number even of those I have called the better sort of the middle classes of men) let us in time, and in good earnest, cast off all our sins, negligencies, and follies by true repentance. Let us draw near, and acquaint ourselves with God, that we may be at peace. You can have no true peace, assurance, or satisfaction of mind in this life without it: for if you be of the class I am now referring to, it is too late for you to have a perfect enjoyment of a life of sin and dissipation. And between that kind of peace, or rather stupor, which those who are abandoned to wickedness, those who are wholly addicted to this world, and make it their sole end (or those who are grossly ignorant of religion) enjoy, and that inward peace and satisfaction which accompanies the faithful and earnest discharge of every known duty, there is no sufficient medium. You may go about seeking rest in this wide space, while your hearts are divided between God and the world, but you will find none; whereas the fruit of righteousness, of a sincere and impartial, though imperfect obedience to the law of God, is peace and assurance for ever. 6. To facilitate the exercise of devotion, cultivate in your minds just ideas of God with whom you have to do upon those occasions, and divest your minds as far as possible, of all superstitious and dishonourable notions of him. Consider him as the good father of the prodigal son, in that excellent parable of our Saviour. Let it sink deep into your minds, as one of the most important of all principles, that the God with whom we have to do is essentially, of himself, and without regard to any foreign consideration whatever, abundant in mercy, not willing that any should perish, but that he had rather that all should come to repentance, and then, notwithstanding you consider yourselves as frail, imperfect, and sinful creatures, and though you cannot help accusing yourselves of much negligence, folly, and vice, you may still approach him with perfect confidence in his readiness to receive, love, and cherish you, upon your sincere return to him. In this light our Lord Jesus Christ always represented his father and our father, his God and our God. This is the most solid ground of consolation to minds burdened with a sense of guilt; and, what is of great advantage, it is the most natural, the most easy, and intelligible of all others. If once you quit this firm hold, you involve yourselves in a system, and a labyrinth, in which you either absolutely find no rest, and wander in uncertainty and horror; or if you do attain to any thing of assurance, it is of such a kind, and in such a manner, as can hardly fail to feed that spiritual pride, which will lead you to despise others; nay, unless counteracted by other causes, too often ends in a spirit of censoriousness, hatred, and persecution. MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS. I 66 EXTRACT FROM DR. DWIGHT. HAVE been much struck in reading the following passage from Dr. Dwight's Lectures, in which he accounts for the origin of the divine honours paid to Noah in the early ages of the world. It is forcible and just; and will be found still more so. if applied to account for the elevation of our Saviour to the rank of Deity. High veneration for any being, easily slides, in such minds as ours, into religious reverence; especially when it is publicly and solemnly expressed by ceremonies of an affecting and awful nature. When Noah, particularly, and his sons generally, had been often, and for a series of years, commemorated in this manner; the history of man has amply taught us, that it was no strange thing to find them ultimately raised to the rank and character of deities. This event would naturally take place the sooner, on account of the astonishing facts included in their singular history. The imagination, wrought up to enthusiasm and terror, while realizing the astonishing scenes through which they had passed, could hardly fail to lend its powerful aid towards this act of canonization, and would, without much reluctance, attribute to them a divine character. If we remember how much more willingly mankind have ever worshipped false gods, than the True One; we shall, I think without much hesitation, admit the probability of the account, which has been here given concerning this subject." COMPLAINTS OF A CORRUPT HEART. To hear some Christians talk, one would imagine they thought it their duty, and a mark of sincerity and goodness, to be always complaining of corrupt and desperately wicked hearts, and consequently that they ought to have, or in fact should always have, such hearts to complain of. But let no man deceive himself. A wicked and corrupt heart is too dangerous a thing to be trifled with. I would not here be thought to discourage the humble sentiments every man should have of himself, under our present infirmities: But we may greatly wrong ourselves by a false humility; and whoever carefully peruseth the New Testament will find, that, however we are obliged to repent of sin, a spirit of complaining and bewailing is not the spirit of the gospel; neither is it any rule of true religion, nor any mark of sincerity, to have a corrupt heart, or to be always complaining of such a heart. No: the gospel is intended to deliver us from all iniquity, and to purify us into a peculiar people zealous of good works, to sanctify us throughout in body, soul and spirit, that we may now be saints, may now have peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, and at length be presented without spot or blemish before the presence of God. Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it, not that it might continue groaning in a state of corruption and wickedness, but that he might, even in this world, sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water, by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. And this is the invariable sense of revelation. Nevertheless it is manifestly true, that while we are in the body we shall be exercised with the infirmities and passions thereof. But this is not our corruption or wickedness, but the trial of our virtue and holiness in resisting and subduing every irregular appetite. And it is the real character of every true Christian, not that he feels he has a corrupt and wicked heart, but that he crucifieth the flesh with the affections and lusts, and perfecteth holiness in the fear of the Lord. A real Christian may say, my heart is weak, and my passion strong: but he is no real Christian, or the gospel hath not had its proper effects upon him, if he cannot at the same time truly say, I resist and restrain my passions, and bring them into captivity to the laws of reason and true holiness. Whatever is evil and corrupt in us we ought to condemn; not so as that it shall STILL remain in us; that we may ALWAYS be condemning it; but, that we may SPEEDILY reform, and be EFFECTUALLY delivered from it; otherwise certainly we do not come up to the character of the disciples of Jesus Christ. J. Taylor on Original Sin. DR. BEATTIE'S METHOD OF BEGINNING THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION OF HIS SON. THE doctrines of religion I wished to impress on his mind, as soon as it might be prepared to receive them; but I did not see the propriety of making him commit to memory theological sentences, or any sentences, which it was not possible for him to understand. And I was desirous to make a trial how far his own reason could go in tracing out, with a little direction, the great and first principle of all religion, the being of God. The follow ing fact is mentioned, not as a proof of superiour sagacity in him (for I have no doubt that most children would in like circumstances think as he hid), but merely as a moral or logical experiment. He had reached his fifth [or sixth] year, knew the alphabet, and could read a little; but had received no particular information with respect to the Author of his being: because I thought he could not yet understand such information; and because I had learned from my own experience, that to be made to repeat words not understood is extremely detrimental to the faculties of a young mind. In a corner of a little garden, without informing any person of the circumstance, I wrote in the mould, with my finger, the three initial letters of his name; and, sowing garden cresses in the furrows, covered up the seed, and smoothed the ground. Ten days after, he came running to me, and with astonishment in his countenance told me, that his name was growing in the garden. I smiled at the report, and seemed inclined to disregard it; but he insisted on my going to see what had happened. Yes, said I, carelessly, on coming to the place, I see it is so; but there is nothing in this worth notice; it is mere chance and I went away. He followed me, and, taking hold of my coat, said with some earnestness, it could not be mere chance; for that some body must have contrived matters so as to produce it.-I pretend not to give his words, or my own, for I have forgotten both; but I give the substance of what passed between us in such language as we both understood.-So you think, I said, that what appears so regular as the letters of your name cannot be by chance. Yes, said he, with firmness, I think so. Look at yourself, I replied, and consider your hands and fingers, your legs and feet, and other limbs; are they not regular in their appearance, and useful to you? He said, they were. Came you then hither, said I, by chance? No, he answered, that cannot be ; something must have made me. And who is that something, I asked. He said, he did not know. (I took particular notice, that he did not say, as Rousseau fancies a child in like circumstances would say, that his parents made him.) I had now gained the point I aimed at : and saw, that his reason taught him, (though he could not so express it) that what begins to be must have a cause, and that what is formed with regularity must have an intelligent cause. I therefore told him the name of the Great Being who made him and all the world; concerning whose adorable nature I gave him such information as I thought he could in some measure comprehend. The lesson affected him greatly, and he never forgot either it, or the circumstances that introduced it. Life of J. H. Beattie. FOR THE CHRISTIAN DISCIPLE. LINES ADDRESSED TO A LOVELY INFANT, EXPIRING IN ITS FATHER'S ARMS. Go, gentle spirit, haste away, ; REVIEW. ARTICLE VIII. Sermons, chiefly of a Practical Nature. By the late ANTHONY FORSTER, A. M. Pastor of the second Independent Church in Charleston, S. C. To which is prefixed a Memoir of the Au thor's Life. Raleigh, N. C. J. Gales, 1821. pp. 335. THE biography prefixed to these sermons is one of the most interesting articles, which has lately come under our notice. Whoever values religious freedom, and the virtues of indepen dence, uprightness, and resolution; whoever loves to contemplate a mind depending on its own resources, and sustained by its own energies, throwing off the shackles of early prejudice, resisting the calls of worldly interest, and boldly searching for |