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the Bibles published, and all the tracts distributed, and all the missionaries sent abroad into our own land and into the world; and all the schools established, and all the children taught to read, and all the civilisation introduced, and all the asylums opened, and all the poverty relieved? Has no good been done? Good, great good has been done by what has been given; but still more will be done by what shall be given hereafter. Bibles can now be printed at a cheaper rate than heretofore, and the conductors of our charitable operations have learned, by experience, that economy which can be learned in no other way. And yet at this time, when a crown goes so far in doing good, here is a man who says, "I have done giving!" If I had his ear for a moment, I would ask him if he has done receiving-if God has done giving to him. I would ask him, moreover, if he has done spending, or done hoarding, or done wasting. Now, if he has not, he surely should not stop giving. When he ceases to waste, to hoard, and to spend, except for the merest necessaries, then he may stop giving, but never till then.

"Done giving!" that is, done lending to the Lord! Done sowing and

watering! Done offering the sacrifices with which God is well pleased! Done making the widow's heart leap for joy, and bringing on himself the blessing of them that were ready to perish! Well, I am sorry-sorry for the sake of the poor, and the sick, and the orphan, and the ignorant, and the heathen. But no less sorry am I for the man's own sake. Poor man! poor with all his affluence, for there is really no one more poor than he, who, with the ability to give, has not the inclination. He has it in his power to give, but not in his heart. He is enriched with abundance, but not with liberality.

"Done giving!" well then, if he will not give his money, he must keep it. And yet how short is the time he can keep it! Had he not better freely give away some of it, than to wait for it all to be torn from him? The thought that he has given, will be at least as agreeable a meditation in his dying moments, as the reflection that he spent, or that he laid up.

I hope that gentleman who said, "I have done giving," will recall his resolution, and, taking revenge on himself for having made it, give more liberally than ever.-From Dr. Nevins, late of Baltimore.

SACRAMENTAL HYMN.

From the German of Gellert. JESUS lives, and so shall I

Death! thy sting is gone for ever! He who deign'd for me to die,

Lives, the bands of death to sever. He shall raise me with the just: Jesus is my Hope and Trust.

Jesus lives and reigns supreme;
And, his kingdom still remaining,
I shall also be with him,

Ever living, ever reigning.
God has promised; be it must;
Jesus is my Hope and Trust.
Jesus lives, and God extends

Grace to each returning sinner;

Poetry.

Rebels he receives as friends,
And exalts to highest honour.
God is True, as he is Just;
Jesus is my Hope and Trust.
Jesus lives, and by his grace

Victory o'er my passions giving,
will cleanse my heart and ways,
Ever to his glory living.
The weak he raises from the dust:
Jesus is my Hope and Trust.
Jesus lives, and I am sure

Nought shall e'er from Jesus sever.
Satan's wiles, and Satan's power,
Pain or pleasure-ye shall never!
Christian armour cannot rust:
Jesus is my Hope and Trust.

Jesus lives, and death is now

But my entrance into glory. Courage, then, my soul, for thou

Hast a crown of life before thee; Thou shalt find thy hopes were just, Jesus is the Christian's Trust.

DEATH.

Rom. vi. 23.

DEATH! What is death?-A mystery in life.
A dreaded evil- —an unequal strife.
A fearful parting-sure, beyond control.
A pang-a horror-all that chills the soul!

Yes, such is death, our nature's dreaded ill.
Life's woe, its sorrow, thwarter of the will;
But would I answer with the Christian's breath,
The weighty, serious question, What is death?
Nature by grace is conquer'd and subdued,
The soul is changed, enlighten'd, and re-
new'd:

And thus, though nature clings to clay beloved,

Faith triumphs, and can wait her calm remove!

The Saviour's love! It sweetens every pain
Where He has been, how safe we go again!
But more, he promises hitnself to be
Our guide from time into eternity.

This, then, is death, our privilege, our bliss,
Our kind deliverer from a world like this;
Our hope for blessing-'tis the ladder given
To raise from earth, and land us safe in heaven.
CAROLINE ELIZA.

THE LORD DOTH ALL THINGS WELL.

(For the Evangelical Magazine.)

"He hath done all things well." Mark vii. 37.

How sweet, how cheering is the thought,
Which doth our faith compel;

In every thing by Jesus wrought,

The Lord doth all things well.

The heavens and earth, formed by his word, His matchless praises tell ;

Unceasingly from them 'tis heard,
The Lord doth all things well.

And in the saving of our race

From sin, and death, and hell;
In blending righteousness with grace,
The Lord doth all things well.

And though dark clouds his paths surround,
And from us light expel,

It in the end is always found

The Lord doth all things well.

