Short and Plain Discourses for the Use of Families. By the Rev. Thomas Knowles, B. A. In three volumes. 12mo. 13s. 6d. 1822. Simpkin and Marshall. MR. KNOWLES is advantageously known as the author of a small volume entitled "Satan's Devices Exposed," and the present publication will sustain his character as a pious and useful writer. These sermons are fifty-four in number, and will, on the whole, be found to answer the intention of the author. We question, however, whether Mr. Knowles has not, in some degree, been misled by his anxiety to make himself intelligible to the entire family circle, and that in the endeavour to accommodate himself" to the capacity of servants in general," he may have failed in conveying to them the instruction which they might be found capable of receiving and comprehending. There is a wide interval between " plainness" and superficiality, and we are not satisfied that Mr. K. has been always successful in maintaining the separation. The most profound views in theology may be conveyed in the simplest language; in fact, they are best so conveyed. Their proper dress is the most unadorned and transparent phrase, and. when they are arrayed in the garb of abstruse and philosophical terms, they give a three-fold trouble and vexation. First, there is the awkward necessity for understanding them; then there is the irksome task of translating them; and thirdly, there is the extreme annoyance of finding, in nine cases out of ten, that you have been giving yourself all this labour merely to extract from a very tough shell, the kernel of a very common place truth. Certain acute theologians of the northern school are chargeable with this affectation. From this defect, Mr. Knowles is completely free, his style is clear, and his ar rangement simple and impressive. His sentiments are evangelical, though his doctrinal views appear, in some degree, to differ from our own. At the same time, we think that he might have gone deeper into the Gospel scheme, without any danger of leaving his hearers behind him; the most sublime peculiarities of the Christian faith may be set in the clearest and strongest light, in the most elementary language, and it is of the greatest importance that they should be universally understood. In the fifth sermon of the first volume, from 1 Corinthians i. 30, 31. we find the following passage. 2. Christ is made unto us righteousness." "It is written, there is none righteous, no not one; there is none that under standeth; there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way; they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.' All mankind, by reason of sin, are guilty before God, and under the curse and condemnation of his holy law. Wherefore, because sinners had lost their power to keep the law of God, and to fulfil it in thought, word, and deed; God took compassion upon them, and sent his Son from heaven to fulfil it for them: that, by his sufferings, they might be pardoned; and, be pardoned; and, by his righteousness, they might be justified. He hath set him forth to be a propitiation, through faith in his blood; to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past; that God might be just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.' "If, therefore, we would be justified in the sight of God, we must seek for this happiness through the merits and atonement of his only-begotten Son. At the same time that we are convinced of our own sinfulness and unworthiness, we must believe, that through the worthiness of Christ, God both can and will receive us to mercy. If we come to him in humble penitence, pleading the merits of his Son's blood and righteousness, be will not cast us out. He will be gracious unto us, and show us his salvation. And thus, being justified by faith, we shall have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ;' and rejoice in hope of that glory, which he hath promised to them that love him." pp. 72-74. This is good as far as it goes, but considered as a statement of the great Scripture doctrine of justification, it is very far from being either explicit or complete. We regret exceedingly that our limits forbid us to insert a few extracts on this important point from the writings of Traill. We can only venture on a short section from his admirable discussion of the question" wherein do justification and sanctification differ?" "Justification is an act of God's grace upon the account of the righteousness of another, but sanctification is a work of God, infusing a righteousness into us; now there is a great difference between these two; for the one is by imputation, the other by infusion. In justification the sentence of God proceeds this way; the righteousness that Christ wrought out by his life and death, and the obedience that he paid to the law of God, is reckoned to the guilty sinner for his absolution; so that when a sinner comes to stand at God's bar, when the question is asked, Hath not this man broken the law of God? Yes, saith God; yes, saith the conscience of the poor sinner, I have broken it innumerable ways: And doth not the law condemn thee to die for thy transgressions? Yes, saith the man; yes, saith the law of God, the law knows nothing more but this; The soul that sinneth must die.' Well then, but is there no hope in this case? Yes, and gospel grace reveals this hope; there is one that took sin on him, and died for our sins, and his righteousness is reckoned for the poor sinner's justification; and thus we are absolved. We are absolved in justification by God's reckoning on our account, on our behalf, and for our advantage, what Christ hath done and suffered for us; but in sanctification the Spirit of God infuses a holiness into the soul. I do not say, he infuses a righteousness; for I would fain have these words, righteousness and holiness, better distinguished than generally they are. Righteousness and holiness are, in this case, to be kept vastly asunder. righteousness