of the evil and malignity of sin, and of the mighty power and efficacy of the gospel,-what he had realised of the loving-kindness of God, of the grace and mercy of the Saviour, of the quickening and purifying influences of the Holy Spirit, of the preciousness and saving virtue of redeeming love. In these respects they are very rich, and will be much prized by experienced believers in their retired moments. His experimental observations are often very choice. Mark a few specimens: "When you set yourself to seek the Lord, prepare yourself for temptation."

"You are not to suppose that a Christian's life is a series of uninterrupted comfort:-no; it is comfort of a superior nature, and, therefore, strongly opposed."

"You are now to be a cross-bearer to Jesus, and you cannot expect to carry it without feeling."

"You are called to lay hold on eternal life; but you must fight for it. Faith is the faculty that is to be in exercise, and, by holding out, you will prove it a good fight."

"Your armour is complete and ready; you have it at large in Eph. vi. 14, and you have nothing to do but to take and use it."

The enemy sowed tares among the wheat, in hope that the wheat would be rejected with the tares; but, in the church militant, both will grow together."

"The Scriptures are given for your direction; prize them as a choice treasure, and remember they are a letter of loving-kindness from an insulted God to the rebellious children of men. more spiritually-minded you become, the more you will be helped to admire and exclaim, How precious are thy thoughts to me, O God!"

The

"While you read, pray. This will prove to you the safest track;- communion with God and yourself will supply the want of other company."

Reading the book of God, and your own heart, will afford you more spiritual

knowledge than all the men in the world can attain unto by the dint of study."

"Hear the Word preached as the Word of God; know your opportunities, and improve them; and pray for understanding to know, and grace to practise."

"If you see more of your misery, it will be only that you may know, and be more sensible of the exceeding riches of His mercy; the more we have forgiven, the more we shall love."

"I do not desire to bias you to a party; that be far from me; but to establish you in the hope of the gospelthat lively hope which will make you what God originally created us, and what only we can be, by being created anew in Christ Jesus, namely, a living soul."

"Usefulness must be the basis of true happiness. The minister purchases his happiness at a dear rate, who suffers his people to sleep in their sins."

"No conditions are so binding as those arising from affection; no bonds so lasting as those made up of the unity of the Spirit."

The letters of Cornelius Winter abound in sagacious remark. There is a penetration of character which we admire. There is an acuteness, a raciness, a sageness of observation, which we value. There is not unfrequently an originality marking his sentiments on life, manners, morals, the ministry, and religion, which we always appre ciate. In attentively reading his numerous letters-and we have recently examined them with care, previously to penning these observations—we are exceedingly interested and benefited by the shrewdness and sagacity which they unfold.

The letters of Cornelius Winter evince the heart of the writer. They are full of soul. There is no tameness, no coldness, nothing lifeless or apathetic. There is the utmost warmth, tenderness, and cordiality. The heart displayed in his letters-their deep,

beautiful, affectionate feeling-we regard as their greatest charm.

The letters of Cornelius Winter are very striking, as expressions of his confidence in God, under his varied and peculiar difficulties, in connexion with the painful and stormy events, especially of his earlier history. He was nursed in adversity, disappointment, and sorrow. Some of his early trials, to a man of his delicate sensibility, must have been most poignant and agonising. In his correspondence, however, we see not merely that he did trust his heavenly Father to sustain him in every hour of adversity-to console his spirit when enduring bitter sorrow, and to preserve him amid the fury of every storm-but that he was resolved to trust Him in the most implicit and absolute manner, without any hesitancy, suspicion, or limitation, whatever.

The letters of Cornelius Winter are beautiful to us, as developing the eleva tion and loveliness which Christianity gives to the character. They show, most impressively, how the Gospel of Christ refines and ennobles the mindhow it imparts comprehensiveness and force to the understanding, purity and tenderness to the affectious, benevolence and power to the energies, and a directness and usefulness to the life, the most interesting and important in themselves, and the most striking to every intelligent observer. No person, of cor rect thought and feeling, can attentively peruse the epistolary correspondence of this devout and holy man, without being deeply impressed with the truth of this observation.

Most earnestly do we recommend the perusal of the Letters of Cornelius Winter to students for the Christian ministry. They will find in them the most admirable sentiments in relation to their character and studies, and the importance and responsibility of that great work, to which, throughout life, they are to be devoted.

We strongly commend these valuable

letters to all the ministers of the Word. They will find them most refreshing and beneficial as helps to devotion — as sources of instruction and consolation -as furnishing admirable principles and maxims-as incitements to increas ing diligence and consecration in the arduous and stupendous undertaking which is perpetually to elicit and enkindle their energies.

We warmly invite heads of Christian families to read, carefully and devotionally, these simple and experimental letters. How much is there, in the cor respondence of Cornelius Winter, to teach them in relation to their charac ter-to guide them amidst their daily difficulties-to succour them in all their temptations and weaknesses-to comfort and fortify them when surrounded by all their sorrows and dangers! How much is there in these epistolary communications to enrich the mind, to benefit the heart, to prepare for every domestic duty, to sustain under every domestic trial!

