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when, in the higher sense of prophecy, "coming events cast their shadows before," their estimate of the spiritual character will rise with the increased solemnities of the approaching season; and they will feel themselves called upon to be ready to stand in the evil day, and having done all to stand. Thus far we cordially unite with Mr. Cooper. We wish to find him a correct interpreter of prophecy when he so far tranquillizes our national apprehensions as Britons, as to anticipate for our country a refuge from the storm, in the day when God arises to shake terribly the earth. Or, if there be not an absolute refuge, he yet argues, that we shall be swept only by the skirts of the tempest, and be thus, comparatively, safe and prosperous. Not that this supposed exemption from wrath is represented by him, as in any degree merited by this our insular division of a guilty world; but he casts a retrospective glance at what God has done for us; and thence the prospect appears to him to brighten with hope and confidence. He also regards, and perhaps justly, this island as the secondary fountain, itself supplied by the streams proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, whence the whole world is copiously deriving divine and eternal truth. And it does not appear to him to be a part of God's providential dispensations to mankind, that the instruments of good to others will themselves be destroyed, so long as the current of blessing is unimpeded, and fertilizes where it flows. At the same time, the hour of punishment to Antichrist, and his adherents, he conceives, may be an hour of peculiar trial to the really faithful among ourselves. They may be taken by surprise, though not by a snare; and the degree of surprise may be such as may, at the moment, cause something like sensations of confusion, and of being not entirely prepared for the pressure and alarm of the crisis. Now the object of our excellent author is to CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 280.

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prevent Christians from being taken thus unawares. If his calculations be correct, he urges upon them the amount necessity of looking well to their own state and character. If his scheme be visionary, still they will never regret any efforts made, on their parts, to be found in an attitude of watchfulness. In either case, they will be gainers. We confess ourselves that, independently of any scheme of prophetic interpretation, the existing condition of Christendom, both ecclesiastical and civil, including the state of things in the sister kingdom, is itself a crisis; and a crisis indicating, to all serious minds, the necessity of diligent prayer, exertion, and vigilance. The increase of national prosperity appears to be rising to a flood-tide; but the contemplation of this will naturally impart, to the retired and thoughtful Christian, emotions not unmixed with apprehension. Such a man is not satisfied with the most solid worldly prosperity of the nation, unless its possessors have also a reversionary interest in the kingdom of everlasting glory. There is indeed this difference between his feelings and those of the shrewd and calculating worldling; that while the latter secretly laughs at the follies of human speculation, and selfishly congratulates himself on his own prudent security, the genuine Christian regards mankind with the most tender compassion, and breathes out the aspiration, "Oh! that they were wise, that they would consider their latter end; and that they would turn from idols to serve the living God!" In these sentiments, we are persuaded that Mr. Cooper will entirely concur. They are indeed only the echo of his own; and are offered to our readers, as wishing, without pronouncing upon his specific anticipations grounded on prophecy, to be his co-operators in his great and patriotic object. We hope that he, in the pastoral retirement of a village, and ourselves, surrounded by the restless swarms of this gigantic metropolis, have one and

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the same end in view, the diffusion of the pure and perfect Gospel of Jesus Christ; more immediately among our countrymen at home, and from them extending to the unknown millions of mankind, whose unchangeable condition must speedily be decided. As far as we write under the influence of this hope, we shall find every day, and every hour a crisis. Ab hoc momento pendet eternitas! With a maxim so applicable to our condition, mortal and immortal, we bid farewell to the subject of these remarks; and if, in any degree, they aid the monitory counsels of Mr. Cooper, we shall be grateful to him for the opportunity of thus addressing those readers who honour our pages with their perusal.

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1. Payne's Translation of Thomas à Kempis on the Imitation of Christ; with an Introductory Essay by the Rev. T. Chalmers, D. D. 3s. 6d.

2. The Works of the Rev. J. Gambold; with an Introductory Essay by T. Erskine, Esq. 3s. 6d. 3. The Redeemer's Tears over lost Souls, by the Rev. J. Howe; Essay by the Rev. R. Gordon, D.D. 3s. 4. The Life, Walk, and Triumph of Faith, by the Rev. W. Romaine; Essay by Dr.Chalmers. 2 vols. 7s. 5. Treatises on Justification and Regeneration by the Rev. J. Witherspoon, D.D.; Essay by W.Wilberforce, Esq. 3s. 6d.

