them the justification of all that has been said of his parts, or his piety, will be found; and there is no question they will preserve his reputation, and their own, as long as there shall be any taste for strong, and yet clear reasoning; masculine unaffected eloquence, flowing from the just distribution of the parts of a discourse, and not a pomp of chosen words, and sounding epithets; or men retain any sense of those interesting and important truths, which he has so represented as to be sure of their making an impression on the heart, by their filling the whole measure of the understanding," provided (we should add) they be accompanied with the renovating influences of the Holy Spirit, without which even a Paul must plant, and an Apollos water, in vain. der our various trials, and to speak with tenderness where the heart is wounded; there are truths which, if trouble hides them from our view, it is the office of a friend to recal them. You and I are ministers. As such, how often have we commended the gospel as the ro εv, affording those who truly receive it, a balm for every wound, a cordial for every care! How often have we told our hearers, that our all-sufficient and faithful Lord can and will make good every want and loss! How often have we spoken of the light of his countenance as a full compensation for every suffering, and of the trials of the present life as not worthy to be compared with the exceeding abundant and eternal weight of glory to which they are leading! We must not therefore wonder, if we are sometimes called to exemplify the power of what we have said, and to shew our people that we have not set before them unfelt truths, which we have learnt from books and men only. You are now in a post of honour, and many eyes are upon you. May the Lord enable you to glorify him, and to I feel, but I do not fear, for encourage them, by your exemyou. The God whom thou serv-plary submission to his will! est he can support and deliver you. He is all sufficient, and his promise is sure. A LETTER From the Rev. Mr. Newton to a Baptist Minister, whose Wife was at the point of death. MY DEAR FRIEND, Jan. 23, 1787. Plenty of advice is at hand, but I dare not offer you much in this way. You are in the beat of a trial; I am at present in quiet. It would be easy for me to press patience and resignation upon you, and to remind you that a pardoned sinner ought never to complain. You could speak the same language to me, if I were in your case, and you were at ease. Yet though we may and ought to compassionate one another un You are doubtless allowed to pour out your heart before him, and even to pray for Mrs. R.'s recovery, and I will join with you so far as I dare. I likewise have had my trials, but I am still liable to one very different from all I have yet experienced. But I am so short-sighted as to events and consequences, that in any supposable case I seem to tremble at the thought of having my own choice, even if it were allowed me to choose. In my better judgment I am pleased to think, that infinite Wisdom and Good ness have engaged to manage for me. I am sure that afflictions do not happen at random, nor spring out of the ground; that the Lord takes no pleasure in afflicting us; and that if the desires of our heart are not always given us, it is because we often know not what we ask. I pray for her, that he may enable her quietly and cheerfully to commit herself into his hands; and I pray for you, that you may do the same. may be assured he will not try you beyond what he will enable you to bear. If it be for your good, especially for your chief good, his glory, she shall recover; he will restore her, though a hundred physicians had given her up. If otherwise, I doubt not but he will help you to say, Thy will be done. And hereafter you shall see that his will was best." more leisure. May the Lord bless I am sincerely and affectionately JOHN NEWTON. AN You ANTIDOTE TO INFIDELITY. Beware lest any man spoil you through Philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. Col. ii. 8. THERE never was a period in the history of the Christian Church, when an attention to this precept of the Apostle was more necessary than in the present day. The grand adversary of mankind, after having for many ages at tempted to prevent the spread of the Gospel, by keeping the world in ignorance, is now endeavouring to effect the same purpose by means of the knowledge which Christianity has principally circu My dear Eliza was not indeed a wife, but she was very near my heart. A few weeks or days before her removal, had it been lawful and agreeable to the will of God, I think I would have redeemed her life at the price of a limb; yet when the stroke came very near, it was so circum-lated. He is aiming to convert stanced, so alleviated, so sweetened, that could the lifting up of my finger have detained her, and restored her to perfect health, I could not have lifted it up. Perhaps I never suffered more, perhaps I never suffered less, than when I