or his Master's?' He seemed to think that the use of languages was not to make an ostentatious shew of them in a man's own country, but rather to spread Divine and useful knowledge to other parts of the world. With this view, after his travels from the eastern countries, he published the New Testament in vulgar Greek, to be sent into those parts. He was so intent upon the main scope of religion, that he looked upon all outside privileges and forms, as of little importance, compared with the Creator's being again glorified in the creature. He was very sparing in extolling one form of worship above another, and cared not to go about arguing people out of their usual way. By this means, he now and then incurred the displeasure of some in all parties. His esteem, however, was not lessened, with those who view religion in its essential goodness, as it was first established by Christ, and not as it was afterward modelled by men. If some churches did pretend to a more refined mode, and purer doctrine, he would have that refinement and purity shine forth in the life and manners. The primitive faith, love, humility, meekness, self-resignation, and other Gospel virtues, he would have to be looked upon as so many inseparable companions to a form of sound words, and to an apostolical constitution. "Thus was this good man for promoting a spirit of universal, impartial piety, in all nations; not only working out his own salvation, but diligent in contriving for, and endeavouring, the salvation of others. "He went through great pains of body, and through such trials and conflicts of soul, as are little known to the Christians of this day. People have now found out a way to heaven so easy (says the writer of Ludolf's character), and so free from temptations, that it seems al together different from what it was of old, when it was called a narrow way, and preached up as such by those that first established the Christian religion. Our modern Christians have dropped the harsher doctrines of mortification, contrition, compunction, inward sorrow, and spiritual combat, and all that belongs to their taking up a cross; and have modelled religion at last into a mode, wherein it begins to appear fashionable, and so may in time be liked by the profanest worldling that can be.' There is too much justice in this observation; and great need there is of the utmost endeavours to draw the attention of mankind more to the substantial and vital parts of Christianity." Extracts from the Writings of Mr. H. W. Ludolf. "The interest of the church universal doubtless consisteth in rais ing, enlarging, and adorning that mystical building which is called the City of God. As real Christianity spreads and improves, or shrinks and decays, the universal church may be said either to flourish or decline. This real Christianity lieth in following, as far as we are enabled by Divine grace, the steps of our Saviour, and copying out his temper and behaviour in our lives. True Christianity is a resemblance to Christ, the restorer of God's image in the soul of man, and the author and finisher of our faith. Now, the more there are that resemble Christ, the more fully is the glorious end of his Gospel answered, and the church universal is enlarged; and the nearer they come to their original, the more is the church adorned and rendered glorious. "Those notions of Christianity must therefore be looked upon as very low and mean, which would make the Christian religion to consist merely in outward forms of worship, or in a particular set of opinions; and in thinking that hea ven is to be stocked out of one particular church only, or out of one sect and party of Christians. This false supposition hath betrayed many unchristian courses against those that differ from them into very L in form and party. The effects produced hereby are very deplorable. A remedy has been sought for by many pious souls, who have made it their study to reconcile outward differences. But experience shews how fruitless such endeavours are. It would not signify much, if all the men in the world were brought to use the same external form and expressions in their belief and church-service, should they continue all the while slaves to sin, and abide in the kingdom of darkness. But holiness or real Christianity, sincerely pursued in every particular church, would bring people over to that sweet and heavenly temper to which jarring and disquiet are a perfect stranger. "Let those that differ vie with one another, who can produce most instances of such souls as in their several churches have attained to the glorious renovation of God's image in the heart; such souls as are endued with that faith which overcomes the world; and by which Christ dwelleth in us, enabling those that receive him to become children of God. They who are become new creatures in Christ Jesus, and are united with him who is the Head of the church, need not busy themselves about a confession to unite and keep them together. They are all heartily united already; and live, as it were, by one common soul, like the Christians of old. "When people of different persuasions fall into company, they should avoid controversy. Men are seldom benefited thereby; but their animosities are often enflamed to a higher degree. Whereas, frequent good is done even upon men of a differing persuasion, by declining controverted points, and grounding the discourse upon things generally allowed; that is, upon matters owned by all parties to be essential to salvation, though practised by very few. It is presumption to set about demonstrating how three are one, or one is three; both parties having run themselves into inconveniences by their explications of the mystery of the ever-blessed Trinity. It stands us in more stead to know experimentally that we are one with Christ in God, than to know the nicest distinctions that busy men have contrived about the mysteries of salvation. Therefore let people converse more upon subjects that are admitted in theory, but not suitably applied to practice. Let those that have such minds and spirits, that feel the inward power and love of religion, correspond with one another, and advise and encourage and strengthen each other's hands, in thus promoting real