PRIVILEGE OF COMMUNION WITH GOD.* - It is scarcely possible to represent to an unenlightened mind the privileges felt by the believer in the act of communing with his God. We can only thus far state them, and trust to the Lord to give him faith to receive our statement. We suppose that you need not to be informed that every man is aware of certain times and circumstances, when he wants some one who can in a measure enter into and respond to the feelings of his soul,-circumstances of difficulty and anxiety, seasons of sickness and sorrow, occasions when we have suffered injury at the hand of man, or encountered some grievous reverse in the changes of our affairs when placed in any one of these emergencies, how precious are the offices of friendship! how gratefully is even the unprofitable love of sympathy received and acknowledged! An earthly-minded man can understand all this; and, perhaps, by the help of it, he may gather an idea of the privilege of the child of God, who just goes to the fountain for supply, while he only tries the stream, or perhaps seeks in vain to cisterns-" broken cisterns, that can hold no water." It has been well observed, that man, as he rises in the scale of civilisation, is continually discovering or inventing fresh wants, simply in order that he may have the pleasure of finding a supply for them. The barbarian has very few wants; food is his chief necessity; but we want a thousand things that have never entered into his head to imagine. For instance, deprive me of books and writing-materials for a week, and I should have the most sensible feeling of distress in their withdrawal. In short, the highest idea we have of luxury is the greatest number of wants effectually supplied. Now observe the parallel I am about to draw. Man, simply considered as a creature of earth, is greatly more limited in his desires than man in his moral and spiritual capacity. In an unconverted state, the spiritual part of my being lies dormant, and my wishes and wants take a low and narrow range. Things that seem very much to lie within reach; things that deal merely with the world of men; things which the treasuries of earth can furnish,-these are my objects of desire, and, should I obtain them, I count myself a happy man. But let my soul be converted to God, and another world enters into the grasp of my wishes. True it is that the things of this world become comparatively of little importance; but that is because they are so entirely eclipsed by objects of far more glorious acquisition. The king of a savage African tribe may pride himself upon his cloak of red serge, with its worsted fringe, and his necklaces of glass beads and brass buttons; but the majesty of Britain would justly feel itself insulted were such trumpery to be presented. Similarly, the mind whose perceptions have been cleared, and tastes elevated to draw the true comparison between the ornaments and accomplishments and endowments of the spiritual and those of the material world, will enter into St. Paul's feeling, that all that is earthly and temporal is but dross and dust, in comparison with all that is heavenly and eternal; "while we look," he says, "not at the things that are seen, but at the things that are not seen; for the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal." Yet let us not overstate the case of the believer. The high spiritual acquirements towards which his attention and ambition have been directed, are not perfectly and worthily estimated by him in this present state of embryo existence. He grieves and groans at times over the backwardness of his heart to lay hold upon the hope set before him to discern "the treasure in the From "The Communion of Believers: a Course of Lectures. By T. E. Hankinson, M.A." London, Seeleys, 1838.-A very interesting series of Lectures. The style is clear and forcible, the statements scriptural. The volume contains a lecture on each of the following subjects: Communion with God-ourselves -material nature-the world-the Church on earth-the Church in heaven.-ED. heavens that fadeth not." He mourns that worldly trifles, which in his judgment he despises, should sometimes be sought with greater earnestness, and enjoyed with keener relish, than the things of the Spirit of God. But, granting all this, we hesitate not to say, that the Christian's happiest moments are those in which the Lord his God favours him with a near and confidential interview: then, in feeling, he can enjoy the present privilege of the child of God, the sweetness of consolation, the sufficiency of support, the joyfulness of the meeting between the divine and human spirit; and when, in faith, he can body forth to his mind "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen," the glories of eternity, the purity of the spirits of the just made