Then let us to his pleasure bow,

And never dare rebel;
His character is proof that now

The Lord doth all things well.

And when he brings us near his throne,
With him in bliss to dwell;

We to eternity shall own

The Lord doth all things well.

Trafalgar-square, Peckham.

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S. DAVIS.

CHRISTIAN FRIENDSHIP."

Of all the gifts that earth can cede,
Out of her rich and boundless store;
There's none more precious than a friend,
None to be prized or valued more.

Of all the friends that ask my love,
Or seek my sympathies to share,
They shall be loved and honour'd most,
Who most the Saviour's image bear.

Oh, give me but a Christian heart,
In truth to sympathize with mine,
I ask no earthly gift beside,
For this all others I'll resign.

Where Christian sympathies unite,
And Christian hearts together blend;
There grief's assuaged, and joy enhanced,
And blessings from on high descend.

Islington.

A. A. D.

Review of Religious Publications.

CHRIST'S SECOND COMING: will it be Pre-
Millennial? By the Rev. DAVID BROWN,
A.M., St. James's Free Church, Glasgow.
Second Edition, carefully revised and cor-
rected, with large additions. 12mo., pp.

524.

Johnstone and Hunter.

DURING the last twenty-five years, in which the Pre-Millennial scheme of doctrine has

been warmly agitated in this country, though watchful of the controversy, we have never, for a single moment, fallen into sympathy with it. To say nothing of the sad extravagance of some of its advocates, the alarmingly unscriptural hypotheses of others, and the

*As, for example, the anticipated re-establishment of the abolished rites and ceremonies of Levitical worship.

tendency of all to infuse into almost every doctrine of Scripture a certain portion of millenarian leaven, and to become men of one idea, we have been held back from the theory, by the great principles of the Christian economy, against which, as we firmly believe, millenarianism wages perpetual war.

Nor can we allow that, in being so restrained, we have either begged the question, or prejudged the system. With us it is a maxim, in Biblical interpretation, that particular texts and portions of Scripture must be so expounded as to be in harmony and keeping with those great cardinal principles announced, in plain and unambiguous terms, by our Lord and his apostles. We reject the Pre-Millennial scheme of doctrine, because it will not enable us to abide by this sound and irrefragable maxim. One or two of those principles may be referred to, to illustrate our meaning.

1. We point emphatically to our Lord's commission, Matt. xxviii. 18-20. Here, after assuring his apostles that "all power in heaven and in earth" was "given" unto him, he says, "Go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Such is the great com. mission given to Christ's heralds, such is the risen Saviours provision, (the only one ever hinted at,) for the conversion of the world,such is the promise of his perpetual presence with those who obey his great command. Our firm, and, as we believe, logical, conclusion from these premises is, that the preaching of the gospel, accompanied by the promised power and presence of Christ, is the Divine and exclusive ordinance of the Christian economy for the conversion of the world, and that no other order of means can ever, by possibility, usurp its place. "Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world." We believe that "the end of the world" spoken of, as the very terms of the commission might suggest, is the completion of that period in which the gospel can be preached, or disciples made, or the presence of Christ be available for these objects.

Such, then, is our principle, stated in the simplest terms. But how, alas! does the PreMillennial advent scheme contravene it! According to that scheme, the world is not to be converted by the preaching of the gospel. The very idea is ridiculed; an elect few are, indeed, to be gathered into the church under the commission which Christ delivered to his apostles; but there is not a shadow of hope for the world's conversion till Christ shall come from heaven to effect it. A more direct assault, though it may be unintentional, on the obvious design of our Lord's commission,

we can hardly imagine. It would be rendering good service to the cause of Millenarianism, if any of its friends would supply us with a few plain, unmistakeable passages, to show that after our Lord's second advent, the gospel will ever be preached, or a single soul ever converted. We challenge them, in all friendly mood, to the task, and anxiously wait their reply. This, then, is our first reason for rejecting the Pre-Millennial advent scheme. It destroys the plain common-sense meaning of our Lord's commission, and sets men a dreaming about another economy, to which Christ himself made no allusion in that commission.

