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with all the christian benevolence in exercise in almost every channel, there would be no fund open, nor aid imparted, to many worthies and veterans now living who might be named.

I have no doubt but you are well aware that the income of many of the Lord's servants is very scanty; but few receive so much for their labours as a mechanic receives in wages; two pounds per week is considered a large allowance, and it requires great economy to lengthen this out: so that it is impossible for any provision to be made for sickness or old age. It is no uncommon case for a good man to be removed by death in the prime of life, and a widow and fatherless children left in most deplorable circumstances of debt and distress: neither is it unfrequent for a good man to outlive his usefulness and his friends; his faculties impaired, old friends dead, and he cast out! what a blessing if an asylum of some sort could be provided, with a small endowment to afford a shelter in the evening of life, for those who have spent their strength in the service of the best of sovereigns. And if a fund could be raised to relieve the hard-working labourer in the Lord's vineyard, what a great help it would be to him to recruit his raiment and his strength.

If you think well to give these hints a place in your Magazine, I hope it may arouse some persons of piety and property to take up the subject promptly; or if a meeting of good men could be convened to discuss the subject in its various bearings, it might lead to the adoption of some permanent plan of rendering assistance to that valuable class of society, the poor aged ministers of Christ's gospel. Surely something like a respectable benefit society might be formed, and the funds be aided by collections in the congregations where the truth is preached!

As the pages of your publication have for its peculiar object the dissemination of the distinguishing truths of the gospel, I have no doubt but they will also be open for the benevolent purpose of advocating the cause of the Lord's poor, and aged, but very dear servants. Your's, very respectfully,

November 10, 1826.

JAMES.

[The Publisher of this Magazine will readily co-operate in the adoption of any plan for the attainment of so desirable an object as that recommended.]

FRAGMENT.

St. Bernard makes mention in one of his homilies of an old man, who when he saw any man to sin, wept and lamented for him being asked, why he grieved so for others, answered hodie ille, cras ego, he fell to-day, I may fall to-morrow!

There is no greater sign of a reprobate, than to laugh at sin and inners for he that can make wickedness his chiefest pastime, and the aults of others his greatest joy, is no better than the devil, that ejoiceth at the failings of God's children.

REVIEW.

Cesar and God; a Sermon Preached in the Parish Church of St. Martin, in Leicester, on Thursday, September 21, 1826, before the Worshipful the Mayor and Corporation, previously to the Election of the Mayor for the year ensuing. By Edward Thomas Vaughan, M.A. Vicar of St. Martin's, Leicester, and Rector of Foston, Lei

cestershire. Baldwin and Co.

Of all the weaknesses which are incident to our fallen nature, that of seeming to be what we are not, stands in the foremost rank. To denominate this principle of action, a weakness, is to make use of the lightest term that can well be adopted: for, indeed, its universal extent and baleful prevalence, prove it to be an odious sin, a crying evil, in the sight both of God and man. This failing appears the predominant feature in the preacher of the sermon we have just now read. The only error of a venial kind, is its most singular, and in many instances, unintelligible phraseology. The "confusion worse confounded" which envelopes the novel and abstruse dogmas advocated therein, must effectually prevent the generality of readers inhaling their poison, or yielding to their somniferous effects.

Mr. Vaughan presents himself before his audience as a faithful minister of God; but he has darkened counsel by words without knowledge, through mysteriousness of sentiment and peculiarity of style. On opening the discourse, to which is prefixed the text, Matt. xxii. 21. "Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's, and unto God the things that are God's ;" the preacher founds his elucidation of the passage and its connection on a new version of the original scripture; authority for which he has not thought proper to produce.

The first heterodox notion, of great moment, is advanced on p. 25. where he says, "what Jesus spake in his ministry, he spake as from his temporary abode at the Father's right hand in heaven. Baptism had done that for him, which it has since done for his church, giving him an as it were resurrection : and as though he were then that Lord and that Christ, which he could not really be till he had really borne the curse of the substance to which he had joined his person by making a portion of it part of his own substance, he from thenceforth spake and acted; till the season of his sufferings, which had now for more than three years been assumed and already undergone and completed, did really come on. So that, whilst yet in the flesh, and, as being so, having no authority, but made the subject of divine curse and wrath, he could truly say, and act the saying, "all things have been delivered unto me of my Father." And in a note (it will be observed the italics are all his own) he further adds by way of illustration; I say temporary, because he is only to continue there until God has put all things under his feet, has made his enemies his footstool. 1 Cor. xv. 27. VOL. III.-No. 32.