perfect, the excellence and magnificence of the purchased pos session. Poetry. PSALM CXXXVII. (For the Church of England Magazine.) By Babel's stream fair Israel's daughter wept; And count her fetters but a transient dream? Can the caged bird its woodland note recall, As if 'twere fluttering in the forest-tree? Can the bound minstrel in the tyrant's hall Attune his harp to sing of liberty? No! should I e'er forget thee, much-loved land Should Babel's praise my harp and song employ, Then let my tongue be mute; and cursed my hand, When aught but Judah's praises give me joy! But, oh! forget not Edom, mighty Lord! How, when Chaldean bands, with deafening sound, Approach'd our sacred walls with glittering sword, Her cry was, Salem! Salem! to the ground! And thou too, Babel's daughter, thou full soon Shalt reap the harvest of thy cruel seed; When on thy guilty head Isaiah's doom Shall pour its fury with relentless speed. STANZAS. (For the Church of England Magazine.) PASTOR. "I do set my bow in the cloud; and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth."--Gen. ix. 13. As when the blue autumnal sky The garment of a storm; And every thing is dark and drear, Each rain-drop is a falling tear, And nature seems to mourn : So, when the Spirit breathes within, Teaching the sinfulness of sin, And what its wages are, He darts his ray again to show For he in pity deals with man ; Miscellaneous. K. G. S. INTEMPERANCE IN IRELAND. Notwithstanding the deep poverty into which the people are plunged, they contrive to spend enormous sums in whisky. Our attention being attracted by the numerous spiritshops in close juxtaposition, inquiry upon the subject made us acquainted with an intelligent and civil Roman Catholic tradesman, who had carefully investigated it. The town (Drogheda) contains about 14,000 inhabitants; and the town and county, comprehending a small suburban district, together contain 18,000. Within this district there are 120 spirit-sellers. Each of these would require at least the sale of spirits to the value of 101. per week to maintain himself, and they are generally thriving. To this statement I objected, that as many were grocers, they would not require so large a sale of one article of trade. He answered, that the grocers sold more than any other traders; and as the others were thriving too, none of the 120 could sell, on an average, less than to the value of 101. Thus every week 12007. is spent in whisky at that one place. A friend of his, who had ample means of judging, and had closely investigated the matter, declared to him that this calculation was very far below the truth. This vice, which consumes the poor of Ireland, had here enslaved even women, who would be ashamed to have it known. The poison being sold by grocers, they could easily drink it, unobserved, while buying grocery. So common is this practice, that a widow, who had established a grocer's shop without selling spirits, found it impossible to carry on her trade unless she added this article to the rest. Bad as Drogheda is in this respect, it does not appear to be worse than many other Irish towns. In 1833, the parish of Belfast consumed 129,819 gallons of whisky. Within a few years there has been an increase of 390 places to sell spirits in that one town. In 1834, the number of licenses for the city of Dublin was 1019. In Clonmel there were, in 1811, 64 spirit-shops; in 1833 there were 129; in 1834 there were 150. The number of spirit-retailers in Waterford in November 1833 was 180; in July 1834 it had become 198, for a population of about 28,000 persons. Of late years there has been also an increase of spirit-shops in the villages. In one small village in the county Down there was, 1833, an increase of five spirit-shops; another village near it has 31; a third, with 61 houses, has 26. Of the 390 new spirit-sellers in Belfast, 221 were grocers; and Professor Edgar had heard it stated that there were not more than 12 grocers in Dublin that were not spirit-sellers. The number of licenses issued for Ireland in 1833 was 20,080, which is about one for every 40 families throughout Ireland. The quantity of home-made spirits consumed in 1832 was 8,715,601 gallons. But to this must be added the produce of illicit distillation, which, although much less than formerly, is said to be still large. One gentleman, between Ross and Waterford, assured Mr. Carr in 1834, that there were about 35 farm-houses in his neighbourhood in which illicit whisky is made, A magistrate of the county Antrim stated, apparently not long since, that he could count 15 private stills from his own door. On the 17th of March, 1834, Lieut. St. Laurence, in Sligo and Mayo, destroyed in ten days 37 private distilleries. And even of the licensed stills, Professor Edgar states it to be commonly said, that