is without us; our holiness is within us, it is our own; the apostle plainly makes that distinction, Phil. iii 9. Not having mine own righteousness:' it is our own, not originally, but our own inherently; not our own so as to be of our own working, but our own because it is indwelling in us. But our righteousness is neither our own originally nor inherently; it is neither wrought out by us, nor doth it dwell in us; but it is wrought out by All Jesus Christ, and it eternally dwells in him, and is only to be pleaded by faith, though it be not our own originally, yet by a poor creature. But our holiness, it is our own inherently, it dwells in us: this is the distinction that the apostle makes, Phil. iii. 9. That I may be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." —Sermon Sixth, from 1 Peter i. 1, 2, Nothing can be more clearly, simply, vigorously stated than the doctrine of this passage; let it be compared with the preceding extract, and it will strikingly illustrate our preceding remarks. We had marked a passage or two in the sermon on "the sacrament" for comment; and there are a few other expressions that we feel some inclination to sift; but we abstain. Mr. Knowles has evidently been actuated by an unaffected intention to do good, there is no display, no affectation in his work, it is substantially valuable, and we will have no quarrel with it for minor defects. We shall extract the following as a fair specimen. Describing the effects of faith, Mr. K. observes, that the believer The "Will love Christ above all things. "We love him,' says the Apostle John, because he first loved us." soul which is brought into a state of salvation, through faith in the obedience and atonement of Christ, cannot but love the author of his happiness. He will reflect upon his humbling himself to take our nature-his poverty and hardships, his sorrows and his sufferings, his agony in the garden, and his death upon the cross-and he will feel astonished at the love which brought his Redeemer from heaven to save mankind at so dear a rate. He will look also upon himself, and consider how ignorant he once was of the way of salvationhow careless about his soul-how sinful and how wretched; and yet he knew it not. He will then think, how the Spirit of God strove with him, to convince him of sin, and put him in mind of his danger. How he brought him at last to deep repentance, and led him to Jesus, as the refuge and safety of his soul. "Such reflections as these, together with the blessedness which he now enjoys in the knowledge of Christ as his all-sufficient Saviour, and the firm hope which he has of an inheritance in heaven, cause him to love Christ above all things. And he can appeal to him, with David, in the simplicity and affection of his soul, Whom have I in heaven but thee; and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee.' And this love will show itself by a steady resistance of sin, and a faithful performance of all God's commands."-pp. 190-192. Travels in New England and New THE American continent presents unex our scientific knowledge of those carry the The feelings which arise in the mind, at the recollection of past and actual circumstances, are of a mixed kind. Spain sent forth its emissaries, not to the arts of peace, comforts of civilization, and the blessings of the Gospel, but to impose a double slavery, the chains of political and of religious vassalage, the manacles of avarice and ambition, on the natives of the Western continent. The Catholic colonists of America carried in their hands, not the Bible and the olive branch, but the missal and the sword; they marched with an ample furniture of arms, of priests, and of craving and desperate adventurers; but the smallest provision for ameliorating the condition of the vanquished was far from the thoughts of the men whose lips overflowed with hypocritical expressions of anxiety for the eternal welfare of those on whose present happiness they were mercilessly trampling. Instead of mild, and gradual, and persuasive instruction, the Missionaries of Rome gave them the dungeon and the stake. Compare with this gloomy picture, the gratifying circumstances which attended the settlement of North America, by Englishmen and Protestants. Something of harshness and fanaticism might still cling to men, stung by oppression and persecution, and exiled from their "own, their native land;" a character of sternness and severity might blend itself with their religious feelings and habits, but they were the servants of the living God, their communion was on high, and their habitual converse savoured of their spiritual frame. Compare the re sults. Scarcely any but disastrous inheritance of industry, valour, circumstances stain the annals of and religion, to their children; the South-civil wars-perpe- and to this day their descendants tuated despotism, attended with are the strength and ornament of an utter absence of intellectual the United States. In 1810, and gospel light-imperfect cul- 'New England and New York contivation-a thin and scattered po- tained a free white population pulation. Turn to the North, of 2,386,201; occupying, with and there we shall contemplate insignificant exceptions," in a a different scene-free institutions solid column, a territory of less -an admirable social system than 100,000 square miles," while religious liberty-a war of subju- the remaining three-fifths of the gation resolutely sustained and white population of the Union victoriously terminated-a rapidly are spread, in the Southern and increasing and improving people- Western States, over a space of agriculture flourishing-know- more than a million of square ledge and piety, we trust, spread- miles. Of the slave population, ing in all directions. The tri- amounting to the fearful sum of umph of religious principle is, 1,191,364, only 15,435 belonged here, abundantly evident, but we to the two Northern States. In have a yet stronger evidence