REVIEW. Eighteen Practical Discourses, for Families and Young Persons; being Sketches of Sermons delivered at Bermondsey Chapel, Neckinger Road, Surrey. By James Cartwright. Palmer. THE title of these discourses is just and appropriate. They are Sketches of Sermons from no inferior hand. The writer, conscious of his power, spurns at imitation, and thinks for himself he is an original, who, with temptation, prayer, and meditation, and the blessing of the great head of the church, will become a workman that needeth not to be ashamed. Our readers need not fear that they will find any thing like these sketches in any that may be in their possession. We assure them that they will not; they stand alone. We are unacquainted with any that bears any resemblance to them; their excellencies and defects are such, that, did our work admit it, we should consider these sketches as a proper subject for a critical essay upon the pulpit oratory of the present day. So far as we can judge, the writer must be classed with the modern Calvinists. But his object is not doctrinal accuracy, or deep discussion of difficult passages of scripture, or to trace out the various operations of christian experience; but to arrest the attention of his readers through the medium of the powers of taste, imagination and conscience, under the blessing of the Holy Ghost, these discourses are highly calculated to effect. To young persons, and families of reading and taste, they will be exceedingly acceptable; and to them, we sincerely recommend them. To ministers, whose minds are disposed for such subjects, they will be of service, as mere specimens of oratorical compositions. In this light, they are worthy the notice of students, and young ministers. The following passages will enable our readers to form an opinion of his sentiments as well as of his style of composition. "Consider once more the primary allusion of the text to the Jewish nation; "This people have I formed for myself." Yet, how singular were the steps of his proceedings! First, he bids Abram leave his kindred and father's house, and wander in a foreign land;—again, the heads of the twelve tribes go down into Egypt, and endure the severest bondage four hundred years; --afterwards the tribes are ordered into a waste, howling wilderness;-and, to omit similar measures, he pronounces the text with reference to that community as they were about to go captive into Babylon, to have their nobles slain, their temple and city destroyed, and to be, in all appearance, blotted out as a nation. These Jews, however, returned, and were reinstated in their country and the glory of their worship: consequently there was no abandonment of the professions in the text. The ways of God in that case were justified to men, and will be equally so in all dispensations affecting us. "Ye have seen gold as it comes from the mine, how incorporated with baser substances,-ye have seen metal that has lain by without proper care, how covered with incrustations,-ye have seen stone as it comes from the quarry, how rough and shapeless! Such were ye! What length of labour then is requisite, and what processes must we undergo, to become pure and bright, and stones polished and built up a heavenly temple! All things must work together for good, to answer the requirements of such a work; all that transpires must therefore be beneficial in the whole; all the events of life, and among the rest, afflictions of every kind, are instruments by which the Divine Artificer forms you for himself; his grace renders all effectual, and the saints shall show forth his praise. "Would you, my hearers, understand how the body of Christ, the spiritual seed, the invisible church, exhibit the glory of God and promote his praise? Would you have the fullest conviction and clearest apprehension of that which scripture here affirms? Then take the pinions of faith, which easily outstrip the velocitude of moments, winds, and lightnings, and place yourselves at the goal where human ages shall have finished their destined rounds; — behold the opening visions; -see graves laid open, and sepulchres and tomb-stones rent away;-see myriads of seraph forms rising thence into the air, hailing the advent of the descending Judge, shouting as they mount, "Hallelujah! for the Lord is come, and time shall be no more!"-see them ranged on golden seats at his right hand, and rising with acclaim to second his decisions, which fix the destinies of worlds; mark their triumphant entry into the regions of the real Canaan ;—behold the Saviour presenting them to the Father, as his spoils of holy conquest, and the Father's smiles, shedding new bliss through all their shining ranks ;-behold them drinking for ever at living fountains, feeding for ever on heaven's ambrosial plains ;-see them serving God day and night in his temple, with Jesus in their midst, the heaven of heavens in jubilee at the accumulation of its worshippers, and angels joyfully transported at the unusual sound in those happy realms of ten thousand times ten thousand human tongues singing in sweetest, fullest, loudest concert, the song of Moses and the Lamb. "Now then, to perceive in this consummation the exhibition of Jehovah's praise, retrace their origin, and mark their primeval character. Some of them the most depraved of their species, and apparently less than human in the filthiness of their habits and the ignorance of their minds, and say who can define the height, and depth, and length, and breadth of that grace, or speak the value of that blood, which could blot out their sins, numerous as the stars, or the sands upon all the margins of all the seas, and rising mountains to the clouds. "Think you see them :- - sabbath-breakers, swearers, liars, enemies to God by wicked works, sensual and unclean, and what language, think you, or conception, can reach the power which recovered from such courses, destroyed the love