not a body; therefore the beauty of temples, delicacy of sacrifices, fumes of incense, are not grateful to him; by those, or any external action, we have no communion with him. A spirit, when broken, is his delightful sacrifice. We must therefore have our spirits fitted for him, be renewed in the spirit of our minds, that we may be in a posture to live with him, and have intercourse with him. We can never be united to God but in our spirits; bodies unite with bodies, spirits with spirits: the more spiritual anything is, the more closely doth it unite. Air hath the closest union; nothing meets together sooner than that, when the parts are divided by the interposition of a body.

INFERENCE V. If God be a Spirit, he can only be the true satisfaction of our spirits; spirit can only be filled with spirit. Content flows from likeness and suitableness. As we have a resemblance to God in regard of the spiritual nature of our soul, so can we have no satisfaction but in him. Spirit can no more be really satisfied with that which is corporeal, than a beast can delight in the company of an angel. Corporeal things can no more fill a hungry spirit, than a pure spirit can feed a hungry body. God, the highest Spirit, can only reach out a full content to our spirits. Man is lord of the creation; nothing below him can be fit for his converse; nothing above him offers itself to his converse, but God. We have no correspondence with angels; the influence they have upon us, the protection they afford us, is secret and undiscerned: but God, the highest Spirit, offers himself to us in his Son, in his ordinances,-is visible in every creature, presents himself in every providence: to him we must seek, in him we must rest. God had no rest in the creation till he had made man; and man can have no rest in the creation till he rests in God.

God only is our dwelling-place: our souls should long for him, and wait only upon him. The spirit of man never rises to its original glory till it be carried up, on the wings of faith and love, to its original copy. The face of the soul looks most beautiful when it is turned to the face of God, the Father of spirits; when the derived spirit is fixed upon the original Spirit, drawing from it life and glory. Spirit is the only receptacle of spirit. God, as Spirit, is our principle; we must therefore live upon him, and satisfy ourselves in him.

INFERENCE VI. If God be a Spirit, we should take most care of that wherein we are like God. Spirit is nobler than body; we must therefore value our spirits above our bodies. The soul, as spirit, partakes more of the divine nature, and deserves more of our choicest care. If we have any real affection to our own spirits, as bearing a stamp of the spiritual Divinity, the chiefest of the works of God, that which is most the image of this immense Spirit should be our darling. So David calls his soul. Shall we take care of that wherein we partake not of God, and not delight in the jewel that hath his own signature upon it? God was not only the framer of spirits, and the end of spirits, but the copy and exemplar of spirits.

God partakes of no corporeity; he is pure Spirit: but how do we act as if we were only matter and body! We have but little kindness for this great Spirit, as well as our own, if we take no care of his immediate offspring; since he is not only Spirit, but the Father of spirits.

INFERENCE VII. If God be a Spirit, let us take heed of those sins which are spiritual. Paul distinguished between the filth of the flesh, and that of the spirit. By the one we defile the body, by the other we defile the spirit, which, in regard of its nature, is of kin to the Creator. To wrong one who is near of kin to a Prince, is worse than to injure an inferior subject.

When we make our spirits, which are most like God in their nature, and framed according to his image, a stage to act vain imaginations, wicked desires, and unclean affections, we wrong God in the excellency of his work, and reflect upon the nobleness of the pattern. We wrong him in that part where he hath stamped the most signal character of his own spiritual nature; we defile that wherein we have only conversed with him as a spirit, which he hath ordained more immediately to represent him in this nature than all corporeal things in the world can, and make that spirit with whom we desire to be joined unfit for such a knot.

God's spirituality is the root of all his other perfections. We have already heard he could not be infinite, omnipresent, immutable, without it. Spiritual sins are the greatest root of bitterness within us. As grace in our spirits renders us more like a spiritual God, so spiritual sins bring us into conformity to a degraded devil. Carnal sins change us from men to brutes, and spiritual sins divest us of the image of God, for the image of Satan. We should by no means make our spirits a dunghill, which bear upon them the spiritual nature of God, and were made for his residence. Let us therefore behave ourselves towards God in all those ways which the spiritual nature of God requires us.-Charnock.

THE CHARACTER OF JOHN BUNYAN AS A THEOLOGIAN.* BY THE REV. JAMES HAMILTON,

OF THE SCOTCH CHURCH, REGENT-SQUARE.