6. An Alarm to unconverted Sinners, by the Rev. J. Alleine; Essay by the Rev. A. Thomson. 4s. 6d. 7. Private Thoughts on Religion, by the Rev. T. Adam; Essay by the Rev. D. Wilson. 3s. 6d.

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8. The Christian Remembrancer, by A. Serle; Essay by Dr. Chalmers. 3s. 6d.

THE above publications form part of an intended series of reprints of valuable and popular works in divinity, with Introductory Essays by

living writers whose names are calculated to give renewed sanction

and circulation to the works which they recommend. Several other treatises have appeared in continuation of the plan; but the present are all we have hitherto seen, and are indeed as many as we could conveniently notice in a single article. Our publication not being a retrospective review, we shall not think it necessary to discuss the merits of the works themselves; which are all, or almost all of them, well-known to the readers of religious treatises; but shall confine ourselves almost entirely to a few extracts from the Introductory Essays, which form the distinguishing feature and intended attraction of the series. The respective authors having long since gone to their reward, the only parties among whom we are called upon to distribute critical justice are the publishers, the prefacers, and the readers. With regard to the first, it is not, we presume, uncharitable to suppose that the project originated in the ordinary motives that give rise to other commercial transactions. The publishers might justly calculate upon the large existing demand for some of these works, and the probable demand for others which only needed to be better known to be extensively sought after; and might fairly hold out the bonus of an introductory essay from an influential pen, to allure the public to their own edition. We should not, however, do justice to these bibliopolists if we did not add, that they have not sacrificed their Christianity to commerce; but, on the contrary, have chosen in these volumes such a line of publication as does them credit, especially at a time when so many of their fraternity are employing their wits and their capital in very different speculations. With regard to the prefacers, their object is to recommend to the increased attention of society works which they consider of great importance for the

spiritual and eternal welfare of mankind; and at the same time to prefix such brief cautions or explanations as the works respectively recommended may seem to require. In some instances, this latter province must be a most requisite part of such an undertaking; for it is not every popular, or even, in the main, good and valuable, treatise that is equally meritorious throughout, or calculated for the specific edification of all classes of readers. The result then, as it affects the third party, the purchaser, is that, at a charge which the expected demand enables the publisher to render very moderate, he has a neat and correct copy of the work he wishes, with a preface which in many instances greatly enhances its value; the whole series forming a cheap and uniform edition of popular religious publications. In this age of embellishment, the publishers might perhaps find their account in adding to each work a portrait of the author, where procurable.

The preface to the first publication, Thomas à Kempis, is from the pen of Dr. Chalmers; and it bespeaks the enlarged and liberal mind of the prefacer, and his abstinence from the vice of doctrinal favouritism, that he should have selected for his eulogies the De Imitatione of à Kempis and the Life, Walk, and Triumph of Faith of Mr. Romaine. These two writers may be considered in some important respects as almost antipodes to each other; and yet a mind like that of Dr. Chalmers well knows how, in the main, to reconcile them. Of à Kempis he says:

"We have sometimes heard the strenuous argumentation of the author of the following treatise in behalf of holiness, excepted against, on the ground that it did not recognize sufficiently the doctrine of justification by faith. There is, in many instances, an over-sensitive alarm on this topic, which makes the writer fearful of recommending virtue, and the private disciple as fearful of embarking on the career of it a sort of jealousy lest the honours and importance of Christ's righteousness should be invaded, by any importance being given to the personal

righteousness of the bellever: as if the one could not be maintained as the alone claim to an inheritance in heaven, and at valid plea on which the sinner could lay the same time the other be urged as his indispensible preparation for its exercises and its joys.

"It is the partiality with which the mind fastens upon one article of truth, and will scarcely admit the others to so much as a hearing-it is the intentness of its almost exclusive regards on some separate portion of the Divine testimony, and its shrinking avoidance of all the distinct and additional portions-it is, in particular, its fondness for the orthodoxy of what relates to a sinner's acceptance, carried to such a degree of favouritism, as to withdraw its attention altogether from what relates to a sinner's sanctification, -it is this which, on the pretence of magnifying a most essential doctrine, has, in fact, diffused a mist over the whole field of revelation; and which, like a mist in nature, not only shrouds the general landscape from all observation, but also bedims, while it adds to the apparant size of the few objects that continue visible." pp. v. vi.

