myself, has been written with earnest prayer to Almighty God for the teaching of his Holy Spirit, that I might not write a syllable inconsistent with the tenor and import of the Holy Scriptures, nor sanction the slightest deviation from holiness of heart and life." ON THE PHRASE "FINISHED SALVATION." To the Editor of the Christian Observer. A CORRESPONDENT under the signature of Pastor, in your Number for May, p. 287, says: "A short time ago I had been visiting a sick woman of very indifferent character, in my parish, and who was greatly addicted to the vice of lying; in fact, she seldom spoke a word of truth, and the most earnest and affectionate warnings were of no effect. All at once I perceived a great change in her manner. She refused to listen to any representations of her guilt and danger, and the necessity of repentance and faith.' I could get nothing from her but that she was 'safe,' and that her salvation was 'a finished work.' Anxious to ascertain whether any work of grace had really taken place in her heart, I asked her several searching questions, warning her against her besetting sin of lying. I could not make her sensitive of her guilt, but at last she angrily produced this identical 'Sinner's Friend,' which she said 'had been given her by a clergyman,' (of antinomian views, and a seceder from the Church,) with a strict charge to let nobody persuade her that her salvation was not a finished work.'” I will not enter into any general discussion upon various questions to which this paragraph might give rise; but one thing I think ought to be stated, that wherever this wretched self-deceiving woman may have learned the phrase, that salvation is " a finished work," she did not find it in the Tract alluded to. It may have been employed by the "seceding antinomian clergyman," as it is employed by some clergymen who are neither "seceders nor "antinomians," but truly 'evangelical" men; but it is not an expression used in Scripture, or in any of the formularies of the Church of England; and neither is it used by the writer of "The Sinner's Friend," nor I think could *I would not dispute for a word where the meaning is clear; but there is no Scriptural authority for applying to our blessed Lord the title of "The Friend of sinners." This appellation was applied to him sarcastically, and in contempt, by his enemies; and on the two occasions upon which he refers to it, so far from adopting it, (as persons sometimes assume epithets in a good sense, which their enemies had used in a bad one,) he both times speaks of the appellation as reproachful. His words, Matt. xi. 19., are, "And they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners ;" and again Luke vii. 34," Ye say, Behold a gluttonous man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners." On both these occasions our Lord appeals from the judgment of the Pharisees and Lawyers, saying, "But wisdom is justified of all her children;" that is, whatever they might affirm, those who were enlightened by heavenly wisdom well knew that though he was not austere in his deportment, like John the Baptist, he was "'* not "a gluttonous man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners." He does not condescend to explain to his columniators why it was he held commerce with sinners; namely, as he elsewhere says, that he might call them to repentance; as it was prophesied of Him that he should save his people from their sins. It is true that on this very ground he was their best friend; he died a ransom for sinners-yea, for the chief of sinners; but he did not allow himself to be characterised by an appellation which was meant to imply that he befriended sin. When there are so many names given in Scripture to designate our Divine Lord, it cannot be necessary to adopt one which is not so given, which he disclaimed as reproachful, and which can only by accommodation be applied to him. I do not remember that any of the writers who have collected lists of the Scriptural titles of our Lord, have thought of inserting this among the number. Yet, blessed be God, he is the friend of every penitent sinner who repairs to him as a Saviour. be; for if I rightly gather his opinions from his Tract, he entertains very much those professed by Mr. Wesley and his followers, who strongly object to the phrase "finished salvation," while they urge, as does the writer of this Tract, the necessity of coming at once to Christ, embracing instantly his gracious offer, and seeking for full assurance of the forgiveness of their sins. He marks in Italics the words "secret decree," in assuring the sinner that there is "no secret decree of God" to " induce him to reject a single person who applied to him for the salvation of his soul, with a sincere desire to obtain that blessing, depending on his truth, power, and grace, and using the means which he hath appointed." The New Testament clearly points out the difference between redemption and salvation; the atonement and the application of the atonement; as it does between justification and sanctification; and we are not to confound the finished work of Christ with the progressive work of the Holy Spirit, or to disparage either. The atonement was made upon the Cross once-for-all. When our Lord said, "It is finished," he taught us that by what he had done and suffered, he had completed the work which he had undertaken, which was to obtain eternal redemption for us. Faith lays hold of that redemption; we are justified solely by faith; thus our salvation is wholly of grace; and Christ is made unto us salvation. Yet no less is it said, "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling ;" and the Apostle Paul would have heard with horror a hardened woman assert that she was not to "work" it out, for that it was a finished work." He adds, shewing our own inability and the power and grace of God, "For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." Again, the same Apostle