Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

you have here tasted, or the earthly scenes over which your spirit is sometimes prone to linger with delight, and which, from their nature, can afford but a brief and barren satisfaction; there you shall enjoy a blissful, steady, and invariable connexion with the infinite, communicative source of all Excellence. The immortal Howe has well observed of all sensible objects-" they first tempt, then please a little, then disappoint, and lastly, vex. The eye that beholds them, blasts them quickly, rifles and deflowers their glory; and views them with no more delight at first, than disdain afterwards. Creature enjoy ments have a bottom, are soon drained and drawn dry. Hence, there must be frequent diversions; other pleasures must be sought out; and are chosen, not because they are better, but because they are new. This demonstrates the emptiness and vanity of the creature. Affection of variety only proceeds from sense of want; and is a confession, upon trial, that there is not in such an enjoyment what was expected. Proportionably in

the state of glory, a constant indeficient fulness renders the blessed soul undesirous of any change. There is no need of varieties of diversions; what did once please, can never cease to do so, This glory cannot fade, or lose any thing of its attractive power. The faculty cannot languish, or lose the disposition, by which it is contempered, and made proportionable thereto. Hence, no weariness can ensue. What! a soul, in which the love of God is perfected, grow weary of beholding him! The sun will sooner grow weary of shining; the touched needle of turning itself to its wonted point; every thing will sooner grow weary of its centre, and the most fundamental laws of nature be sooner antiquated, and made void for ever." With such a hope in view, we may well " endure, as seeing him who is invisible." Let but the Christian pursue this shining path of grace and light, and like the sun, though he set in brilliancy and glory, in one hemisphere, it will be to rise with far higher lustre in another.

POETRY.

INCARNATION ANTHEM. Mark how the Moon, o'er the watch-tow'r of Edar,

Hangs like a beacon-lamp brilliant and calm: Dipt in her light the dark groves of cedar Blush with the purple of Bethlehem's palm. Under the shadow "the shepherds" reclining, Alternately gaze on the stars and their flocks: Now vainly attempting Chaldaio divining, Anon breaking off to examine the rocks. That bleat of a lamb, far up on the mountain, Leads them to search for the wand'rer at once,

And holding their course to the Ephratafountain,

They mimio its mother at ev'ry advance.

But, lo! when about in their bosom to fold it, A "star in the East" has arrested their eye: More bright than Orion :--they pause to behold it:

When, lo! they are struck with a strain from the sky.

Music and meteor o'ercome them with won

der ;

The light and the warbling are equally new ; Even their flocks, as if startled by thunder, Rush into groups, and retire from the view.

TEMPESTIVUS MENTOR.

For, lo! from the concave, calmly descending,

A starry Shechinah comes hovering down; The lamps of the sky with its lustre are blending-

A crescent of glory composes its crown.
The dazzling pavilion, in mid air suspended,
Opens its drap'ry of azure and gold:
And Gabriel, by legions of angels attended,
Bursts on the view-as its curtains unfold.
Raising his harp, as a peace-speaking symbol,
And beck'ning his Seraphs to seize upon
theirs :--

No longer the shepherds instinctively tremble, But start from their trance and abandon their fears.

Embolden'd to linger, they silently listen,
As Gabriel's key-note is caught by the choir-
No longer the tears of timidity glisten,
Now that the anthem rolls loud from the lyre!
Fear not, ye shepherds! the news of Sal-
vation

Fills this Shechinah, as light fills the sun! We come as the heralds of Christ's Incarnation

The Virgin of Judah has brought forth her
Son !'
AN EX SHEPHERD.
Toxteth Park, Dec. 25, 1821.

ADDRESS TO THE ALABASTER SARCOPHAGUS LATELY DEPOSITED

IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

(From the New Monthly Magazine for December 1821.)

Thou Alabaster relic! while I bold
My hand upon thy sculptured margin thrown,
Let me recal the scenes thou could'st unfold,
Might'st thou relate the changes thou hast
known;

For thou wert primitive in thy formation, Launch'd from th' Almighty's hand at the creation.

