Reflecting, therefore, on the simple manners of the patriarchs, and their venerableness of age, how are we to picture Adam, in his 894th year, describing the sweets of the garden of Eden-the sensations he felt on first beholding Eve -his happiness whilst in a state of innocence-the fall and consequent expulsion from Paradise-the births of his children-the death of Abel, and subsequent events of his life to his son Seth, then 764 years old-to his grandson Enos, then aged 659 years-to his great grandson Cainan, aged 569-to his great great grandson Mahalaleel, aged 499-to his great great great grandson Jared, aged 434-to Jared's son Enoch, aged 272 years-to Enoch's son Methuselah, aged 207 years-and to the young Lamech, the son of Methuselah and father of Noah, when in the twentieth year of his age? That all these patriarchs might have met at one place and conversed together is highly probable; and hence it follows that Lamech would have the testimony of them all. pp. 6-8. In whatever light it may be considered, it is an undoubted fact, that every thousandth year of the duration of the world, is connected with some extraordinary alteration as to the state of the church, which I shall here briefly note : About 1000. Birth of Noah and his preaching of righteousness. 2000. Birth of Abraham, from whose days, to the days of Solomon, no temple was built for Divine worship. 3000. Solomon builds his temple. 4000. The coming of our Saviour Jesus Christ. 5000. Dissensions from the Church of Rome, and the revival of true religion; for about this time history informs us, the Church of Rome did begin to persecute and to use cruelty in general against all who dared to withstand her doctrine, till the time of Berengarius, whom Pope Nicholas the second compelled to recant by force, in the year 1509. Another millenium is now drawing fast towards its close; what events it may bring in its train we know not. pp. 101-104. When consulting a copy of the work of Mr. Isaacson, in the Library of the Royal Institution, I found pasted into it, at the third page of the address to the reader, what appeared to me, the copy of a letter, (evidently written more than a century ago,) intended to be addressed to some one, relative to fixing the year of the creation of the world according to the Julian period, which being curious, I transcribed. It is as follows: "Sir,-Having observed a wide difference in point of chronology between the Masoretic Hebrew Bible, the Samaritan Hebrew Pentateuch, and the Greek Version of the 70, and not knowing which to follow, I resolved to compare them all with Josephus, and when any three agreed to follow them; but, if two agreed in one number, and the other two in another, and so the evidence were equal, then I determined to follow the Samaritan, as a mediator between the Masoretic and the Septuagint. I did so, and to my great surprise and pleasure, I found the creation of the world and the Julian period to commence together, according to this calculation : 1562 Noah's Flood. 1052 2614 Abraham born. 1041 3655 David began his reign. 471 4126 The Babylonish captivity.. 587 4713 The year of the Julian period, in which the birth of Christ is fixed in all systems of chronology." pp. 146, 147. Evangelical Preaching (commonly so denominated): its Character, Errors, and Tendency: in a Letter to the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells. By the Rev. RICHARD WARNER, F. A. S. Rector of Great Chalfield, Wilts. London: Rivington. 1828. -This pamphlet, notwithstanding the wicked spirit in which it is written, may not be without some benefit to its readers, if it warn them, as it ought to do, of the danger and consequences of apostasy, and if it lead them to pray for the poor unhappy author. From our hearts we pity him, and beg God not to lay this sin to his charge. We are under no apprehensions that these twenty-seven pages will be able really to injure the body of men they attack; but we have very serious apprehensions whether they may not be bearing their part towards filling up the measure of the iniquities of their miserable writer. This language may appear strong, but it is not stronger than truth warrants, and indeed demands. Our author was once a happy man: he preached that Gospel which he now despises, and loved the men whom he would now persecute-not to say destroy. His ministry was attended with no small measure of the blessing of Heaven, and there are those who acknowledge him as their father in Christ. What a scene of parochial order and domestic peace was then to be witnessed all around him, we will not now stop to unfold. Unhappy man! that he could leave his mercies; that he could suffer himself to be carried away with the worldly torrent; that he could ever become an "accuser of the brethren," an instigator to persecution, a reviler of those that are good! Unhappy man! to whom no change of place can restore the peace which he once enjoyed!