Socrates declared there was no such thing as human wisdom. In short, all were dissatisfied. The wise had a vagne desire for a religion which comprehended great objects, and had noble ends in view. The people stood in need of a religion which should bring relief to human wants, and consolation to human miseries. They wanted a simple way, proportioned to their comprehension; a short way, proportioned to their leisure; a living way, which should give light to the conscience and support to the mind; a way founded, not on speculation, but evidence, which should carry conversion to the heart as well as conviction to the understanding. Such a religion God was preparing for them in the Gospel of his Son. Christianity was calculated to supply the exigencies both of the Greeks and of the barbarians; but the former, though they more acknowledged their want, more slowly welcomed the relief; while the latter, though they less felt the one, more readily accepted the other."-Vol. i. pp. 17, 18.

Having in the course of this chapter demonstrated the necessity of a more perfect system of belief and morals; of such a system, in short, as the Gospel reveals; the author adverts, in the next, to the historical writers of the New Testament, and points out, with much acuteness, the fidelity, simplicity, and unstudi ed consonance, so strikingly manifested in their several narratives, Their simplicity is beautifully illustrated.

The following observations, which close this chapter, satisfactorily explain the grounds on which St. Paul is selected as a model and recommended as an example :

gination; and Plato's fair idea might have been brought into competition with the doctrines of the Gospel. But in St. Paul is exhibited a portrait which not only illustrates its Divine truth, but establishes its moral efficacy; a portrait entirely free from any distortion in the drawing, from any extravagance in the colouring.

"It is the representation of a man struggling with the sins and infirmities natural to man; yet habitually triumphing over them by that Divine grace which had first rescued him from prejudice, bigotry, and unbelief. It represents him resisting, not only such temptations as are common to men, but surmounting trials to which no other man was ever called; furnishing in his whole practice not only an instructor, but a model; shewing every where in his writings, that the same offers, the same supports, the same victories, are tendered to every suffering child of mortality, that the waters of eternal life are not restricted to prophets and apostles, but are offered freely to every one that thirsteth,-offered without money and without price."-Vol. i. Pp. 45-47.

As the character of St. Paul is

ter to remarks "

chiefly to be traced in the Epistles which bear his name, our Author very properly allots the third chapwriters of the New Testament, and on the epistolary particularly St. Paul ;" and there is much ingenuity and pathos in the manner in which this subject is introduced.

"Can the reader of taste and feeling, who has followed the much-enduring hero of the Odyssey with growing delight and increasing sympathy, though in a work of fiction, through all his wanderings, peruse with inferior inte "Indeed it seemed necessary, in rest the genuine voyages of the Apostle order to demonstrate that the princi- of the Gentiles over nearly the same ples of Christianity are not unattainable, seas? The fabulous adventurer, once nor its precepts impracticable, that the landed, and safe on the shores of his own New Testament should, in some part, Ithaca, the reader's mind is satisfied; present to us a full exemplification of for the object of his anxiety is at rest. its doctrines and of its spirit; that they But not so ends the tale of the Christian should, to produce their practical effect, hero.-Who ever closed St. Luke's nar be embodied in a form purely human,rative of the diversified events of St. for the character of the Founder of its religion is deified humanity. Did the Scriptures present no such exhibition, infidelity might have availed itself of the omission, for the purpose of asserting that Christianity was only a bright chimera, a beautiful fiction of the ima.

Paul's travels; who ever accompanied him with the interest his history demands, from the commencement of his trials at Damascus to his last deliverance from shipwreck, and left him preaching in his own hired house at Rome, without feeling as if he had abruptly

Lost sight of some one very dear to him, without sorrowing that they should see his face no more, without indulging a wish that the intercourse could have been carried on to the end, though that end were martyrdom.

"Such readers, and perhaps only such, will rejoice to renew their acquaintance with this very chiefest of the apostles; not indeed in the communication of subsequent facts, but of important principles; not in the records of the biographer, but in the doctrines of the saint. In fact, to the history of Paul in the Sacred Oracles succeed his Epistles. And these Epistles, as if through design, open with that "to the beloved of God called to be saints" in that very city, the mention of his residence in which concludes the preceding narrative.

"Had the Sacred Cannon closed with the evangelical narrations, had it not been determined in the counsels of Divine Wisdom, that a subsequent por tion of inspired Scripture in another form, should have been added to the historical portions, that the Epistles should have conveyed to us the results of the mission and the death of Christ, how immense would have been the dis. advantage, and how irreparable the loss! May we presume to add, how much less perfect would have been our view of the scheme of Christianity, had the New Testament been curtailed of this important portion of religious and practical instruction." Vol. i. pp. 48-50.

