(Concluded from page 192.)

"I AM reminded of an anecdote which Mr. Housman was fond of relating. 'A person travelling in Scotland, inquired of one of the inhabitants of a small village, whether the minister of the place frequently visited the members of his congregation at their own homes. The reply was, referring to the pastor's close and habitual devotion, that he was in heaven all the week, and came down on the Sabbath to tell his people what he had seen and heard.'' 'It frequently occurred to me,' adds the gentleman to whom I am indebted for the anecdote, how exactly this description of a minister's habits suited Mr. Housman. 'De te fabula narratur' was often on my lips when I heard him relate it, as he was repeatedly wont to do, though, I am certain, without the slightest consciousness of its application to himself.’ On the subject of the Baptismal Service of the National Church, we find an unfinished paper by Mr. Housman, who believed that neither the Bible nor his Church taught that Baptism is regeneration, or necessarily conveys that essential blessing. Having referred to the second Collect in that service, he proceeds thus: "In this collect, we ask, and seek, and knock, that the vast blessing of Regeneration may then be granted, while, in reverent obedience to the Lord's command, we dedicate the child to God, in His own most holy ordinance. We do not plead any revealed or supposed Divine appointment, by which the inward and spiritual grace' shall invariably accompany the outward and visible sign;' we simply plead the general promise, which is made to those who ask, whatever be the spiritual mercy which they implore. That this view of the Church's meaning is correct, we have the strongest evidence, in a subsequent address to the Godfathers and Godmothers: Dearly beloved, ye have brought this child here to be baptized; ye have prayed that our Lord Jesus Christ would vouchsafe to receive him, to release him of his sins, to sanctify him with the Holy Ghost, to give him the kingdom of heaven, and everlasting life. You have heard also that our Lord Jesus Christ hath promised in His Gospel to grant all these things that ye have prayed for; which promise, He, for His part, will most surelykeep and perform.' In this address, the sponsors are reminded of three things; first, that they have prayed that spiritual and eternal blessings may be the portion of the infant whom they have brought to be baptized; secondly, that they have heard the promise of the Saviour to grant what they have supplicated; thirdly, that Jesus will assuredly fulfil His own sacred engagement. Here, then, I take a firm and decided stand. I would appeal to the understanding and the conscience of my reader, while I ask, Is there the slightest intimation here given, that the image of God is expected to be impressed upon the child's soul, through the instrumentality of the baptismal water? Is not the assured hope of the immense mercy, grounded exclusively on the fidelity of God to His general promise, of which we have ventured to put Him in remembrance?' Unless impenetrable confusion and darkness rest upon the language of our Church, she has certainly taught us to look for the regeneration of the infant, in answer to the prayer of faith-in the fulfilment of the Lord's promise, which has been pleaded Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.' Many other supplications are presented before the throne of mercy; that the regenerating and strengthening influences of the Spirit may be imparted to the child, in this most solemn hour of its dedication to the Christian's God. "We are now arriving, I trust calmly and rationally, at a conclusion, intended by our Church, and sanctioned by the Scriptures: This is the conclusion. If the several petitions for the new and spiritual birth of the infant have been offered up in faith-in a steady, unwavering reliance on the promises and mercy of Jehovah, through the mediation of Jesus-the consequence is sure. The blessing will and must be given, for the Lord is faithful. He cannot deny Himself. He has said-If two of you shall agree on earth, as touching anything that they should ask, it shall be done for them of My Father which is in heaven.'All things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.' These promises are clear, absolute, irrevocable. Our Church, therefore, presuming that the supplicants have been upright, earnest and believing in their prayers, and knowing that the truth and honour of the great God are pledged to the fulfilment of His Word, proceeds after the child is baptised, to the work of grateful acknowledgment. We yield Thee hearty thanks, most merciful Father, that it hath pleased Thee to regenerate this infant by Thy Holy Spirit, to receive him for Thine own child by adoption, and to incorporate him into Thy holy Church.' The conclusion which is here drawn

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concerning the regeneration of the infant, is recognised, naturally and consistently, in several of our subsequent services.