-We could say more, but we forbear. We leave the author, and turn to the book. It is a letter to the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells, instigating his Lordship, and the other spiritual rulers in the church, to exert themselves, by every means in their power, to put a stop to the spread of Evangelical Religion in the Church of England. That the evil complained of is widely extended, and still extending itself, the author very candidly admits; and such an admission, coming from such a quarter, speaks volumes as to the common sense of the question. It is unnecessary for me to remind your Lordship, that, of late years, a strange alteration has been effected, in the usual style of public religious instruction, by a large body of the Church-of-England clergy-that, this new system of preaching, is called, (with singular inconsistency) Evangelical preaching-that, its wide popularity is unequivocal-and that, the ministers who have not adopted it; who have not "forsaken the fountain of living waters; and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water ;” are rapidly losing ground, in general estimation, and pastoral influence. In truth, my Lord, it is creeping, like a mist, over the whole surface of the country; and bearing with it, all the properties of a noxious fog: dimning the mental vision, and obscuring the moral perception, of the people: shrouding the most important truths, under a veil of " thick darkness;" and magnifying non-essential matters, far beyond their due and natural proportions. That few districts exist, into which it has not found its way, is sufficiently notorious: and they who are best acquainted with the present theological character of our cities, (more especially of the two large ones in my own immediate neighbourhood,) will not deny, that, in these great masses of population, its adoption is considerable, and its patronage powerful and undisguised. pp. 6, 7. Our author, we more then suspect, finds this statement to be true by his own experience. Thank God! the Bible has now been so widely diffused among the population of this country, that in most cases the people will not flock to those churches where the pulpit is at variance with the reading-desk. As to stigmatizing the doctrines taught by these Evangelical preachers as "new," we can only suppose one or other of these two things,-either that our author is excessively ignorant and uninformed as to the doctrines held and taught by the Reformers of our church; or, if the charge of ignorance be repelled, that of malice, not to say falsehood, must be admitted -and we leave our author to take his choice. Our readers will wish to know what the charges are which this accuser brings against the brethren. Let them know, then, that he manages this matter with no little artifice. He first muddies the water; and, having done that, he tries to give the Bishop his own obscure view of this important and momentous subject. There are, two points, wherein all the clergy of this school agree: which are quite sufficient to mark the preachers as a genus, and their mode of teaching as a system. It is a fact too notorious to be denied, and one, which the ministers referred to, will not, probably, be disposed to contradict; that the usual, and almost exclusive theme of praise and recommendation, in their sermons, is faith; which, like" the brazen serpent" in the wilderness, is lifted up, a conspicuous, but solitary object, for their hearers to "look thereon and live"-that, it is described, as the "Alpha and Omega," the beginning and end; the substance and essence, of vital religion: the certain pledge of salvation to the believer; the one pearl of great price," to which, exclusively, is appended the guerdon of eternal life. The very phrase of "good works," as a condition of salvation, is not known in their theological vocabulary: and the utmost they will allow to moral virtue, when it claims their reluctant and accidental notice, is, that its only value in the sight of God, arises, not from its being a proof of religious. obedience, but, merely, as it forms an evidence of faith. Fearful that man should build any claim of merit, upon any thing he can do himself, and plead his personal righteousness as a reason for God's acceptance of him, (though all such "boasting" is cut off, by the conviction of every serious Christian, that, after all, he is only an "unprofitable servant,") they oscillate into the contrary extreme, and, either by an actual disparagement of "good works," or, by their sullen silence respecting them, they rob religious and moral obedience of its legitimate honours: of that value and approbation, in the sight of God, which He, in His mercy, is pleased, for the sake of Jesus Christ, to confer on every humble and sincere endeavour" to do his will:" and, to which he put his own seal, when, in the case of Cornelius, his angel said, "thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God." The other general characteristic of Evangelical preaching to which I have alluded, is this: its constant reference to Jesus Christ, as embodying in himself all the attributes; and exercising all the prerogatives; planning all the counsels; and effecting all the purposes, of God the Father; in direct contradiction to the express and repeated declarations of the Holy Saviour himself; and in opposition to the tenor of those Articles of our Church, with the violation of which, the Evangelical clergy are so apt to charge their brother-ministers of the Establishment. What is this practice, my Lord, but destroying, (if I may say it without irreverence) the balance of the mystery of the Holy Trinity; overturning the equality of the Persons; and giving exaltation to one, by lowering and degrading the others? In this exclusive adoration of Christ, the Paternity is utterly lost sight of: the dread "Majesty of Heaven :" the "King Immortal:" the "I Am that I Am :" the "First and the Last: "the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth Eternity:" is, either excluded entirely from the scene, or appears upon it, shorn of his ineffable glories, and clothed with