Yes--thou wert present when the stars and skies,

And worlds unnumber'd roll'd into their places;

When God from Chaos bade the spheres arise, And fix'd the blazing sun upon its basis,

And with his finger on the bounds of space, Mark'd out each planet's everlasting race. How many thousand ages from thy birth, Thou slep'st in darkness, it were vain to ask, Till Egypt's sons upheaved thee from the earth,

And year by year pursued their patient task;

Till thou wert carved and decorated thus,
Worthy to be a king's sarcophagus.

What time Elijah to the skies ascended,
Or David reign'd in holy Palestine,
Some ancient Theban monarch was extended
Beneath the lid of this emblazon'd shrine,
And to that subterranean palace borne,
Which toiling ages in the rock had worn.

Thebes from her hundred portals fill'd the plain,

To see the car on which thou wert upheld :-What funeral pomps extended in thy train, What banners waved, what mighty music swell'd,

As armies, priests, and crowds bewail'd in chorus,

Their King--their God--their Serapis-their Orus!

Thus to thy second quarry did they thrust Thee, and the Lord of all the nations round. Grim king of silence! monarch of the dust! Embalm'd-anointed-jewell'd--sceptred-

crown'd,

Here did he lie in state, cold, stiff, and stark,
A leathern Pharaoh grinning in the dark.
Thus ages roll'd-but their dissolving breath
Could only blacken that imprison'd thing,
Which wore a ghostly royalty in death,
As if it struggled still to be a king ;
And each revolving century, like the last,
Just dropp'dits dust upon thy lid--and pass'd.

The Persian conqueror o'er Egypt pour'd
His devastating host, a motley crew;
The steel-clad horsemen-the barbarian
horde--

Music and men of every sound and hue

[blocks in formation]

Dashing the diadem from his temple gaunt, They tore the sceptre from his graspless hand, And on those fields, where once his will was law,

Left him for winds to waste, and beasts to gnaw.

Upclosed the sepulchre with cunning skill;
Some pious Thebans, when the storm was past,

And Nature, aiding their devotion, cast
Over its entrance a concealing rill.

Then thy third darkness came, and thou did'st sleep

Twenty-three centuries in silence deep.

But be from whom nor pyramid, nor sphinx, Can hide its secresies, Belzoni, came; From the tomb's mouth unloosed the granite links,

Gave thee again to light, and life, and fame, And brought thee from the sands and deserts forth,

To charm the pallid children of the north.

Thou art in London, which, when thou wert

[blocks in formation]

REVIEW OF BOOKS, &c.

The Evidence and Authority of Divine Revelation: being a View of the Testimony of the Law and the Prophets to the Messiah, with the subsequent Testimonies. By Robert Haldane. In two volumes, 8vo. London. Hamilton. 1816.

THE evidences of Christianity have been so often made the subject of specific inquiry, and their force and fulness have so frequently been urged, even to satiety of demonstration, that it may with some be made a question whether it can be necessary to revive the inquiry; whether any thing more be requisite than to refer to that which has already been effectually done; and whether it may not even be considered as inexpedient to discuss these matters de novo, since this perpetual re-agitation of settled points may be construed into a sort of restless consciousness of weakness and failure; into a virtual admission that our ground is not yet secure, and that our battered munitions continually demand the helping hand of some diligent and dextrous "repairer of the breaches." We admit that, in part, this is really the case; we are entirely of opinion, that, to prove the divine origin, character, and aim of the Scriptures, is agere actum; that to press the argumentative evidences of divine revelation on the beaten and scattered enemies of our triumphant faith, is a task which must make the heart sink at the humbling illustration which it affords, of the blind and impious arrogance, and obstinacy of the human heart, in its incredible enmity against the glorious Gospel of the blessed God. But since, unhappily, such is the state of things, that the miserable partizans of unbelief are unceasingly endeavouring to renew their "feeble fight," it were unworthy

and unwise to decline the contest; if they will persist in their " dirty work;" if they will go on re-asserting the perfidious calumny and the refuted lie; if they will, whether stupidly or treacherously, repeat without shame the thread-bare sophism, and jingle the rusty chain of assertion and declamation, with about as much variation as is to be found in the parrot's lesson or the cuckoo's note-why, we must even make up our minds to meet them in this puny warfare, and calmly to re-urge the bright truths, and unanswerable reasons, which have already been so often and so successfully displayed.

