mischief, passions, and their frightful results; but yet we may believe that salvation has been working. But could you be present with those minds who have been so divinely wrought upon, and observe the transforming power of light, and life, and heat, what an interesting spectacle! An unbeliever might deride and curse; but the process must go on; the divine Spirit will work. But to a saint what delight would it afford! It would be like a new conversion of his own soul; so a dear parent feels for his own child; every pulsation seems in his own veins; he prays that nothing may repress, that nothing may stop, it; that he may have the happiness to accompany him to heaven. Think what you will of all agencies, this deserves more philosophy, more poetry to be expended on it, than any other agency. The sun set on fire is a noble object; but the agency carried on by divine grace has a far diviner glory. But only think, what a wretched state of mind it must be to contemplate these signs of grace and not care about ourselves. How very solemn to hear of the salvation of heaven passing by, and not feel something of its agency. A man who cannot look coldly on a mere operation of chemistry, on the mere agency of matter, can look on with coldness, and often with contempt, like the Jews, on the agency of grace.

"To this house," the scene of various employments and cares. It would be curious to enquire what has come to a house. Some families amuse themselves on a winter's evening in narrating incidents respecting strangers, friends, or foes; but will none of them ask, Has salvation ever come here? It is most melancholy to think how often the door has opened, and salvation never entered. The inhabitants of such a house should take care; it had been better for their house to have been burnt down, than that perhaps fifty years have passed by and salvation never come to it; better that it had been destroyed by lightnings and earthquakes. And you, my friends, should enquire whether salvation has come to your house; and if it has not, Jesus Christ has never come,-the dwelling is out of the camp of Israel, it is on a blasted soil; it is, in a spiritual sense, in Sodom; it has no angel-guard, no security, no safety. But round the house of the just, the angels of the Lord encamp; there is the presence of God. Babylon in ruins is a far less melancholy sight to a person accustomed to religious contemplation, than a place where salvation does not come or dwell. It would be a very affecting exercise to a man of a pious spirit to look at the houses as he passed by and to ask, Is salvation come here? There may be nothing very particular in the form of the house, but this gives it an interest. And if salvation has come, he will bless God; and surely there can be no greater cause to bless the Eternal Power! You may exercise your christian compassion in thinking on this question when passing by some houses where we may hear the language of impiety coming out as with the blast of a furnace; when you may feel the very fire and brimstone of hell. Faith should not be suffocated by the brimstone and smoke of the bottomless pit. There is no kind of house respecting which the mind may not exercise some feeling of piety, entreating God to send salvation. A garrison is there against which no attack of human power can prevail. But when Christ goes in at the door, it is sure to be off; that legion of devils which infests it, will surely be off. Still the question comes to every man; when he goes home to his own house it may not be amiss to ask, Now what besides myself has entered by this door? Has the Bible entered? And I use, as a proof, these enquiries, Are the habits I establish,-the worship I offer morning and evening,-the language current in it,—and all that proceeds from it, such as conscience approves? To shut salvation out, is to shut the door against Jesus Christ; and if any one shut

the door against Jesus Christ, what may be expected? No wonder if he should blast that house like the barren figtree. If it were possible to contemplate the effect of all there is in a house where salvation comes and where it does not, what an awful difference of scene and character would be presented!

Remember, all men must one day go out of their houses. When you see a funeral, ask, In what way does that man go out? If salvation has entered his house, it is as if an angel-guard attended him; salvation does not stop behind. But a person of contrary character! what a journey has he to take! what a place where the body is laid; and when the ground shall open and that body rise, what then will be the sensations of the soul and body united under the awful sense of the deprivation of the salvation of God!

Downend, Lord's-day Evening, Aug. 25, 1816.

THE CHRISTIAN CITIZEN.

In a volume which we have noticed on page 131, we have met with the passage which we have printed in a note at the foot of this page.* As we approve of the book very much on the whole, and are hearty supporters of the noble Society which publishes it, we take it as a text for a few remarks on the advice so often volunteered to Dissenters, to "abstain from politics!" We have ourselves heard this advice from the lips of evangelical clergymen, brethren who never advised their own church to withdraw its political successors of the apostles from the House of Lords, or to refrain from dipping its political hands into the nation's property (that of said dissenting brethren included) to the amount of ten millions a year, or putting its parliamentary creed into the hands of Privy Council lawyers. Such language from such lips, uttered in tones of deep and pious concern lest we should be contaminated by the element in which their own church "lives, and moves, and has its being," could but remind us of "Brother, let me take the mote out of thine eye.'