for every gallon made for the king, another is made for the queen-that is, not much more than one-half pays duty. On the whole, he thought that 2,500,000 gallons were thus privately distilled. It may at once be seen what an enormous drain this is upon the penury of Irish farmers. Upon the Powerscourt estate, Benburb, Armagh, the inhabitants of which are not distinguished for drunkenness, a sum equal to one-third of the whole rental was, till lately, spent in spirits. The cost of spirits to the parish of Belfast, for 155,782 gallons, at 7s. per gallon, is 54,500l. per annum; a sum which, after adequately relieving their paupers, maintaining their religious instructors, and their college, contributing 1100%. per annum to religious objects, and paying for schools a sum equal to the whole available income of the Sunday School Society for Ireland, would leave a surplus of 29,000l. Mr. Graves, barrister, magistrate of the Police Office, Dublin, and his colleagues, Alderman Darley and Major Sirr, concur in the opinion, that in cities and great towns more than one-fourth of the entire earnings of artificers and labourers (taken as a body) is expended in liquor. And the whole cost of spirits to the consumers throughout Ireland is not much less than 6,000,000l. sterling per annum; a sum, says that zealous advocate of temperance, Mr. Buckingham, "which, if saved from this expenditure, and applied in furnishing labour for the able-bodied, and relief for the helpless, would be sufficient to remove nearly the whole of the evils under which the poor of Ireland are now labouring; this sum being considerably more than the whole amount expended for the relief of the poor in England and Scotland."-Noel's Tour. EDWARD VI.-When the pious young Edward VI. was proceeding to his coronation, and the three swords, which indicated his authority over three kingdoms, were carried in solemn state before him, he desired that another sword should be added to the three. And when the nobles asked what sword he meant, the Christian prince answered, "The sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God;" and he said, "that ought in all right to govern us, who use the others for the people's safety. He who rules without it, is not to be called God's minister, or a king."-Thurlow's Carenation Sermon. THE SABBATH.-He that remembers not to keep the Christian Sabbath at the beginning of the week will be in danger to forget before the end of the week that he is a Christian. Sir E. Turner, Speaker of the House of Commons in 1663. LONDON:-Published by JAMES BURNS, 17 Portman Street, Portman Square; W. EDWARDS, 12 Ave-Maria Lane, S Paul's; and to be procured, by order, of all Booksellers Town and Country. PRINTED BY ROBSON, LEVEY, AND FRANKLYN, 46 ST. MARTIN'S LANE. CHRISTIAN CIRCUMSPECTION. BY THE REV. JAMES COOPER, M.A. Minister of St. Paul's, Stonehouse. No. II. Ir sometimes happens, in considering the duty of Christian circumspection, that we are at a loss to determine where the boundary-line between worldliness and Christian conduct lies. There is so much that is common ground to both in the necessary avocations and associations of life, and there is so much difference in the circumstances of different individuals; there is so much necessary intercourse, too, occasioned by the ordinary business of life between one and another, who are brought together by circumstances they cannot control,-that if a Christian were to refuse to hold intercourse with the worldly minded, he must needs go out of the world. No general rule can be laid down to meet all cases, beyond the general rules which the Scriptures themselves afford. The path of duty oftentimes thrusts the Christian into the midst of the most worldly associations; but where it is duty, and not inclination, that occasions such association, we are nevertheless called to walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise. We are then to be as a light set upon a candlestick, to give light to those around us; we are then to be as the salt of the earth; we are to let our light shine before men, that they, seeing our good works, may glorify our Father which is in heaven. Christian conduct may be pursued, and Christian character preserved, in any and every class of life. The throne and the palace may preserve their distinguished splendour, while the words and deeds of the VOL. V.