2. We point no less emphatically to our Lord's teaching respecting the mission of the Spirit: "It is expedient for you that go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you," (John xvi. 7.) The offices of the Spirit, in connexion with the truth of the gospel, are definitely announced, and appear to us to include all that can be involved in the instruction and consolation of Christ's disciples, and in the conversion of the world. As it respects the discipleship of Christ, how encouraging are the assurances made to them! "The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you;" (John xiv. 26;) and again, "When He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak; and he shall show you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you." (John xv. 13, 14.) And, as it respects the world, we claim reverently for the Holy Spirit, that his is the only revealed agency for its conversion,-that he is Christ's Minister for this purpose, and that there is not a hint in the New Testament, from beginning to end, that ever his agency will cease while a soul remains to be converted. Let us listen to Him who said, "It is expedient that I should go away:"-" When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me." (John xv. 26.) And how his mission is to be fulfilled to the world is distinctly stated; for "when he is come, he shall reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment. Of sin, because they believe not on me; of righteousness, because I go to the Father, and ye see me no more;-of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged." (John xv. 8-11.) Here, then, is the Spirit "testifying of Christ," "glorifying Christ," "receiving the things of Christ, and shewing them unto men,"

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convincing the world of sin, and righteousness, and judgment;"-and Christ himself asserting that in order to all this, "it is expedient that he should go away;" and, moreover, that while it is being accomplished, his disciples should "see him no more." What, then, are the legitimate inferences? why, assuredly, that the conversion of the world, as well as the progressive illumination and sanctification of the church, is to take place under the dispensation of the Spirit, and not under any personal or visible reign of Messiah upon earth. We reject the Pre-Millennial advent scheme, then, because it opposes itself to Christ's own teaching respecting the mission of the Spirit, and attributes those great transformations which are to take place in our own world to the personal presence and ministry of Christ, which Christ himself attributes to the ministry and witness of the Spirit. Again, we ask for Scriptural evidence to prove that Christ will come the second time to convert a single child of Adam. "He will come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe;"-he will come "with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ;"-but the idea of his coming to convert the world, as the result of the failure of the Spirit's mission, is an imagining which has no place in the Divine revelations of the future. For judgment to his foes, and comfort to his friends, he will come; -but to make friends of those who have not been friends before, is no part of the great work attributed to Christ, when "he shall appear the second time without a sin-offering," unto the salvation of his people.

But while we have been compelled, by such general principles as these, to reject the PreMillennial doctrine, however modified, we have felt ourselves equally repelled by its details. A system which is thus opposed to the general principles of Scripture, cannot be in harmony with its minute details. Millenarians are about the worst interpreters of Scripture that we are acquainted with. Their pre-conceived notions respecting the kingdom of Christ vitiate all their expositions. They find the second advent where no one but themselves would look for it; and, when they think they have found it, they are more occupied with the event itself than with the revealed objects to be accomplished by it, as notified in Scripture.

"One

Mr. Brown has some most sensible and pertinent remarks on this subject. day," says he, "the Redeemer will assuredly come in person. Is that day, then, now 'at hand, even at the doors?' or, 'shall that day not come until' certain events, yet far in the future, have prepared the way for it? A momentous question; yet not precisely the

question which I am to discuss. What I have to investigate is, not when, but for what purpose, the Redeemer will come?

"Some appear to think that all the difference of opinion on the second advent is about its nearness or distance. The sooner they undeceive themselves on this the better. For my own part, if that were all, I should let the subject alone. To me, the coming of the Lord should be as dear as to any whose views about his coming I am to examine. To love his appearing,' is not the monopoly of a section of his friends. To enter the lists, therefore, with those who think he is at the doors, with the mere view of showing that he is not, though it may at times become a necessary duty, to prevent disappointment, is not the most agreeable of tasks. A very different task, however, is mine. Certain events, yet future, are expected on all hands to take place upon earth; for example, the subjugation of the whole world to Christ. If, then, he is to come before this, he may even now be at the doors; whereas, if he is not to come till after this, it cannot, of course, be quite so near. So far, therefore, the question of time is involved, but quite indirectly and subordinately. According as these are expected before or after the coming of Christ, will be the character and complexion they assume in our eyes. If after his coming, he will be expected to re-constitute the mortal state, and establish a terrestrial kingdom, illuminated by the beams of his glory, and pervaded by the sense of his visible presence. Is this, then, what we are taught to look for? The system, in short, which I am to bring to the test of Scripture is briefly this:

"THAT THE FLESHLY AND SUBLUNARY STATE IS NOT TO TERMINATE WITH THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST, BUT TO BE THEN SET UP IN A NEW FORM; WHEN WITH HIS GLORIFIED SAINTS, THE REDEEMER WILL REIGN IN PERSON ON THE THRONE OF DAVID AT JERUSALEM FOR A THOUSAND YEARS, OVER A WORLD OF MEN YET IN THE FLESH, EATING AND DRINKING, PLANTING AND BUILDING, MARRYING AND GIVING IN MARRIAGE, UNDER THIS MYSTERIOUS SWAY."

