concerning the connexion between baptism and the Lord's Supper. It is only for a Baptist Church to be sensible that the supposed error of their fellow Christians does not proceed from a spirit of resistance to divine authority, and on Mr. Hall's own showing, the way is clear for mixed communion. So far from rearing the "standard of revolt," the parties in question may be equally sincere with the Baptists in believing that baptism ought to precede the reception of the Lord's Supper, and conscientiously revere the divine authority, as they understand it, in that very particular, as well as that in which they differ from their brethren. And, if so, Mr. Hall's principles, before quoted, lead at once to the conclusion, that they are not to be treated as those whom the apostles would have repelled. The sentiment that baptism and the Lord's Supper are connected in the manner which Mr. Hall denies, may be retained by both parties, and yet both may unite in communion, on the ground that the divine authority is equally revered by both. This principle shines out with admirable lustre in Mr. Hall's writings, but he limits its application. I can see, however, no valid reason why it should not extend to the case of persons who conscientiously believe they obey the divine requirement (supposing it to be such) of baptism previous to the Lord's Supper, although in a different mode from that adopted by their Baptist brethren. And if so, Mr. Hall's statement, that the latter cannot, consistently with the belief of such requirement, act otherwise than they do, necessarily falls to the ground.

Is it not then unfortunate for the interests of "Christian com

munion," so far as his denomination is concerned, that Mr. Hall should have placed his chief strength in what is probably a startling proposition to the greater number of those for whose improvement chiefly he writes? and especially that he should have told them, that their present conduct is " Ithe infallible consequence" of their rejecting that proposition? So far as I can judge, there is little or no probability of his destroying "party communion" in this way. If he had judged it right to employ his time and influence in urging the principles before quoted to their legitimate consequences, and had thus seized upon the best feelings of Christian minds, he might perhaps have awakened the denomination to juster sentiments.

Could he but achieve the object at which he nobly aims, it might be deemed some compensation for the error concerning a divine ordinance, which, in the judgment of their fellow Christians, that denomination has caused to spring up in the church and kingdom of the Lord Jesus. But the fairest hope of this lies in the prevalence of a spirit that shall allow every man to be judge in his own case, as to the manner of obeying the divine requirements concerning baptism; not in only its nature, but also its relation to the Lord's Supper, if any such relation be thought to exist. "We bear," says Mr. Hall, “with those who mistake the dictates of inspiration, in points which are not essential; but with none who wilfully contradict or neglect them." Let this be maintained in its full extent, as the best way of settling controversies on terms of communion.

EPAPHRAS.

XXIX.-Dr. Isaac Watts to his Sister Mrs. Brackstone.

Tuesday, May 17th, 1737. MY DEAR SISTER-All affairs of business are transacted between brother E. and me, and I hope to your satisfaction, so that little of that kind remains to employ my pen in my letters to you. Please to tell brother E., that I received his very kind letter yesterday, and have no more to say on that head. Brother Brackstone's excuses also for not coming to Newington, are much stronger than I could understand from himself.

What new thing can I tell you of to entertain you? You have heard that the famous Mrs. Rowe is dead lately. As she has committed to the care of her

All

She

brother-in-law, Mr. Theophilus Rowe, all her papers in verse, and her entertaining letters in prose, to be published according to her directions, so she has committed to my publication a few devout meditations and soliloquies in prose, by a letter enclosed in them, an excellent letter indeed. which you will see in a few months, if God spare me life and strength. There was something very extraordinary in the death of that woman. felt, doubtless, some inward premonitions of death a day or two before she died, for she wrote several letters to her intimate friends, signifying that she should be in the world of happiness before they read her letter. She seemed to be in health; but on Saturday night, when her maid thought her at her devotions, she heard a great noise above stairs, and running up, she found her mistress fallen in an apoplectic fit, and she was dead the next morning in opposition to all remedies. She lived in a most cheerful hope of heaven, as her meditations testify, and an astonishing degree of love to God, and all upon the principles of strict Christianity, the doctrines of the atonement of Christ, and the aids of the Holy Spirit.

May you and I live and die thus peaceful and joyful, and resign our departing spirits into the hand of him whom we have trusted. But if God will, I desire to leave you behind me, that your family may not want a mother till the youngest of them, (and if God please their children, too,) are established in the ways of piety. I hope I shall see Jemmy this day; we are

just going to London. I will add a line, that he is well, if I see him. With due salutations of love to all the rest. I am, dear Sister, Your's affectionately, J. WATTS.

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XXX.-Rev. J. Newton to the

Rev. Caleb Warhurst.

The following letter, though less interesting than many of Mr. Newton's already given in this Magazine, is still worthy of publication, as it throws some light upon what the then Archbishop of York considered his irregularities.

Lpoole, 2d Sept. 1762. DEAR BROTHER-The hopes of seeing you next week give us much pleasure; if your companion, Mrs. Bennet, has no more agreeable situation in view, we shall be glad to accommodate you both without ceremony in the best manner we are able. Mrs. Armitage is still here, and proposes much pleasure from your coming over.