-XO. CXXXI. PRICE 1d. sovereign and the court may be marked with Christian propriety. And so in every intermediate class between the palace and the cottage, there may exist all the distinctions of society which the providence of God has allotted, while the laws which God has given for the regulation of our conduct may be strictly observed by all. In no possible situation of life can circumspection be dispensed with; but the higher our walk in life may be, the greater the circumspection required; because the more we possess of worldly things and worldly enjoyments, the more are we trammelled with worldly etiquette and worldly fascinations. Hence our Lord has left on record those fearful words, "How hardly shall a rich man enter into the kingdom of heaven!" We must ever bear in mind, that the usages of society which govern worldly intercourse may or may not be according to the rules of God's holy word; and therefore the Christian has to discriminate, to judge according to his wisdom and knowledge of the law of God. And if the light of Divine wisdom declares any worldly usage to be sinful, to be contrary to the precepts of the word of God, then must he take up his cross, and refuse compliance. When Daniel and his companions were at the court of the king of Babylon, brought thither in the providence of God, they fulfilled the duties of the station in which God had placed them, as the king's servants, with integrity, and yielded themselves to the courtly etiquette required of them, till the heathen laws of the country required Daniel to forbear prayer to God, and the others to bow down and worship the image of gold which Nebuchadnezzar the X king had set up. They then had to make their stand against the requirements of an earthly sovereign, at the imminent peril of their lives. And how encouraging to us was the result of their faithfulness! By faith they endured; and God rewarded their faithfulness by miraculous deliverances, thereby teaching us not to fear the result of any sacrifices we make for God; and also teaching us to say, with the threatened apostles to the council of Jerusalem, "We ought to obey God rather than men." And though we should be called to forsake all to follow Christ, we need not fear, inasmuch as Jesus has declared that 66 every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundred-fold, and shall inherit everlasting life." Be it our rule, then, as Christians, blessed with the light and guidance of a divine revelation of the will of God, to walk circumspectly as children of light. Let us bring to bear upon our general conduct, in our several walks in life, those holy doctrines and precepts of the Gospel which it is our privilege to possess. Shall we glory in our national elevation from the barbarisms of our ancestors, and still be polluted with their follies and vices? Shall we be so much indebted to the goodness of God in Christianising our land, our laws, our institutions, our modes of life, and our manners; and still retain any thing which God prohibits? Shall we be delivered from pagan darkness, and have the light of a glorious hope of immortality set before us, and the light of Divine guidance for the attainment of that immortality; and shall we not walk as children of the light? Shall we lose heaven rather than resign some sinful indulgence - some sinful compliance with the usages of the world? Shall we be made wise with heavenly wisdom, and yet live as fools? What shall a man be profited, though he gain the whole world, and lose his soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? How circumspectly, then, should we walk, not as fools, but as wise, 66 redeeming the time" (the apostle adds), "because the days are evil;" making the best use of the time that remains; that time which is so uncertain, so precious; that time which is ever hastening on, and passing away, never to be recovered! We know that the brief span allotted to us is given in mercy, that we may work out our salvation with fear and trembling. And shall we be found trifling with the commands of God? Shall we be carried down the stream of vanity without resistance, and find ourselves hurried unprepared into the ocean of eternity? How should we redeem the time that remains, seeing " the days are evil!" How soon may we be incapacitated by sickness, or hindered by various obstructions, from making that preparation for an eternal world which, perhaps, we have hitherto neglected! How should we redeem mispent time! How should we watch against those things that keep our attention from the interests of our immortal souls, and our hearts from being given up to God! It is an evil world in which we live, and therefore must we walk in it circumspectly, warily, considerately, discriminately, and consistently with our profession of being redeemed by the blood of Christ from sin, as well as from its curse and condemnation. Be it, then, our care and our business to ascertain the path of duty in all things; to learn the will of God concerning us; and then to submit our own will, and our own pleasure, and even our apparent interests, to the will of God. This is our wisdom; this is our true happiness, as well as our duty to Him who sacrificed himself for us, and who justly demands that we should