"But the following objections will doubtless be here urged, or rather repeated. Of the vast numbers which are baptized, few, comparatively, as they advance to youth and maturity, give any scriptural evidence that they have been truly regenerated. Old things are not passed away, and behold all things are not become new ; and therefore they are not the 'new creatures' described in the Bible, and 'born of the Spirit.' They 'commit sin' allowedly and habitually; and therefore, according to the decision of eternal truth, they are not born of God'—(1 John iii. 9.) The justness of those representations and inferences cannot be denied, unless we are perversely inattentive to the moral evil which triumphs throughout the land, and are blind and deaf to the plainest declarations of the Word of the Lord. To what, then, are we to impute the absence of the all-important blessing of regeneration, in multitudes who were baptized in their infancy? Shall we dare to suspect the fidelity of God to His engagements? 'Let God be true, but every man a liar.' Shall we censure the conclusions of the Established Church as rash and unauthorized? She has done nothing more nor worse than exercise a judgment of charity, and a principle of faith; a judgment of charity, in supposing those to be sincere and believing,' who have been joining in her services; and a principle of faith, in expecting a fulfilment of the promises of God. Where these promises are not fulfilled, there has been a very criminal want, or defect, of reliance on the Divine mercy, and faithfulness in Christ Jesus. And in many an assembly collected for the professed purpose of imploring for a child the mercies of the everlasting covenant, the Scripture has a renewed and melancholy accomplishment :- And He did not many mighty works there, because of their unbelief."

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"This view of the subject is solemn and affecting. It may remind many of their exceeding sinfulness. It will warrant the following appeal to their consciences- You brought an infant to be baptized. So far you did well. The ordinance is of Divine appointment, and to be had in reverence. But you did not bring him in the arms of faith. You did not rest upon the promises. You did not wrestle with God in prayer for a spiritual blessing. You were satisfied with the external rite. The day when you professed to dedicate an immortal creature to the service and honour of the most holy God, instead of being a day of solemnity and supplication, perhaps was a day of folly and of feasting, of levity and of guilt. You had therefore a sure though an awful interest in one Scripture at least Let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord.' 'Go, then, and learn by experience what that meaneth- Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.'

The following description of an important aspect of his character seems borne out by the details of the Memoir :

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Uncomplaining submission to the appointments of heaven was one of Mr. Housman's most eminent virtues. Perhaps few men have attained to a like degree of resignation. Baxter's faithful aphorism, 'As thou wilt, when thou wilt, and where thou wilt,' exactly indicates the quality and extent of his devotedness to the Father of Spirits. 'His soul' (to use the startling but significant language of Archbishop Leighton) 'rolled itself on God, and adventured there all its weight.' He was afraid of nothing but ein; for he knew that every thing else, even though it be the keenest sorrow, is mercy and blessing. His acquiescence in the bitter dispensations of his Maker was immediate and was complete. It needed neither forcing nor nursing. It implied an entire and unconditional renunciation and rejection of self; an entire and unconditional subordination, or rather, a perfectly prompt and unreserved surrender of the whole individual being to the sentiment of creaturely and filial dependence. It was the disposition which Eli manifested; It is the Lord-let Him do what seemeth to Him good.' It was the disposition which David manifested; 'I was dumb, and opened not my mouth -because Thou didst it.' It was the disposition which the great Exemplar manifested when, in the extremity of anguish and, with an ignominous and torturing death before Him, He exclaimed, 'Not My will, but Thine be done.' Even to those who best knew the habits of his mind, and the intimate terms on which he lived with his Divine Master, it was the subject of constant astonishment and admiration; whilst by those who knew him not, or knew him but slightly, his meek and patient and absolutely cheerful deportment under the pressure of calamities the severest that can assail a parent's comfort, (for he seemed to love the rod that

smote him) were imputed to the indifference of a cold and apathetic constitution. Never were nature and grace so insulted and so wronged. He possessed the kindest, the tenderest, the most sensitive of hearts. It was a heart of even feminine delicacy of temperament; so marvellously susceptible of pleasure: so wonderfully alive to the finest vibrations of pain; so averse from wounding the feelings of others; so vulnerable itself. But if it was this, it was also more and better than this. It was a heart, submitted and dedicated to the Lord God; it was a heart, controlled in its best as well as in its worst affections, by the master principles of faith and love; it was a heart, transformed and strengthened, according to an exceeding great and precious promise, by the indwelling presence and power of the Holy Ghost. Mr. Housman felt like a man, but he endured like a Christian. The discipline was hard; the glory infinite.”

