accomplished. We augur well of it, and hope much from it. We confess there are some questionable statements and speculations, which we do not altogether like; but we can overlook a good deal, if the general tone and substance be satisfactory. We trust that great caution will be exercised in regard to such matters in the remaining part of the work. It is of the utmost moment, both for its utility and its circulation.

The Real Opinions of the most Eminent Reformers regarding the Sabbath, carefully examined, &c. By the Rev. PATRICK FAIRBAIRN, Minister of Salton. Edinburgh: John Johnstone.

A learned and judicious exposition of the views of all the leading Reformers regarding the perpetual obligation of the Sabbath as a day of rest. No publication could be more suitable to the present position and aspect of the Sabbath question. Unable to maintain their loose and mercenary views from Scripture, the opponents of Sabbath observance have been in the habit, as our readers are aware, of appealing to the writings of Calvin and other eminent Reformers as countenancing their notions. And, by a little of that dexterous management with which controversialists of that order are familiar, they did succeed, by garbling and fixing together their extracts as suited their purpose, to make out a tolerably plausible case. And, for once in their lives, our champions of Sabbath desecration became almost reconciled to the Reformers, notwithstanding the truths they taught, for the sake of the apparent countenance they gave to error. By this time, however, those of them we expect who have laid their hands on Mr Fairbairn's excellent tract, will think as little of Calvin and the Reformers as ever. For by a searching exposition of their real opinions, Mr Fairbairn has conclusively demonstrated, that however they may have differed in some points as to the grounds, they were unanimous as to the reality of the perpetual moral obligation of Christians to observe the Lord's day as a day of holy rest unto God. We strongly recommend the tract to our readers. Independent of the temporary circumstances which have called it forth, it presents in a clear and comprehensive form, a full and distinct view of the real opinions of the most eminent divines of the Reformers, on what must at all times be regarded as a most important branch of Christian duty.

The Seven Churches of Asia. By the Rev. J. A. WALLACE, Minister of Hawick. Nisbet, & Co., London.

Amidst the gathering darkness of these latter days, everything that tends to familiarize us with the language, and lead us to the confines of the great apocalyptic vision, is invested with peculiar interest. Whether we will or not, we shall be compelled, as our difficulties thicken, and our sky becomes overcast, to lift our eyes to the sure word of prophecy as to a light shining in a dark place. It was thus the early church was prepared for her struggles and impending trials. And it is thus she is to be guided amidst the perplexities, and supported under the disaster of her final conflict before retiring unto rest, when Jesus shall come back again to claim his kingdom as his own. "When these things begin to come to pass," says our Saviour when foretelling the troubles of the latter day, "then look up and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh." The arm of flesh will fail. Human expedients will fail. All the wisdom of the world's wise men will fail. Already the old landmarks are disappearing. The old charts are effaced. We are getting into circumstances in which our men of forms will find no precedents. The bea

con lights of earth are beginning to flicker and grow dim amidst the rising storm. By and bye there will be nothing for us to do but to steer our course by the calm, clear, steady light of heaven. In these circumstances we are glad of any work that turns attention to the fulfilment of prophecy. We know of nothing better fitted to impress the mind for the unprejudiced study of the prophetic writings, than just to examine and see how explicit, how minute, how literal has been their accomplishment in so far as they are yet fulfilled. If all the prophecies which foretell the dispersion and protracted sufferings of the Jews have been literally fulfilled, it does not seem very unreasonable to look for a literal accomplishment of those which foretell their future restoration and final glories. If all the prophecies which foretell the humiliation-the poverty-the sufferings-the ignominy-the death of Jesus, when he came the first time to bear our sins in his own body on the treehave been literally, point by point, fulfilled, it does not seem very unreasonable to expect as literal a fulfilment of those which foretell the honour and majesty of his kingdom, when, to those that look for him, he shall appear the second time, without sin unto salvation, to sit upon the throne of his father David, and reign before his ancients gloriously. If all the prophecies which foretell the sins the backslidings-the apostacies-the persecution-the judgments through which the church militant has passed, have been literally fulfilled, it really does not seem very unreasonable to be looking forward with joy to the literal accomplishment of those which picture so highly the prosperity, and free and unsullied purity of the church triumphant in her latter day of glory, when, at the conclusion of her widowhood, she has made berself ready for the marriage-supper of the Lamb.