Magna Charta is the original, diminish our reverence for this palladium itself; this basis of our political security, as the Gospel is of our moral and spiritual privileges. In both cases the derived benefit sends us back to the well-head from whence it flows.

"He who professes to read the holy Scriptures for his instruction,' should recollect, whenever he is disposed to be captious, that they are written also for his correction. If we really believe that Christ speaks to us in the Gospels, we must believe that he speaks to us in the Epistles also. In the one he addresses us in his militant, in the other in his glorified character. In one, the Divine Instructor speaks to us on earth; in the other, from heaven. The internal wisdom, the divinity of the doctrines, the accordance both of doctrine and precept with those delivered by the Saviour himself, the powerful and abiding effects which, for near two thousand years they have produced, and are actually producing, on the hearts and lives of multitudes; the same spirit which inspired the writer still ready to assist the reader, all together formning, to every serious inquirer who reads them with an humble heart and a docile spirit, irrefragable arguments, unimpeachable evidence, that they possess as full a claim to inspiration, and consequently have as forcible demand on his belief and obedience, as any of the less litigated portions of the book of God."-Vol. i. pp. 68–70.

With the fourth chapter comIn contending for the Epistles mences, what forms the principal against those who represent them subject of the work; and both that as having a tendency to derogate and the sixteen following chapters from the authority of the Gospels, are exclusively devoted to the conour author thus pointedly argues:sideration of " the character and

"To degrade any portion of the reveal ed will of God is no proof of reverence for Him whose will is revealed. But it is preposterous to insinuate, that a regard for the Epistles is calculated to diminish a regard for the Gospels. Where else can we find such believing, such admiring, such adoring views of Him whose life the Gospel records? Where else are we so grounded in that love which passeth knowledge? Where else are we so continually taught to be looking unto Jesus? Where else are we so powerfully reminded that there is no other name under heaven by which we may be saved? We may as well assert, that the existing laws, of which

practical writings of St. Paul." In pursuit of the object which our author has in view, she has shewn equal penetration and judgment, without affecting any artificial method. She has selected her topics with a wise discrimination; and handled them with such dexterity, as at once to exhibit the Apostle in the loftiest points of view, and yet never to take him out of that sphere within which the reader considers himself to be placed. It is the happy talent of this author to bring her subject into contact with those for whose use it is de

adopted in the worldly sense, it gives but an imperfect idea of the Apostle's meaning. His preceptive passages are encircled with a kind of glory; they are illuminated with a beam from Hea. ven; they proceed from the Spirit of God, and are produced by faith in Him. There is every where that beautiful Intermixture of motive and action, that union of the cause and the effect, the faith and its fruits, that uniform balance of the principle and the produce, which render these Epistles an exhaustless treasury of practical wisdom, as well as an imperishable record of Divine Grace."-Vol. i. p. 117.

The following observations in the next chapter, on the disinterestedness of St. Paul," are equally just and pertinent :

"Saint Paul and his associates were

the first moral instructors who preached not themselves. Perhaps there is scarcely a more striking proof of the grandeur of his spirit, than his indifference to popularity. This is an elevation of character, which not only no Pagan sage has reached, but which not every Christian teacher has been found to attain."-Vol. i. p. 122.

"Another instance of a human being so entirely devoid of selfishness, one who never took his own ease, or advantage, or safety, or credit into the account, cannot be found. If he considered his own sufferings, he considered them for the sake of his friends. 'Whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation.' The only joy he seemed to derive, when he was 'pressed out of measure, above strength,' was, that others might be comforted and encouraged by his sufferings. So also of his consolations; the principal joy which he derived from them was, that others might be animated by them. This anxiety for the proficiency of his converts, in preference to his own safety; his disposition to regard every object in due subjection to the great design of his ministry; his humble vigilant care, while exulting in the hope of an eternal crown, that he might not himself be cast away;-form, in combination with the rest of his conduct, a character which we must allow has not only no superior, but no parallel."-Vol. i, Pp. 127, 128.

treat of this Apostle's" prudence In the two next chapters, which ment towards the Pagans," there towards the Jews," and his "judgis a rich accumulation of acute remark and eloquent description.

