alone truth that can at once hush the fears of guilt, and command a reverence for the offended Sovereign. No wonder, then, that its presence should be so much courted by all who have been touched with the reality and the magnitude of eternal things-by all who have ever made the question of their acceptance with God a matter of earnest and home-felt application; and who, urged on the one hand, by the authority of a law that must be vindicated, and on the other, by the sense of a condemnation that, to the eye of nature, appears inextricable, must give supreme welcome to the message that can assure them of a way by which both God may be glorified and the sinner may be safe. It is the blood of Christ which resolves this mystery, and it is by the daily application of this blood to the conscience that peace is daily upheld there. When the propitiation by Christ is out of the mind, then, on the strength of its old propensities, does it lapse either into the forgetfulness of God, or into a fearful distrust of him. And therefore it is, that every aspiring Christian prizes every intimation, and every token of remembrance, by which to recall to his mind the thought of a crucified Saviour. And he no more quarrels with a perpetual sense of him who poured out his soul unto the death, than he would with the perpetual sunshine of a brilliant and exhilarating day: and just as a joy and a thankfulness are felt at every time when the sun breaks out from the clouds which lie scattered over the firmament-so is that beam of gladness which enters with the very name of Christ, when it finds its way through that dark and disturbed atmosphere which is ever apt to gather around

the soul. The light of beauty is not more constantly pleasant to the eye-the ointment that is poured forth not more constantly agreeable in its odour-the relished and wholesome food not more constantly palatable to the ever-recurring appetite of hunger-the benignant smile of tried and approved friendship not more constantly delicious to the heart of man, than is the sense of a Saviour's sufficiency to him of spiritual and new-born desires, who now hungers and thirsts after righteousness.

This may explain the untired and unexpended delight wherewith the Christian hangs upon a theme which sounds monotonously, and is felt to be wearisome by other men: and this is one test by which he may ascertain his spiritual condition. There is much associated with religion that is fitted to regale even a mind that is unrenewed, if open to the charms of a tasteful, or pathetic, or eloquent representation. And thus it is, that crowds may be drawn around a pulpit by the same lure of attraction which fills a theatre with raptured and applauding multitudes. To uphold the loveliness of the song, might the preacher draw on all the beauties of nature, while he propounds the argument of nature's God: nor need the deep, the solemn interest of tragedy be wanting, with such topics at command as the sinner's restless bed, and the dark imagery of guilt and vengeance wherewith it is surrounded: and again, may the fairest tints of heaven be employed to deck the perspective of a good man's anticipations; or the touching associations of home be pressed into the service of engaging all our sympathies, with the feelings, and the struggles, and the hopes of his pious family.

It is thus that the theological page may be richly strewed with the graces of poetry, and even the feast of intellect be spread before us by the able champions of theological truth. Yet all this delight would require novelty to sustain it, and be in full congeniality with minds on which the unction of living water from above had never yet descended. It is altogether diverse from that spiritual taste, by which the simple application of the cross to the sinner's conscience is felt and appreciated-by which the utterance of the Saviour's name is at all times welcomed like the sound of sweetest music-by which a sensation of relief enters, with all the power and freshness of a new feeling, so often as the conception of his atoning blood, and of his perfect righteousness, is made to visit us-by which the reiteration of his sacrifice upon the ear, has a like effect to disperse the habitual distrust or lethargy of nature, that the ever-recurring presence of a friend has to disperse the gloom of a constitutional melancholy. It is no evidence of his vital Christianity, that a man can enjoy a kindred recreation in those embellishments of genius or literature of which the theme is susceptible, But if its simple affirmations be sweet unto him-if the page be never lovelier in his eye than when gemmed with Bible quotations that are both weighty and pertinent-if when pervaded throughout by a reference to Christ, and to him crucified, it be felt and rejoiced in like the incense of a perpetual savour, and he, withal a son of learning and generous accomplishment, can love, even in its homeliest garb, the oft-repeated truth; and that, purely because the balm of Gilead is there,-this we should hold the

evidence of one who, so far at least, has been enlightened, and has tasted of the heavenly gift, and has been made a partaker of the Holy Ghost, and has tasted of the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come.

We know of no Treatises where this evangelical infusion so pervades the whole substance of them as those of ROMAINE. Though there is no train of consecutive argument-though there is no great power or variety of illustration-though we cannot allege in their behalf much richness of imagery, or even much depth of Christian experience. And, besides, though we were to take up any of his paragraphs at random, we should find that, with some little variation in the workmanship of each, there was mainly one ground or substratum for them all-yet the precious and consoling truths, which he ever and anon presents, must endear them to those who are anxious to maintain in their minds a rejoicing sense of God as their reconciled Father. He never ceases to make mention of Christ and of his righteousness -and it is by the constant droppings of this elixir that the whole charm and interest of his writings are upheld. With a man whose ambition and delight it was to master the difficulties of an argument; or with a man whose chief enjoyment it was to range at will over the domains of poetry, we can conceive nothing more tasteless or tame than these Treatises that are now offered to the public. Yet, in despite of that literary nakedness which they may exhibit to the eye of the natural man, who possesses no spiritual taste, and no spiritual discernment, let such a man have his eye opened to the hidden glories of

that theme, which, of all others, was dear to the bosom of their Author; and, whether from the press or from the pulpit, was the one theme on which he ever loved to expatiate-let the sense of guilt but fasten upon his conscience, and the sure but simple remedy of faith in the blood of Christ recommend itself as that power of God which alone is able to dissolve it let him be made to feel the suitableness that there is between this precious application, and that inward disease of which the malignity and the soreness have now been revealed to him-then, like as it is at all times pleasing, when there is laid over a bodily wound the emollient that relieves it, so is it all times pleasing, whenever the spiritual malady is felt, to have recourse upon that unction by the sprinkling of which it is washed away. A feeling of joy in the Redeemer will be ever prompting to the same contemplations, and to the utterance of the same things. To a regenerated spirit, that never can be a weariness in time, which is to form the song of eternity.

But it is of importance to remark, that the theme on which Mr. Romaine so much loves to expatiate, is a purifying as well as a pleasing theme. It is not only not grievous to indulge in it, but, most assuredly, to every true-hearted Christian, it is safe. We are aware of the alleged danger which some entertain of the tendency of such a full and free exhibition of the grace of the gospel, to produce Antinomianism. But the way to avert this, is not by casting any part of gospel truth into the shade. It is to spread open the whole of it, and give to every one part the relief and the prominency that it has in