I perceive you wrote your letter in an unbelieving fit. It is happy to be able to entertain a low, that is a just opinion of ourselves; but you know who has said, My strength is made perfect in weakness. I trust we shall not attempt to lay more upon you than the Lord will enable you to bear. you say would be sufficient to discourage me indeed, if I did not know, that if the Lord in his wisdom shall at any time see fit to send me on the warfare, his faithfulness is engaged to support me under it.

What

The Lord was very good to me at Bolton; help me to praise him, and entreat him to show me yet greater things than these.

I could tattle on, but time forbids, and I remember you are coming. We join in love-pray for us, and believe me to be,

Your affectionate and unworthy Brother in the Gospel hope, J. NEWTON. Addressed to the Rev. Mr. Caleb Warhurst, to be left at Mr. Arthur Clegg's, in Turner Street, Manchester.

*

Mr. Warhurst was the first minister of the Independent Church in Cannon Street, Manchester. He died, 5th Nov. 1765, in his 43d year, and lies buried under the communion table of his meeting-house.

BENEFICENCE.

Ou have we never seen an eye,
Pure as an infant's at its birth;
The look of some superior sky,
Allied to heaven, tho' found on earth?
A rich, a soul-subduing gleam,

That with the blush of angels shone ;
Brief as the moon-beam on the stream,

A glance that thrill'd us, and was gone? Which half the rapturous truth reveal'd,

(Stripp'd of these manacles and chains,) Of what a better world may yield,

Where virtue, in its essence, reigns? These are the dim precursors kind, That, in mysterious symbols, tell Of realms, enduring and refined, Where soon the pure in heart will dwell. This gleam of sunshine after storm,

This look benign, this eye of love, Just emblem, in their faintest form, The pleasures of the world above. Bristol. JOSEPH COTTLE.

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TO AN EVENING PRIMROSE. SWEET flower that shuns the mid-day glare, That blooms alone when night draws near; I to the garden will repair,

And view thy milder radiance there.

Come shrouded stranger through the day,
Now gentle moon-beams round thee play;
Now softer winds from heaven are blowing,
And purest odours round thee flowing.
Yes, thy pale beauties, ever new,
Burst forth whilst wet with evening dew;
Stay not to court one genial ray,
And ere the day dawns haste away.
Too soon thy glowing radiance flies,
And all that pleased too quickly dies;
Sad emblem this of pleasures past,
Given to please, but not to last.
Symbol thou art, fair flower, of man,
How frail his date, how short his span;
Sad heir to woe, and born to sorrow,
Child of to-day, and gone to-morrow.
And whilst I view thy fading bloom,
I too am hastening to the tomb;
An hour impairs this fleeting breath,
The next, alas! may end in death.
Well then, since all beneath the sky
Is sure to change, is doomed to die;
I'll gaze beyond the swelling flood,
On the dear rest that waits the good.

There joys refined, and pleasures pure,
Shall to eternity endure;

And those who reach that blissful shore,
Shall live, yes, live to die no more.

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The spring of life not long shall last,
Like joys the brightest, soonest past;
But there secured from death's rude
powers,

Bloom fair and never-withering flowers.
There, planted by a hand divine,
May I amongst the meanest shine;
Till then the fore-taste faith has given,
Be mine,--and mine the hope of heaven.
Kent, Oct. 1826.
ELIZA T.

THOUGHTS

UNDER BEREAVEMENT.

DEATH, cold divider, I have borne
The pang of spirits rent in twain,
And known how sharp it is to mourn,
How keen the separating pain.

Bitter, indeed, the curse that past,

And withered nature with its breath;
But sure the venom of the blast
Was most concentrated in death.
Many are gone, and while I see

Around me left the remnant few;
I sigh, and think the time must be

That they and I must sever too. Yes, those I lov'd are sleeping there;

And I have thought, when all was o'er, 'Tis done; the pain's too great to bear, I'll lend my heart to love no more. Ah, there's a hope, and but for this,

My spirit long had sunk in night;
Beyond the grave a world there is,
Of immortality and light.

What must the first warm clasping be,
In that pure realm of ceaseless life;
When those long gone before shall see,
A child, a parent, brother, wife.

Then shall we talk of death and pain,
As things which were, but done with

now;

We cannot die nor weep again,

Nor sorrow shade our happy brow.

Ah death because our faith is faint,

Thy shaft hath power to pain us so; Were it not thus, the sever'd saint

Might gaze and smile upon the foe. True, we might weep when seas divide,

And love's best names iive far away; But not for those who sweetly died,

And wait for us in cloudless day. Grant me, Eternal Spirit, grant, (For this I pray, and look, and wait,) The cordial, the balm I want,

To cheer me through this dying state. Homerton. JAMES EUMEston.