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"We like not that writer to be violently alleged against, who expounds, and expounds truly, the amount of Christian holiness, because he says not enough, it is

thought, of the warrants and securities that are provided in the Gospel for Christian hope. We think, that to shed a luminousness over one portion of the Divine testimony, is to reflect at least, if not immediately to shed, a light on all the other portions of it. The doctrine of our acceptance, by faith in the merits and propitiation of Christ, is worthy of many a treatise, and many are the precious treatises upon it which have been offered to the world. But the doctrine of regeneration, by the Spirit of Christ, equally demands the homage of a separate lucubration; which may proceed on the truth of the former, and, by the incidental recognition of it, when it comes naturally in the way of the author's attention, marks the soundness and the settlement of his mind thereupon, more decisively than by the dogmatic, and ostentatious, and often misplaced asseverations of an ultra orthodoxy." p. xvii.

A Kempis does not argue or dwell upon (some readers would add, that he does not even clearly recognize) the doctrine of justification freely by faith; but in the exhibition of the Christian graces and practical virtues which flow from a true and lively faith his treatise is incomparable; and it has the superadded merit, that while it enforces the imitation of Christ, even

with much self-denial, it shews the blessedness which results from such a course of conduct.

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"Such a work," remarks Dr. Chal*mers, may be of service in these days of soft and silken professorship,-to arouse those who are at ease in Zion; to remind them of the terms of the Christian discipleship, as involving a life of conflict, and watchfulness, and much labour; to make them jealous of themselves, and jealous of that evil nature, the power of which must be resisted, but from the besetting presence of which we shall not be conclusively delivered, until death shall rid us of a frame-work*, the moral virus of which may be kept in check while we live, but cannot be eradicated by any process short of dissolution." p. xvii.

Lest any over scrupulous reader, after perusing these remarks, should be afraid that the reverend prefacer may be in danger of becoming too much legalized by his contact with à Kempis, we shall ease his mind by turning at once to the fourth treatise on our list, where he will find him advocating with equal zeal the writings of a divine of a very different school. Mr. Romaine has been frequently accused of constant iterations and reiterations of the same topics: this Dr. Chalmers defends, from the example of the Apostle Paul, as "safe," and undertakes to shew that it ought not to be wearisome or "grievous."

"The doctrine," says he, "of Jesus Christ and him crucified, which forms the principal and pervading theme in the following treatises, possesses a prominent claim to a place in our habitual recollections. And for this purpose, ought it to be the topic of frequent reiteration by every Christian author; and it may well form the staple of many a Christian treatise, and be the leading and oft-repeated argument of many a religious conversation. It is this which ushers into the mind of a sinner the sense of God as his Friend and his reconciled Father. That mind which is so apt to be overborne by this world's engrossments; or to lapse into the dread and distrust of a conscious offender; or to go back again to nature's lethargy, and nature's alienation; or to lose itself in

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quest of a righteousness of its own, by which it might challenge the reward of a blissful eternity, stands in need of a daily visitor who, by his presence, might dissipate the gloom, or clear away the perplexity in which these strong and practical tendencies of the human constitution are so ready to involve it. There is with man an obstinate forgetfulness of God; so that the Being who made him is habitually away from his thoughts. That he may again be brought nigh, there must be an open door of entry, by which the mind of man can welcome the idea of God, and willingly entertain it-by which the imagination of Deity might become supportable, and even pleasing to the soul; so that, when present to our remembrance, there should be the felt presence of one who loves and is at peace with us. it is only by the doctrine of the Cross that man can thus delight himself in God, and, This is the way of access for man entering at the same time, be free from delusion. into friendship with God, and for the thought of God, as a friend, entering into the heart of man.

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And thus it is, that the sound of his Saviour's love carries with it such a fresh and unfailing charm to a believer's ear. It is the precursor to an act of mental fellowship with God, and is hailed as the sound of the approaching footsteps of him whom you know to be your friend." pp. xi. xii.

