sense of our transgressions, and to newness of life, (the term by which Scripture implies reformation,) in, order that we may welcome those tidings of exceeding great joy-the birth of a Redeemer. It was not till after St. John had exhorted every description of people, whom the fame of his austere sanctity drew within the influence of his powerful eloquence, "to bring forth fruits meet for repentance," that he pointed out to them the "Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world."

A salutary conviction of the terrors of the Lord must prepare us to hear his good-will to man proclaimed by angels; and the soul-searching appeals of the evangelical prophet are presented to our consideration in the lessons appointed for this season. It seems impossible for any one who possesses taste to admire sublimity, and moral feeling sufficient to reflect on his own actions, to doubt the inspiration of Isaiah, after having attentively perused the style he uses in opening his commission to offending Israel. Never did Prophet pour forth so earnest an appeal to an inconsiderate, ungrateful world. Never was the Creator arrayed in such opposite yet assimilated qualities, of hatred to sin, and compassion for sinners; power to destroy, and mercy to save; omniscience to discern the secrets of the heart through the externals of religion, and placability to those who, even after a long course of crimes, not in words only, but also in purpose and act, return to their God. We have continual opportunities of remarking, that it is the peculiar superiority of instructions, dictated by the Spirit of God, that they apply to all ages of the world, all forms of social life, and all conditions of men. For sacrifices of rams, and the blood of bullocks and of goats, let us substitute such a partial dedication of the superflux of wealth to public or private charity, as in the present times is subscribed by ostentation, or given by carelessness, without an accompanying sentiment of love to our neighbour, or obedience to God and for the observance of new moons and appointed feasts,

let us read an outward attention to holy ordinances, without corresponding religious impressions, or a contentious devotedness to doctrines, without moral rectitude, or regard to the social duties; and instead of the Jewish hypocrite, we shall behold the Christian formalist, to whom the son of Amos continues to announce the omniscience, the purity, the justice, and the mercy of God.

In the first lesson for the afternoon for the first Sunday in Advent, the same eloquent instructor who, in his exordium, enforced the necessity of repentance, proceeds in his second chapter to predict a change in the Almighty's system of government. The times of Christianity are, in Scripture, generally denominated the latter or last days; expressions not indicative of the termination of the world, as the early Christians erroneously supposed, but significant of its being the last dispensation that God would give to man; being that perfect discovery of his will, for which the faithful patriarchs waited, and the Mosaical covenant prepared the Jews. Isaiah dwells on the universality and the tranquillity of the Messiah's kingdom; he names pride, ambition, avarice, self-dependance, (all of them species of idolatry that still exist,) as the causes why the ancient church was forsaken by that God who will have no fellowship with idols. And in a description of the terrors of Omnipotence, coming to take vengeance upon proud and lofty yet helpless sinners, our knowledge of its final purposes enables us to discover, not only temporal and national punishments, but a lively portraiture of that day, "when the elements shall melt with burning heat, and the earth also, and the works that are therein, shall be burnt up." That Isaiah referred, in the first instance, to the destruction of Jerusalem, is proved by our Saviour's repeating the words of the prophecy, as what the generation which he addressed would in part witness; but that subsequent events in the Church, and the close of its terrestrial conflicts, were also implied, the application of St. John,

who wrote his Revelations many years after the siege of Jerusalem, renders evident. Well might Isaiah, contemplating the convulsions of nature, and the dismay of the mightiest of mankind, while attempting to hide themselves from the glory of the Lord, exhort his readers to withdraw their confidence from mortal man, "for wherein is he to be accounted of ?"

Repentance, reformation, and a judgment to come, being thus suggested to our meditation by the lessons for the day, the collect for the first Sunday beseeches God to give us grace to prepare for the future advent of Christ. All who believe in the incarnation of the Son of God acknowledge, that his appearing once in the form of man, to be a sacrifice for sin, an ensample of godly life, was preparatory to his re-appearing as the judge of all men, the rewarder of his faithful servants, and the punisher of his obstinate enemies. This collect must be admitted to be scriptural, by those who object if the words, as well as the meaning, of Scripture be not preserved; for two sentences in it are adopted from the epistle. What are those "works of darkness which we must cast away," and what "that armour of light" which will alone protect us in the terrible day of the Lord? We learn from St. Paul's explanation of those metaphors, that the deprecatory exhortation is not directed only against magical delusions, or the obscene rites of Pagan idolatry;-but against concupiscence, malice, injustice, falsehood, covetousness. The armour of light is not speculative philosophy, superior intellectual attainments, nor even a more punctual observance of religious forms;-it is honesty, sobriety, chastity, and charity. The practice of these duties is called putting on the Lord Jesus Christ" which testifies, that those passages in Scripture, which speak of our being clothed with the righteousness of Christ, include conformity to his example.