says, "Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed." Here he speaks of it as something not yet consummated. And again, "Godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation;" with many similar passages. In like manner the formularies of the Church of England-so clear, so full, so earnest upon the doctrines of grace, justification by faith without works, salvation of gift and not of debt, finished redemption and free salvation—are equally explicit as to the duty and necessity of working out our salvation, according to the declaration of St. Paul, "Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." One brief passage from the Homily, entitled "Good Works annexed to Faith," may suffice to shew the scriptural manner in which our Reformers united a finished redemption with working out our salvation. "The thief, that was hanged when Christ suffered, did believe only, and the most merciful God justified him. And because no man shall say again, that he lacked time to do good works, for else he would have done them; truth it is, and I will not contend therein; but this I will surely affirm, that faith only saved him. If he had lived, and not regarded faith and the works thereof, he should have lost his salvation again. But this is the effect that I say, that faith by itself saved him; but works by themselves never justified any man. Here ye have heard the mind of St. Chrysostom; whereby you may perceive, that neither faith is without works-having opportunity thereto-nor works can avail to everlasting life, without faith." I am aware that not only some "seceders" from our church, but some pious members of it, would not admit the possibility contended for in the Homily, that the thief upon the cross could have "lost his salvation;" salvation being "a finished work." I believe, however, that the difference in the manner of stating this by truly godly men is rather in regard to the meaning attached to the word "salvation" in the phrase alluded to, than in their views of the doctrine. HOMILETICUS. MR. LLOYD ON RAIKES'S ORIGINATION OF SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. I BEG leave to inform you, that the late Rev. Richard Raikes furnished me with the information, which I have given to the public, relative to his brother Robert Raikes, and the origin of Sundayschools. I met him at the formation of the Gloucestershire Auxiliary Bible Society, of which he was one of the secretaries; and from his well known character I quite agree with you in opinion that this venerable clergyman could not have used the expression referred to, "at least in any disparaging sense." I think the confusion prevailing has arisen from confounding Mr. Stock's day-school with the Sundayschool. I would add, that hearsay evidence, and the remembrance of events that occurred sixty years ago, are not sufficient to countervail public documents written at the time. To confirm your opinion that Robert Raikes did not wish "unfairly to assume the honour due to others," I beg to add an extract from the introduction of a little book, printed by him A.D. 1794, which was given to me by his widow. It is entitled, The Sunday Scholar's Companion; consisting of Scripture sentences, disposed in such order, as will quickly ground young learners in the fundamental doctrines of our most holy religion; and, at the same time, lead them pleasantly on, from simple and easy to compound and difficult words." The following is the first sentence in the Introduction: "The idea of Sunday-schools, for introducing some degree of civilization among the children of the vulgar, was first suggested to the public in a COUNTRY PAPER, of November 3, 1783; but the rapid progress, and general adoption of the measure through great part of the kingdom, may be ascribed to the able support it found among some of the clergy." W. E. LLOYD. REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. THE COLLECTED POETICAL WORKS OF JAMES MONTGOMERY. The Poetical Works of JAMES MONTGOMERY, collected by himself, in four volumes. Vol. 1st, 1841. WE take up, as a light summer book, amidst graver matters, the first volume, lately published, of the veteran Montgomery's in tended collection of his poetical works. Of these, (speaking from memory) we recollect his "Wanderer of Switzerland;" his "West Indies;" his "World before the Flood;" his " Pelican Island;" his "Greenland ;" his "Songs of Zion;" and his "Portfolio;" to several of which volumes are annexed many shorter poems. Whether it be that poetry is in higher esteem than formerly, so that readers covet more of it; or in lower, (at least compared with money,) so that they will not purchase it at the old rate of a few hundred lines to a volume, certain it is that our poets are now fain to collect their scattered productions, and to publish them in cheap compact forms; there being but a very feeble demand for those separate works of a Southey, Milman, Moore, Scott, Byron, Wordsworth, Hemans, Montgomery, and others, which used to furnish fair annual rentals to their authors or publishers. Mr. Montgomery follows the new fashion also, as Moore has done, in garnishing old poems with prose remarks and anecdotes, connected with the pieces, and with the fortunes, or misfortunes, of the author; for perpetrating which " aggravated of fence" he offers the following apology." "The small pieces, accompanying "THE WANDERER OF SWITZERLAND,' (published in 1806) which gained for him a name, however humble, among his poetical contemporaries, were almost exclusively personal; reveries, reminiscences, and anticipations referring to blighted hopes, existing troubles, and fearful forebodings of evils to come. Of this singularity, he was so little conscious at the time, that, when first pointed out to him, the discovery alarmed the morbid egotism which had betrayed him into it, quite as much as the offence itself, if it were one, shocked the modesty, and provoked the scorn of critics in the highest