Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

cumstances, hidden from the world at large, but important, to a very high degree, both in themselves and in their bearings. It would be no difficult task, and the effects might be most salutary, were brief statements, from time to time, published, as in the present instance. No confidence needs be violated; no delicacy outraged; names might be withheld, while the truth of the whole would be placed beyond suspicion, by the signature of a respectable Editor. Discretion would certainly be requisite; and a fair example of its exercise is offered in the volume before us.

We take the following specimen as being of convenient length.

THE ANTINOMIAN.

"Kaleidus, when he came under my pastoral charge, thirteen years ago, was about five and thirty. He was a man that could not pass undistinguished. His form was noble and athletic: his countenance manly and dignified. Without education, he had acquired that propriety of expres sion, which raised him far above his rank. He was, indeed, only a degree above a labourer in the field; but he was ambitious of raising his condition; and, being clever in his line, had every prospect of comfort for his family. With these advantages, he was welcomed into the church as an acquisition. His conversation was spiritual, and his gift in prayer extraordinary. Often have I wondered how a man without education, could express himself with that grammatical accuracy and general propriety, which one might have expected from a minister graduated at an university.

"Such a man, even in an humble rank of life, would naturally obtain influence in any society to which he had access, and especially among a country congregation. I am inclined to think that the attention which was paid him flattered his vanity, and fanned the latent spark of ambition: for soon there appeared in him a departure from his former modesty, and the indication of no small degree of conscious superiority. His conversation assumed something of the oracular cast: he saw in the Bible, what his minister could not see; his minister was legal, and needed instruction; and with this view, he would favour

him with visits, after he had finished his labours in the field. Others through his influence and persuasion caught the same spirit, and at length a formidable Antinomian faction was raised, which effected a most distressing alienation of affection and

esteem.

"Things continued in this state for some months, when, a hard winter occurring, Kaleidus was prevented from following his occupation; and even when work

might be had, his high spirit would not brook the reduction of the price of labour, occasioned by the change of times. Anxiety and scanty fare predisposing his robust frame for disease, he was attacked with a fever, which in a few weeks brought him to the grave. Every attention, however, was paid to him as soon as he began to droop: all differences were forgotten, and our only care was to preserve him from death, and to obtain some tokens of a return to the principles and the spirit which he had abandoned. Not so, however, was the result; for he died, clinging with tenacity to his heretical Antinomian notions, and breathing the same spirit of pride and self-sufficiency to the last.

"It is melancholy to tell, that on his decease it appeared, that, though only a labourer in the field, he had incurred debts amounting to upwards of two hundred pounds. Credit to such an extent had he obtained among the members of the congregation! When these persons found themselves the dupes of his plausi. bility, they said, with every mark of sincerity, "Well, if these are the effects of the new doctrines, we wish we had never heard them!" Touched in a very tender part, they could now listen, without aversion, to their pastor's legality; and, for the most part, gradually returned from the by-path into which they had been led astray.

"Thus the great "refiner" of the church carried it through this "fiery trial," dross. The Antinomian spirit has not trouand purged it of no small portion of its bled this church from that time to the present; and, I trust, if ever the Evil One, in

[ocr errors]

going to and fro, and walking up and down in the earth," should make any further attempts of this kind in that place, mediately rise up, as a prophylactic against the name and story of Kaleidus will imanother Antinomian faction. "It was the Lord's doing, and marvellous in our eyes."

In the same Review from which cles, we find, as already intimated, we have taken the foregoing artithe notice of three volumes of sermons, which we could wish were republished in this country-although we are well aware how small Christians for a volume of sermons. is the demand among American But these are of a peculiar character and of peculiar excellence, by

[blocks in formation]

3. THE CHRISTIAN CONTEMPLATED, in a Course of Lectures, delivered in Argyle Chapel, Bath. By William Jay. 8vo. Second Edition. pp. 446. London. 1827.

From each of these volumes we shall select a single extract, as given in the Review. The first shall be from a sermon preached by Mr. Noel, on Ephes. ii. 18. "For through him, we both have access, by one Spirit, unto the Father." And we cannot forbear to say, that we have never seen our own views of the important subject of this discourse, more accurately and happily expressed than in this extract.

This single verse comprises a view of the Deity in the highest degree efficient and consolatory. It reveals the glorious Godhead as a blessed Trinity of Persons in one eternal essence. And surely no one can read the New Testament with candour and attention, without perceiving a Divine authority and power to be attributed to three separate Persons. The very initiatory rite of Christianity ordains its converts to be baptized "in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost;" while the rich and well known benediction of the Apostle conveys the same truth-"The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with you all." And in the Evangelick history, as well as in the epistles of the apostles, actions are attributed to each separate Name which belong to Omnipotence alone: while at the same time it is as dis

tinctly asserted, that there is but one

God.' "Thou shalt have none other
Gods but me.'

