vine flowing through the branches. It would turn our eye away from the bosom of God, where the Son of his love is seen, and cause it to rest on personal qualities in ourselves as the reason for our being blessed. This view would encourage Thomas-à-Kempis in not expecting perfect peace with God, until the man had become perfectly like God. 6 We cannot help wishing that the translators of this work had thrown in a note occasionally; as when in Psalm xxv., they found the author gravely saying, the omission of the P is evidently not accidental, as its place is occupied by the letter following in the alphabet. The author did not succeed to his mind either with the or the and it is as clear as day, that he sacrificed the form to the sense." (P. 228). This is Neology undisguised, and better would it have become a critic to say that he could not divine a reason for the omission, (even had the author been a mere inspired poet), than to pronounce dogmatically on the subject, and by a broad assertion, cut the Gordian knot to his own satisfaction. Yet withal, the work is well worth the reader's study. It yields materials which will be most useful to him in forming his own judgment on the sense and drift of every Psalm. But this he must do, seeking the guidance of the Spirit of truth, and expecting at every turn to discern the person and work of Him that was to come. ART. VII.-1. Twelve Sermons upon the History of Saint Paul. 3. Sermons preached in Trinity Chapel, Upper Chelsea. By the If you open these volumes expecting to find in them something unusual or stirring, you will lay them quickly down again. Their lamented author was a scholar, but there is no pedantry here, he was a thinker, but there is no speculation here,--he was a divine, but there is no system here. All is gentle, kind, warm, holy, the expression of an active, dispassionate, sanctified mind,—the result of studious habits and prayerful hours, the teaching of one who had himself been taught of God. Mr Blunt must have been an amiable, accomplished, influential man,-it is evident that he could have reached a higher level of address, had he not wished only to be useful. One feels that he was skilled in the awful art of bringing God and souls together, through the truth as it is in Jesus, either for peace or alarm. And whilst we rejoice that even for a season such a light was kindled in the church below, we can scarcely help grieving, when we think that already it has shed all its radiance on earth, and is set. Such men as Mr Blunt, take him all in all, can ill be spared by the church at any time. More emphatically, however, have we to bewail their loss in a day like ours. Preachers as graceful, as pure, as unflinching may indeed be found, and found more abundantly at present than a few years ago. But here was an advantage that our author possessed over most of his cotemporaries,-all those ministerial qualities we have spoken of, he carried within a sphere into which they do not often find access, and exhibited without either compromise or rudeness, on a platform of society which not many like-minded with himself are permitted to frequent. The labours of Mr Blunt lay to no inconsiderable extent among the higher ranks and more opulent classes of England, and as his intercourse amongst them was consistent and spiritual, his influence over them was great. Even in company with his gentle worth and elegant propriety, the gospel that makes sinners of us all, would be a stumbling-block and offence. Notwithstanding, he declared none other truth than what brings salvation, and sanctifies the heart. Faithful to souls, and loving Jesus, his ear was not open to the reproach or flattery of men who were soon to pass away,,-his eye was upon the judgment-seat. The minister who was so earnest and so judicious, as we have represented, amid all the discouragements and temptations of his day, would not have failed, were he still moving in our circles of wealth and fashion, to lift up an impressive testimony on behalf of those truths which the aristocracy of the land have been taught so suddenly now to discard, and even unto shame and peril, to contend against those deadly errors which have become their refuge and admiration. The infidelity of our lower orders is not without strong signs of danger. Still it is an evil we can come alongside of, and handle, and restrain. We have but to knock at the door of the poor, and their house is open to us, we have but to meet them as creatures of the same blood, and the same passions, and the same destinies with ourselves, and they will let us reason with them. In this way the physician gets as near to his patient as he chooses, and this is a mighty advantage. The conflagration that now rages in the cells and lower flats of society may after all master us; still it is something,—it is a great thing when we can approach close to the fatal element, and bring our water-works to bear upon it. What though we cannot extinguish the flame, we may keep it both from spreading and bursting forth. But what we can do in regard to infidelity as it now prevails among our artizans, we cannot do in respect of Popery, because its bulwarks are on the very mountain-tops of society. It is entrenched behind mitres, and coronets, and stars,-it is the inmate of baronial halls, and sumptuous mansions, and antique palaces,-it is the idol of the great and powerful. How then is it to be reached? The difficulty is not how to deal with the monster, but how to get at him,-not how to prove that Dagon is Dagon, a fish and no god, but how to bring into his house the ark of Jehovah, before which he must fall, and again fall, until he be no more. 6 In such a dilemma one like Mr Blunt would have been of singular importance,-of real service. At a crisis such as is now developing in England, our author, as one who could speak the word even to kings,' might have helped to stay the plague that is now abroad. And on this very account, his withdrawal, as it appears to us, is no favourable sign from God toward our nobles, and rich ones, whether they may be of the same mind with us or no. They may, perhaps, be glad that they are not rendered uneasy by so severe a prophet,but doubtless, had God seen fit to have prolonged his days, Mr Blunt would have at this time rung a bold warning within the very citadel of our country's peril, and told the truth in the ears of those who have but seldom the privilege of listening to so pure an adviser. What if we should see a separation wider still accomplished between the evangelism and the rank of our kingdom? Death removed Mr Blunt, and our high places were bereft of one from whom they must have heard the words of righteousness and life. But in rapid succession, other events are hastening on a similar result, and leaving defenceless to the inroad of error and superstition, our nobles and gentry. The disruption in Scotland, at one brief but disastrous stroke, withdrew from