place. Without pretending to vindicate this or any other indiscretion, into which he may have been misled by that self-love which is self-ignorance, or that ignorance of the world which is not the greatest crime in it, especially when found in a young man, CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 43. -he must now, at an advanced age, hazard the charge of committing a kind (since what is venial in verse may more aggravated offence of the same be deemed unpardonable in prose), when he frankly lays before his readers such information concerning himself as shall enable those, who will take the necessary pains, to better understand, and more correctly to appreciate, the merits or defects of productions, which have incurred more censure and won more favour than can often fall to the lot of an obscure and solitary adventurer in verse." We are not very angry with the delinquent for disclosing to us some of the reminiscences of his earlier literary and personal history; more especially as certain facts have been misrepre sented; so that to this hour there may be some who having heard of his being twice imprisoned in York Castle, the first time for a seditious libel, and the second for a libel on a magistrate, and of his being the proprietor and conductor of the Sheffield Iris newspaper (established in 1794, at a time when parties ran high) may imagine that the present meek, amiable, and pious James Montgomery must once have been a fierce demagogue, who well deserved his punishment, or at best a mischief-making, sickly enthusiast, who would have plunged his country into the anarchy of revolution, and fraternized with Robespierre and similar lovers of liberty to promote the welfare of mankind. To those who have imperfectly heard such matters relative to Mr. Montgomery, his own explanations will be interesting; nor perhaps less so to those who are acquainted with his name only in connection with his religious publications, more especially his justly popular hymns and sacred lyrics. notice of the volume in our hands will be chiefly confined to these details of personal and literary history: for of the character of 3 I Our Mr. Montgomery's poetry, its merits and defects, we have written sooften, (see, besides numerous incidental notices in our pages, our review of his "West Indies," or the Abolition of the Slave Trade, in our Vol. for 1810, p. 103; of his "World before the Flood," 1814, p. 657; his " Songs of Zion," 1822, p. 420; his “ Portfolio," 1835, p. 486) that it would be superfluous for us to write further on this subject, even if the author had not now so long found his rightful standing on the acclivities of Parnassus, that his claims are matters of record rather than of renewed criticism. We shall however quote from his earlier poems a few passages, chiefly personal, which will probably be new to most of our readers, and which are of a somewhat different character from those by which he is now chiefly known. It would have been convenient to the reader if Mr. Montgomery had placed the facts which he had to relate in the order of events; but he has preferred giving two addresses delivered by him at different times to his fellowtownsmen, and also several prefaces, from which we will try to frame a digested narrative. He took up his abode in Sheffield in 1792, at the age of twenty years. He presents us with the following picture of himself upon his entrance into that important town, which is almost as familiarly connected with his name, as with its own celebrated manufactures. sorts of men' by the power of my imagined genius, was the cherished hope and determined purpose of my mind. In the retirement of Fulneck, among the Moravian Brethren, by whom I had been educated, I was nearly as ignorant of the world and its every-day concerns, as those gold fishes swimming about in the glass globe on the pedestal before us are of what we are doing around them; and when I took the rash step of running into the vortex, I was nearly as little prepared for the business of general life, as they would be to take a part in our proceedings, were they to leap The experience of something more out of their element upon this table. than two years (at the time to which I now refer) had awakened me to the unpoetical realities around me, and I was left to struggle alone amidst the crowd that compose the world, with out any of those inspiring motives left to cheer me, under the delusive influence of which I had flung myself amidst scenes, and into society, for which I habit, or bodily constitution. Thus, was wholly unfit by feeling, taste, I came hither, with all my hopes blighted like the leaves and blossoms of a premature spring, when the woods crawling with caterpillars. are spun over with insects' webs, or There was yet life, but it was perverse, unnatural life, in my mind; and the renown which I found to be unattainable, at that time, by legitimate poetry, I resolved to secure by such means as made many of my contemporaries notorious. I wrote verse in the doggerel strain of Peter Pindar, and prose sometimes in imitation of Fielding and Smollett, and occasionally in the strange style of the German plays and romances then in vogue. Effort after effort failed. A Providence of disappointment shut every door in my face, by which I attempted to force my way to a dishonourable fame. I was thus happily saved from appearing as the author of works which, at this hour, I should have been ashamed to acknowledge before you. Disheartened at length with ill success, I gave myself up to indolence and apathy, and lost seven years of that part of my youth which ought to have been the most active and profitable, in alternate listlessness and despondency, using no further exertion in my office affairs than was necessary to keep up my credit under heavy pecuniary obliga liquidate them. tions, and gradually though slowly to During this dreary interval, I had but one friend and counsellor at home, |