saw her in the agonies of death. Then I found that the Lord was all-sufficient indeed; and I trust you will find him so. the press, which has hitherto been so powerful an auxiliary to the cause of religion, into the instrument of its destruction, and by its agency to scatter the baneful seed of blasphemy and unbelief throughout the land. The Bible, however, would not be the reve lation of God, if it did not contain within it, a sufficient antidote to such awful doctrines. Its evidences are, like the characters it forms, founded upon a rock. In vain shall the rain descend, the winds blow, and the whirlwind and storm attack its base it is immoveable-" the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." It becomes the Christian, in | ties of the Sabbath in a cold, for such a scoffing and infidel age as mal manner, as a mere matter of the present, to be most wise and duty; if you neglect private and circumspect-" to gird on his family prayer;-is it a wonder whole armour." Let him remem- that religion, through your examber he is "the light of the world, ple, is brought into contempt; and in the midst of a crooked that it is represented as a system and perverse generation;" that of pretension and hypocrisy? one of the best arguments he" Let therefore your lights be can afford of the truth of religion, burning;" show to the world the is by living well. This proof it reality of your faith, and the geis more difficult to gainsay, thannuine effect of the love of Christ many others of a more learned in your hearts. You will then be and elaborate nature. It is the the most effective advocates for best actual evidence of the truth the Gospel. Your hearts will of the Bible that can exist. What then be sanctified, and your lives a testimony to the lives and man-will be holy. You will love your ners of the primitive Christians was borne by the Heathen, when they exclaimed, "How these Christians love each other!" Alas! it is to be feared this spirit of love and communion is much diminished in the present day, and that religion is too much a matter of profession, and too little a bu-world; will enable you to endure siness of the heart. neighbours, and employ yourselves in acts of kindness for his welfare. You will deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and live soberly, righteously, and godly, in the present evil world. Prayer and divine meditation will teach you the vanities of the all the afflictions and trials of life with patience and resignation, looking to that "inheritance which is incorruptible, undefiled, and which fadeth not away." last How lamentable it is to consider, that although there are so many thousands who believe that the Bible is a revelation of the will of God to man, so very few It is such characters as these comparatively are influenced by that blow away the sophistries of its doctrines, that one of the most human vanity, like chaff before puzzling arguments of its adver- the wind; which carry home to saries is taken from the lax and the mind a conviction of the disorderly conduct of its profes-truth of Christianity; and which sors! Brethren, these things produce the sentiment so often ought not so to be. The king-expressed, "Let me die the death dom of God is not of this world. of the righteous, and let my His grace will produce good fruits end be like his." in your lives. If you are entangled in the concerns of this life, to the prejudice of religion; if the love of money, which is the root of all evil, has taken possession of your soul; if you are continually employed in using every means, both just and unjust, to increase your property; if you love not your brother, because he is poor; if you attend to the du Hammersmith. SEPARATION M. M. FROM THE WORLD. RELIGION and the world are so widely different in their nature and their tendency, that however mankind may attempt an amalga- | gay robe, which suits his inclina tion, and wishes to have it and wear it. Now dress, consider ed simply and abstractedly, can mation, their efforts will be just as fruitless as it would have been to mix together in one substance the iron and clay, in the image have no evil in it; but if we seen in Nebuchadnezzar's dream.connect it with the ideas of Many are the commands which the person's being proud of a are given to the Christian world, garment, of his setting his affecenjoining its keeping itself so se- tions on dress, and letting his parated, as that its members may thoughts run after any thing of so be known by all men to have trivial a nature, to the neglect of been with Jesus. Our divine his more important concerns, Lord and Master says, "Ye can- then the case is much changed. not serve God and Mammon." I would not be understood, from Their demands are so opposite, the sentiments here expressed, as their injunctions so adverse, and advocating any thing like precisetheir commands so contrary, that ness or uniformity in dress; by in loving one we must hate the no means: I think every one has other; and while we serve