Christianity. "Let those that are in authority, or that have any influence in such matters, study all possible means to provide such guides for the people, as have themselves the experimental knowledge of the above-mentioned real Christianity. Persons that have not themselves recovered life by Christ, will hardly be able to explain, and duly to lay before their hearers, what is that old man, with his corrupt deceitful lusts, that must be put off; and what is that new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness;-what it is to be dead with Christ, and what to be raised to newness of life. In these things true repentance and faith consist. And these two heads are insisted on by St. Paul as the main ingredients of salvation, and an unfeigned conversion. Learned or florid discourses, without this foundation, will avail little or nothing towards enlarging the kingdom of Christ. They may perhaps gain some credit to the preacher, and fill the hearers with some fine notions; but they will not make real Christians. Nay, though they should convince the auditory of the advantages of a good moral life, yet will little be done in reality whilst the principle of disobedience, self-will, and selflove, continue the unhappy spring of the heart. There is a vain conceited morality, which is far enough from being that righteousness of God, which is the great scope of the Gospel. Such moralists set up their own righteousness, for want of due instruction about the deplorable state of corrupt nature, and the great necessity and glorious advantage of that new birth which is from above, and formeth Christ in us. It is by this means that men are brought to the righteousness of God, which is by faith in Christ. The preachers of religion should be such, as can say with St. Paul, Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. At least, there ought to be the utmost care taken, that none be set up or encouraged, who may bring a reproach upon good doctrine by their bad examples. It is not probable that the interests of heaven should be heartily espoused by those with whom the love of the world bears the chief sway. Providence has wisely ordered it, that men should be disappointed in their ends, when they give up themselves to make that of their religion which it was never designed for. Some have grievously smarted for their vanity, in affecting the name and reputation of extensive scholars; and have become utterly unfit for thinking rightly themselves, whilst they have been wasting their lives in filling their minds with other men's notions. "It is an unaccountable boldness to reason against Him who hath given us our reason, and to undermine his authority by those very powers which were designed to promote his glory. I had rather experimentally know and taste the effect of the heavenly food, than quarrel with my brother, which of us hath the best notion, either of the nature of this food, or of the manner in which it is conveyed into the soul. "The true Christian hath Christ always in his thoughts, as the spring, pattern, and aim of all his actions. The more we live to our. selves, the more we entangle our selves in corruption, disquiet, and misery; the more we deny ourselves, and endeavour to live to God, the more we enjoy comfort and happiness. To live to God, is to please that incomprehensible bountiful Master, who reckons it an enhancement of his own glory, when he makes his servants partake of it ;a high proof, this, that selfishness is a principle opposite to the nature of God. And shall we think much of devoting our whole life to the glorifying of Him who hath such willingness as well as power to glo rify those again who are willing to direct and refer all to him only? "In the new life, where spirit, soul, and body are sanctified, God rules in all the powers and faculties both of soul and body; and where he rules, there is his kingdom; and in that kingdom there is freedom and happiness.. On the other hand, whilst men are in an unregenerate state, the reason, the will, and the passions are all enslaved by our spiritual enemy. The worst of this case is, that the more sinners are flattered with the hopes of liberty, the more dreadfully they are de ceived, and at last more cruelly tormented. There cannot be any thing more true, than that declaration of God's word; There is no peace to the wicked.' Isa. lvii. 21. "In disputes about religion, I cannot find the disputants chiefly concerned, who shall get to heaven soonest; but they rather quarrel about their advantages and accom modations in their travelling to that better world. They contend as to which of them has the best means and helps, and who have most provision for their journey. Yet, all this while, if you watch their life and conduct, they rather tread the path that leads to destruction, than that which leads to salvation. Their ways are generally more conformable to the humour of the prince of this world, than to the laws and example of Christ. "No desire is allowable in a child of God, but what is subser vient to his desire after holiness; the Pase for this is the will of God, even our sanctification.' He therefore that desires holiness, desires the will of God should be done, which d is the noblest of all desires and wishes. It is the speech of the heart only that is acceptable to God. Bare words are only outward, and the strength and spirit are often lost by care about language. What we ask of God in Christ's name; that is, in a frame and temper of mind like his, will certainly be given to us; because God delights in the image of his Son. But before we have put on Christ, we cannot be said to ask in his name; because in Scripture-sense, the name and the nature of a thing are the same. And so may be under derstood the new name, Rev. ii. 17, and God's name, iii. 12. "A great many persons read the Bible with a design to be more learned; but few read it with a design to be more humble, pious, and heavenly minded. When God is pleased to speak to the soul, it is not by bare words, but by a real power, and a communication of his light, life, and love. Happy are those souls that are pure and refined enough to understand his language. "A Christian behaviour under crosses, consists in patiently bearing