2 F

66

Heb. ii. 8, &c." ous reader.

We leave these to the consideration of the judici

But the leading topic, of a theological nature, is enlarged on under the first head of enquiry, "to ascertain what are the things of Cæsar, and how Cæsar comes at all to have any." "The creature (he says) can have nothing which is not originally given to it of God; nor can any part of the creature have rights with respect to another part, which God has not primarily conferred. Has God then invested Cæsar with authority? we shall find that he has." Mr. V. then proceeds:—

"This investiture arises out of the fact that God has invented and accepted a substitute for the annihilation of his offending creation. The creature can only offend in its moral part; but, when it does so offend, the irrational and even inanimate parts must take the doom of that which offendeth, being in fact, by the very nature and tenure of creation subjected to it and for such offence, though it consist but of a single act, the appropriate retort is annihilation. Sin is essentially a denial of the Creator's being: if He Is, he ought to be obeyed implicitly, and without a question, in all his known will. The Creator's being, then, and the creature's by an act of siu come at once into issue; and the instant annihilation, or, non-sustainment of the latter becomes matter of necessity, unless the former have been pleased to devise and operate a substitute: which substitute must of course be its equivalent, or more than its equivalent. I would desire for you, my friends, that you may be made deeply, thoughtfully, and tremblingly sensible of this necessity; that you may with your heart understand and believe that nothing less than a taking out of being is the just and due requital of every act of sin; of Adam's first sin therefore, and of yours, who, in popular language, was a part of his one personal substance when he committed it. Know and understand, death is neither in itself, nor together with its necessary, or at least possible consequences, annihilation. Death is the maceration, solution, or dissolution of the doubly compounded substance which man is: but the double compound may be re-united; the scattered part gathered, the indivisible continue in being, and at length take possession again of the scattered. Such may be the state and issue of death; and such, it appears, God intended to be its state and issue, both when he fore-announced and when he sealed it upon Adam. But annihilation would make a blot in creation: the substance which has been is not, neither is there any trace of its having been. Annihilation, mind, is not that impossibility which some would represent it to be. Spirit as well as matter He who made could unmake. The devil is neither a necessary being, nor by necessity continued in being. But God has found a substitute for it, both in our own case and in the devil's. Remember what is the end of annihilation: it is to disprove the sinner's lie; to shew that God is, when the sinner has said, he IS NOT. Then if God says, I AM, more emphatically by continuing the substance which has sinned in being, under a new form, than by putting it out of existence; what is to hiuder him from choosing this substitution? If he had no design of making his self-existence known, we must stand amazed that he did not at once blot out his competitor and impugner, whether sinning man or sinning angel, from the page of being. But having this design, which I must not now attempt to prove to you--(the proof is found in all Scripture; not a book thereof but bears witness to it; the very words occur a thousand times, the substance glides, through the whole-read Exodus, read Isaiah, read Ezekiel)--v --we can see at once why both the devil and ourselves have been withheld from our appropriate doom of annihilation."

We plead an unsophisticated ignorance of much that is here stated; nor are we ambitious of placing ourselves at Mr. Vaughan's feet for instruction; but we sincerely regret the prostration of intellect which must have preceded the adoption of such vague and unscriptural notions. The simplest construction we can attach to the ideas intended to be conveyed, is this:-that it is the bounden duty of the creature to obey implicitly all the known will of God;-that sin is essentially a denial of the Creator's being;-that for sin, even though but a single act, against him whose existence is virtually denied, it becomes matter of necessity that the creature should be utterly annihilated. "The Creator's being, then, and the creature's by an act of sin, come at once into issue:" consequently, instant annihilation of the latter must inevitably follow, unless a substitute be found. That God has been pleased to (invent) appoint a substitute for his offending creation, whereby the act of annihilation is not accomplished;—that even for the devil, who is not "a necessary being," God has found a substitute that he may be continued in existence.-But if we go on at this rate, we shall be suspected of verging on the borders of the slough from whence we wish to warn our readers.