Now, it has ever been the object of writers on prophecy viewed as an evidence of revelation, to show that in so far as it has been fulfilled at all, its fulfilment has been explicit, minute, literal, so that he who runs may read. Of course nothing else could be pleaded as an evidence, and in so far as it is a growing evidence, it is implied that up to our own day, prophecy is still literally fulfilled. What is there to make us suppose it is to be otherwise in future?

Into the goodly number of the pioneers in the study of the prophetic scriptures, we gladly welcome our esteemed friend the minister of Hawick. On its own merits, we have been exceedingly gratified in the perusal of his most interesting little treatise. Without the show of criticism it presents a clear and useful exposition of the two passages discussed. Without any of the parade of research, it presents a brief but interesting view of the original condition, subsequent history, and present aspect of each of the seven churches, as illustrating at once the literal accomplishment of prophecy, and the principles of God's providential dealing towards the churches. It is at the same time thoroughly practical, and is pervaded throughout, both in its application to the individval conscience, and in its solemn and well timed warnings to the church at large, by a tone of serious evangelic warmth and unction. While we candidly recommend it to all, we deem it peculiarly well adapted for Sabbath schools and congregational libraries. But let our readers get it for themselves, and we are sure they will join us in recommending it to their friends.

Orthodoxy is not Evangelism: being a Letter of Remonstranee, in the Name of Christ, to all Orthodox Ministers, Preachers, and Professors of the Gos pel, in the Establishment or out of it. By A Probationer of the Church OF SCOTLAND. Glasgow: William Black wood. 1843.

Notwithstanding a considerable dash of presumption, a tinge of egotism, and

a tone of over-rash and precipitate censure, there is a good deal in this pamphlet worth the weighing. There is a freshness of vigorous thought given forth in language of corresponding energy, which we can appreciate and relish, making ample discount at the same time for the faults which we have alluded to, and which, we assure the author, will hinder both the success and the usefulness of his remonstrance. The ministers of the Lord Jesus Christ would do well to ponder many of the solemn and searching statements which it contains. We subjoin a few. "We are in a deep sleep. Death, like an angel of light, has breathed upon us. The flood, by which he is now dazzling the world, has overpowered and stupified, or seduced us. It is not the light of heaven! If it were, our hearts would be warm, and our spiritual energies in perpetual action. But this is not the case. Thousands of our fellow-creatures are perishing in the delusion of eternal safety, and we are the motionless, careless, self-complacent spectators of the tragedy. The flame of truth that was kindled in the lamp of the Reformation three hundred years ago, after many an eddy and many a brilliant flash on the edge of the bowl, has left it. Other lamps have indeed been lighted, in the dark places of the earth, by the sparks as they successively fled; but the original scene of the Spirit's glory, at least in our own country, has nothing to distinguish it now but the sickly glare of imitative lustre, or the occasional glow of a weak and partial illumination." P. 4.

"The gospel, as it should flow, is a stimulating and refreshing stream. The human heart requires it; and it is just by the withholding of this stream that our sickly population has been fevered. Multitudes languish and die, or break out into open paroxysms of philosophic madness, and atheistical licence. Even ' in the life that now is,' the effects of this spiritual drought are visible. Men, burning or parched with thirst, hasten to the accredited cisterns of life;-but the water has evaporated or been allowed to stagnate,-to drink is impossible; and so they curse us,-and turn. Only here and there, an obscure or devoted labourer has faith enough to strike the rock at which a fainting multitude may drink." Pp. 5, 6.