Surely the sub-committee of revision must have overlooked this passage. Its reasoning is absurd, and its advice either unmeaning or pernicious. 'Never intermeddle with politics, except it be your plain duty.' So say we. And we add, never intermeddle with any thing whatever, "except it be your plain duty." The less also you have to do with trade or housekeeping, with railways or with cooking, the better, "unless it be your plain duty." To the true christian, every thing ought to be a duty or a sin. And every secular duty, by excessive devotion to it, and absorption in it, may become a sin. Vague advice, therefore, like this, savouring so strongly of the unworthy and selfish cant of good men in the most inconsistent of positions, we strongly object to. What the honest christian wants, is clear and self-consistent advice. We will endeavour to give it. Waste not, then, we would say, brethren, your precious time in party politics, nor in factious politics, nor in such attention to politics as cuts you off from due attention to closet, family, and business duties. But remember that politics is but another name for your duties as a citizen,

"It is well, both for ministers and private christians, to have as little to do with politics as possible. It is a pit that has swallowed up the life and spirit, if not the very form, of the religion of many professors. The Lord reigneth, and every issue will be directed by infinite wisdom and goodness, without our interference, unless he plainly puts it upon us as a duty."-England in the Eighteenth Century, p. 343.

and that to neglect these from merely personal considerations is to be simply selfish. Consider what is required of a freeman of a (should-be) free country,-what measures he ought to support, and the spirit in which it becomes a christian to support them. A bottomless pit business speculation or even any whim of leisure may become to you, as well as politics; but pray that you may discharge your citizen duties manfully and consistently, as well as your other duties.

Never was there greater need of vigorous and consistent attention to political duties on the part of good men. Our statesmen are intent upon bribing Popery and Dissent into the same degrading and corrupting bondage as that in which they hold Presbyterianism, Popery in part, and Anglican Episcopacy altogether. They have begun by mission grants to Methodists, and by their school bribes to all sects. While pretending zeal for diffusing knowledge, this same Government is cramping it by disgraceful taxes. The Tract Society, which publishes this book, pays, we doubt not, full as much in taxes on the knowledge it disseminates-pays it to be squandered in the most provokingly wanton and insulting manner on the wealthy and their offspring-as the contributions of its subscribers amount to. That is, our subscriptions are literally wasted! Were the Tract Society to do its political duty, and do it vigorously,—were it to send up its own memorial to Government, and arouse its numerous friends to petition, it might soon turn round and say, now we can afford our tracts at the same price as before, and save you your subscriptions; or, if you prefer to continue them, as we hope you do, we will make your money go a vast deal farther in doing good;" but no, it would be doing good after a tabooed fashion, to rescue money, paid by a Christian Society into the sink of Exchequer corruption, for diffusing more widely the precious truth it circulates. The wicked and scandalous waste of the earnings of peace on the pomp and garniture of war, so justly denounced by the competent and quiet Mr. S. Gurney as hurrying the nation to inevitable bankruptcy, this thoroughly antichristian waste,-antichristian both in its murderous object and its extravagance, surely calls upon christians to arouse themselves to the duty of the times.

But we forbear. We only add a remark or two on the abuse of that glorious and consolatory assurance, that "the Lord reigneth." Yes, he does reign, and he could do without our interference. He could do without our writing books and interfering with men's opinions in any way. He could feed us without our interference with the ground! No! this beautiful passage is a delightful consolation when our best efforts are frustrated, and vain is the help of man. But we also remember another passage which says, "Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the Lord; because they came not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty." No doubt they considered that the issue would be the same whether they acted or not; so they preserved their quiet, and their comforts for the present; but incurred a curse. Verily it is not by such men that Popery was first shaken, or any reformation gained! But our generally excellent author is better than this unworthy paragraph might lead our readers to suppose. He wishes his party, the moderates, "to know and come forward" with their strength, and shews the mischiefs of their not having done so.

In a word, then, we wish christians to give themselves as much as may be to prayer, the bible, and doing good, and therefore to have as little to do with any secular affairs as duty permits; but we also wish them to make a religion of their secular affairs, and therefore of their political engagements too. We would have no one seek any political object, or adopt any mode of seeking it, on which he could not ask both before and

afterwards the blessing of his God; but we would not have him practically give up the nation's interests, and his own, and his children's with him, to the children of the devil. We do think that men who will sell neither the crown rights of Immanuel, nor the social and civil rights of the poor, men who will not be bribed by the loss or accession of customers, by the smiles or the frowns of respectability (that great supplanter of God's reign in the hearts of the English middle class), we do think that such men are the great want of the times.*

THE CALL AND THE ANSWER.

BY THE REV. B. C. YOUNG.

"He shall call upon me, and I will answer him."-Psalm xci. 15.