Our next extract is rather a flippant and superficial passage; but it refers to topics, on which Mr. Housman's sentiments will be a subject of interest to many:— "Although in compliance with a very strongly entertained conviction of its utter incompatibility with the pastoral office, Mr. Housman had invariably refrained from any personal interference in the party politics of the day, there were probably few men who took more interest in the great national questions that engaged public attention and divided public opinion from time to time. He had watched, with profound concern, the progress of the sacred efforts of his friend Mr. Wilberforce in the cause of the abolition of the slave trade; and when at length, after repeated defeats and accumulated discouragments, those unceasing efforts were crowned with success, he rejoiced, with the rejoicing of a man and a Christian, at the glorious and triumphant issue. In the benevolent labours of Sir Samuel Romilly too, he found an abundant source of the liveliest satisfaction; but whilst he hailed with equal gratitude and hope the smallest mitigation of the sanguinary character of the criminal law, he accounted all abatements, however important in themselves, comparatively unavailing, unless intended to lead, though gradually yet surely, to the entire and unconditional abrogation of the punishment of death. In later years, the public measures that most powerfully moved him, were the repeal of the Test and Corporation Act, the removal of the Catholic Disabilities, and the amendment of the Poor Laws. On the subject of the Parliamentary Reform Bill he felt but slightly. The two former, more directly, connected as they were with the moral and religious circumstances of the country, demanded and received his deliberate consideration; and after maturely balancing the various arguments respectively advanced by their advocates and opponents his judgment was given in favour of both those influential reformations. Party feeling ran high in Lancaster in 1828 and '29. Petitions from the Corporation, the Town, and the Clergy, were seve rally prepared and forwarded to Parliament against the Emancipation Bill; and Mr. Housman was twice formally waited on by one of his clerical brethren, and more than twice assailed by the obtrusive importunities of an indefatigable layman, with a view to obtain his co-operation in their active and by no means pacific opposition to the claims of their Roman Catholic fellow-subjects. He was inflexible. The logic and eloquence usually adopted on such occasions were vehemently applied, but without effect. He could not be made to see either that the Church was in danger, or that political concessions involved religious apostacy. He was too good a Protestant to dread Popery, and too thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the Gospel to persecute it. On principles of Christian justice he had reasoned, and in the result of his reasoning he confidently rested. My views on the matter,' (his sentiments were thus recorded in the year 1828, in communicating with a highly respectable member of the Society of Friends,) have undergone a change of late. However we may be right, and the Catholics wrong, the religion of Jesus Christ, I am convinced, cannot be understood to sanction the use of coerciv measures for bringing others to think as we think; and most assuredly we have no ground for supposing, from any experience we have had, that the use of such measures will ever be successful. Indeed, the idea of coercing other men's thoughts, is, in itself, when plainly expressed, a glaring absurdity."

We hardly think Mr. Housman here even touches the real question; but we wished to let the reader know his views of the subject, so far as they are disclosed. In his general politics he appears to have been a Conservative-" and some thing more; his biographer says" He had high notions of government, and low notions of popular rights; he carried the theory of subordination little short of passive obedience.'

SECTION IV.

MR. EDITOR,-We beg leave to address your readers once more on the same allmomentous subject, which occupied our pen in our two last sections: and we would thus prolong our remarks from several weighty considerations. And we think they are such, that cannot fail obtaining the indulgence and approbation of every individual that peruses your very interesting pages; and for that purpose we shall briefly state them in this place, as a kind of introduction to our present epistle.

The doctrine of repentance involving in itself such an overwhelming interest as it does, we feel anxious to do it justice, to present it fairly and fully before the mind, and to set it forth in every possible and advantageous light, even in all its minutiæ, shades and forms, that it may attract and finally fix the attention of the soul. This being a doctrine also upon which our eternal destinies are represented in Scripture to be depending so much, it consequently becomes us when treating upon it, to feel our minds exercised with solicitude of no ordinary description; because we deem it of infinite importance for ourselves and all our Christian readers to understand it thoroughly, to enter into its true spirit, and to have our hearts deeply and properly imbued with it. And that on the following grounds; because it forms the door of entrance into the secrets of real religion, it forms the only vestibule that introduces us to the love and favour of our heavenly Father, and it is the sole disposition of heart that meetens us for the enjoyment of the sweetest fellowship with Him, who is the Parent and source of all being, blessing, and happiness.

Besides, as we have said before, the clearer we make this part of our subject, the easier and the more effectively shall we accomplish the special design we intend to embrace in our next paper; namely, of showing the fallacy of the prohibition we have already specified. But what observations we shall have further to offer, we mean to be chiefly casual ones, or what we may call the gleanings, forming a kind of a summary of the subject, on which we have so copiously enlarged. And we esteem this necessary, because there is an imitation of repentance abroad in the world; consequently, we need a test to distinguish between the counterfeit and the real coin, between the false and the true, between the deceptive and the genuine. And our remarks shall amount to two kinds, negative and positive. first, showing what is not repentance, though there may be a considerable verisimilitude existing between them. And the second, exhibiting what it really is; that we may have our hearts lastingly impressed with the indispensableness of this saving doctrine. And now may the Spirit of all truth impart unto us the light of wisdom and of true discernment, that we may render our subject transparent, and that our explanations of it may be accompanied with demonstration and with irresistible power.