"The human soul has an appetite, and must be fed. It will rather feed itself on husks than endure the sickening tedium of starvation. Now, can you deny that want of provision in the Lord's house, at Jerusalem, has driven thousands off into the tabernacles of Dan, and to the mountain of Samaria? Dare you answer to the Master of the household that your allotment of the children's bread has been duly, frankly, fairly, and every day, distributed? Are you quite sure that the flock of God has not been torn and scattered in the season of your untimely, unbecoming slumber? and that the lambs of that flock have not been enticed to destruction in open day? I repeat the question, Are you sure this is not so ?" P. 6.

"A man may be the leader of such a gospel without being a Christian himself. It implies nothing more than a devotion to sublimated moral philosophy. To engage in the other, that is, in the public preaching of the gospel, as a heart-searching, soul-transforming system; and to do this as it should be done, in the strength and for the glory of God, implies very different conditions. It implies that a man should know himself and his fellow-creatures,-that he should know God, or rather be known of Him,-that he should feel the power of the gospel in the emancipation of his own soul, that his lips should be touched with fire of the Spirit himself,-and that he should be willing to spend and to be spent in ceaseless and deliberate hostility with the powers of darkness. Now, St Paul was not sufficient for these things; I remember. But insufficiency for such labour is no apology for sleep. If the mantle of the prophet, and some portion of his inspiration, have not been bequeathed to us, we have no right to be in the prophet's place." P. 9.

"What then?' I hear a new exclamation;- What shall we do? Are our

missionary labours, our educational schemes, our enduranee of persecution for conscience' sake, our maintenance of religious liberty;-are these things nothing? What other efforts can we make to evangelize the world, and to save a soul? What did Luther do? Preach the living gospel, and give yourselves to prayer,-a system which you have not tried for many years!" P. 11. "It is easy to trace the effects of such a system as this on the formation of a minister's character, and on the direction of his studies. From the obscurity of his father's house, or the seclusion of a college, some young aspirant to a doctorship in Zion looks out upon the field of an untried world. He beholds there, with admiration and awe, his superiors in rank and power busily engaged, toiling and panting, not in the glorious competition of proclaiming the gospel to their fellow-men, but in the dust and confusion of intellectual and theological rivalry. The crowds of perishing spectators who applaud their various success do not seem to excite any compassion in the combatants themselves, and, of course, are no objects of interest to the youth who observes. The only question with him is, How shall I enter this arena with success? With what arms shall I contend, and in what style shall my challenge of defiance be sounded? These veterans in theology must be surpassed!' Beloved brother, temper your admiration and your ambition! The distance of a few years, the dust of the combat, and the sunshine of applause from an infatuated world, deceive you. These are no veterans, as you suppose! When you have approached them as closely as I have, you will discover, with sorrow and disappointment, that many of them are inexperienced children in the vital work and practice of the gospel. They are soldiers who war, most of them, at their own charges. Few of them have courage enough to wield the sword of the Spirit with determination,-few of them have a shield to lift,—and few, very few, are braced with the girdle of spiritual truth. Being thus so unprepared for their legitimate work of warfare with the prince of darkness, they have turned their weapons, such as they are, against each other, both Churchmen and Dissenters. There is much for you to do, I admit; and on that very field, where the uproar of contention, and the gloom of death, divide the sympathy and the indignation of angels. Contemplate the scene steadily and prayerfully; but, remember, instead of amusing yourself with vain interrogations on the probability of your own distinction there, urge your conscience with the more awful inquiry, whether you be really in the faith?—whether Christ be formed in you as the hope of glory ?—whether, in preparing to preach Him and his salvation to others, you may not be a reprobate yourself, or possibly a castaway ?'" Pp. 12, 13.

