XXIV.-Rev. John Newton to Olney, May 8.-76. MY DEAREST SIR,-Upon my return home yesterday, I found a piece of your letter to Mr. Venn, which he left for me. As I had taken no copy of the preface to the Pilgrim, I employed a good part of to-day in writing another, which by Mr. Crawford's letter, received this evening, I find needs not be sent, as the former (which I have some notion was the better of the two) is recovered. I am glad the Pilgrim is in such forwardness. May the Lord accompany the publication with his blessing, that it may answer your benevolent intentions. My journey to Yelling was very pleasaut, Mr. Barham's company contributed greatly to make it so. And his chaise prevented the fatigue I should otherwise have felt. He sent me a very easy horse, upon which I rode to breakfast with him on Saturday. We dined and spent 2 or 3 hours with Mr. Berridge, which proved a good opportunity. He is but poorly, the infirm state of his health greatly abridges his usual labors; he cannot go abroad so often or so far as he would wish, but I believe the Lord has taught him to bear as well as to do his will. The former is the harder lesson to those who are favoured with a zeal to his service, and a love for souls. We reached Yelling to tea, Mrs. Venn was very kind, and every thing quite agreeable. I preached three times on Sunday; the congregations were tole-, rably large, especially as the weather was unfavourable, and I think I never saw more serious faces in proportion to the number. At the sacrament there were near four-score, and to appearance they seemed of one heart and one mind. I trust the Lord was in the midst of us: as to myself, my usual dryness of spirit at the Lord's table was not removed, and I thought no person there was so little affected as myself. But in preaching I had no reason to complain for want of liberty. Upon the whole it was a good time. Mr. Ivery, who was at Huntingdon, came over to me, and I was glad of the opportunity of seeing him. " sent, to feel the necessity of breaking We returned to Bedford to dinner on By a letter from Mrs. Cowper of Parkstreet, I am informed her son, who was lost, is found-returned to her from France, after she had given up the hope of seeing him any more. His case has been singular, and I hope the Lord has led him back to receive the Gospel. I believe he is a child of many prayers, and when the Lord enables a parent to wrestle for a child, it is a token for good, and most frequently, I think, the forerunner of a call. I hope by and by to have glorious news to publish of the Lord's goodness to my dear Mr. Cowper. This hope, which never forsook me in the darkest seasons, and encouraged by favorable appearances, which have been Monday morning we went to Hun- encreasing, and still encrease. He is tingdon, and breakfasted with Dr. and now conversible, and the same man as Mrs. Rait. We were very sociable, but formerly, or nearly so, except in what had not time for much interesting conrelates to his spiritual concerns, and versation. They seem to be what we even with regard to these he begins to call well-disposed people, but I appre- hesitate, will bear to hear them spoken of, hend not sufficiently impressed at pre-which till very lately he could not, and 1 safe. I expect Sir Harry frelawney and Mr. Rose on Monday. Please to present our best respects to Mrs. Thornton and your son Mrs. Unwin desires. her respects to you I am, Dearest Sir, Your most obedient, obliged Servant, JOHN NEWTON. will sometimes himself speak of the dark seasons he has passed through: he sees that many of the apprehensions which struck him as the most indubitable truths were groundless, and I believe at intervals he has expectations of a deliverance. There is much yet remains to be done, but I cannot doubt but the Lord is on his way. When the time comes, many will join us in saying, The Lord has done great things. And then I doubt not every thing that has appeared strange and disagreeable will be cleared up. I am sure we shall be helped by your prayers for a happy issue. I have had my share of uneasiness on this painful business, but have been supported by an abiding consciousness that the Lord pointed out and approved our path, and a good confidence that he would one day clear every thing up. Mr. Crawford's letter contained a £20 note, which he received for Mr. Carlets; I beg you to tell him it came When an opportunity serves, I shall be much obliged to you for some of Dr. Watts's Hymns for Children; the great increase of Mr. Tredon's school, has almost broke me. He has near 60 scholars, and brings them all to my children's meeting at the great house. I would beg likewise half a dozen of Shaw's Welcome to the Plague, if to be had. I think that book enters more into the spirit and life of religion, than most which I have read; it has come in my way but very