his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life." He was pleased to compassionate us in our sinful state. He spreads out the arms of paternal tenderness to us. His language is, "Look | unto me, and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth, for I am God; besides me there is no Saviour," Fury is not in me." "Let the wicked man forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." This is the language of divine mercy; and is it not calculated, especially when connected with the fact of the only begotten Son of God dying on the cross, to attract our hearts? Is it not calculated to destroy enmity, to speak peace to them that are afar off, and to them that are nigh? There is no impediment, then, with God; the impediment is only in ourselves. In the last place, I would observe, as another inducement to give our hearts to God, that it will be the most effectual preparation for death and eternity. Could the sinner flatter himself that he could for ever remain at a distance from God, he might anticipate a sort of peace without giving his heart to God, though he would be disappointed in the result; but you must meet God as your friend or your enemy. Your subjection to him cannot be thrown off. It lies with you, then, in what character you meet him. Meet him you must; and how awful will it be to depart from this world without having given your hearts to God! To meet him as your enemy; to appear before him with the alienation of your hearts unsubdued; to find yourselves in the presence of that Being who rules in heaven and on earth, and whose power none can withstand, when "the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat!" Oh, how awful will it be, if you have not made your peace with God, if you have not given your heart to him! You feel now, that to meet him is terrible, because you are conscious that you are at enmity with him; but, when you can no longer keep at a distance from him, what will it be to meet him? You will" call upon the rocks to fall upon you to hide you from the face of him that sitteth upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb;" to hide you from the presence of your Judge! The sinner who dies without having given his heart to God will then meet with the full accomplishment of his wishes. His great desire has been to keep at a distance from God, and this will be awfully realized. He has been invited to come into the presence of God, invited in the tenderest accents; but he has refused, and now he will be summoned into that presence with a voice which will strike terror into his soul, and then will be banished for ever from him. God will say, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." He wished to have no intercourse with God, and now God will have no intercourse with him. An everlasting gulf will be fixed between God and him, and he will then find that absence from God is the perfection of misery and woe. But, on the contrary, if our hearts are now given to God, death will be a source of the most delightful satisfaction. When death removes a good man from the present world, it carries him to his Father's house. While it removes the wicked man from all he loved, it removes the good man from all that afflicted him here; the wicked man is hurried away from all his treasures, while the good man is stripped only of his infirmities and sufferings. Every day the Christian is ad vancing nearer to his ultimate good. He considers life as a journey, a pilgrimage; and looks to the end of it with satisfaction and delight. He now enjoys that good which he eagerly sought on earth. He reaps the full reward of all his prayers and all his sufferings. His language while on earth was, "I shall be satisfied when I awake in thy likeness," and now the auspicious morn is come. What is the reason, my friends, that death is viewed with such different feelings by the good man and the bad? It is because of the different state of their hearts towards God. It is this difference which, in the one case, covers futurity with clouds, and darkness, and horror, and, in the other, makes it the region of peace, and light, and happi ness. To conclude: whatever wears the appearance of piety in our estimation, which does not lead your hearts to God, be sure it is deception and delusion, Whatever those doctrines are, whatever those practices are, whatever that company is, which has an habitual tendency to draw off our hearts from God, and make us esteem and love him less, be sure that that is the path of ruin and destruction. Consider every thing in religion as having this end, and this only, that of leading you to God. This should be the sum and substance of religion. If you worship God in the assemblies of his people, and feel no movement of heart to him, be sure that it is a vain ob- | lation and an abominable sacrifice. If you pray to God, and your hearts do not ascend to him, be sure he will say to you with indignation at the last day, "Who hath required this at your hands?" It is the homage of the heart that he requires. This is