But let it be here observed, that the

mode or sense in which these sacred Persons are distinct, and yet one, is not revealed to us. The subject is thus in its fuller manifestation placed above our reason, although in no respect contradictory to it. And this is a distinction of the greatest possible importance. Our reason is the indestructible principle to which God himself refers in all his deal. ings with us; and to admit any thing to be true contrary to its plain decision, in a matter on which it is competent to judge, would be to overthrow the very standard to which God himself refers us, in all our judgments of truth and falsehood. But, on the other hand, reason admonishes us, that as a finite being can never be commensurate with an infinite Being, any re. velation made from God to man, will probably contain many things which can be but imperfectly disclosed to him. While certain facts may be discovered to him, the mode in which those facts are true and consistent with each other, may be utterly hidden from his view.

The doctrine of the Trinity is an example both of such disclosure and of such imperfection. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, are revealed to us as clothed with the attributes of God, while the Godhead is asserted to be One. But as to the mode or the sense in which this

Trinity and this Unity are rendered consistent with each other, an entire silence is observed, which we in vain endeavour to break.

thus;-in no single instance are we required to believe any thing contrary to our reason, which would be in fact to destroy the office of both reason and revelation, but we are directed to receive as true, certain facts upon the warrant of God's word; the precise connexion and agreement of which with each other, we are not required to believe, simply because they are not the subjects of Revelation, and therefore cannot be the subjects of faith. These remarks are necessary, because the doctrine of the Trinity, with many other doctrines of Revelation, has been sometimes rejected as if they were opposed to the clearest dictates of reason. But this is in no degree true. The doctrine, we repeat, goes beyond, but it is never opposed to reason. There is no real resemblance between the propo sition, that the Godhead exists under three distinct Persons, in one essence, and that three material objects which we perceive to be distinct, are yet One. There is the greatest possible difference in these two propositions; because the mode or the

The case of Revelation stands then.

sense in which the Godhead is one, and the sacred Persons three, is not revealed. The facts alone are stated, but the cohe. rence of those facts is hidden from our view. On the other hand, we fully comprehend the separate existence of those material objects, and we are satisfied they cannot be one. Our reason is competent to reject such a proposition: but while, in the other case, we are required to believe that divine attributes belong to those sacred Persons, we are not required to believe the mode in which those sacred Persons are one in the same eternal essence. With this we have nothing to do; this lies far beyond the limited regions of our poor conception.

It may be here observed, that the co-existence of the humanity and deity of Christ is another of those subjects in which the fact is perfectly intelligible, while the mode of its existence remains concealed. In this case, likewise, the doctrine, while it travels beyond our reason, it is in no respect opposed to it. There is in reality, we fearlessly assert, nothing so reasonable as Christianity. It never requires us to advance a single step, in a direction contrary to that common sense with which God has endowed our nature. When it reveals facts the whole of whose attendant circumstances are beyond our conception, the facts alone are proposed to us as the objects of faith, but not those circumstances which are attendant on them. Our reason is therefore always the guide of our faith. Were it otherwise, we should be utterly lost in a chaos of moral impressions. In reference, therefore, to the doctrines of the Trinity; or of the incarnation of Christ; of the responsibility of man, in connexion with the determinate counsel of God; or of prophecy; or of the resurrection of the body; or of various other but similar declarations of the Scriptures-in reference to these doctrines, we are never required to quit the guidance of reason. We are never required to believe that which we cannot comprehend. Our knowledge is always the boundary of our belief.

Let it also be here remarked, that every statement of Christianity which is made an object of our faith, has a benign and purifying tendency. There is no doctrine which as it were ends with itself, it always refers to some great moral object. It has been sometimes said, that Christianity comprises some things to be believed, and some things to be practised; as if these two classes of objects could be distinctly separated, but this is a great error. There is no object of faith which is not more or less connected with a practical purpose. The great design of reve. lation is to draw man back to God; to res.

cue him from the pressure and degradation of his senses; to heal his diseased heart; to readmit him to an intimacy with God; to vindicate before him his Creator's character, and to bind him by every holy and high association to an unbroken and eternal allegiance.