ei-a degree of respectability to supther, we disobey the other. port, and ought to dress conformCome and taste the good I offer, ably to his situation. But when says the world:-" Depart ye-I see any persons, whose lot it is Depart ye-go ye out from thence to walk the ordinary paths of -touch no unclean thing," life, attempting to show some su saith the Lord. So that decision periority by dress, and wishing in this momentous affair is of the to obtain esteem from the fineutmost importance: "I wouldness of their attire, I either think that thou wert either cold or hot." they must have a vain mind, or that religion is at a low ebb, or both. But the evil does not rest here. When we possess any thing, it is generally our desire to have it known; particularly if we think we shall be the more highly thought of for such possession. But my further design in this Essay is to show, how a Christian may fall into the ways of the world; and at the same time to point out its evils, and to hint at the importance and advantage of maintaining an evident distinc-Thence the love of dress leads to tion. the breaking down of a more In showing how a Christian important distinction between may fall into the ways of the Christians and the world-to their world, I would remark, that this associating with worldly comis done by conforming to worldly pany. They who are enjoying customs, such as dress, vain much of the presence of God, and trifling conversation, amuse- and living in a daily intercourse ments, &c. &c. Now when these with him, are not the company are considered abstractedly, they which such will seek. No; they may not look like evils, but view-will seek such as have views coring them in connexion with their respondent with, and inclinations consequences, and with the ef-similar to, their own. Therefore fects they produce, they assume to the world they must look. a much more forbidding aspect. Here they associate with such as For instance; the Christian be- cannot come up to Christians in holds some fashionable garb, or conversation, because they have no experimental acquaintance | admitted." O that more of this spirit pervaded the minds of professors in these latter days! Methinks if this were the case, reli city set on a hill, which cannot be hid. Ministers would behold more living epistles, if those which are such were seen and read of all men: more of the spirit of love would be felt and enjoyed, and Zion would become a praise to the whole earth. Lord, keep me from each vain desire, From worldly hope and fear; with those truths, which are their support, their food, their comfort, their hope, and their enjoyment. Not having experienced the in-gion would appear more like a fluence of these things on their candle set on a candlestick, and hearts, to hear them conversed the churches more resemble a upon has no interest with them, and they will shun such persons as cannot, or will not, converse on subjects more correspondent with their views; so that if a person professing Christianity would associate with them, he must so far dishonour his profession, and slight his Lord and Master, as to enter on and join in conversation on things of the world. Alas, here is a sad change! leanness here enters the soul; and the mind, which not long ago appeared as the well favoured kine, or the plentifully filled ears of corn in Pharaoh's dream, degenerates into their opposites. Having drunk into the spirit, the amusements of the world next claim a place in such a back. slider's heart: and here a still wider gate is opened, altogether confirming that aphorism of the Prophet, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." With love and childlike tear. Bradford, Nov. 13, 1820. PHILO. Opinion of the pious Philip Henry on the Laws against Protestant Dissenters and Roman Catholics. "THE great subject of debate at this time (1687) in the nation From these imperfect remarks, was, concerning the repeal of pethe importance of keeping our-nal laws and tests. Mr. Henry's selves separate from the world is very evident. I allow there is necessary business, which calls the attention of the Christian into the world, and that to neglect this is highly culpable, yea, criminal. The apostle commands diligence in business, but unites with it fervency of spirit, and an habitual serving of the Lord. But this is, I apprehend, widely different from associating from inclination with the world. "I would not," says an eminent divine, now fallen asleep, "I would not enter any company where my Master is not thoughts were, as to the penal laws, that if those against the Dissenters were all repealed, he would rejoice in it, and be very thankful both to God and man; for he would sometimes say, with out reflection upon any, that he could not but look upon them as a national sin; and as for those against the Papists, If (said he) our lawgivers see cause to repeal them in a regular way, I will endeavour to make the best of it, and to say, The will of the Lord be done." Life, chap. viii. |