his most acceptable sacrifice. Pray to God that he will give you a contrite heart, that he will plant his love there, that he will destroy the moral distance between you and him, and bring you so near to him that his perfections, and his providence, and his word, may have an abiding weight and reality in your estimation. Make it your constant prayer that the influence of creatures may be less, and the perfections and the grace of God be more and more in your esteem. If you were to view the conduct even of the greater part of professing Christians, you would think that nothing was reality but that which related to creatures, nothing delusion but that which relates to God. But how great the mistake! If our hearts are given to God, we shall regard every thing as full of God, we shall taste his smile in all his mercies, we shall bow with submission to the afflictions we are called to suffer, reflecting that they are inflicted by him. Death will appear to us as the messenger of God, sent to bring us into his presence, where there is fulness of joy. Life, death, things present, and things to come, will all bear the impress and the signature of God. We shall have peace with God, the peace that passeth understanding. Pray, therefore, with the apostle, that God will enlighten your understandings, that "you may comprehend with all saints what is the height, and depth, and length, and breadth, of the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fulness of God." ON DEACONESSES. From the Circular Letter of the Norfolk and Norwich Association of Baptist Churches, Oct. 1841. WE ought not, we think, on this varying circumstances, might be renoccasion, to leave unnoticed an early practice of the Christian church, which has been neglected generally, though not universally, but which with great advantage might be restored. We refer to the practice of choosing deaconesses from the female members of the church. dered eminently useful. How many cases are continually occurring, in which the official ministrations of a female would at once be more effectual and more discreet than those of the opposite sex? How many scenes of half penitent profligacy are there, into which it Of the existence of this class of of- would be hazardous to a man's charac ficers in the apostle's time there can be ter to venture? How many cases of little doubt. We believe that Phoebe sickness amongst the female members, was a deaconess, and Euodia and Syn- which none can so effectually relieve as tyche, with some others; and there is one of their own sex?" Now, when we reason to suppose that to such ones the think of the expediency and obvious fitapostle referred, when, in 1 Timothy iii. ness of such an officer as thus suggested, 11, he spake of women who were to and remember that there is very strong, "be grave, not slanderers, sober, and if not certain, proof that such a class of faithful in all things." That he is not officers as deaconesses existed in the there speaking of the wives of deacons, apostolic times, we seriously commend is maintained by very competent auto the associated churches the immediate thorities, with whom we are inclined to consideration of the question, whether agree. At all events "it amounts to a they will not appoint deaconesses themquery," says one of our best practical selves, who shall be solemnly set apart divines, "worthy of very serious consi- to their appointed duties by the word of deration, whether we are perfectly jus- God and prayer. We believe we should tified in laying aside an office which thereby approximate more nearly to certainly appears to have once existed | New Testament order, and promote very in the church, and which, amidst all its considerably the welfare of the church. SONNET. BY THE REV. E. S. PRYCE, A.B. "In the last days perilous times shall come."-2 TIM. iii. 1. I SEE them now; within that upper room They mourn the absent One and kneel in prayer ; Swell the glad numbers of the holy train; The world's proud scorn the martyr souls have braved, Once more I see them,-changed and fallen now, Head of the church, arise from thy high throne, THE DEATH-BED. WRITTEN AFTER HEARING THE REV. T. BINNEY'S FUNERAL SERMON FOR Mr. E. BIRRELL,* JANUARY 9, 1842. "Half an hour before he died, he said, 'Do not speak : I am holding deep communion with God.' He remained motionless for this time, a smile often playing on his face. At length his eyes grew bright and fixed; and he exclaimed, as with rapture-Beautiful! Beautiful!' His head then fell backwards, and, with the word 'Glory' on his lips, he expired." THE room was hushed, and silent mourners stood The approach of death. But, oh, he came not there The presence of Jehovah hid from sight Laid low a victim who beheld him not! That soul in "deep communion with" his "God" Which were as music in time past, he stayed, For there were "still, small" whispers reached his heart Such high and holy converse as could draw In very ecstasy his spirit hence! And was heaven opened on thee in that hour, One ray of its surpassing glory, here; When