Of what character then is the sacred manifestation of Deity in the doctrine of the Trinity? Is it a mere theological dogma, which requires the utter prostration of the understanding, but which has no moral influence upon the heart? a dogma which may be remembered or forgotten, with equal injury or benefit to the moral character? By no means. It is rather a discovery of the holy character of God, calculated to exert the most momentous influence over the whole moral existence of him who receives it; so that to hide this doctrine from the view, is just to exhibit a Christianity shorn of its beams and bereft of its glory. The divine purity, justice, tenderness, compas. sion, generosity, faithfulness, wisdom and mercy, alike shine forth resplendent in this noble and hallowed manifestation of the Godhead. The man indeed who from the heart credits the doctrine of the Trinity as it is revealed in the Scriptures, finds himself encircled with all the joys of everlasting love; upheld by all the consolations of wisdom; and cheered by all the excitements of a "hope which shall never make ashamed." He perceives God to be, at once, his Father, his Saviour, and his Comforter. He reposes the burden of his sin, his weakness, and his sorrow, upon the atonement and strength, and life-giving virtue of Christ, and is thereby sustained and comforted, both as to the past, the present, and the future. "Through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father."pp. 167-173.

From Mr. Bradley's sermons, the following is the only extract given. The text of this discourse is not mentioned in the Review, but it was doubtless, Ecc. xii. 7. "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it."

Such is the destination of the body, and such the cause of it. Let us look now at the destination of the soul. The spirit shall return unto God who gave it.'

Here we are again baffled. Where is God? How does the spirit find him? By what strange means does it ascend to his abode? We may ask these questions, but who can answer them? Probably, the spirit itself could not, even after it

has travelled this mysterious journey. It is certain that we, on this side of the grave, know nothing of the matter. We may think and talk about it, amuse ourselves and perplex others; but, as for comprehending it, we might as easily scale the heavens. We must end where .we began-this is the extent of our knowledge-The spirit shall return to God.' The Lord Jehovah always claims the spirit as his own. All souls,' says he, 'are mine.' If they are in a limited sense ours, they are so only because he has given them to us. He was at first, the Father of our spirits;' they came from his hand. He is still their Lord. Hence, when our bodies are about to turn to corruption, he recals them to himself. He might still confine them in their wretched habitations; force them to linger among their mouldering ruins and witness their desolation; imprison them in a dead, as well as in a living frame. But he spares even the guilty this degradation. The body goes to the dust alone. The liberated spirit spurns the dust. Death beats down its prison walls, and then, like a captive exile, it hastens to be free, and a moment takes it to its native skies.

For mark; the return of the spirit to God is represented here as immediate. It takes place at the very instant when the silver cord' is loosed, and the 'wheel' of life stopped.

Superstition, or affection, or pride, may for a long time keep the body, at least a part of it, from its destined home. Some of us perhaps have beheld features, on which the eye of parents and friends rested more than a thousand years ago. But the soul-nothing can detain or delay it. God says, 'Return,' and ere the word has gone forth from his mouth, he sees it naked and trembling before his throne.

This truth should correct an error into which many of us are very prone to fall. We often look on the realities of eternity as very distant from us. We think that between us and the awful scenes we have heard of, many hundred years of insensibility and nothingness will intervene; that our souls will sleep in some unknown land, till the close of all things. But where have we learned this notion? Not from the Bible. There is not a declaration nor a word there, which can sanction it. On the contrary, there are many passages which go directly against it.

"This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise,' said our Lord to the malefactor who was dying at his side. And in what state there? Senseless and lifeless? No; alive to its glories, transported with its blessedness.

And when Paul thought of being 'ab

sent from the body,' what did he connect with this absence? What did he look on as its immediate and necessary consequence? He knew that he should be present with the Lord.'

O what a solemn thought is this! Who has not been thrilled by it, as he has heard the breath go forth from some fellow worm? And who can resist its power when he applies it to himself? Brethren, you are living just as near to eternity, as you are to the grave. The hour of your entering into heaven or being cast into hell, is not one moment further off than the hour of your own death. If you die to-day, where will tomorrow find your spirit? Not hovering over its deserted clay; not mingling unseen with your children and friends, to soothe itself with their sorrow for your loss. No: it will be among eternal joys or eternal sorrows-far from all the abodes of men-in the midst of the pardoned and glorified, or the condemned and lost. It will be one of them; taking its share in their wailings, or in their triumphant songs.

Hence we may observe, that it is no light or trifling purpose, for which the spirit returns to the God who gave it.'

It goes to him to give an account of all it has thought, and felt, and done, while in the flesh; of the use it has made of its own powers, and of the powers of that body over which it ruled. He sent it here, that it might know, and love, and serve him. He sends for it again at death, to inquire whether it has fulfilled his work.