I. BUNYAN'S theological merits we rank very high. No one can turn over his pages without noticing the abundance of his scriptural quotations; and these quotations no one can examine without perceiving how minutely he had studied, and how deeply he had pondered, the word of God. But it is possible to be very textual, and yet by no means very scriptural. A man may have an exact acquaintance with the literal Bible, and yet entirely miss the great Bible-message. He may possess a dexterous command of detached passages and insulated sentences, and yet be entirely ignorant of that peculiar scheme which forms the great Gospel revelation. But this was Bunyan's peculiar excellence. He was even better acquainted with the Gospel as the scheme of God, than he was familiar with the Bible-text ; and the consequence is, that though he is sometimes irrelevant in his references, and fanciful in interpreting particular passages, his doctrine is almost always according to the analogy of faith. The doctrine of a free and instant justification by the imputed righteousness of Christ, none even of the Puritans could state with more Luther-like boldness, nor defend with an affection more worthy of Paul. In his last and best days, Coleridge wrote:"I know of no book, the Bible excepted, as above all comparison, which I, according to my judgment and experience, could so safely recommend as teaching and enforcing the whole saving truth, according to the mind that was in Christ Jesus, as the 'Pilgrim's Progress.' It is, in my conviction, the best Summa Theologia Evangelicæ ever produced by a writer not mira

*"Works of the English Puritan Divines. The Jerusalem Sinner saved: The Pharisee and the Publican: The Trinity and a Christian: The Law and a Christian: &c., &c. By John Bunyan. To which is appended an Exhortation to Peace and Unity. With Life of Bunyan, by the Rev. James Hamilton, Scotch Church, Regent-Square, London. London: Thomas Nelson. 1845."

* 66

culously inspired.” Without questioning this verdict, we would include in the encomium some of his other writings, which possibly Coleridge never saw; such as the tracts contained in this volume. They exhibit Gospel truths in so clear a light, and state them in such a frank and happy tone, that "he may run that readeth it," and he who reads in earnest will rejoice. The "Pilgrim" is a peerless guide to those who have already passed in at the wicket-gate; but those who are still seeking peace to their troubled souls, will find the best directory in "The Jerusalem Sinner saved."

II. Invaluable as a theologian, Bunyan stands alone as a contributor to theological literature. In recent times no man has done so much to draw the world's delighted attention to the subjects of supreme solicitude. No production of a mortal pen has found so many readers as one work of his ; and none has awakened so frequently the sighing behest, "Let me die the death of the righteous.”

None has painted the beauty of holiness in tints more lovely, nor spoken in tones more thrilling to the heart of universal humanity. At first the favourite of the vulgar, he is now the wonder of the learned; and from the obscurity, not inglorious, of smoky cupboards and cottage chimneys, he has been escorted up to the highest places of classical renown, and duly canonized by the pontiffs of taste and literature. The man whom Cowper praised anonymously,

"Lest so despised a name should move a sneer,"

has at last extorted emulous plaudits from a larger host of writers than ever conspired to praise a man of genius, who was also a man of God. Johnson and Franklin, Scott, Coleridge, and Southey, Byron and Montgomery, Macintosh and Macaulay, have exerted their philosophical acumen and poetic feeling to analyze his various spell, and account for his unequalled fame; and though the round cornered copies, with their diverting wood-cuts, have not disappeared from the poor man's ingle, illustrated editions blaze from the shelves of every sumptuous library; new pictures, from its exhaustless themes, light up the walls of each annual exhibition; and amidst the graceful litter of the drawing-room table, you are sure to take up designs from the "Pilgrim's Progress." So universal is the ascendancy of the tinker-teacher, so world-wide the diocess of him whom Whitefield created Bishop Bunyan, that probably half the ideas which the outside-world entertains regarding experimental piety, they have, in some form or other, derived from him. One of the most popular Preachers in his day, in his little treatises, as well as in his longer allegories, he preaches to countless thousands still. The cause of this unexampled popularity is a question of great practical moment.

And, first of all, Bunyan speaks to the whole of man,-to his imagination, his intellect, his heart. He had in himself all these ingredients of full-formed humanity, and in his books he lets all of them out. French writers and Preachers are apt to deal too exclusively in the one article,— fancy; and though you are amused for the moment with the rocket-shower of brilliant and many-tinted ideas which fall sparkling around you, when the exhibition is ended, you are disappointed to find that the whole was momentary, and that from all the ruby and emerald rain scarcely one gem

* Remains, vol. iii., p. 391.