henceforth live no longer to ourselves, but to Him who thus loved us, and gave himself for us. Biography. THE REV. THOMAS ADAM, B.A., RECTOR OF [Concluded from Number CXXX.] THE deep humility of Mr. Adam's heart, and the spirituality of his mind, will be obvious to every one acquainted with his "Private Thoughts,"-a posthumous publication. These "Thoughts" were extracted from a species of diary, wherein during thirty years he occasionally wrote his sentiments on a variety of subjects, without any order. The editors into whose hands these papers fell (the writing was in short-hand) deemed it might be beneficial to present them to the world; and not a few have had and will have cause to thank them for the volume. As to the particular views maintained by Mr. Adam, they were much misrepresented. He was deemed by Mr. Venn an Arminian, by Mr. Wesley a Calvinist. The latter, speaking of the comment by Mr. Adam on the former part of the epistle to the Romans, says, "It is the very quintessence of Antinomianism." How far such an accusation could be brought with any degree of fairness, may be judged from the following extract from a letter:"In all my discourses, I endeavour as much as faith, and holiness; and if insisting upon the last, in its possible to take in the whole scheme-repentance, due connexion, and for right ends, is preaching up works, I cannot help it. Woe be to those who separate what God hath joined; for though faith alone saves us, and not according to the common gloss, if it works by love; yet I contend that faith is not faith, if it does not work by love, keep the commandments, and make us new creatures. My dear Mr. Venn will be upon his guard, and watch jealously over such of his converts as would make Gospel-grace a pretence for sloth, or low attainments, and, by not building themselves up in their most holy faith, give occasion to adversaries to the truth to speak reproachfully of it." And how far, en the other hand, he was from ascribing any merit to human works, is equally apparent. "I thank God," says he, "I have long been established in the belief of the 11th Article of our Church, not being able to find comfort or sure footing any where else; and would ask those miserable mistakers of the Gospel, who are for laying any other foundation, whether they dare say in cold blood, that what they think the best action of their lives, or the choicest grace in their souls, will bear to be weighed in God's balance; and if not, what will they do with all the rest? There is no trifling here: the soul is lost by sin, and how it can be recovered by actions which have a mixture of sin in them, as the best have, is not to be conceived." Again: "I told you in my last, that I am frightened at my own works; and I tell you again, that in all my life I never was more sincere than in that declaration. I thank God that I see something of my short-comings, which I will venture to say is some degree of illumination. If we are in earnest with the law and the heart, we shall certainly discover great defect; and this opens all Scripture to us, throws us directly upon Christ, the glory and end of it, and sole relief of a world of sinners. When the matter, manner, principle, quality, and quantity, of the very best things we do, are weighed in the balance of the sanctuary, conscience is alarmed, starts back affrighted (I use the word again) from the thought of making God a debtor, and can have no ease, but in crying out, Miserere! have pity on me, O Lord!' For instance, suppose you had ten pounds put into your hands to give to the poor, and you gave nine, it would look great in the eye of the world; but the horrid villany of secreting the twenty shillings is inexpressible: and yet so the account stands between God and man, not only in our giving less than we are entrusted with, but in regard of all duty." "Two parties," says his biographer, " most opposite in their views, blamed Mr. Adam for what they esteemed his partialities: one for the strictness with which he insisted on the obligations of the clergy to conform to the constitution and discipline of the Church; the other for maintaining social intercourse with some nonconformists, especially if they were ministers. He had a general regard for the persons and writings of many excellent men who belonged to other communions, and even corresponded with some who did not belong to the established Church. did not, however, conceal his opinion that their political principles were, in his opinion, defective. This he concluded, he said, from what he had read of their proceedings in the time of Oliver Cromwell, and from the petulant spirit which he perceived in them on many occasions. He disapproved of the breaches of discipline of which some of his brethren were guilty, though he forbore to meddle with the