It goes to him therefore to be judged, to appear at his bar and receive its sentence. And then to enter on its final home. If found in Christ, washed in his blood, clothed in his righteousness, and made pure by his Spirit, it will dwell in a world where it shall sorrow no more, fear no more, be unsatisfied no more. If found out of Christ, rising from its earthly tenement with the stains of unrepented sin polluting it, and the guilt of unpardoned sin testifying against it, it will be driven away in its wickedness,' to await in darkness, far from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his power,' the judg ment of the great day; a day which will confirm all its fears, increase its anguish, and deepen its despair.

We see then, brethren, that each part of us goes to its own place when we die; each returns,' is restored to its original source. The earth opens its bosom to receive its right, and it does receive it. Earth is given to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The great God claims the spirit. It goes to him; he takes it and disposes of it as he will.

And in the destination of both, he

magnifies his own great name. The body, as it perishes, declares his holiness in one world, while the soul, if lost, reveals it in another. If saved, it is saved to the praise of the glory of his grace.' It shines forth in the heavens, the brightest monument there of his unsearchable love. pp. 244–248.

The subjects of the whole course of Mr. Jay's lectures are given in

the Review as follows

The Christian in Christ. 2 Cor. xiv. 2. The Christian in the Closet. Matt. vi. 6. The Christian in the Family. 2 Sam. vi. 20. The Christian in the Church. 1 Tim. iii. 15. The Christian in the World. John xvii. 11. The Christian in Prosperity. Jer. xvii. 21. The Christian in Adversity. Eccl. vii. 14. The Christian in his Spiritual Sorrows. Psal. cxxxvii. 2. The Christian in his Spiritual Joys. Nehem. viii. 10. The Christian in Death. Psal. xxxvii. 37. The Christian in the Grave. Job xvii. 13. The Christian in Heaven. 2 Tim. i. 4.

We select the following extract, which refers to domestick religion; and we take the liberty to entreat a particular attention to it from all our readers.

Finally, let us regard it (domestic religion) in reference to the Church. Baxter thinks, that, if family religion was fully discharged, the preaching of the word would not long remain the general instrument of conversion. Without being answerable for the extent of this observation, we know who hath said, Train up a child in the way that he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.' We know that among our earlier godly ances tors, religion was a kind of heir-loom, that passed by descent, and instead of the fathers were the children. Families were then the nurseries of the churches: and

those who were early planted in the house of the Lord, flourished in the courts of our God, and still brought forth fruit in old age.' Even the ministers of the sanctuary were commonly derived from bence; and these domestic seminaries prepared them to enter the more publick institutions. And what well defined and consistent characters did they display. And what just notions did they entertain of divine truth. And how superior were they to those teachers who, brought up in ignorance, and after a profligate course, are suddenly converted; who, impressed before they are informed, are always in danger of extremes or eccentricities; who hold no doctrine in its just bearings, but are carried away disproportionably by attention; and who often continue crude some one truth, which first caught their and incoherent in their notions, and illiberal and condemnatory in their sentiments, through life. They were not always making discoveries, but 'continued in the things which they had learned, and been assured of, knowing of whom they had learned them." They were enlightfreshed with divine truth, but not intoxiened, but not dazzled. They were recated. They staggered not, but kept on steady in their course; neither turning to the right hand nor to the left. They were not Antinomians; they were not Legalists. None could honour the grace of God more; but they never abused it.

Not only therefore would the churches of Christ be more filled, but better filled: and though our eye is not evil, because God is good, and so far from wishing to limit the Holy One of Israel, we rejoice in the conversion of any; we reckon, and not without much observation, that the best members and the best ministers of our churches-they who, in their conduct and in their preaching, most adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things, are those who are brought from pious families. pp. 89, 90.

Literary and Philosophical Intelligence, etc.

Christiana, Sept. 3. According to the assertion of many creditable persons, an animal was seen at the latter end of last month, which, according to their description, seems to be a seaserpent of extraordinary size. On the 1st instant five witnesses were interrogated by the police, who all agreed that the animal, which was black, or of a dark colour, held its head above the water, and

swam away in at least ten bends. Between the bends there was an interval of at least 20 ells (40 feet): and the part of the animal forming the bends which was above the water was about 6 ells (12 feet) in each; so that the whole length of the animal may be estimated at 250 ells (500 feet) at least, The body seemed to be about the thickness of a hogshead. was on the 24th August, at the distance

It

« AnteriorContinuar »