And after all, could we forget the melancholy nature of the necessity which constrains us to renew the conflict, there is something delightful and exhilarating in thus reviewing the strong posts and commanding fortresses of our position. We challenge reference to any system which can call up a tythe of the mass and volume of evidence that inevitably establishes the truth of Christianity. Are facts required?—we present them in profusion. Is personal testimony exacted? we tender it, select, untainted, unexceptionable. Is prescription necessary?-where else can be unfolded such an unbroken chain of unhesitating, yet rational reception?

A critical history of the apolcgists for Christianity, from Justin and Origen, to Paley and Watson, would afford much interesting and important matter; but it would also, we fear, lead to the distressing conclusion, that the most eloquent and argumentative, have not always been the most evangelical, defenders of Christianity. Many have nobly asserted the verity of the Gospel, on general grounds, who seem to have been lamentably deficient in the personal applica

[ocr errors]

tion of its essential qualities. Weness and Authenticity of the Holy could refer to works, admirable in Scriptures Inspiration of the composition, unanswerable in ar- Scriptures-History of the Old gument, but betraying throughout Testament - Miracles of the Old the absence, in the writer, of all Testament-Types of the Old Tesvital knowledge of the grand truths, tament-Prophecies of the Old whose strength and glory he was Testament-General Expectation so forcibly asserting. In fact, not- of the Messiah-Appearance of withstanding some respectable at the Messiah-Testimony of the tempts to supply the desideratum, Apostles to the Messiah-Testithere has long been an urgent mony of the first Christians to the want of a clear and manageable Messiah-The Testimony of the summary, exhibiting the general Apostles and first Christians is not evidence and the actual state of opposed by any contrary Testithe question, written by a man of mony-Testimony to the Facts of clear head, well furnished mind, the Gospel History, from the adand, above all, of genuine piety. mission of those who professedly opposed or wrote against Christianity-Testimony to Facts recorded in the Gospel History, and to the progress of the Gospel, by Jewish and Heathen Historians, and by the public edicts of the Roman Government - Testimony to the Messiah from the success of the Gospel-Facts recorded in the earlier parts of the Scripture History cannot be disproved, and are corroborated by Tradition-Testimony to the Messiah, from Prophecies that are at present fulfilling in the world-Conclusion.

We feel much gratification in presenting to our readers the work before us, as an able and satisfactory effort to meet this pressing exigency. We shall not affect to introduce Mr. Robert Haldane to the knowledge of our readers; the praise of his zeal and piety is in all the churches; and if we had never before met with evidence of his abilities and acquirements, these volumes would give ample proof of their vigour and ripeness. He has produced a valuable book, admirably calculated for the accomplishment of its specific pur- We shall not inquire whether pose; and, while all may read it this arrangement might not, in with improvement, we would espe- some respects, admit of improvecially recommend it to that exten- ment; it is comprehensive, and sive class who, without opportu- its treatment is substantially excelnity of making a large circuit lent; neither shall we undertake through theological literature, have the formidable task of analysing been accustomed to exercise their an analysis, or of abridging a comfaculties on the subjects here dis- pendium. We are happy to be cussed. While they will find a able to supersede the expediency due proportion of the learning of of this, by a warm recommendathe inquiry, they will also be gra- tion of the work itself; but we tified and profited by the decided should not satisfy ourselves, nor reference--and this is the high do justice to the author, without distinction of the present work-citing two or three examples of to evangelical principle. After an his style and manner. introduction, which we should have liked better had it been considerably extended, the following subjects are successively discussed: Necessity of a Divine RevelationPersecuting Spirit of Pagans Credibility of Miracles-Genuine

The first essay is excellent, but we should have felt ourselves indebted to Mr. Haldane for a fuller and deeper discussion of the difficult but important inquiry concerning the law written on the heart. In the regular page we are aware

that it was scarcely admissible, of toleration, this singularity has proceeded

with reference to the design of the work, but a note might have found a convenient place, greatly to the advantage of the argument. Much, relative to this knotty point, may be learnt from Bishop Butler's profound sermons on human nature; they are, indeed, deplorably defective, inasmuch as they contain no distinct recognition of evangelical principle, even in that stage of the inquiry when such a reference is indispensable; but their substantial reasoning is decisive, and we should exceedingly like to see it judiciously connected with a fair and complete exposition of Gospel truth.