subject in any public way." He Mr. Adam was a sound Churchman, in the truest sense of the word; attached to the decent forms, and a firm maintainer of the doctrines, of the establishment. He could not but deplore, therefore, the rise of methodism, as a schism likely to prove injurious to the interests of religion. He felt that within the pale of the establishment the most devoted minister had ample scope for the most unbounded labours and unwearied exertions in furthering the salvation of his fellow-creatures. He lamented the lukewarmness too prevalent; the frequent departure from the doctrines of the Church in its pulpits; and the growing indifference, or rather opposition, to vital religion, which pervaded all classes: still, he felt that it was his duty firmly to remain attached to the Church itself, and to give a prominency to those truths which she uncompromisingly maintains. This is obvious from the following extract of a letter of his to Mr. Wesley : "Be pleased, sir, to keep your eye and heart steadily fixed upon this single point, and let no by respects, no personal considerations, no retrospects, nor concern for methodism in its present state, influence you in your determination, viz. What is the one conscionable, scriptural way of extricating yourself from your present embarrassments? which, all things considered, must be owned to be very great, and should be a warning to all how they venture upon a revolt from the authority and. standing rules of the Church to which they belong. I fear, sir, that your saying you do not appoint, but only approve of the laypreachers, from a persuasion of their call and fitness, savours of disingenuity. Where is the difference? Under whose sanction do they act? Would they generally think their call as sufficient for commencing preachers, or be received in that capacity by your people, without your approbation, tacit or express? And what is their preaching upon this call, but a manifest breach upon the order of the Church, and an inlet to confusion? which, in all probability, will follow upon your death, and, if I mistake not, you are upon the point of knowing by your own experience. Upon the whole, therefore, it is humbly submitted to your most serious consideration, whether the separation is not wide enough already, particularly in the instance of unordained persons preaching, and gathering societies to themselves wherever they can; and whether all the methodists might not serve the interests of Christ better as witnesses and examples of a living faith, and expect a greater blessing from the God of order upon their talents, gifts, and graces, whatever they are, by returning to a closer union with the Church, and repairing the breach they have made, than by making it still wider, and separating what they think the Gospel-leaven from the lump?" Mr. Adam in his own domestic arrangements set an excellent example to his clerical brethren. "His dress, the furniture of his house, and his mode of living, exhibited a model approaching to the primitive simplicity of an earlier period of the Christian Church; so that a visitor at the rectory of Wintringham might have imagined himself a guest with good Ignatius or Chrysostom, rather than with a divine of the eighteenth century. This did not in him proceed from covetousness; a sin which some might ignorantly object to him, and which he heartily detested. He seldom thought so much of increasing his comforts as of enlarging his charities. His table was ever spread with true hospitality for the reception of his friends, while temperance and simplicity were always found at his board. He gave the communion-plate to the church; and on the Sundays when the sacrament was administered, the churchwardens who attended afterwards dined with him. He seems, indeed, to have considered the whole of his parishioners as his family; and especially the poor in his parish and neighbourhood, who shared largely in his bounty." He was instrumental in instituting a society for the relief of the widows and orphans of poor clergy in the archdeaconry of Stow. In 1781 Mr. Adam began evidently to sink. He was afflicted with deafness, besides a very grievous complaint to which reference is made in his "Thoughts," and began to suffer from asthma. He still continued, On the inside of his study-door Mr. Adam fastened a paper with this striking inscription : "To my Successor : Whoever thou art, who enterest here, and with an earnest will to serve the Lord Jesus Christ This will be a paradise to thee. But if thou art one of the world of fallen mankind, an hireling, false to thy vows, and a traitor to thy Master, and leavest thy flock to follow thine own will and pleasure; go where thou wilt, conscience will follow thee, happiness will fly from thee, and thou canst only be a self-tormentor." |