of commerce and manufactures their its success. South, and part of superiority is equally decided. North, America were conquered, ravaged, crushed under foot, by the civilized Romanist; the English Protestant carried to its northern regions, the liberal feelings and habits of his own free country, released from a double thrall, the civil and religious tyranny of Rome. Here we have strong ground of exultation, that popery is thus identified with darkness and misery, Protestantism with light and happiness. But we have yet higher cause for triumph when, dismissing this part of the contrast, we are enabled to point out the nobler influence of evangelical sentiment, even when compared with the admirable effects of Protestantism in its general profession. The states of New England, and the neighbouring tracts, were originally settled by colonists of a decidedly religious cast; they were diligent, conscientious, converted men; they were lovers of freedom, and their attachment to it had brought them to the Transatlantic wilderness, which they peopled, and cultivated, and enriched with commerce, and made glorious with liberty and godliness. They transmitted the European travellers are very im• perfectly qualified for doing justice to the people of North America. They mistake curiosity for impertinence, and rude accommodations for poverty and churlishness; whereas the first is an invariable character of a scattered population, and the latter a necessary consequence of peculiar circumstances, quite consistent with competence and comfort. Mail coaches, postchaises, and travelling-chariots, imply not merely opulence, but a dense population, and habits of impatient speculation or luxurious self-indulgence. The merchant who has risked his tens of thousands, on a rise or fall in the price of cotton, or whose mercantile character depends on winds, and tides, and currents, will throw himself into a vehicle, which whirls him along M'Adam's roads at the rate of twelve miles an hour, chiding the tardy movements which fail to "annihilate both space and time." The listless and unoccupied man of wealth, studious only of his ease, emerges from his well cushioned carriage, to the sofas and down-beds of his favourite and fashionable hotel. In America, there are, no doubt, plenty of speculators, but not enough, as yet, to patronize the Bristol or Liverpool mail. She can, we dare say, boast a large crop of idlers too, but they lack prescription and advancement ; they have not had their indolence transmitted from generation to generation, with the halls and manors of their forefathers, and they have not yet learnt to make the most of it. Hence travelling in America and in England are things as perfectly distinct as the go-cart of the infant, the velocipede which amuses the child of larger growth, and the gardenchair that enables the invalid to enjoy the delights of air and motion, along the greensward or the gravel walk. The American mounts his horse, or shoulders his havresack, and sets out on his journey of athousand miles, certain that he shall find wholesome food, with sufficient shelter, on the road, and never dreams of being fastidious respecting his accommodation. The European, travelling in Kentucky or Alabama, dismounts from his hackney, weary and out of temper ;-neither boots, nor waiter, nor hostler, nor chambermaid, nor landlord, come trooping at his call; the newspaper is not forthcoming, no separate apartment is at his honour's service; there is nothing to be had but substantial eatables and drinkables, plenty and cheap, with the usual appurtenances of an hostelry, all of the same homely description ; and it only remains that he should take these good things quietly and thankfully. This he does not chuse to do, and because he finds it quite useless, as well as rather unsafe, to give himself airs on the spot, he indemnifies himself by venting his spleen against every thing American, when he returns home. As their contrasts greater, English travellers are much the most splenetic, and are many of them have laid themselves open to serious animadversion by their misrepresentations. Under these circumstances we were much gratified by the appearance of the highly interesting volumes before us; the production of a man who, though certainly not without his national prejudices, was incapable of any thing approaching to intentional perversion of facts. Dr. Dwight describes with the utmost simplicity, but with singular distinctness, the scenes and circumstances which came within his cognizance, and he has brought together a large and valuable mass of miscellaneous information, the more agreeable, although not quite so easily available, from the familiar and discursive way in which it is communicated. In 1774, while a tutor in Yale College, the Doctor's severe application to study brought on a dangerous illness, from the effects of which he only recovered by a long course of unremitted exercise." In 1795, having been chosen president of the same institution, an office requiring uninterrupted mental exercise, he determined on devoting the vacation seasons, particularly the six weeks' recess in autumn, to "a regular course of travelling." During these tours he kept a journal, with a view to the possibility of ultimate publication. 66 "An inhabitant of Europe, and not improbably an inhabitant of the United States, after reading this recital, may naturally ask, what could induce me to write a book of travels concerning countries, in which none of these advantages are found? My reasons were these. "The subject is to a considerable extent new. Nor have the books, published by foreign travellers, divested it of this character. In a great measure it is new to my countrymen. To foreigners most of it is absolutely unknown. The scene is a novelty in the history of man. The colonization of a wilderness by civilized men, where a regular government, mild manners, arts, learning, science, and Christianity have |