lately; I wish it was more generally known; I think it might help to put the talking profession, with which too many satisfy themselves, out of countenance. POETRY. (To the Editors.) GENTLEMEN-I send for insertion, in your poetical department, some lines, which were written by one now no more, addressed to a Christian Pastor, at a period when his mind was agitated and depressed by some of those trials which the best of men have at times suffered from factious and ungenerous spirits. It is well, when the disingenuous and unlovely conduct professors, calls forth the true sensibility and kind affections of others. The following soothing, yet animating verses, were written under the impression of these feelings, and tended greatly to cheer the mind of the respected individual to whom they were addressed. of some I am, Gentlemen, Your's respectfully, S. F. J. LINES, ADDRESSED TO THE REV. DURING A PERIOD OF MENTAL DEPRESSION. "Weepest thou-and why?" See, the moon still hangs on high: ་་་་་་ "Weepest thou-and why?" He swept the harp of Calvary; "Weepest thou-and why?” "Weepest thou-and why?” ON VISITING IT FOR THE FIRST TIME, LAND of the mountain, hail ! To pierce the arching skies: Where'er its voice has rolled! Land of the forest, hail! Deep through thy solemn shades And thy dark verdure fades : And let thy sylvan mirth Of freedom o'er the earth! Far to the bellowing main, Let all that gem-like throng, To swell the freeman's song: Their shriller notes employ, Before whose angry sweep And foams to heaven the deep : Of disenthralled man The universe throughout! Land of the meteor, hail! Thy mists as incense wreathe, Careering on the gale, Let votive curls, as erst, Climb towering to the skies, Or leap thy cataracts wild : But dearest to my heart, That firm heroic band, Of truth who took the part, For conscience made the stand: Your mouldering tombs I seek," Where the bleak thistle nods,-Ye, being dead, yet speak, And prove your cause was God's! And oh my father-land, Dear as thy soil to me,. As freedom's hallowed strand-- Among its proudest leaves Leeds. R. W. H. PARAPHRASE ON ISAIAH Ixi. 3. "To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called Trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified." ADDRESSED TO A FRIEND. ON them that now in Zion mourn, The oil of joy their grief repays, Like goodly trees, with fruit extant, There, blooming by the living streams, And spread their boughs beneath the beams J. S. REVIEW OF BOOKS. The Ecclesiastical History of the Second and Third Centuries. Illustrated from the Writings of Tertullian. By John Bishop of Bristol. Bristol: Rivington, 8vo. Price 12s. 6d. THE history of Apostolic Acts written by Luke forms a memorable and striking contrast, not only to the ecclesiastical events of the succeeding ages, but to the manner of treating ecclesiastical subjects, and writing ecclesiastical history, which subsequently prevailed. It is a refreshment and a solace to peruse the evangelic record of those transactions which led to the first establishment of the Gospel in various countries beyond the boundaries of Judea; but when we wish to pursue the narrative, and trace the continued progress of the church of Christ, we seem to have forsaken a plain and strait-forward path, and to be treading only upon thorns and briers, or to be utterly bewildered amidst thickets and bogs. Milton might well denominate them" the muddy and strawy ages which followed the apostles;" for it is impossible to contemplate them without pain for the grievous perversions to which the Gospel was subjected, nor without disgust at the frivolity and absurdity of most of the controversies which engaged the attention of ecclesiastics. Hence the ablest pens have been employed upon the subject of early ecclesiastical history without success. After years of laborious research, and volumes of learned disquisition, we are taught little of the state of Christ's religion, but are entertained with histories of speculations which never could be settled, and which, if they could, would be of no importance. The history of those ages, therefore, has been the Gordian-knot of theologians, and the jest-book of in ་་་་་་་、 fidel annalists. Men of all sects and parties have tried, in vain, to make the fathers consistent with one another, or consistent with themselves, or consistent with their apostolic predecessors; while such writers as Gibbon, Bayle, and Hume, have endeavoured to ridicule Christianity itself, under cover of the hideous and distorted mask which those ages have laid upon its fair face. We do not know that we ought to complain against ecclesiastical historians as generally wasting their own labour and their readers' time, by merely reciting the he resies and persecutions which harassed the church, or the controversies and speculations which amused its rulers. The materials which