of them, wrote upon their hearts and lives holiness to the Lord, rendered them proof against innumerable temptations, rendered them more than a match for Satan's force and subtilty, and at length fit to be partakers of the sanctity and joys that reign in God's immediate presence. "Look again at their former iniquities, and imagining them confirmed in the glories of the New Jerusalem, estimate, if it be possible, the wisdom that brought them to their present felicity in a way that advanced the honour of the broken law, and rendered more striking and illustrious the holiness and justice of the Deity; yet, says the apostle, "You hath he quickened who were before dead in trespasses and sins;" I, who was before a blasphemer, a persecutor, and injurious, obtained mercy ;" and "God, who is rich in mercy, hath raised us up, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." "Who is not ready to cry out, concerning each of the divine attributes in this grand display, "O the depth !" Who is there that would not swell the train of those who shall thus shew forth the wisdom, and power, and love of God? Now is the opportunity! Now may your wishes be realized! Now is the forming season! Haste! it will soon be over, and "there is neither work, nor device, nor repentance" in the approaching graves. "But ye,-ye favoured saints, the heirs of so many privileges, — why troubled at present evils? Take—take your harps from the willow trees. All things are incentives to his praise and as ye have the bud of heavenly : experience in your hearts, let us hear the commencement of heaven's raptures in your strains." We shall for the present close our remarks, with an assurance to our readers, that we shall in some future number resume them for more critical purposes. Help for the true Disciples of Immanuel. Second Edition; mostly re-uritten and newly Arranged, including an Explanation of the Scriptures adduced on the subject. By John Stevens, Minister of Salem Chapel, Meard's Court, Soho. OUR opinion of this work still remains unchanged. We always viewed it as a standard work, that would, when its author had quitted the present stage of action, be a book of reference for both ministers and people. We are happy to see it reach a second edition in circumstances so calculated to render it more perfect and more worthy of that immortality which we hope awaits it. Its present progress, this being but the first number, it would be improper to enter into a critical investigation of the subject of this work. Should we be spared, it is our purpose to do so. We think it will be unnecessary for us to intreat the readers of the Spiritual Magazine to encourage the publication of this work; we have too high an opinion of their love of truth and their liberality in promoting its circulation, to intreat them to purchase a sound work by one of the ablest writers of the age. The Certain Perseverance of all God's Elect to Eternal Glory. A Sacred Song. By Thomas Whittle, Orpington, Kent. THE lovers of the good old way will not be offended with the great doctrine of the perseverance of the elect, because the author of this little work has delivered his sentiments in poetry. His verse is free and flowing; though it is unattended with what are termed the beauties of the poetry of the present day. But it has what we call greater beauties, gospel truth, and experimental knowledge of that truth. We give the following as a specimen of the author's general manner. "They all shall be dug from the wreck of the fall, To fit in the crown of our King over all, Most brilliant in glory to shine. 'Tis vain to suppose that our King on his throne, If there should be missing a diamond or stone, In glory for ever contented would stay, If the jewels were lost from his ring. The crown of salvation he never would wear, But this cannot be, they are kept by his care, The saints are the sons of Jehovah on high, Their place is prepared above; And there they shall sit on their thrones in the sky, Their safety's insur'd by the oath of our God, His arm will defend them each day; His word hath declar'd, which is sealed with blood, How dare the false teachers declare they may not, That ev'ry believer shall stand in his lot, And glory to Christ shall proclaim? Tho' mountains and hills may for ever depart, The ransom'd for ever shall dwell in his heart, Rejoice then, believers, while onward you press, And trust in Jehovah's omnipotent grace, The sheep shall assur'dly be brought to the fold, For Jesus still reigneth almighty and bold, His bride shall for ever with glory be deckt, The ransomed army of all his elect, Shall victory shout in the sky. The building of mercy triumphant shall rise, The last elect vessel of mercy shall sail, To glory the chosen shall all persevere, And therefore to this I can boldly declare, The Portrait of an English Bishop of the Sixteenth Century. By Robert Hawker, D.D. late Vicar of Charles, Plymouth. Palmer. WE are happy to see the second edition of a work that should be in the hand of every gospel minister, and every christian. The former should have it before him as a model for imitation, and the latter to excite his sympathy and prayers for a beloved and faithful pastor. Did it please the head of the church to bless her with bishops and ministers resembling in spirit and deportment the English bishop of the sixteenth century, as he is exhibited by the pen of the venerable HAWKER, our fears for our country would have no exist ence. To those who are in Christ Jesus, and to others who shall seek him earnestly, this brief -and imperfect scale of the progress of belief and unbelief in the heart of man, constructed with a view to bring the great and leading points of the christian religion into frequent and profitable meditation, is affectionately offered to their consideration. Prov. vi. 9-11. Mark vi. 20-27. Matt. v. 20. Scoffing at the promised coming of our Ipswich. W. |