In investigating "the general principle of St. Paul's writings,” and in discussing the merits of his "style and genius," (which occupy the ninth and tenth chapters), our author makes a variety of observations, which, while they illustrate the topic to which they are applied, suggest many useful hints for correcting the errors both in judgment and taste which prevail among the different classes of Christians. Our limits oblige us to pass over much which we should be glad to extract; but the following passage, as explaining the general character of St. Paul's writings, and exploding the sentiment, to which we before alluded, of their being chiefly local and temporary, is of so much importance, that we cannot forbear exhibiting it at length.

tical polity, we are aware that some "In regard to Saint Paul's ecclesiasral usefulness of his Epistles, object, persons, with a view to lower the genethe second to the Corinthians, the Apothat in many instances, especially in stle has limited his instructions to usages which relate only to the peculiar condual person, and that they might have cerns of a particular church or indivibeen spared in a work meant for general edification.

"But these are not, as some insist, mere local controversies, obsolete disputes, with which we have no concern. Societies, as well as the individuals of whom they are composed, are much the same in all periods; and though the contentions of the churches which he addressed, might differ something in matter, and much in form and ceremony, from those of modern date; yet the spirit of division, of animosity, of error, of opposition, with which all churches are more or less infected, will have such a common resemblance in all ages, as may make us submit to take a hint or a caution even from topics which may seem foreign to our concerns; and it adds to the value of Saint Paul's expos

Enlations, that they may be made in some degree applicable to other cases. His directions are minute, as well as general, só as scarcely to leave any of the incidents of life, or the exigencies of society, totally unprovided for.

"There are, it is obvious, certain things which refer to particular usages of the general church at its first institution, which no longer exist. There are frequent references to the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, and other circumstances, which though they have now ceased, are of great importance as connected with its history, and assisting in its first formation; and the writer who had neglected to have recorded them would have been blameable, and the Epistles which had not alluded to them, would have been imperfect.

"While the Apostle made adequate provisions, such as the existing case required, or rather permitted, he did not absolutely legislate, as to external things, for any church; wisely leaving Christianity at liberty to incorporate herself with the laws of any country into which she might be introduced; and while the doctrines of the new re ligion were precise, distinct, and definite, its ecclesiastical character was of that generalized nature which would allow it to mix with any form of national government. This was a likely means both to promote its extension, and to prevent it from imbibing a political temper, or a spirit of interference with the secular concerns of any country,

"The wonder is, that the work is so little local, that it savours so little of Antioch or Jerusalem, of Philippi or Corinth; but that almost all is of such general application: relative circumstances did indeed operate, but they always operated subordinately. The Epistle to the Ephesians is not marked with one local peculiarity. There is not a single deduction to be made from the universal applicableness of this elegant and powerful epitome of the Gospel.

"Saint Paul belongs not particularly to the period in which he lived, but is equally the property of each successive race of beings. Time does not diminish their interest in him. He is as fresh to every century as to his own; and the

truths he preaches will be as intimately

connected with that age which shall precede the dissolution of the world, as that in which he wrote. The sympa CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 161.

thies of the real heliever will always be equally awakened by doctrines which will equally apply to their consciences, by principles which will always have a reference to their practice, by promises which will always carry consolation to their hearts. By the Christians of all countries Paul will be considered as a cosmopolite, and by those of all ages as a contemporary. Even when he addresses individuals, his point of view is mankind. He looked to the world as his scene, and to collective man as the actor." Vol. i. pp. 247-252.

"Tenderness of heart," and "heavenly-mindedness," are the next qualities to which our author adverts in the great character which she has undertaken to deli neate; and it is but justice to her to sensibility of heart, and an elevation say, that she describes them with a of spirit, worthy of the subject. We could present our readers with many passages of exquisite beauty from each of the chapters in which these qualities are respectively treated, but we shall confine our selves to a single extract from that on " on "heavenly-mindedness." We are aware indeed, that in speaking of "heavenly-mindedness," we lay ourselves open to the charge of enthusiasm from some who " profess and call themselves Christians." Such persons must allow themselves to be reminded, that to elevate the soul above the influence of the body was declared by the wisest of the heathens to be the aim and the perfection of philosophy. It was necessary, however, to be better instructed than the wisest of the heathen, to know how to accomplish this desirable end. Heavenly-mindedness expresses what philosophy inculcated, but could not teach; and he is in fact the most consummate philosopher who has learnt from Christianity to have his conversation in heaven. But to return: our author having described the quality under consideration to be

the uniting link between doctrinal and practical piety," and to consist in an entire consecration 2 S