From the second chapter we extract the following passage, both as a good specimen of dextrous and fair logical militancy, and as illustrating a fact, of which, as Congregationalists, we feel justly proud. It will also afford us an opportunity of afterwards pointing out a part of Mr. Haldane's argument, which we think exceedingly well managed.

"Mr. Hume says, 'So sociable is Polytheism, that the utmost fierceness and aversion it meets with in an opposite religion, is scarce able to disgust and keep it at a distance.' He speaks of the tolerating spirit of idolaters' as 'very obvious,' and says, that the intolerance of almost all religions which have maintained the unity of God, is as remarkable as the contrary principle of Polytheists.'

[ocr errors]

"When Mr. Hume contrasts the tolerating principle of idolaters' with the intolerance of almost all religions that have maintained the unity of God,' the exception "almost," used for a cover, is not intended to exonerate the Christian religion. Accordingly, he soon after takes care to include Christianity, by an indirect charge against it, from the conduct of Christians. 'If,' says he, amongst Christians, the English and Dutch have embraced the principles of toleration, this singularity has proceeded from the steady resolution of the civil magistrate, in opposition to the continued efforts of priests and bigots. Our attention is thus called to the tolerating principle of idolaters, and the intolerance of the Christian religion; and we are here informed, that if any Christians have embraced the principles

from the steady resolution of the civil magistrate.' In opposition, however, to this, let us now learn from Mr. Hume himself, in another part of his writings, to whom

"so reasonable a doctrine," as that of

toleration, OWED ITS ORIGIN. "In his History of England, in narrating the events of 1644, and speaking of the Independents in that country, Mr. Hume says, Of all the Christian sects, this was the first which, during its pro

sperity as well as its adversity, always adopted the principle of toleration. And it is remarkable, that so reasonable a doctrine owed its origin, not to reasoning, but to the height of extravagance and fanaticism.' Here, notwithstanding all he has said in his Essay on the tolerating principle of Polytheists, exalting, in this respect, Paganism at the expense of the Christian religion. he now informs us, that more than a thousand years after Paganism had ceased to exist, the doctrine of toleration owed its origin, not to the reasoning of philosophers or to Polytheists, but to a sect of Christians. ligion are, with this writer, synonymous

terms.

Fanaticism and the Christian re

"It is worthy of remark, that those Christians to whom Mr. Hume ascribes the origin of toleration, had a clear underthat fundamental doctrine of the Christian standing of the meaning of regeneration, religion. Of their practical regard and adherence to that doctrine, as well as of their sentiments on toleration, Mr. Bailey, who was Principal of the college of Glasgow, and who attended the Assembly of Westminster in 1643, writes, in one of his letters to Scotland, as follows: They will adınit of none to be members of their congregations, of whose true grace and regeneration they have no good evidence. By this means they would keep out all the Christian church forty for one of the members of the best reformed churches.”

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

Many of them preach, and some print a liberty of conscience, at least the great equity of a toleration of all religions; that every man should be permitted without any fear, so much as of discountenance from the magistrate, to profess publicly his conscience, were he never so erroneous, and also live according thereunto, if he trouble not the public peace by any seditious or wicked practice."

"From this account, we learn what were the views of those Christians on toleration, and that this principle was not taken up through any accidental occurrence, but necessarily arose from their knowledge of the nature of the Christian religion. For whoever understands the doctrine. of regeneration, and acts upon it as they did, cannot, with any consistency, adopt the principles of persecution. By confounding the kingdom of Israel with the kingdom of heaven,

« AnteriorContinuar »