"Professors of divinity!-to whose hands the preparation of angels for the harvest of this world is committed, I appeal to you, in God's name, whether the system I have been attempting to describe has not been, for many years, more or less, your own? I neither refer to, nor blame any of you individually; I condemn your system. Preachers are no longer the living epistles of Christ, written of God and read of all men. They are stereotyped, if I may use the expression, struck off, and circulated, as rapidly and as uniformly as the editions of a scholiast, with the superscription and the seal, not of an almighty Author, but of the college or the Presbytery from which they issue. "But the worst of the calamity is to come. What the student was, the minister continues to be,-a mere hypothetical believer! The delusion of the religious world, at the present time, is, that because the Bible is widely circulated, it is therefore extensively and thoroughly received as the very word of God. Ministers deceive themselves on this point, with respect to their hearers; and of course it would be intolerable to suspect the truth of the persuasion in their own individual cases. To agitate, with anything like becoming anxiety, the awful question of his own belief in the righteousness of that Redeemer whose finished work he proclaims every day to others, would stagger and para

lyse a preacher on the steps of a pulpit. This is evidently the question of questions; and it should have been affirmatively settled long before. But because the horror, or the disgrace of suspicion on such a point, now, is too agonising to be endured, therefore investigation is stifled for ever. The man is reduced to the dilemma of standing still in confusion,-a spectacle to the world and his own congregation; or of going on in darkness. He must satisfy himself in some way, and it seems to be thus :- I was a Christian in the Divinity Hall, therefore I must be a Christian in the pulpit. It would be a loss of time for me now to question or to doubt the fact.' And on the ground of evidence so palpably gratuitous, he walks, with countenance unabashed and with unfaltering step, into the sanctuary of the living God, having a lie in his right hand. Infatuated man! Could a lunatic, in the frenzy of an imaginary commission to preach the gospel, be more insane? What may be the object of this soul-condemning precipitation of yours? To be a popular preacher? Miserable and ruinous ambition! If you saw yourself as the angels see you, in the seasons, and at the moment of your exhibition, you would blush for very shame at the success of your paragraphs, and hide yourself, anywhere under heaven, to escape the observation of disembodied and glorified apostles! To pluck a brand from the burning' gives you no concern! That work implies a scrutiny of your own heart, and of your own state, at which you tremble. But surely it is better to tremble at the door of the holy place, than to profane the ark of the Lord with an unbelieving and an unsanctified touch?

"Reverend, and (if you will suffer me to use the other epithet,) dear Sir, a man in your condition is an object of most solemn commiseration; and I am partly inclined to believe that you have some vague apprehension of the fact. Do you not feel the worm of dissatisfaction occasionally gnawing at the root of the gourd? Does not the drowsiness of your congregation, now and then, disturb you? Does not the absence or the flight of experimental Christians confound you? Does not the application of a distressed soul for counsel in adversity, perplex you? Does not the decrease of congregational piety and fervour astonish you? Does not the thinness of your own church, day after day, (I speak this on supposition,) fret you? And altogether, do you not begin to be convinced of a deficiency of power and of fitness for your office, somewhere and in something? Where, and in what the deficiency may be, is to yourself still a mystery. But the truth is, Rev. Sir, you are the slave of an enervating system. Your efforts are utterly impotent for the conversion of your hearers; but you will not be persuaded of your error in trusting to an arm of flesh! You modestly suspect your own acquirements in divinity. This, it must be allowed, is a becoming diffidence of yourself. But, with an atheistical distrust of God, you pass the very fountain of life on your study table; and instead of going directly to Heaven, you rush with blind infatuation to the shelf, or to the hall of a library! If personal appearance there should be beneath your dignity, a messenger is despatched, and a volume procured ;-you plunge into the treatise, and bury yourself, as thoroughly and as submissively as any monk, in the opinions of another!

"After this refreshment of memory, you return to your congregation with new hopes, but inevitably, to the same disappointment. Your sermon will be very little better than a discharge of aimless phraseology, without force, and perhaps without meaning. The word is not God's; it is scarcely your own. It wants even the freshness of originality. It is not the expression of any vital experience on your part. It is not the still small voice' of deep personal conviction. It is a sound which comes, not like the human voice, from the fulness of an awakened heart, breathing the gratitude of conscious redemption; but like the cheerless echo of some distant, and half-apprebended idea on the outermost verge of the intellect. It is, as you must be personally

VOL. XVI. NO. II.

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