them; and under comforts, in keep ing up a sense of being unworthy of them. He who is a Christian indeed, will never think that he can shake off the one, or deserve the other; but still wisheth that both may work together, for effecting and establishing the main end of religion in his soul: namely, that self-will and self-love may be overcome, and God more and more loved and trusted by him. There is no affliction so great, but God hath a remedy against it; and there is no affliction so small, but the stoutest man may perish under it, if he be left of God. "The more we strive to do the will of God, the more our soul is strengthened to do it in a higher degree. The gracious influence of his light and Spirit increases and gathers strength, by the good use we make of what we have received. Thus, God is both the guide, strength, and reward of those that do his will. "The carnal will of the old man moves continually towards its own centre, the earth, from whence the flesh took its rise. The spiritual will of the new man hath its centré too, toward which it continually moves; that is, God, who by his word hath created the new man, and inspired him with a Divine will, The collision of these two opposite wills, moving contrary ways, one upward and the other downward, causes that fierce combat betwixt the flesh and the spirit, of which the Scripture speaks at large, and which daily disquiets the spiritual pilgrim in his way to rest and happiness. "Faith is the life of the inner man. The beginning of this spiritual life consists in believing the remission of sins for Christ's sake, and the communication of grace and strength to follow him, and that this pardon and strength will be granted to me. The progress or youth of the spiritual life is, when I find my desires after Christ grow mpre strong and fervent, and I am put upon all manner of activity and diligence in the ways of religion, from that light which is the continual impulse of the new creature. The maturity, or completer age of faith, is known by its energy and establishment; when Christ by faith overcomes hell and death within us, and fixeth the heart immoveably, and fills the soul with the fulness of God. "The natural man places his misery in outward troubles and afflictions. A Christian reckons his misery to lie in that unfaithful temper of mind which makes him slothful and inconsistent in the work of his Lord, and too often and eagerly sets him on his own work. A truly faithful soul rejoiceth rather in faithfulness itself, than in the reward which is annexed to it." Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer. THERE is, or was some time since, a French monthly publication, edited by Jansenists, entitled the Religious Chronicle; which must be well known to many of your readers, and which used to contain many valuable papers on topics of the highest interest. In particular, I remember being struck with an article on the first reception of the holy communion, which I have lately been tempted to translate, thinking it not unworthy of a place in your columns, especially as some of your correspondents have asked for information respecting the modern Jansenists, whose sentiments may be collected with tolerable accuracy from the present paper. The subject of the paper is very important; and it is treated in a way as little open to exception as can be expected in a member of the Church of Rome, while the earnestness of its appeal and many of its practical remarks may deserve and provoke emulation among the ministers of our own communion. The Protestant reader will indeed find in it, as in all the Jansenist writings, many things deserving of animadversion; and which he must correct as he reads. But he will also find in it much sound and judicious admonition, and a vein of real piety, which will bear to be transplanted to a purer soil. He may pass over the allusions to the Confessional and the false sacrament of Penance; and he will perceive the futility of grounding any part of the writer's excellent exhortation upon the absurd notion of the eucharist being the real body and blood of Christ; but he will still find the general strain of the argument highly important; he will be led to feel that true preparation for the holy communion consists not in having attained a certain age and gone through certain forms, but in conversion of heart to God; and he will need only to construe spiritually, what the Papist speaks literally, of the presence of Christ in the eucharist, to apply with effect the solemn admonitions of this de vout though erring writer. D. D. OBSERVATIONS ON THE FIRST RECEPTION OF THE HOLY COMMUNION. Among the causes by means of which the decline of morals is con tinually increasing, must be ranked the scandalous facility with which young persons are admitted for the first time to participate in the holy mysteries. That act, which has the greatest influence upon the whole life, and on which eternal salvation often depends, is passed over with less concern than any temporal business, however insignificant. It is a common subject of complaint, that young persons, especially young men, do not sooner partake of the holy communion for the first time; and that, so far are they from making a point of coming to the holy table again, they are not seen at the Confessional, and do not even frequent the churches afterwards, These complaints are sometimes heard even in the pulpit. On whom does the blame rest? Does it not rest, in the first place, on those fathers and mothers who, being destitute of faith, plunged in the grossest ignorance, and stimulated by various motives, altogether secular, urge their children to make haste, and speedily to finish the usual preparations for an act which is most serious, but, to which they unhappily attach no other importance that what belongs to the desire of following a custom? "They are of age," say they. "It is time for them to learn something else, besides the catechism;" as if any direction were found in the sacred books, or in the laws of the church, prescribing that infants should partake of the adorable flesh and precious blood of Jesus Christ, precisely when they have attained such or such a year of their lives; as if the study of religion, which |