Of some character here implied, God says, He shall call upon me." Some fine promises have been impressively made to the man. Exultingly the Psalmist says, 66 He is my refuge and my fortress." Turning to the character indicated, he addresses him in the name of God. "He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler." "He shall cover thee with his feathers." "There shall no evil befall thee." "He shall give his angels charge over thee." Does he promise without authority? Is he taking a liberty with God? Far from it. The Almighty appears and endorses the promise, "Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him." But the blessing is not for the man who will not seek it. "He shall call I will answer."

He shall call. Who? The man who says Lord, Lord, and does not the things that he says? The man who prays three times a day, and gives tithes of all that he has, but is self-sufficient?

These surface-wor

shippers are not those to whom the Divine ear shall be attent. Follow the speaker, and he will lead you to the Holy of Holies. He turns aside the veil, and shews the man who has found the home of his affections in the presence of God. He dwells in the secret place of the Most High, and therefore abides under the shadow of the Almighty. He has found an inner refuge which the ungodly never explored,—a fellowship in which the carnal mind has no share. There the words of penitence have been uttered, there the look of reconciliation has been sought,—there the voice of pardoning mercy has been heard.

He shall call. The certainty, however, grows not out of the use of the word, but from the nature of the case. God speaks for the man and says, He shall call. It is a matter of course.

God teaches his children to pray. It is a lesson they all learn. It is part of the work assigned the Holy Ghost to excite and shape the prayers of the renewed nature. If we are only man-taught in our prayers, we are only man-taught in our religion. Circumstances will so fall out as to excite prayer. God never permits his children to lack the incentives to this duty. He will re-arrange their circumstances as many times as the wages of Jacob were changed, rather than they shall restrain prayer before him. If a smooth and easy path induce forgetfulness of him, he will place thorns in the way, that in their affliction his saints may cry to

• We can only mention further, a serious omission in page 117 of the work above referred to, where we are reminded how "thankful" we ought to be for "toleration." "" The writer accidentally, we are sure, left out the words "to God." He of course regards toleration as an impious word in a mortal's mouth, and the Toleration Act as a standing disgrace to the legislature and its imperious ecclesiastical bantling.

him. If the abundance of bread and flesh engender self-reliance, it may be exchanged for the manna that must be gathered every morning. It is the firm purpose of God, his settled plan, that every son of his shall call upon him.

And God says of the person here indicated, I will answer him. Here is a link. Two things go together. "He shall call." "I will answer. The christian's grateful testimony is, "He performeth all things for me.' God's rule is, "I will be enquired of by the house of Israel to do these things for them."

Our

The promise is general. It is certain, but not circumstantial. Helper does not give a plan of his intended deliverance. Poor, fearful humanity says, Let him give me the promise in detail. God says, "I will answer. The anxious christian would interpose two questions especially, -When will he help? and, How? Sometimes he condescends to meet these enquiries, but not always, not mostly. These were Abraham's difficult problems. God has promised that he shall be the father of many nations; but he has no heir; and as year after year passes away, he cries, When, Lord, O when? And as he and his wife become well stricken in years, the question of Nicodemus is anticipated, How can these things be? Faith must often wait upon God with this general assurance-"I will answer."

Yet God's help shall be an answer to the call of faith. If a child ask bread of a father, and he give him a stone, that is not an answer. If he ask an egg and he give him a scorpion, that is not an answer. But if he give him food which will nourish the body, that is an answer, though it be not bread. The child may not receive the quantity or quality desired, but he has the aliment needed, and there is the answer. So when God engages to answer, he undertakes to supply what will meet the necessities of the case, though he does not permit the suppliant to draw the plan of his operations, or dictate the time. Paul had an answer, though the precise object of his supplication was not obtained. He besought the Lord thrice that the thorn in the flesh might be removed. His request was denied; but more than an equivalent was secured him. "My grace is sufficient for thee," was an abundant answer to such a request. It was the all-sufficience of God promised as compensation for a little obstruction to his acceptance.

Moreover, God's answer is discoverable to the man who looks for it. To watch unto prayer is a necessary and profitable exercise. The loving kindness of the Lord would be more frequently evident if there were more careful observation. Here, too, is the wisdom of the saint needed. In nothing does he more frequently mistake than in failing to discern the place where the answer to prayer is to be found. So much self-deception does he practice, that he is often found looking for an answer when it is before him. The Jews sought a sign from heaven as an answer to their enquiries about Messiah, when the evidence of the Messiahship of Jesus could be read in every quarter of their city. Men stand gazing up into heaven with unaverted eye for some answer from God, when it is full before them.

Sometimes he puts the answer on their conscience. That something within gives them their clue. Let them listen to that. God has no answer for them till they have heard that monitor. One is on his knees with the prayer of David on his lips, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." He wishes to overcome propensities to evil. He would be sanctified-body, soul, and spirit; yet is he bringing his heart in contact with the object that pollutes it, or treading the path in which temptation lurks. Another earnestly prays to be saved from the