjust manner you contribute to their sup port!

My fellow-Christians, I must close a paper already too long for some of you. Reflect on your various duties, on the manner in which you have performed them, and in the way you intend to discharge them in future. Remember the day of the Lord cometh, when you and your ministers must appear together. Then it is your wisdom so to live and act, as you will wish to have done when that great day of decision shall arrive, in which your present actions shall be applauded or condemned!

PATROBAS.

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THE TESTIMONY OF A PROFANE OFFICER TO THE WORTH OF PIOUS SAILORS.

Mr. Editor,

In the mouth of two or three witnesses a truth shall be established. I recently met with a pleasing confirmation of a narrative, stated some time since in your Magazine. I was surprized by a visit from an old acquaintance of mine the other day, who is now an officer of rank in his Majesty's navy. In the course of conversation, I was shocked at the profane oaths that perpetually interrupted his sentences; and took an opportunity to express my regret that such language should be so common among so valuable a body of men. "Sir," said he, still interspersing many solemn imprecations," an officer cannot live at

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sea without swearing; not one of my men would mind a word without an oath it is common sea-language. If we were not to swear, the rascals would take us for lubbers, stare in our faces, and leave us to do our commands ourselves. I never knew but one exception; and that was extraordinary. I declare, believe me 'tis true (suspecting that I might not credit it) there was a set of fellows called Methodists, on board the Victory, Lord Nelson's ship (to be sure, he was rather a religious man himself!) and those men never wanted swearing at. The dogs were the best seamen on board. Every man knew his duty, and every man did his duty. They used to meet together and sing hymns; and nobody dared molest them. The commander would not have suffered it, had they attempted it. They were allowed a mess to themselves; and never mixed with the other men. I have often heard them singing away myself; and 'tis true, I assure you, but not one of them was either killed or wounded at the battle of Trafalgar, though they did their duty as well as any men. No, not one of the psalm-singing gentry was even hurt; and there the fellows are swimming away in the Bay of Biscay at this very time, singing like the D- They are now under a new com. mander; but still are allowed the same privileges, and mess by themselves. These were the only fellows that I ever knew do their duty without swearing; and I will do them the justice to say they do it. J. C.

Holloway.

ON SCILISMS.

MUCH has lately been said and written about schisms; and all who do not worship with the established church of their country, whatever reason they may have for separation, are charged with the crime of Schism. If, however, we look into the New Testament, we shall find that the word oxiopala, schisms * (translated heresies) does not signify any separation from the church, but uncharitable and disorderly divisions in it; for the Corinthians, among whom these schisms existed, continued one church; and, notwithstanding all their strifes and disagreements, there was no separation in the external communion of one party from another." And it is in this sense of schisms in the church, the judicious Dr. Guyse," and not of rending off from it, that he uses the word in 1 Cor. i. 10, 12, and 25, which are the only places in the New Testament, besides this, where churchschisms are mentioned."

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The Scripture notion, therefore, of this sin is a quite different thing from that orderly separation from other churches, which later ages have stigmatized with hideous outcries, as schism; and have made an engine of the greatest cruelties, oppressions, and murders, that have troubled the Christian world.

See Dr. Guyse's Paraphrase of 1 Cor. xi. 19.

* 1 Cor. xi. 19.

The Value of the Art of Printing, as it respects the Spread of the Holy Scriptures, is strikingly evident, from the following Memoranda of Antiquity :

IN the year 1272, the pay of a labouring man was three halfpence per day *. In 1274, the price of a Bible, with a Commentary, fairly written, was thirty pounds t. That precious volume which may now be obtained, by many labourers, for one day's pay, would then have cost them more than thirteen years labour to procure.

It is further worthy of remark, that, in the year 1240, the building of two arches of London Bridge cost twenty-five pounds; five pounds less than the value of a Bible! How great are the privileges of British Christians! We now enjoy the blaze of gospel-day; the lines are fallen to us in pleasant places, yea, we have a goodly heritage. God grant that our ancestors may never rise in judgment against us for the abuse or neglect of the Scriptures!

The above statement will also serve to shew, that the honour of distributing the holy Scriptures extensively, has peculiarly devolved upon the present day. The labour of writing them is no more. Their price now is very reasonable. The papal prohibition against reading them has lost its force, and multitudes, with outstretched arms, are earnestly imploring them.

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Should you think the following Observation of the late Dr. Fothergill on the Books read in our Public Schools, deserving the consideration of religious parents, I should be glad to see it inserted in your valuable Magazine. The tendency of most of the Roman Classics to injure the morals of our youth, has lately been submitted to the public, and, I think, upon good grounds: - indeed some masters draw their pen across objectionable passages; but this only tends to raise the curiosity of the scholars to enquire into their meaning.