We fervently recommend the letters of Cornelius Winter to afflicted saints. They, we are persuaded, will find them to be very precious. They will be as balm to their wounded and agonised spirits, by the encouragements in which they abound-by the directions in the time of trial which they furnish—by the distinct and beautitul references to the Great Comforter which they so broadly make-by the promises of the gospel which they so strikingly bring before the mind, and so vividly applyand by the hopes of heaven to which they so delightfully point. On these ample and truly weighty grounds we strongly commend them to the afflicted disciples of the Redeemer. They are pre-eminently adapted to speak peace to the troubled spirit-to inspire aud strengthen submission to the will of God, and to dissipate every rising fear. We cannot wonder that this meek, peaceful, humble, and holy man of God, died in so calm and happy a manner.

the sneers which they sometimes throw out at alleged attempts to convert the world by means of Bible and Missionary Societies, and their ill-disguised insinuations-sometimes not disguised at allagainst the WORD and the blessed SPIRIT themselves, as inadequate to accomplish the predicted evangelization of the world.

"The more common opinion," says Dr. M'Neile, "is, that this is the final dispensation, and that by a more copious outpouring of the Holy Spirit it will magnify itself, and swell into the universal blessedness predicted by the prophets, carrying with it Jews and Gentiles, even the whole world, in one glorious flock under one Shepherd, Jesus Christ the Lord. This is reiterated from pulpit, press, and platform. It is the usual climax of missionary exhortation, or rather missionary prophecy."

"Multitudes of professors of religion," says Mr. Brooks," are at this time under a delusion in regard to the nature of those events which are impending over the Church of Christ. The generality are agreed that a great crisis is at hand, and likewise that we are on the eve of the millennium; but the party just alluded to are disposed to think that. ... we are to glide into it, as it were, by the instrumentality of our various institutions for evangelizing the heathen; by means of which there will be a gradually increasing diffusion of Scriptural light, until the whole earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea-(Isa. xi. 9.) As regards, however, the kingdom of Christ, which is the millennial kingdom, the testimony of Scripture is most abundant to the fact, that it is to be ushered in by desolating judgments; and that the universal prevalence of religion hereafter to be enjoyed, is not to be effected by any increased impetus given by THE PRESENT means of evangelizing the nations, but by a stupendous display of Divine wrath upon all the apostate and ungodly."‡

"The Scriptures," says Mr. Tyso, "do state the design of the Gospel, and what it is to effect; but they never say it is to convert the world. Its powers have been tried for eighteen hundred years, and it has never yet truly converted one nation, one city, one town, nor even a single village. Yet some Christians

Lect. on the Jews, ut supra, p. 72.

Note here, by the way, this naked acknowledgment, that Christ's kingdom is not yet in being. Attempts are now made to represent this as no part of the pre-millennial creed; but whether this can be said of the author of "Abdiel's Essays," at least et the reader judge from the above extract. Elem. of Proph. Interp. pp. 227, 228.

are vainly supposing that it will, 'by a gradual and accelerated progression,' convert the world.. The Scriptures never state that the Gospel, or Christian economy, will be the means of converting the world. . . . That the world is to be converted is evident from many Scriptures; but they ascribe it principally to other causes, and not, as our opponents will have, entirely to the preaching of the Gospel. In all cases the Jews will have a pre-eminence. To the Jews first;' and their restoration will be to the Gentiles as life from the dead," &c.*

"The Christian," says Mr. Ogilvy,† "sees this command written in legible characters, 'Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature,' and he feels it to be his duty to do so, for he does not know who may or who may not receive it; but he does not find it dead, and your preaching shall sooner or later convert the whole world; therefore he does not draw that conclusion.

He further finds that the kingdom and universal Church are to be established, not by gradual conversion, or by conversion more or less rapid under this dispensation, BUT BY THE PERSONAL ADVENT of our Lord himself, and all the remarkable EVENTS that accompany it." +

Can anything be looser than these statements, or more painful than the inferences which they suggest? A few paragraphs will put the matter upon its right footing.

1. The question here is not, Whether the conversion of the world is to be quick or slow, gradual or instautaneous; but, Will the means of effecting the predicted changes be the same as are now in operation, or will they be different? Will the cause of them be the same as of conversions now, or will it not? Nor let these writers shelter themselves under such expressions as our various institutions for evangelizing the heathen"-" the present means of evangelizing the nations." These, they know

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* Defence of the Personal Reign of Christ, pp. 41, 42. 1841. Another work of this author is most favourably noticed in the "Investigator of Prophecy," though on some points the writers differ.

+ Mr. Bickersteth specially notices the omission of all reference to this author in my former edition. I had not then read it; but having since procured it, and found nothing new in it, I content myself with an occasional reference to it, just to show that on such a point as this the sentiment ascribed to pre-millennialists is not peculiar to one or two

writers.

Popular Objections to the Pre-millennial Advent Considered. By Geo. Ogilvy, Esq., pp. 216, 217. Second edition. 1847.