The Gospel gives an historical account of our Lord's public entry into

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Jerusalem a few days previous to his passion, and while he was the idol of the versatile multitude. We may learn from his behaviour, how we should employ the commonly brief period of our popularity, and thus consecrate the favour of man. vindicated the sanctity of holy places, by driving from the Jewish temple those traders who profaned it by secular employments; and indicated by this act the necessity of a moral as well as of an external purification. When we bring worldly thoughts into God's house, we re-erect the seats of the money-changers which Christ threw down; and by sensual or vain ruminations we introduce the proscribed Moabite and Ammonite into the sanctuary. This action of our Lord's has a still further signification: in it he appeared as a purifier of the sons of Levi, and exceedingly jealous for the temple of the Lord of Hosts. But the earth is also the temple of God; and the same Jesus who, during his abode among men, twice cleared his Father's house from the profanation of traffic, shall, when his mediatorial kingdom terminates, appear, to renovate a world which has been long defiled by the wickedness of man!

In the lessons for the second Sunday in Advent, the prophetical spirit of Isaiah expatiates in metaphor; and by a beautiful allusion to a wellfenced, highly cultivated vineyard, continues his vindication of God's dealings with the Jewish church, and subsequently with the Christian; with all whom he hath enriched with the knowledge of his will, but who, in stead of bringing forth the fruits of holiness, are oppressors, sensualists, sophists, and perverters of justice. Against such ingrates God will erect the banner of hostility, and summon remote nations to execute the tem poral judgments connected with a state of warfare. But more terrible woes than human instruments can inflict are predicted in the end of this chapter. There the elements are set in motion, and our eyes are directed to that terrible day, when, amid the agonies of expiring nature, the light

of heaven shall be quenched in darkness, dismay, and sorrow.

The desolation of Israel, that premonitory warning to all ungrateful nations, is yet more fully explained in the twenty-fourth chapter. The stubborn people, and the idolatrous priest, the luxurious master, and the dishonest servant,-they who broke God's laws by usury, and they who submitted to ungodly compacts, shall all be swept away. Power and wealth shall be no protection; poverty or meanness of station no excuse. Even the sacerdotal stole shall not cover the prophaner of its purity from a soul-searching God. "The earth shall mourn;" it shall be burnt with fire; a remnant shall be left, a small gleaning preserved from a devoted harvest. The scattering of the tribes by the Assyrian conqueror, the long desolation produced by the Roman invasion, and the closing scenes of the universe, all successively pass in the mind of the prescient seer. When Israel" wept by the waters of Babylon," the earth" did not reel to and fro like a drunkard;" nor was it removed like the cottage or tent of a wandering shepherd, when Titus stormed the temple at Jerusalem, or Adrian ploughed up the foundations of the city where the Lord's anointed had suffered a malefactor's death. "The windows from on high were not opened," nor were "the kings and mighty ones of the earth gathered together as prisoners in a pit." That day is still to come ;-the day when the Lord shall reign gloriously in Jerusalem, in the presence of his ancient and heavenly hierarchy. Therefore, let the Christian priest and noble, the trader whose God is gain, and the servant who, either in the multiplicity of worldly care forgets his heavenly Master, or acts dishonestly by his earthly, the tender and delicate woman, who seems fastidiously to disdain the common earth, --all who pervert justice, and all who deny God, let them tremble at the still unfulfilled portions of this prophecy!

The collect prays for a right use of those Holy Scriptures which the epis

tle assures us were written for our learning; to exercise patience, and to inspire hope. The calling of the Gentiles is the topic upon which St. Paul addresses the Romans. In the primitive ages of the church, it was a lively source of consolation to these converts, when labouring under severe persecution, to know, that their renunciation of idolatry, and adoption into the Church of God, were plainly declared by those ancient writers who, though Jews themselves, and feeling all the nationality of their country, yet predicted the excision of that often-pardoned but ever-offending people, and the engrafting of an alien branch on the stock of faith. We, who live in probably the latter ages of Christianity, have our hope and patience equally exercised by the continuance of Israel as a scattered yet distinct people; and by the unperformed assurance, that before. the consummation of all things, the remnant, of which Isaiah spoke in the afternoon proper lesson, shall be gathered into the storehouse of divine mercy.