thy bright upward gaze was fixed, and smiles Or, were there white-robed angels hovering near, And "Beautiful!" was all that thou couldst breathe Perchance thy quickened senses had discerned Seraphic strains of welcome, bidding thee Hasten and join the song of the redeemed. Or, wert thou yet more honoured? Did thy Lord Might waken rapture, too intense for earth, And rend for thee thy spirit from its clay, Thrice blessed thou! Love was more strong than death, Ob, would that thou hadst lingered, but to tell Yet, 'tis enough That thou didst prove the truth of that "one word," Is gained, then may we hope to know thy joy, A. H. Mr. Ebenezer Birrell, student for the ministry at Stepney College, died Dec. 30, 1841, aged 21 years. REVIEWS. History of the Planting and Training of the Christian Church by the Apostles. By Dr. AUGUSTUS NEANDER, Ordinary Professor of Theology in the University of Berlin, Consistorial Counsellor, &c. Translated from the third edition of the original German, by J. E. Ryland. Edinburgh: Clark. 2 vols. pp. 760. THE celebrity of the author in his own country, and the acknowledged usefulness of his labours in the vindication of evangelical truth against the previously ascendant neology, will excite in the minds of many of our readers a desire to become acquainted with the character of these volumes. In England he is known chiefly as a profoundly learned ecclesiastical historian; but in his own land he enjoys an equal reputation as an interpreter of the New Testament scriptures, and his exegetical lectures have long been eminently popular among the students of the university which he adorns. His descent from Abraham and early renunciation of Jewish unbelief interest our feelings, while his prodigious stores of erudition, his unremitting industry as an investigator, his prolific habits as an author, and his position as the acknowledged head of the renovators of German orthodoxy, command the respect of all who are acquainted with his extraordi nary career. mestic circle of Cornelius, pass under review. The third book, to which the author has evidently given great attention, embraces a large field of investigation, relating to the spread of Christianity and founding of the Christian church among the gentiles by the instrumentality of the apostle Paul. The fourth book contains a review of the labours of James and Peter during this period; and the fifth is on the apostle John and his ministry, as the closing point of the apostolic age. The last book, which occupies nearly two hundred pages, is an elaborate treatise on the apostolic doctrine. In his investigation of this, Neander adopts a course different from that which is most common among us; instead of taking the subjects consecutively, and inquiring what the apostles have said respecting them, he takes the apostolic writers successively, and examines the theory of each. The Pauline doctrinethe doctrine of the Epistle to the Hebrews-the doctrine of James-and the doctrine of John, are separately considered, and the developments of their views are contemplated in relation to their own character and circumstances. The spirit in which Neander writes is one of great mental independence, combined with respectful modesty in reference to any whose opinions he opposes, or who have animadverted on his own. Certainly he calls no man on earth master, but neither does he require submission to his judgment from others. In his preface to the first edition he says, "As for my relation to all who hold the con The work before us is designed to be introductory to his extensive History of the Christian Religion and Church which has been in progress many years, a small portion of which alone has been presented to the English reader. Its object is to pourtray the Christian system as de-viction, that faith in Jesus the Saviour of sinful veloped and established by the apostles, devoid of the additions and mutations of subsequent teachers. In the first book he describes the church in Palestine, previous to its spread among heathen nations, in doing which he examines minutely the contents of the first seven chapters of the Acts. The second book is on the first spread of Christianity from the church at Jerusalem to other parts, and especially among heathen nations, in which the labours of Philip in Samaria, and the occurrences connected with the introduction of the gospel into the do humanity, as it has shown itself since the first founding of the Christian church to be the fountain of divine life, will prove itself the same to the end of time, and that from this faith a new creation will arise in the Christian church and in our part of the world, which has been preparing amidst the storms of spring-to all such persons I hope to be bound by the bond of Christian fellowship, the bond of "the true Catholic spirit," as it is termed by an excellent English theologian of the seventeenth century. But I cannot agree with the conviction of those among them who think that this new creation will be only a repetition of what took place in |