so attacked it as to expose himself to the penal statute. But, though it would have been improper in the court to take up the cause as Carlile would have had it, it is not to be doubted that a bad impression is almost always made when infidels are merely silenced by the exercise of legislative authority. We therefore consider Mr. Drew as having founded his undertaking on a very useful principle, when he took up, as he says, that part of the cause which the judges of the defendant were obliged to leave untouched. Meeting the disbeliever, therefore, on his own ground, our author has examined the nature and evidences of religion; very fully and extensively developing, in the former part of the work, the principles of natural religion, and in the latter the fundamental doctrines of revelation. In doing this, he has very skilfully kept the two important purposes of confuting his opponent, and, in this confutation, enlarging upon, and explaining the subjects of most importance to a religious inquirer. The part to which we turn, as affording a useful example of the manner in which he has treated the subject of the relation of faith in revealed doctrines to natural reason, is the chapter on faith, conscience, and reason, which contains several observations that deserve considerable attention. Mr. Drew begins by observing, that the same arguments which may be brought against our yielding to the teachings of faith, apply with equal strength to conscience; and that if we reject the one, we may with equal reason be deaf to the other. Both of them concerning things which are beyond the observation of our senses. He then proceeds thus:— As reason is the act of the soul, proceeding discursively, or by progressive argumentation, to form its judgments on those materials of knowledge which have been apprehended through the bodily senses, so faith is the act of the spirit, exerting knowledge intuitively over those things which are brought home to the soul, by means of these, its new spiritual senses. As the decisions of conscience arise from the Spirit of God witnessing to our souls, so the assurance of faith arises from the Spirit of God witnessing to our spirit. Conscience is the intuitive judgment of the soul, influenced by God's Spirit ;-faith is the intuitive conviction of our spirit, wrought in us by that demonstrative evidence which is given to us by God himself. As reason informs conscience, so faith enlightens reason; and as conscience purifies reason, so faith sanctifies conscience, and makes it entirely perfect, and conformable to the will of God. The direct influence of faith on conscience is apparent from this, that conscience is not only the judgment of the mind concerning its moral conduct, but the emotions or feelings which we experience when we form this judgment, and which have more or less influence upon the conduct by which it is followed. When these emotions and feelings are just and vigorous, we are not only directed, but urged and prompted, to act right. When they are dull and lifeless, we are apt, how just so ever the judgment may be, either not to act at all, or to act in direct violation of its dictates. In such cases our conduct is sinful; whereas, under the influence of a more tender and susceptible conscience, it would have been virtuous. Hence, the obvious necessity of having our con science quickened, and made alive to our duty by faith, and through the instru mentality of those means of grace which faith will bring to our knowledge and practice. For a seared conscience is not so much the want of a capacity to judge, as an insensibility to the importance of moral good and evil; and vice does not so much depend on the perversion of the understanding or judgment, as on a wild and licentious imagination, offering food to pernicious passions, through its influence on our emotions and feelings. Vice, therefore, will not, perhaps, attempt to justify itself; though we may still be hurried away, in spite of reasoning. Argument is useless, unless the conscience can be affected by a view of the present realities of eternity, and the denunciations of a present destruction. Among the means of enlightening and quickening the conscience, which are placed, by faith, within our power, the chief and most effectual, next to hearing and reading the word of God, is the habit of drawing near to Him in secret prayer. It naturally induces a peculiar solemnity on the mind. A man then comes into the immediate presence of that great Being, who is the source and the object of all solemn thoughts, emotions and feelings, in his creatures. Every thing in his character and in ours, especially the consciousness that his eye is in our hearts, conspires to drive away every sinful thought, and to banish every improper feeling and emotion. Sin will then appear as a real and exceedingly great evil; and duties appear in all their obligation. Our confessions and petitions will teach us to throw aside all our self-justifications and selfflatteries. Vol. ii. pp. 297-299. The following chapters are occupied with an exposition and defence of the doctrine of salvation by faith, in which the author has more fully opened the ideas brought forward in the passage just quoted. In the next he sums up his arguments drawn from the principles of self-knowledge, or of human nature, and applies the result to the defence of Christianity in the entire system. The concluding address is written with equal good sense and piety, and, like the other parts of the work, bearing strong evidence of the honourable motives with which the treatise was composed. We cannot conclude our notice of this work, without a tribute of praise to the memory of its excellent author. His talents were evidently far beyond those of a common-rate order, and the zeal with which he entered upon the defence of Christianity, when a particular opportunity of useful exertion occurred, does lasting credit to his name. Unfortunately for society, Mr. Drew did not live to continue his labours in the cause of truth ; and before the present work was published, he was in his grave. The care of editing it, consequently fell upon a relative, who merits the thanks of the public, for the manner in which he has executed his office. The work is one which, though we cannot subscribe to some of the opinions it contains, is calculated to be of important use; and the friends of the writer, and the world at large, may rightly rank Mr. Drew among the excellent laymen, who, with Addison and Soame Jenyns at their head, volunteered their services in the defence of the Gospel The observation of the former of these writers, on the use of which laymen may be, in the evidently uninterested support of religion, is well known, and though he would have been, there is little doubt, a most zealous minister of the church, we can hardly hesitate to believe that he decided correctly when he determined on not taking orders, that he might stand before the world, and prove by his labours that a man of genius, whose profession it was not to preach the Gospel, could feel himself most happily, and most honourably employed, while endeavouring to diffuse its doctrines and pure morality through society. The Christian Remembrancer for June 1828. THE CHRISTIAN REMEMBRANCER was long wont to say very hard and bitter things against the saints. Latterly, however, it changed its tone, and became more tolerant. This, we now fear, was only an expedient to obtain the countenance of certain persons among the Evangelical party. The mask is now thrown off. This publication dares to come forward to censure the founders of the Church Missionary Society-many of them in their graves,-and recommend its members to pour their funds into the treasury of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. And for what reason? Because, forsooth, the