A portrait of the despised Son of Man, invested in the solemn character of judge of men and angels, is selected for the gospel. Here our Lord describes to his apostles that destruction of the civil and ecclesiasti cal polity of the Jews, which, from its peculiar horror, and the unrelenting vengeance with which it was inflicted, is considered by all Christians, as more emblematical of the day of judgment, than the woes of any other nation since the creation of the world. "Jerusalem is still trodden down by the Gentiles." Only for a short period, since the death of Christ, has she been out of the possession of her enemies; but "when the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled," direful omens of another change shall alarm all the nations upon earth. Whether these signs shall take place in the material heavens; or whether, by the sun, moon, and stars, according to the general language of prophecy, earthly. potentates are figuratively personified, it would be presumptuous to determine. The predictions that are

"

preserved in holy writ were not in tended to make us seers and diviners, but humble observers, delighted to trace the hand of God in every event, with a conviction that all will ultimately accomplish, first the purification, and then the preservation, of his Church. Whether, therefore, our Lord described the premonitory signs of his coming in literal or in prophetical language, the conclusion is the same. Whether kings and princes, instead of shedding benign influence like the heavenly luminaries, scorch and afflict the earth; or the people, no longer fertilizing the nations by their industry, realize their symbol of a tempestuous overwhelming ocean by popular contentions and furious insubordination, be it the part of every devout Christian to watch, to pray, and to consider the signs of the times; not as the men of Athens, who loved to talk of wonders, but as those who "look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness."

SOCIETY (IN ENGLAND) FOR THE PROPAGA

TION OF THE GOSPEL.

In the last number of the Journal was given an Abstract of the Annual Report of the Society. The following are extracts from the Annual Sermon, which was preached by the Lord Bishop of London, (Dr. HOWLEY) before the Society, on Friday, the 21st of February, at the Parish Church of St. Mary le Bow, from Matt. xxviii. 18, 19,

20.

THE present limited influence of Christianity in the world, is traced by his Lordship in a manner which ought to put to shame all indifference on the subject, to the want of due exertions on the part of its professors. Formally invested with authority, and endued with power from on high, the Apostles entered on their office; and, declaring to Jew and to Gentile the terms of salvation, repentance from sin and faith in the crucified Redeemer, experienced the testimony of Christ to the word of his grace, (Acts xiv. 3.) in the unexampled triumph of the Gospel over the passions and prejudices, the inveterate intellectual habits and social usages, of mankind. In

the course of a few years, a mighty revolution was effected, by their ministry, in the religious opinions and practice of the various nations which acknowledged the dominion of Rome.

The early predominance of the Faith in the capital and provinces of that vast empire, was naturally regarded as the immediate prelude of the happy consumphecy, when Christianity should assume mation presignified in the records of proher legitimate sovereignty, and become the religion of the world. The magnitude of the obstacles already surmounted tions. The faith, which had baffled in might justify the most sanguine expecta

its infancy the united hostility of human wisdom and power, had attained stability and permanence, and was advancing with progressive rapidity in the career of conquest.

But the primitive convert who indulged this pleasing speculation, could he return from the grave, would behold with surprise and mortification the disappointment of his fairest hopes. It is, indeed, lapse of so many centuries, the influence a distressing reflection, that, after the of our blessed religion is still so feebly and imperfectly felt in the most extensive and populous regions of the ancient world; that, while the ends of the earth have yielded their treasures and territory to the avarice or ambition of Europe, they have not received in exchange the inestimable truths of the Gospel; that the nations of the East, while they bow in passive submission to the power of Christians, reject the yoke of Christ.

Yet nothing, on examination, will be found in the present state of religion in the world, which is not perfectly consistent with the language of ancient prophecy, and the promises of our blessed Lord. The varied predictions of the Old and New Testaments coincide in describing a series of conflicts between the gross superstitions and corrupt affections of mankind on the one hand, and the pure religion of Christ on the other; till the warfare shall be finally terminated by the extinction of death, and the subjugation of every enemy.