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The New Testament, arranged in Chronological or Historical Order; with copious Notes on the principal Subjects of Theology. By the Rev. George Townsend, M. A., of Trinity College, and Domestic Chaplain to the Bishop of Durham. 2 Vols. 8vo.-London Rivingtons. 1822. THE Chronological Arrangement of the Old Testament was published nearly two years before that of the New, and obtained from us a favourable notice in our review department for March 1823. Our remarks on that occasion were designedly brief, intending a more lengthened notice when the arrangement of the whole Scriptures should be completed. We now hasten to fulfil our intention, by submitting to our readers a more minute acount of this im

portant work. We shall, how ever, indulge ourselves in a few general and preliminary observations, suggested by the chronological arrangement of the sacred

oracles.

Religion is not taught systematically in the inspired writings. Through the medium of history, always more interesting to the generality of mankind than logical statements and reasoning, the purposes of Heaven and the will of the Eternal are made known.

In this mode of communicating religious truth the wisdom and benevolence of Deity are manifested-wisdom, in accomplishing the design of revelation by the most appropriate means; benevolence, in adapting those means to the mental constitution and peculiar circumstances of mankind. Serious evils would have arisen from a systematic and scholastic exhibition of divine truth, as given in most of our "bodies" and "systems" of di

vinity. To the majority of mankind it would have been unintelligible, and therefore useless. Mankind in general, through want of education and mental discipline, are incapable of comprehending abstract propositions, and tracing principles to their consequences. Hence they would feel indisposed to consult a volume which they could not comprehend, and would therefore remain either entirely ignorant of the truths of Heaven, or would depend exclusively for their information on the instruction of others-a circumstance by no means desirable, when we consider the individual responsibility of mankind, and the injunction of the Apostle Peter, "Be always ready to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear."

Considering, moreover, the moral indisposition of mankind to revelation, even where no excuse for neglect could be made on the ground of mental deficiency, it would seem desirable that the communications of Heaven should be rendered as attractive as poзsible. Few persons, however vigorous their mental faculties, would be disposed to turn from the cares and anxieties of life, or the pleasures of society, or the perusal of the works of imagination and taste, to the metaphysical propositions, the philosophical arguments, and the inferential reasonings of systematic theology. In the present form of revelation, then, mankind, whatever the variety of their mental constitution, are left inexcusable if they neglect the sacred volume. In the varied form of history, biography, poetry, epistles, didactic discourses, and friendly expostulations and entreaties, it is adapted to all, and

calculated to interest and benefit

all.

"The books of revelation," says Mr. Townsend, "were given to the world at various times, and on different occasions.

Each book was writ'en for some especial cause. The all-wise providence of God has not imparted his will, as human legislators are compelled to do, in abstract precepts, arbitrary institutions, or metaphysical distinctions. His revelation is

so constructed as to be interwoven with

the history of the world. It is a collection of facts and inferences-of narratives and doctrines. To understand the latter we must acquaint ourselves with the former; and then only shall we perceive that it is equally adapted, at all times, to all ages, nations, and climates, so long as human nature remains the same, and so long as hope and fear, and joy and sorrow, and evil and good, and sin and holi

ing of the Scriptures in the original, would be far more instructive, interesting, and beneficial. By this mode of theological lecturing, an accurate knowledge of the original languages would be acquired-habits of critical investigation of the Scriptures would be cherished-the harmony of the divine dispensation would be clearly perceivedcomprehensive views of divine truth would be formed-and the biblical student would thus be the better qualified for the per

formance of his arduous duties in instructing and renovating mankind. For those who do not study

tion, p. 1.

In the formation of most of our "bodies and systems" of divinity, too little attention has been paid to the peculiar mode in which the truths of Heaven have been revealed, and to the diversified character and circumstances of mankind. Their scholastic form has operated powerfully to prevent their general reception and perusal. The "systems" may have been concisely framed, but there has been wanting the brilliancy and the melody of the spheres to render them the objects of general interest and investigation. The "bodies" may have been symmetrically and gracefully formed, but there has been wanting the living soul, the animating spirit of revelation, to excite the attention and draw forth the admiration of mankind.

Important and useful as may have been the study of systematic divinity to theological professors and students, yet we submit, with all deference, that a course of critical, exegetical, historical, dogmatical, and practical lectures, in our divinity colleges and halls, on the whole Bible, chronologically arranged, accompanied with the regular read

that a course of lectures on the Paradisaical, Patriarchal, Mosaic, and Christian Dispensations, with their various and peculiar " Credenda" and " Agenda," and institutions, together with considerations on their specific design and mutual influence, and prospective and retrospective references to each other, &c. is still a desideratum in our divinity libraries. The importance of such a mode of lecturing, on such a work in theology, was pointed out by Lord Barrington, the celebrated author of" Miscellanea Sacra," a learned and interesting, though neglected work. In his preface, he observes, "that the true way to obtain a thorough understanding of the Scriptures would be to make ourselves well acquainted with each of these periods, (the different dispensations,) as they are described and distinguished in the Bible, and as they stand in order of time; the former of these always preparing for the latter, and the latter still referring to the former: so that we must critically understand each of these, before we can have the whole compass of that knowledge, and the proof of it, which the Bible is designed to give us. I am sensible that this is a work that will require much time and