inferior honours: and the awful injuction of our blessed Lord himself, that " all men should honour the Son, as" (in like manner, or in the same degree)" they honour the Father," is infringed or neglected; in the vain hope, that a superior worship offered to his nature, will be accepted as a reparation for the breach of his commands. pp. 12-15. When a divine of the Church of England writes in this way of the doctrines and preachers of Christianity, he must not be surprised if we pity his malice, rather than attempt to correct his statements. We are glad, however, that he did not still further deliver himself up to delusion and falsehood, and assert that the preaching of the Evangelical Clergy had been a main cause of the late alarming increase of crime. We really feared something like this as we began the following passage: Alas! my Lord, when we attentively regard the present moral aspect of our country, this melancholy conclusion must, I fear, be forced upon our mindsthat, to whatsoever causes, an alarming increase of public crime and private profligacy may be attributed, no improvement in the national character hath, as yet, resulted from Evangelical preaching. pp. 19, 20. Our readers will, however, perceive, that, if he did not dare to tell one falsehood, he did dare to tell another; for such we boldly assert is contained in the latter part of the passage just quoted. We have only room for one more extract. It contains a great deal of honey, but an equal quantity of poison; and, if acted upon in the spirit so manifestly intended, it will do much to drive men of the greatest piety and promise from seeking admission into the pale of our Apostolic Church. And with this most happy extract, we take our leave of most unhappy Richard Warner. Most happily, my Lord, the ordination of ministers for the Established Church, is entrusted to the hands of those who, from maturity of age, wide experience, scholastic acquirements, personal worth, and awful responsibility, may reasonably be supposed, not only to be perfectly conversant with the scriptural and edifying doctrines of that church, but earnestly desirous also that these should be preached by the clergy to its members in" simplicity and truth." Here, therefore, in this cautious and wholesome mode of supplying the ministry with stewards, there should seem to be a means of security provided against the “creeping-in unawares" of improper persons: of those whose spiritual views are in opposition to the truly evangelical and long-recognized principles of our venerable pale. The estimate of their qualifications, scholastic and moral, is, with the utmost wisdom, submitted to the Bishops: the test of their opinions also, speculative and practical, is to be proposed by their Lordships; and if these opinions be "found wanting," in scriptural authority, or tinged with enthusiasm, or deviating from common sense and universal reason; candour, assuredly, will readily allow, that such candidates ought not to be admitted into the ministry of the Established Church. pp. 24, 25. 493 CORRESPONDENCE, ON THE PRESENT STATE OF RELIGION IN HOLLAND. To the Editor of the Christian Review, &c. My dear Friend,-You have several times requested that I would give you some account of what I saw and learned during my residence in Holland: and this, I am persuaded, was not from mere curiosity, nor only from the kind feeling of personal interest in the history of an individual; but rather from the conviction, that during the course of a seven years' residence in a foreign land I must have acquired some knowledge, and made some observations, which were worthy of being communicated; partly as throwing light upon the state of religion in that country, and partly as affording some lessons of practical importance to the Christian minister in this. If I have seemed to be backward in complying with your request, assure yourself that it was, in a great measure, because I understood its true nature, and felt that you were calling me to a serious work, which required mature consideration, and much thought and labour; more, indeed, than till lately I thought myself able to bear. It would, indeed, be easy to sit down and scrawl sheet after sheet; which, I doubt not, would interest you as a Christian friend; yet, if this were nothing else but crude and undigested matter-narratives, remarks, and anecdotes, strung together without method or design-it would not answer the end you proposed; and neither you nor I, on sober reflection, would be satisfied. In truth, it is a very difficult matter to write upon the state of religion in a foreign country; and this is one thing which I learned while abroad. I am persuaded that even good men, generally speaking, have undertaken this far too hastily. A man travels through two or three countries in the course of a few months. He is introduced every where to a few individuals, Christian ministers and others. He is received with great politeness, as a stranger and a foreigner. Every one is anxious to shew him kindness, and to make the most favourable impression upon him; and that every thing in his country, or in his town and district, should make the most favourable impression too; or rather, that his visitor should see every thing in the light in which he sees it, and carry home the very same views and impressions which he himself has formed and cherished, whether favourable or unfavourable. The traveller himself is disposed to be pleased with the people who receive him so kindly. He takes for granted every thing |