The reasons of this mysterious dispensation are founded in the nature of things. sion of the understanding and will to the Conversion to Christ implies the submis law of holiness; a change of the inward man, not to be effected by violence, but resulting from the conviction of truth, and the cogency of motives which act by a moral efficacy, and not by compulsion, on the will. Our Lord has entrusted this difficult work to the intermediate agency of his servants, with an assurance of effective assistance, in aid of their faithful endeavours. But he has no where engaged to exert an irresistible influence in sub.

duing the perverseness of the infidel, who obstinately rejects the truth; nor is he bound to supply the deficiencies, or pros per the endeavours of Christian preachers or communities, when they are negli gent or unfaithful in the promulgation of his Law.

In these arrangements of grace we observe a striking analogy to the ordinary course of nature. It is man who dresses the ground and scatters the seed: it is God who blesses the labour of the husbandman with increase. The genial influences of heaven, the shower, the dew, and the sunshine, are limited in their effects by the quality of the soil, or the measure of industry employed in its cultivation. In a similar manner, without the slightest impeachment of our Lord's fidelity or power, the progress of conversion will recede or advance, in proportion to the piety and knowledge of his servants, their zeal and ability in the propagation of truth, and the intellectual and moral capacities of those to whom the word of salvation is addressed.

The Bishop adds,

It is the object of the present discourse, to verify these observations, by reference to some of the principal missions in different ages of the Church; and if their truth is established, we shall at least have obtained some direction for our future proceedings, in the performance of duties peculiarly incumbent on a nation which covers the sea with her navies, and extends her dominion to the ends of the earth.

His Lordship then depicts the intellectual and moral qualifications of the first Preachers of the Gospel, as giving them a personal aptitude for the duties of their Ministry; and observes, that those primitive teachers possessed an auxiliary of incalculable power, in the general conduct and character of the whole Church.

But zeal (the Bishop adds) in the bosom of the primitive Christians, was associated with meekness and patience, with conscientious attachment to order, and willing conformity to discipline. It was not a wild or impetuous passion, but a sober and rational principle of conduct; attentive to the suitableness of its means, and the sufficiency of its power, and anxious to regulate its movements by the dictates of prudence, in subordination to legitimate authority. The believers in Christ, however widely dispersed through the mass of society, were thus united in a regular body; and, like the several parts of a disciplined army, had the advantage of acting at once on the must distant

points, with a combination of force directed by a common plan.

In this unity of principle, of action, antl of object, conspicuous alike in the practice of individuals and the general proceedings of the Church, we have, I conceive, discovered the cause which, under the guidance, and with the sustaining power of Christ, was of most immediate efficacy in the early diffusion of the Gospel.

In illustration of the truth of this observation, his Lordship draws an affecting picture of the Roman Missions.

To pour the light of the Gospel over the benighted regions of the East, has long been a favourite object of pious and reflecting men, among the two great divisions of Christians which share the Western World: and could a project of such extent and importance have been achieved by human policy and power, the exertions of the Roman Church may seem to have been adequate to its accomplishment. The celebrated establishment for the pro pagation of the faith commands our admiration, by the grandeur and magnifi cence of conception displayed in its plan, and by the energy and judgment which prepared and directed the arrangement and application of its means. Its designs, in their full extent, embraced the conversion of the world; and, in the different religious orders prepared to act under its direction, it had the disposal of a power, prodigious in force, and proportioned to the magnitude of the undertaking. These singular institutions supplied a number of men distinguished by ardour of piety and innocence of life; accustomed to labour, to poverty, to the severest priva-. tions; inured to implicit obedience; proand versed in the sciences, the arts, and ficients in the study of human nature; the languages, which could facilitate admission and intercourse in the several countries assigned for the exertions of their zeal. A regular system of inspection and discipline insured the advantages of control and direction, at the greatest distance from home; combining the movements of the several Missions, and exacting the labours of every individual in his allotted station.

With such ample provision and skilful disposition of means, the world was prepared to expect some extraordinary result from the united efforts of this great com pany of preachers. (Ps, lxviii. 11.)

But their path was encumbered with difficulties. The obstacles opposed to their progress, by the peculiar tenets and manners of the East, were increased in a tenfold degree by the degenerate morals of Christians; and, above all, by the crimes and cruelties of European adven