the circles of opulence and title, the only men who would have leavened them with a vital gospel, and sought rather them than theirs. Let us wait only a little while, and circumstances must occur in England which will likewise release its aristocracy from the incessant reiteration of Protestant truth, and hand them over to the subtleties of men who will slowly lead them back to Rome. God may undo the sign that is now in the firmament, and repel the current that now rushes through the land. But at present, all things signify too markedly the disenfranchisement of our higher classes, from the yoke of a Protestant gospel on the one hand, and on the other, a meek, full, confiding' acceptance of Popery with all its exactions, as well as all its blandishments. The cringing Erastian or the carnal Puseyite, will traverse the floors of the great with a smiling welcome, but against the fearless ministers of Christ the door is nearly shut. 6 One consolation is left. It may be that the Works of such a man as Mr Blunt may still find access to the saloons where he himself would have been admitted, and he may still assert, though dead, those very truths, and spread that very doctrine, which he so much delighted to advance with his living voice. We rejoice, for this reason, in the efforts made by the publishers, for feeding and augmenting the circulation of our author's productions, and we would most cheerfully assist in so good a work. Mr Blunt is a voluminous writer; but this does not require of any one to purchase all his volumes-it only furnishes him with the means of suiting his taste. From one who wrote so much as Mr Blunt, of course we are not to expect the pregnant sentences of Cecil, or the massive theology of Scott, but in all his volumes, we are sure to meet with the evangelical preacher, the tasteful writer, and the loving friend. some. Had our author still been in the vineyard, we might have ventured to submit one or two criticisms, though as much in the spirit of inquiry, as of dissent. As it is, seeing that he who wrote these volumes shall never either amend what may be faulty, or retouch what may be excellent in his volumes, we only desire, for ourselves and others, that we all consider the great lessons of profit which his closed ministry ought to teach us. Lectures and sermons, we constantly hear, are too abundant a commodity. But the remark needs to be qualified, if indeed it ought ever to be made. So far, for our own part, are we from wondering that ministers do so often give their flocks a volume of discourses, that, on the contrary, we wonder that every minister is not ready, in this way, as well as by all other methods, to run a hazard for the good of souls, if haply he may save At the same time, the volume should be the fruit of his own thought a reflection of his own experience-his own production, and not the mere stitching of his own worsted on the tinted ground of another's outline. In this case, whether weak or strong, eloquent or prosaic, the sermons would be of much use. Few men can be original, and no one should think himself under an obligation to be But all can be individual, and every preacher should make conscience of being this. To be original is to put truth in a new light. To be individual is just to tell how the truth looks to me, and is felt by me. Now, this is what we desiderate and demand in every volume of discourses, and were this the case, there would be no reiterated complaint of the press groaning under sermons, which no one reads, and no one could profit by. Let all ministers eschew the effort to be original, or the attempt to give us either new truths, or new words; but let them resolve that they shall give out every truth as it was conceived by their own minds-and as their own vocabulary is fit to express it let them be rigidly, conscientiously individual, and there is not a single minister who might not produce a volume that would be hailed as an acquisition to theological literature. Mr Blunt was such an author; and so, with nothing that approaches to genius, his volumes are full of warmth, and inter So. est, and richness. Ashe thinketh in his heart, so does he express the truth. His works are thus characterized by their quiet individuality. It would be well if ministers would also seek to possess as much unction as Mr Blunt. This quality may not easily be defined, yet a spiritual taste at once recognizes its presence, and the source of it is not far to seek. The grand secret of it is even this, and no more, that the preacher's soul is a living soul, and when he preaches, the life that is in himself is added to the life that is in the word. Feeling is not unction, else Logan had it. Nor is fire unction, else Warburton had it. And fancy is not unction, else Taylor had it. Unction is life. It implies individuality—a mind thinking and uttering for itself, but it is more than individuality. It is the soul itself,but alive, as well as independent, and rendering instinct with its own life all it speaks. Perhaps it is more than this. May May we not call it the living of life? By this we mean, that not only is the preacher truly a living spirit, but that his life is in action, and throwing out its sparks at the moment he preaches? • When I have a single grain of faith in exercise,' used an aged minister to say, a simple quotation from Scripture is enough-let me be alive, and my words live.' Is not this what we call unction ?-not eloquence-not pathos-not imagination, but the flowing of a stream of life over a stratum of death? At all events, a quality such as we have described, Mr Blunt's sermons possess, and no minister will succeed who has it not. Truly it cannot be acquired-it must be communicated. It is not the fruit of experience—it is the gift of God. But should any one regard himself as called to the ministry, who is conscious that it belongs not to him? Ought not this to be the test by which our licentiates try themselves, ere they commit themselves to a work from which, if once committed, even the most unsuitable are never found to retire? And may any who declare the truth as it is in Jesus, expect that their discourses will be blessed, unless, as they stand pleading with the dead, their own souls are alive. 6 Ministers might with profit consider and follow Mr Blunt's example in the instancy of his gospel offer. A man who knew his own heart, and whose heart was but the picture of all others, thus describes his experience in the work of salvation. ‘I believed that God was able to save that he was willing to save— that he was able and willing to save now, but when it came to this, that he will save me just now, my heart shrunk back. There is great truth in this representation, and all who deal with souls might derive profit from the hint. Hearers will go along with the preacher, when he is at the stone-cast length from him, of Christ's ability and willingness. And even, when he comes to daggers |