The

First, we shall inquire what repentance is negatively. It is very true, that the plan of our present section is not very dissimilar to that of our last; but when both structures are contrasted, the difference will appear perceptible enough. And the train of thought we shall follow in this, will be found, we hope, so far from being like that in the preceding one, as to be esteemed an acquisition and a clusive finishing to it, rather than otherwise. Hence we proceed to observe

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That natural tenderness of spirit is not repentance. Now this is a very common snare, whereinto multitudes fall and are ruined for ever; namely, their having a softness of spirit, which easily melts at the sight of a pitiable object, or yields at the recitation of a mournful tale of woe, and so mistaking this feeling for repentance. There is a resemblance, it is true, but it is in appearance and not in kind. Hence our liability to err on this point. And what a powerful warning voice proceeds from this fact, to send us to our watch-tower! Let it be remembered, that it is constitutional for some to feel for others' misery, while they lose sight of the spiritual destitution there is in their own breast. Oh! how strange it is (and herein we see the delusive nature of sin,) for a person to weep for another's woe, and not shed a tear for those sins which will prove such an abundant source of misery to the individual's own soul! And what was the counsel of the wise Saviour on this subject? It was this: "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children”—(Luke xxiii. 28).

VOL. XIII.

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Next: superficial sorrow for sin is not true repentance. To vent a sigh, or merely to shed a tear, saying, 'Lord, have mercy upon me,' does not amount to what the Spirit of inspiration means by this term in the holy Scriptures. Oh! no; but true repentance enters into the depths of the soul. It affects the surface, it is true, but is this done by purifying the under current: doubtless it sweetens the streams, but this is effected by healing the spring with the salt of grace. It is not a partial, but a thorough work. Now Ahab went a great way in this superficial repentance, as we learn from Scripture history; there it is said, "And it came to pass, when Ahab heard these words, that he rent his clothes and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went softly”—(1 Kings xxi. 27). But notice here, his clothes were rent, and not his heart: his body was covered with sackcloth, and not his soul with self-abasement. The eye may be watery, and after all the heart flinty; as one said, “A mellow plum may be soft outwardly, but it has an hard stone within ;" and that is the case with every superficial penitent. Therefore guard, O my soul, against a stony heart, and earnestly pray for that which the Word of God terms "an heart of flesh," meaning an heart that is full of the most keen and delicate sensibilities on every point pertaining to spiritual and eternal things.

Again good notions, arising in the heart, amount not to genuine repentance. Oh no. And we would do well, did we always bear in mind that we are creatures of passions; yea, passions that have great power and vehemency in them; and unless they are rightly directed by Divine grace, we are liable every moment to be deceived by them. And we would say, that this is a prolific source of evil, no doubt, to the sanguine and the unwary. Now these notions abound in the hearts of some persons, under the preaching of the Word, or in reading some good books; but in numerous instances they come to nought. For example, Herod was mightily affected under the preaching of John the Baptist; yet he still lived in sin. Also the Roman governor was powerfully moved when Paul "reasoned of righteousness, temperance and judgment to come;" yea, so moved was he, as it is emphatically said, that "Felix trembled;" but what was the event? Surely such a subject and such preaching as that of Paul's had a lasting effect upon his mind. No; but he said, "Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee." And this is the extinguisher that a countless number of sinners put on their good motions. But it is worthy of remark here, that we never read of his "convenient season" to have ever returned or transpired afterwards. Oh! then, let this be a warning to all that are prone to yield to the feeling of procrastination, for that disposition is indeed a thief of time, and often becomes the thief of the heaven of myriads, and the murderer of their immortal souls. But

Lastly leaving off some gross sins falls very far short of this doctrine. Yet may we not suspect, that there are many that entertain such an opinion? Most assuredly we may; but we would assert, that such is a dangerous delusion-a ruinous snare. Hence, observe, that an old sin may be left off to entertain a new one. For instance, a man may leave off prodigality, and become addicted to the more numbing sin of covetousness; but sin is sin in every and in any form. The sacred historian tells us, that Herod reformed many things that were amiss in him, but notwithstanding he still kept his Herodias. And speaking of a judge in Israel, we would say, that whatever our Delilah may be, we shall either lose our strength and be temporally punished for it, or if unrepented of at death, it will ruin us for ever. One sin is enough to condemn us before God, and destroy the neverdying soul.

But is it not possible for a person to leave off an open sin on account of the odium to which that sin necessarily exposes him? Yes, most certainly; and we may take this as an undeniable truth, that the crafty enemy of souls converts this fact into an opiate to lull numberless victims to slumber in the arms of error and in the lap of delusion. But let us examine this question more minutely, for it is not an insignificant one. Is that individual who refrains from sin on the principle we have alluded to, less corrupt and less wicked at heart than an open sinner? We would venture to affirm, not a whit. The difference is only this, (we speak of course of the graceless and the unrenewed,)—the heart of the one is a fountain of iniquity