funds of this venerable Society do not increase as its friends desire. The younger Society is therefore considered a rival; and probably, unless the nation transfer their subscriptions to the older Institution, the younger one will, in the next Number of the Christian Remembrancer, be denounced an enemy. However, to prevent this, we hereby promise to comply with the recommendation; but when? This we will tell these gentlemen. When the Church Missionary Society shall cease to consider fervent piety and Christian zeal as indispensable qualifications in their missionaries, when their affairs shall be managed by a close borough, the major part of which are opposed to the very men who are the lights of their day and the ornaments of their church,-when its leading agents, having ceased to depend on the arm of the Lord, shall lean on an arm of flesh, and instead of rising to meet the exigencies of the times, and the spirit of the age, shall spend their strength in finding fault with their brethren, who may be more diligent than themselves; in fine, when the two societies shall exactly change places, then will we leave the younger, and join the elder. But what should this state of things in the venerable society teach its Right Reverend and other clerical supporters? Does it not tell the Perpetual Curate of St. John's, Hackney, and all his incorporated brethren, that no charter of incorporation, no King's letter, no episcopal, or even royal patronage can avail long to uphold an institution whose main supporters set themselves against every measure which emanates from the more pious and zealous of our communion. We say not this with any ill will. We wish both societies well; but to our dying hour we will hold up both hands against this exterminating proposal. But how modest the proposition! not a union, but a transfer. Vain wish! to be realized, indeed, when St. Paul's Cathedral shall march in state to Westminster Abbey, but not before. Why cannot both institutions go on and prosper, and, as members of the same Apostolical church, do all they can to promote its welfare, to extend its pale, and to convert the nations? And sure we are that there are not a few among the mitred prelates of our church who breathe a spirit very different. from that which dictated the article in the Christian Remembrancer. Among these we gladly turn to the man of God whose sermon before the Church Missionary Society has excited so much joy and delight through the nation, and which probably called forth the attack just noticed. The Bishop's text was from Rom. xii. 5: "So we being many are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another." We select the following passages, and leave them to speak for themselves. The relative duties which man, as a social being, owes to those who are connected with him in the same community, have not been disregarded under any economy pretending to the character of a religious system. The reciprocal obligations of parent and child, of husband and wife, of master and servant, of ruler and subject, are nominally respected by the families of the world, whether Christian or Pagan; and acknowledged, to a certain extent at least, wherever the decencies and harmony and order of civilized life are holden in honour. But it belonged to Him who first gave a more enlarged sense to the title of neighbour-to Him who inculcated on his followers a lesson as remarkable for its novelty as for the importance of its results-that all who name the name of Christ are brethren-to teach the world, that, in addition to the ties of friendship or of consanguinity or of national and local association, there is another more disinterested and spiritual bond, which connects in holy fellowship the children of widely-distant lands, sons of Shem and Ham and Japheth; which unites, as by a natural compact, those who have no other interest in common than what is derived from a consciousness of being mutually called in one hope of their calling. The principle on which this catholic spirit is founded is explicitly stated by St. Paul, in the chapter whence the text is taken. He addresses himself, in the first verse, to his brethren; beseeching them, with a solemn and affectionate appeal, "by the mercies of God." After urging the surrender of themselves, body and soul, to the Lord, he proceeds to illustrate, by a striking and natural similitude, the connection virtually existing, under the new dispensation, between all who, as sons of Adam, having originally inherited the same corruption, are made heirs, through the hope of the Gospel, of the same life in Christ: "As we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office; so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another." He afterwards subjoins the obvious practical inferences which result from this truth: "Let love be without dissimulation. . . . Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love. . . . Be of the same mind one toward another." The Christian therefore, according to this doctrine, must look beyond the narrow sphere of his own immediate family, not only to that larger circle with which he comes into personal contact by his engagements of business or of friendly intercourse, but to that still more extended universal community, gathered out of all nations under heaven, of which he himself forms an individual member, and whereof Christ is head. He is reminded of this duty by a special injunction: "Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others." Nor is the exercise of this sympathy without its issue of good reflected on himself. It opens to him an enlarged view of the divine love. It elevates the character of his belief. It impresses on his mind a deeper sense of that comprehensive scheme of mercy, whereby the heathen are given for the inheritance of the Redeemer, and the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession. It inspires a livelier and better interest in the glories of that period, when, from the rising of the sun even to the going down of the same, the name of the Lord shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto His name, and a pure offering; for His name shall be great among the heathen. pp. 3-5. The above is in the very spirit of the Gospel; a spirit vastly different to that which we have just been compelled, painfully compelled, to censure. Those who heard this sermon, will long remember what they felt under the delivery of the following passages. Truly may it be said, that there can be no more certain symptom of a low state of religious feeling than apathy on this subject. Where men think strongly, they act with energy. Where they are deeply impressed with the importance of an object, they are zealously affected in promoting it. The very Pharisees would compass sea and land to make one proselyte. Should evangelists in the Christian cause limit the sphere of their ministrations, and be slow to preach the Gospel in the regions beyond them, where men yet offer their sons and their daughters unto devils? The Jew Paul confessed himself debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians; though as an Israelite of the seed of Abraham, and tribe of Benjamin, his heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel was, that they might be saved. He thought it not much that he was "in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by his own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness." He was ready to spend and be spent in his Master's service. See him at Lystra, rending his clothes, and running in among the people, and periling his life in his jealousy for God's honour! See him at Miletus, stedfastly purposing to go unto Jerusalem, unmoved by the knowledge of the bonds and afflictions which awaited him in every city! See him at Athens, the nursing-mother of idolatry, |