of solid thought remains.* Scottish writers and Preachers are apt to indulge the argumentative cacoëthes of their country; and, cramming into a tract or sermon as much hard-thinking as the Bramah-pressure of hydrostatic intellects can condense into the iron paragraphs, they leave no room for such delicate materials as fancy or feeling, illustration, imagery, or affectionate appeal: + whilst Irish authors and pulpit-orators are so surcharged with their own exuberant enthusiasm, that their main hope of making you think as they think, is to make you feel as they feel. The heart is their Aristotle; and if they cannot win you by a smile or melt you by a tear, they would think it labour lost to try a syllogism. Bunyan was neither French, nor Scotch, nor Irish. He embodied in his person, though greatly magnified, the average mind of England,-playful, affectionate, downright. His intellectual power comes chiefly out in that homely, self-commending sense, the brief, business-like reasoning, which might be termed Saxon logic, and of which Swift in one century, and Cobbett in another, are obvious instances. His premises are not always true, nor his inferences always legitimate; but there is such evident absence of sophistry, and even of that refining and hair-splitting which usually beget the suspicion of sophistry,-his statements are so sincere, and his conclusions so direct, the language is so perspicuous, and the appeal is made so honestly to each reader's understanding, that his popularity as a reasoner is inevitable. We need not say that the author of the Pilgrim possessed imagination; but it is important to note the service it rendered to his preaching, and the charm which it still imparts to his miscellaneous works. The pictorial power he possessed in a rare degree. His mental eye perceived the truth most vividly. Some minds are moving in a constant mystery. They see men like trees walking. The different doctrines of the Bible all wear dim outlines to them, jostling and jumbling; and after a perplexing morrice of bewildering hints and half discoveries, they vanish into the misty back-ground of nonentity. To Bunyan's bright and broadwaking eye all things were clear. The men walked and the trees stood still. Everything was seen in sharp relief and definite outline,—a reality. And besides the pictorial, he possessed in highest perfection the illustrative faculty. Not only did his own mind perceive the truth most vividly, but he saw the very way to give others a clear perception of it also. This is the great secret of successful teaching. Like a man who has clambered his difficult way to the top of a rocky eminence, but who, once he has reached the summit, perceives an easier path, and directs his companions along its gentler slopes, and gives them a helping hand to lift them over the final obstacles; it was by giant struggles over the debris of crumbling hopes, and through jungles of despair, and up the cliffs of apparent impossibility, that Bunyan forced his way to the pinnacle of his eventual joy; but no sooner was he standing there, than his eagle-eye detected the easier path, and he made it the business of his benevolent ministry to guide others into it. Though not the truth, an illustration is a stepping-stone towards it; an indentation in the rock which makes it easier to climb. No man had a happier knack in hewing out these notches in the cliff, and no one knew

* Pascal was an exception. D'Aubigné, so far as writing in French makes a Frenchman, is another. Their works are full of fancy; but it is the fancy which gives to truth its wings. The rocket is charged, not with coloured sparks, but burning jewels.

+ Here, again, exceptions occur; and the greatest of our Scottish Preachers is a contradiction to the characteristic style of his country.

better where to place them, than this pilgrim's pioneer. Besides, he rightly judged that the value of these suggestive similes-these illustrative stepping-stones-depends very much on their breadth and frequency. But Bunyan appeals not only to the intellect and imagination, but to the hearts, of men. There was no bitterness in Bunyan. He was a man of kindness and compassion. How sorry he is for Mr. Badman! and how he makes you sympathize with Christian, and Mr. Ready-to-halt, and Mr. Feeblemind, and all the other interesting companions of that eventful journey! And in his sermons, how piteously he pleads with sinners for their own souls! and how impressive is the undisguised vehemency of his yearning affections! In the same sentence Bunyan has a word for the man of sense, and another for the man of fancy, and a third for the man of feeling; and by thus blending the intellectual, the imaginative, and the affectionate, he speaks home to the whole of man, and has made his works a lesson-book for all mankind.

Another secret of Bunyan's popularity is the felicity of his style. His English is vernacular, idiomatic, universal; varying with the subject; homely in the continuous narrative; racy and pungent in his lively and often rapid discourse; and, when occasion requires, "a model of unaffected dignity and rhythmical flow;" but always plain, strong, and natural. However, in speaking of his style, we do not so much intend his words as his entire mode of expression. A thought is like a gem; but, like a gem, it may be spoiled in the setting. A careless artist may chip it, and grievously curtail its dimensions; a clumsy craftsman, in his fear of destroying it, may not sufficiently polish it; or in his solicitude to show off its beauty, may overdo the accompanying ornaments. Bunyan was too skilful a workman so to mismanage the matter. His expression neither curtails nor encumbers the thought, but makes the most of it; that is, presents it to the reader as it is seen by the writer. Though there is a great appearance of amplitude about his compositions, few of his words could be wanted. Some styles are an ill-spun thread, full of inequalities, and shaggy from beginning to end with projecting fibres which spoil its beauty, and add nothing to its strength; but in its easy continuousness and trim compactness, the thread of Bunyan's discourse flows firm and smooth from first to last. Its fulness regales the ear, and its felicity aids the understanding,

WESLEY PAPERS.

No. VII.-MISS LEWEN'S LEGACY AND LIBERALITY TO THE REV. JOHN WESLEY.

(To the Editor of the Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine.)

MR. WESLEY generally travelled on horseback till he was between sixty and seventy years of age. In a letter to Mr. Blackwell, who had just set up his carriage, he says, "I must be on horseback for life;"* but if his

*The whole paragraph runs thus:" My brother informs me that you have been so extremely ill, that your life was hardly expected. I really am under apprchensions lest that chariot should cost you your life. If, after having been accustomed to ride on horseback for many years, you should now exchange a horse for a carriage, it cannot be that you should have good health. It is a vain thing to expect it. I judge of your case by my own. I must be on horseback for life, if I would be healthy. Now and then, indeed, if I could afford it, I should rest myself for