So singular a compound of truth and error, argument and unfounded assertion, has seldom come under our observation. We are chiefly at a loss to conceive, to what point the ideal rays of the preacher's superior intellect converge! Even were he to establish the principle he so strangely aims at, we know not the object he expects to realize, nor the advantage that would result from his success. We apprehend its tendencies are diametrically opposed to those which a minister, having the soul's benefit of his people at heart, would earnestly and unceasingly desire;-that they contribute to beguile the unsettled mind from the simplicity of the faith,-and cause the enemies of God and his truth, to pursue with reckless impetuosity their course of sin and transgression.

We had more than doubted, in a former instance, the correctness of Mr. Vaughan's views on the subject of the Trinity; in his present discourse he is more explicit in the avowal of his anti-scriptural sentiments. From many parts of the work we might make quotations in proof, but we confine ourselves to his address to "the worshipful the Mayor and Corporation," at the close; wherein he speaks of God's transfer of his power to the second Person of his substance, made empty, made a creature: who being unseen must be represented by seen ones: to whom therefore by his Constitutor's will, he transmits a portion of his authority to Cæsar, &c." This, connected with the final sentence of the sermon, which we will copy, is fully confirmatory of our opinion, and plainly discovers a bold departure from the testimony of divine inspiration.

"Unto whom, even the self-existent God and Father, Fountain of Deity, author of being to all persons and to all things-to the Persons of his own substance by an eternal necessary communication; to all creature by volition and power, in, with and through them-unto him, the alone glory, be glory in the church, in Christ Jesus, and in the Holy Ghost which is in him, throughout all ages, world without end. Amen."

A name need not be given to the sentiments Mr. Vaughan has here distinctly espoused, and explained in clearer terms than those before noticed. Abstruseness and confusion characterize the greater part of the sermon,-in these extracts, all that relates to Jehovah in his distinct personalities, is plain-cannot be misunderstood;-but it is false, heretical, and demands rejection. Having allowed Mr. V. to say so much, we find ourselves debarred from enlargement: yet our readers are not ignorant of the ground on which we stand, when employed in defence of the fundamental principles of our most holy faith.

We have purposely abstained from noticing the political character of the discourse, as we could not dissociate therefrom this presentiment -that the preacher aspires after earthly aggrandizement, through the medium of church preferment! We put to his credit a large share of true loyalty; only remarking, that it would be to our shame did we possess a less portion ourselves.

of Lectures delivered in Hamilton and Co.

The Christian Contemplated, in a Course Argyle Chapel, Bath. By W. Jay. On introducing this volume to the notice of our readers, it is our first duty to inform them that, as a whole, we do not recommend it; but we have great pleasure in stating, it contains much that we do approve, and from which we shall make selections for their perusal and judgment. It consists of twelve Lectures, designed to exhibit the christian in some very important and comprehensive conditions and relations-the christian, in Christ-in the closet-in the family-in the church-in the world-in prosperity-in adversity-in his spiritual sorrows-in his spiritual joys--in death-in the grave-in glory.

A considerable part of the preface is occupied with the writer's exposure of a style of preaching different from his own, in which he advances many severe remarks; some of them, we fear, warranted and demanded by the prevailing practices alluded to. The following paragraph contains a reproof which we cordially approve, and consider very seasonable.

"We are willing to concede that all those from whom we occasionally hear complaints do not go into these lengths; and we are persuaded that were these worthier individuals perfectly informed, concerning the men we have very truly but inadequately sketched, they would exclaim," my soul come not thou into their secret, and mine honour to their system be not thou united:" yet they sometimes murmur as if in sympathy with them, and borrow their language, unconscious whose technicality it is, and are in danger that their good should be evil spoken of. To be strenuous for evangelical preaching is commendable, but they view the desideratum in too confined an import. They think it, if not improper, yet needless for a minister to inculcate many things which he must feel to be binding upon him," Oh!" say they," the grace of God will teach people all this." The grace of God will incline and enable us to do all this, but it is the bible that teaches: this contains all our religious information, and we only want to be led into all truth. The sacred writers never left these things to be taught by the grace of God, without instruction; they never in trusted them to inference. They particularized and enforced them. There is not one of Paul's epistles, a large proportion of which might not have

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