"We know of no treatises where this evangelical infusion so pervades the whole substance of them as those of Romaine. Though there is no train of consecutive argument-though there no great power or variety of illustration-though we cannot allege in their behalf much richness of imagery, or even much depth of Christian experience. And, besides, though we were to take up any of his paragraphs at random, we should find that, with some little variation in the workmanship of each, there was mainly one ground or substratum for them allyet the precious and consoling truths, which he ever and anon presents, must endear them to those who are anxious to maintain in their minds a rejoicing sense of God as their reconciled Father. He never ceases to make mention of Christ and of his righteousness-and it is by the constant droppings of this elixir that the whole charm and interest of his writings are upheld. With a man whose ambition and delight it was to master the difficulties of an argument, or with a man whose chief enjoyment it was to range at will over the domains of poetry, we can conceive nothing more tasteless or tame than these treatises that are now offered to the public."

But" to a regenerated spirit, that never can be a weariness in time which is to form the song of eternity." pp. xix. xx. xxi. Dr. Chalmers proceeds to shew, that the theme on which Mr.

Romaine so much loves to expatiate is a purifying as well as a pleasing theme." He continues,

"We are aware of the alleged danger which some entertain of the tendency of such a full and free exhibition of the grace of the Gospel, to produce Antinomianism. But the way to avert this, is not by casting any part of Gospel truth into the shade. It is to spread open the whole of it, and give to every one part the relief and the prominency that it has in Scripture. We are not to mitigate the doctrines of a justifying faith, and an all-perfect righteousness, because of the abuse that has been made of them by hypocrites-but, leaving to these doctrines all their prominency, we are to place by their side the no less important and undeniable truths, that heaven is the abode of holy creatures, and that ere we are qualified for admittance there, we must become holy and heavenly ourselves. Nor is there a likelier way of speeding this practical transformation upon our souls, than by keeping up there, through the blood of Christ, a peace in the conscience, which is never truly done, without a love in the heart being kept up along with it." pp. xxi. xxii.

Every reflecting Christian will admit the truth of these statements, as well as the correlative, not contrary, statements in the preface to à Kempis. They prove that writers of very different complexions may yet be respectively useful to the world as advocating important parts of the great code of Divine revelation; but in our idea, and we are sure also in that of Dr. Chalmers, as shewn both by his own example and by the very two prefaces now under consideration, it is not desirable, nor is it always "safe," that a Christian divine or laic should indulge a spirit of exclusion or favouritism. His effort should be to "go through the good land, in the length thereof and in the breadth thereof: " partial views will afford but an incorrect notion of its extent

and fertility. And in this view, while we fully admit all that Dr. Chalmers has said, and most justly, in praise of the writings of Mr. Romaine, we could wish that that divine, and others of various schools, had somewhat enlarged their range of topics, or at least have given greater prominence to some which they have partly slighted;

so as to afford a full and consistent. view of the Gospel in all its bearings. Why should the latter part of the Epistle to the Ephesians or the Colossians be ever separated from the former, as if the union of the two involved a sort of inconsistency; as if the privileges of the Gospel would deter men from its duties, or its duties render them incapable of appreciating its privileges? Dr. Chalmers advocates à Kempis and Romaine respectively; but it is the praise of his own well balanced mind that he knows how to unite the characteristic views of both, and thus to avoid those opposite mistakes which it is the tendency of partial and confined systems of divinity to generate or foster.

The second publication on the list comprises the works of Gambold, with an Introductory Essay by Mr. Erskine, the justly celebrated author of an Essay on Faith and "Remarks on the internal Evidences of revealed Religion." The object of this essay is to apply the often alleged maxim, that man is the creature of circumstances, to the religious circumstances of his being. The disquisition is too closely woven to allow of our abridging its argument, but the following passages will shew its practical bearing.

"If the circumstances of this highest relation (our relation to God) be wrong, all is wrong. They may be wrong, and often are, without being felt to be so. There are many who have not set down their relation to God in the list of their relations; who have never regarded his favour or displeasure as circumstances of their condition; and who have never looked into eternity as their own vast, untried dwelling-place, destined to be either their heaven or their hell. And

yet this is the chief relation, and these are the chief circumstances of their being. The very root of the moral existence of such persons is dead. Their circumstances are, in truth, most deplorable, and their insensibility to pain from them, arises from palsy, not from health. But in some, just so much animation remains, that these mighty circumstances are felt to be unfavourable, and then they blacken existence and convert it into anguish. They poison every other relation, and paralize action in every other duty.

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