have come down to us,. with the exception of the Apologies and Defences, are barren of information as to all the more interesting points of Church History, and are stuffed with silly tales of alleged miracles, or with childish babblings, nearer akin to Rabbinical and Talmudic fables, than to the useful and practical theology of the New Testament. Dr. Kaye does not appear to us to have succeeded in producing a History of the Second and Third Centuries; for little more is to be gathered from his volume upon this subject than a few general facts, which were quite as well understood before. And we are not aware that he has added any thing to the knowledge we already possessed concerning either the internal economy, the discipline, or the extension of the church. Yet the volume possesses considerable merits as an analysis of Tertullian's writings, and the controversies in which he engaged. It is certainly by no means a matter of general interest to know what that learned father believed, There are many parts of the volume which have excited our high admiration both of the ability and candour of Dr. Kaye. We cannot, indeed, applaud his lengthened explanations of the absurd opinions and vague reasonings of his author upon many speculative points; still less can we commend the chapter entitled The State of Letters and Philosophy. It is superficial and unsatisfactory in a high degree, and would more properly be entitled On the Metaphysics of Tertullian. We are very far, however, from wishing to depreciate the Bishop's work. With some sections we have been much pleased, and must be allowed to present our readers with one passage on a very important point, which we read with great satisfaction. It relates to the cessation of the miraculous powers of the church. nor to trace the reasons by which independent of every other such he supported his speculations. society. Most of his reasonings are as little worth regarding as his opinions are worth knowing. It is certain that no accessions can be made to christian theology by the study of Tertullian's works, and we almost think the good Bishop of Bristol must have felt the task of wading through such a continent of mud not a little irksome, and that, now he is able to define its boundaries, and to tell us its contents, he can feel little complacency in the results. It is true, he undertook the work with a view to the illustration of the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England;" but we confess we are not able to discern where the rays of illustration fall, nor what honour it could be to the Church of England to derive illustration from such a source. Indeed, one of the chief points which Dr. Kaye brings out from Tertullian's writings is the independence of the primitive churches. Whether this bears on the defence of the Church of England, or rather favouring other churches, the reader shall judge. "The passages already alleged sufficiently prove that, in Tertullian's estimation, the apostolic churches were independent of each other, and equal in rank and degree. He professes, indeed, a peculiar respect for the Church of Rome: not, however, because it was founded by St. Peter, but because both that apostle and St. Paul there sealed their testimony to the Gospel with their blood, and St. John was there thrown into the cauldron of burning oil."—pp. 236. This is a valuable testimony, in addition to the many already given by almost every other ecclesiastical writer, to the accuracy of those views entertained by our churches on this important point. A church of Christ, it is now agreed, is a voluntary society of faithful men ; and every such society, upon Bishop Kaye's testimony, afterTertullian, was, in the apostolic age, "The miraculous powers conferred upon they were to prove that they were the the apostles were the credentials, by which bearers of a new revelation from God to man; and thus to mark the commencement of a new era in the order of the divine dispensations. We might therefore infer, from the purpose for which they were conferred, that they would in process of time be withdrawn. That they have been withdrawn, is a fact which few. Protestants will controvert, though great difference of opinion prevails respecting the precise period to which we must refer this important alteration in the circumstances of the church. Gibbon has endeavoured to controvert what he terms the insensibility of the Christians to the cessation of miraculous gifts, into an argument against their existence at any period. So extraordinary an event must,' he argues, have excited universal attention, and caused the time at which it happened to be precisely ascertained and noted. But in vain do we consult ecclesiastical history, in the hope of assigning, a limit to the period, during which supernatural powers subsisted in the church: we find pretences |