To the full and critical examination of this theory Mr. Brown addresses himself with all the talent and tact of a scholar and a divine. He lets no author of note, who has written in defence of the Pre-Millennial theory, escape his severe and searching, but, at the same time, Christian and gentlemanly criticism. It would be difficult to present to our readers any adequate idea of the laborious character of this work. It literally exhausts the subject, and leaves, as we think, to his opponents not an inch of ground to stand upon. It is an eminently scriptural treatise. Mr. Brown deals with the whole controversy as a Bible question; and seldom have we seen a more

masterly induction of scriptural evidence brought to bear upon any disputed point. His course of argument is to treat, first, of the second advent, second, of the Millennium, and third, of objections. One great recommendation of the volume is, that it enables the reader fully to judge of the opponents' views, while it rebuts their arguments, unravels their sophistry, and places the post-millennial advent upon the firm basis of revealed truth. We have, in the December number of the Magazine, furnished our readers with a fair specimen of the manner in which Mr. Brown deals with his subject.

We regard this treatise as a standard work in theology. As long as the millennial controversy divides the Christian church, it will claim its place in the libraries of the learned.

THE PAST AND FUTURE. By JOSIAH VINEY.

London: Jackson and Walford.

THE laying of the first stone of an edifice in which the worship of God is to be maintained, and the gospel published, is an event invested with importance to the parties immediately concerned, and fraught with momentous results to generations yet unborn.

It

is proper, therefore, that it should be signalised by solemnities accordant with the objects contemplated, and handed down to posterity, accompanied by a distinct announcement of the polity and doctrines of the denomination or church by which the sanctuary is to be reared. These things were not overlooked by Mr. Viney and his devoted people, on the auspicious occasion when the foundation of their beautiful and commodious chapel and school-room was laid. A great multitude assembled, attesting their interest in the undertaking; supplications and praises ascended to Him to whom the sanctuary is dedicated; and the pastor, in an address distinguished by comprehensiveness, eloquence, and great power, adverted to the past, tracing the origin and ancestry of his flock amid the cruel persecution of the second Charles, and the overwhelming sufferings of puritan confessorsand glanced at the future, distinctly and fearlessly avowing our principles, as Christians, and our polity, as Nonconformists, as "the chart of our journey." As was to be expected, the people, who are deeply attached to their principles and their pastor, and who had already "bountifully, and cheerful givers," contributed £4000 towards the erection of their sanctuary, earnestly requested that a "permanent form" might be given to the admirable address, which connected them with the "noble army" of puritan martyrs, and so beautifully and eloquently exhibited the instrumentality by which Christianity is to be extended, as well

VOL. XXVII,

as

as the principles and polity to which Nonconformists are pledged. Mr. Viney wisely complied with this request, and now the address is given to the public in a permanent form. We, then, earnestly commend it to the attention of our readers as one of the most beautiful and comprehensive embodiments of facts and principles with which it has been our good fortune to meet. Its wide circulation among churches of our order, and, indeed, among Christians of all denominations, could not fail to be attended with the most beneficial results. Although our limited space forbids lengthened extract, we cannot withhold a short passage or two, as a sample, which will doubtless induce our readers to possess themselves of the whole.

66

As

"How absurd," observes Mr. Viney, respecting the sacredness and inviolability of conscience, we cannot but be reminded, are all attempts to force men's opinions, and to intrude into the province of conscience! sure as they do this, whether they be civil or ecclesiastic, so sure are they to overshoot their own mark, and to secure opposite results to those at which they aimed. The object of the Act of Uniformity was to secure the suppression of puritan and evangelical sentiments. Did it succeed? It was intended to tighten the chain of clerical allegiance and it did tighten it, but so that, in tightening, it snapped it, and the nobility of the church was lost. The domain of conscience is a sacred enclosure, and may not be intruded on. It

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is the Holy of Holies, and may not be entered by the vulgar upon pain of mortal results. It cannot be forced. Let the ocean be restrained by the chain of Xerxes, if it can belet the avalanche be checked in its descent by the touch of a feather, if it may be—but never think to bind the Samson strength of an enlightened conscience by the green withs, or the new cords' of any Philistine authority. It will burst the bands asunder, as when tow is touched by the fire; and going forth to shake itself, it will be urged to yet greater exploits by the efforts which have been made to restrain it. Nothing ever so strengthened the ranks of Nonconformity as the act which was intended to crush it."

Again, when urging higher attainments in religion, Mr. Viney adds, "Religion is too much a thing of seasons, place, circumstances, with us, instead of being a pervading influence-an atmosphere-a 'life.' It is an act, rather than a habit; a spasm, rather than a pulse; a convulsion, rather than a 'walk' with God; but it should be just the opposite. Profession, like the fair vestment of the ancient baptized, may now be easily assumed, but believers must put on the 'Lord Jesus Christ,' if they would indeed be baptized for the dead.' Intelligent, large-hearted, living piety-the piety of the New Testament; th

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