H. L.

"THERE is nothing tends so much to keep alive the spirit of war as our education. We take part in all the spirit of heroism displayed with so much elegance by the Greek and Roman historians, till the spirit of Christianity, meek, humble, patient, and forgiving, is obliterated from our minds: a woeful exchange for a system replete with good-will to all men! I am not censuring others, I am pleading for ourselves; and most fervently wish the day may be fast advancing when wars will be no niore. I am the brother of all mankind. I know I am

* See Dugdale's Warwickshire.

+ See Stowe's Annals, page 416.

See Maddox's History of the Exchequer.

writing to a gentleman who has charity enough to enter fully into my sentiments, and to wish there was not a classic extant capable of producing, cherishing, or confirming such sentiments." Letter to a Gentleman in Massachusetts.

THE SPIRITUAL CABINET.

ABP. LEIGHTON.

"Ir is a very difficult work to draw a soul out of the hands and strong chains of Satan, and out of the pleasing entanglements of the world, and out of its own natural perverseness, to yield up itself unto God, to deny itself, and live to him; and, in so doing, to run against the main stream, and the current of the ungodly world without, and corruption within.

"The strongest rhetoric, the most moving and persuasive way of discourse, is all too weak the tongue of men and angels cannot prevail with the soul to fre itself, and shake off all that detains it. Although it be convinced of the truth of these things that are represented to it, yet still it can, and will, hold out against it.

he hand of man is too weak to pluck any soul out of the crowd of the world, and set it in amongst the select number of believers. Only the Father of Spirits hath absolute command of spirits; viz. The sculs of men, to work on them as he pleaseth, and where he will. This powerful, this sanctifying spirit knows no resistance, works sweetly and yet strongly; it can come into the heart, whereas all other speakers are forced to stand without. That still voice within persuades more than all the loud crying without; as he that is within the house, though he speak low, is better heard and understood, than he that shouts without doors.

When the Lord himself speaks by this his Spirit to a man, selecting and calling him out of the lost world, he can no more disobey than Abraham did, when the Lord spoke to him, after an extraordinary manner, to depart from his own country and kindred *. Abraham departed, as the Lord had spoken to him." There is a secret but very powerful virtue in a word, or look, or touch of this Spirit upon the soul, by which it is forced, not with a harsh, but by a pleasing violence, and cannot chuse but follow it: not unlike that of Elijah's mantle upon Elisha +. How easily did the disciples forsake their callings and dwellings to follow Christ!

"The Spirit of God draws a man out of the world by a sanctified light sent to his wind, discovering to himn,

1. How base and false the sweetness of sin is, that withholds

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men, and amuses them, that they return not; and how true and sad the bitterness is, that will follow upon it!

2. Setting before his eyes the free and happy condition, the glorious liberty of the sons of God, the riches of their present enjoyment, and their far larger and assured hopes for hereafter.

3. Making the beauty of Jesus Christ visible to the soul; which straightway takes it so, that it cannot be stayed from coming to him, though its most beloved friends, most beloved sins, lie in the way, and hang about it, and cry," Will you leave us so ?" It will tread upon all to come within the embraces of Jesus Christ, and say with St. Paul, "I was not disobedient to (or unpersuaded by) the heavenly vision.”

It is no wonder that the godly are by some called singular and precise; they are so singular, a few selected ones, picked out by God's own hand for himself *. "Know that the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself, therefore (saith our Saviour) the world hates you, because I have chosen you out of the world ;" for the world lies in unholiness and wickedness, is buried in it; and as living men can have no pleasure among the dead, neither can these elected ones amongst the ungodly they walk in the world as warily as a man or woman neatly apparelled would do amongst a multitude that are all sullied and bemired.

Endeavour to have this sanctifying spirit in yourselves,--pray much for it; for his promise is past to us, that "he will give this Holy Spirit to them that ask it." And shall we be such fools as to want it for want of asking? When we find heavy fetters on our souls, and much weakness, yea, averseness to follow the voice of God calling us to his obedience, then let us pray with the spouse," Draw me. "Draw me." She cannot go, nor stir, without that drawing; and yet with it, not only goes, but runs, run after thee.'

*Psalm iv. 3.

ON PRAYER.

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PRAYER, because the most easy of duties, seems, with many, the hardest to be performed. It costs them so little pains, they think they may as well let it alone. Whereas it is the

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supreme, the great mother duty; all other duties and virtues are its progeny, are brought forth, nursed, nourished, and sustained by it. Devotion is the sole asylum of human frailty, and sole support of heavenly perfection: it is the golden ch in of union between Heaven and Earth; and it keeps open the blessed communication. He that has never prayed, can never conceive, and he that has prayed as he ought can never forget, how much is to be gained by prayer!

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