And those sweet stars, that, like familiar eyes, But while the skies are scatter'd by the war As if the flames of hell were on the winds unfurl'd! 'Tis o'er; from yonder cloven vault of heaven, pp. 107-113. There are several minor poems in the volume, some of which are of surpassing beauty. There is one, the liquid flow of which reminds us of the melodies of Moore. It begins thus: Oh, beauty is the master-charm, Whose magic zone encompasseth But we have done with our extracts. Our readers will perceive that we have had little to do with canons of criticism. This is according to our original intention. Our object has not been to display literary acumen, or a flippant application of rules and technical terms. We hope it will not be considered a reprehensible motive, for we confess it hath been ours in the present article, to introduce an author to the acquaintance and favorable regard of our readers, who, in this day of vain literature, hath dwelt alone in his purity, and who cannot be criminated for hallowing profanity or licentiousness, by interweaving them with honorable and virtuous sentiments. While other presses are daily introducing to the world works, both poetical and prose, the tendency of which is exceedingly pernicious; while men who hold responsible stations in the literary world, are striving with a combined force to crowd these works into a conspicuous rank in the estimation of the public, we shall have attained our end, if we are successful in persuading any portion of the reading community to exchange such demoralizing publications for one, which, while it stirs up the intellect, delights and purifies the taste, and will not poison the heart. Without analyzing rigidly its poetical merits, without assigning it its proper place in the "many mansions" of poetry, we have made such copious extracts from the "Omnipresence of the Deity," that they cannot fail of imparting to our readers a favorable impression of its general character. For ourselves, we consider it, as to its poetry, a very choice acquisition to the literature of our day; and as to its moral tendency, a charming voice inviting us away from the shining yet empty fruit of the desert shrub, from the impure and insipid streams of licentiousness which abound in the midst of us, to lie down in 'green pastures,' and to drink deeply of the 'still waters' of truth and purity. MISCELLANEOUS. CONVERSION OF LUTHER. The following is Luther's account of his own conversion, which took place while he was a monk at Erfurth. "However blameless a life I might lead as a monk, I experienced a most unquiet conscience; I perceived myself a sinner before God; I saw that I could do nothing to appease him, and I hated the idea of a just God that punishes sinners. I was well versed in all of St. Paul's writings; and in particular, I had a most wonderful desire to understand the epistle to the Romans. But I was puzzled with the expression, 'THEREIN is the righteousness of God revealed.' My heart rose almost against God with a silent sort of blasphemy: at least, in secret I said with great murmur and indignation, Was it not enough that wretched man, already eternally ruined by the curse of original depravity, should be oppressed with every species of misery through the condemning power of the commandment, but that, even through the Gospel, God should threaten us with his anger and justice, and thereby add affliction to affliction? Thus I raged with a troubled conscience. Over and over I turned the above mentioned passage to the Romans most importunately. My thirst to know the apostle's meaning was insatiable. "At length, while I was meditating day and night on the words, and their connexion with what immediately follows, namely, "the just shall live by faith," it pleased God to have pity upon me, to open mine eyes, and to show me, that the righteousness of God, which is here said in the Gospel to be revealed from faith to faith, relates to the method by which God, in his mercy, justifies a sinner through faith, agreeably to what is written, "the just shall live by faith." Hence, I felt myself a new man, and all the Scriptures appeared to have a new face. I ran quickly through them as my memory enabled me; I collected to. gether the leading terms; and I observed, in their meaning, a strict analogy, according to my new views. Thus, in many instances, the work of God means that he works in us; and the power and wisdom of God, means the power and wisdom, which his Spirit operates in the minds of the faithful; and in the same manner are to be understood the patience, the salvation, the glory, of God. "The expression, "righteousness of God," now became as sweet to the mind as it had been hateful before; and this very passage of St. Paul proved to me the entrance into Paradise." CHARACTER OF The first ministers of new engLAND.† "With respect to their religious sentiments, and those of their followers, they were Puritans. They were strictly Calvinistic, agreeing in doctrine with their brethren of the established church, and with all the Protestant reformed churches. They were all men of the most strict morals, serious, experimental preachers. Mr. Neal, after giving a catalogue of the ministers who first illuminated the churches of New-England, bears this testimony concerning them. “I * Luth. Op. præf. vol. i. + From Trumbull's History of Connecticut. will not say that all the ministers mentioned, were men of the first rate for learning, but I can assure the reader, that they had a better share of it than most of the neighboring clergy, at that time: they were men of great sobriety and virtuc, plain, serious, affectionate preachers, exactly conformable to the doctrine of the church of England, and took a great deal of pains to promote a reformation of manners in their several par.shes." They were mighty and abundant in prayer. They not only fasted and prayed frequently with their people in public, but kept many days of secret fasting, prayer, and self-examination in their studies. Some of them, it seems, fasted and prayed, in this private manner, every week. Besides the exercises on the Lord's day, they preached lectures, not only in public, but from house to house. They were diligent and laborious in catechising and instructing the children and young people, both in public and private. They paid a constant attention to the religion of their families. They read the Scriptures, and prayed in them daily, morning and evening, and instructed all their domestics constantly to attend the secret, as well as private and public duties of religion. They were attentive to the religious state of all the families and individuals of their respective flocks.* As they had taken up the cross, forsaken their pleasant seats and enjoyments in their native country, and followed their Saviour into a land not sown, for the sake of his holy religion, and the advancement of his kingdom, they sacrificed all worldly interests to these glorious purposes. The people who followed them into the wilderness, were their spiritual children who imbibed the same spirit and sentiments, and esteemed them as their fathers in Christ." EXTRACT FROM CHILLINGWORTH. "I pray tell me," says Chillingworth, "why cannot heresies be sufficiently discovered, condemned, and avoided by them which believe Scripture to be the rule of faith? If Scripture be sufficient to inform us what is the faith, it must of necessity also be sufficient to teach us what is heresy; seeing heresy is nothing but a manifest deviation from, or opposition to the faith. That which is straight will plainly teach us what is crooked; and one contrary cannot but manifest the other.-Though we pretend not to certain means of not erring in interpreting all Scripture, particularly such places as are obscure and ambigu ous, yet this, methinks, should be no impediment, but that we may have certain means of not erring in and about the sense of those places which are so plain and clear that they need no interpreters: And in such we say our faith is contained. If you ask me, how I can be sure that I know the true meaning of these places? I ask you again, can you be sure that you understand what I, or any man else says?-God be thanked that we have sufficient means to be certain enough of the truth of our faith. But the privilege of not being in possibility of erring, that we challenge not, because we have as little reason as you, to do so; and you have none at all. If you ask, seeing we may possibly err, how can we be assured we do not? I ask you again, seeing your eye-sight may deceive you, how you can be sure you see the sun when you do see it? Perhaps you may be in a dream, and perhaps you and all the men in the world have been so, when they thought they were awake, and then only awake when they thought they dreamt.-A pretty sophism this, that whosoever possibly may err, cannot be certain that he doth not err. A judge may possibly err in judgment; can he therefore never have assurance that he hath judged right. A traveller may possibly mistake his way; must I therefore be doubtful whether I am in the right way from my hall to my chamber?" * See an account of the lives of many of them, in the Magnalia, b. 111. Particular tracts and manuscripts characterize them in the same manner. 67 VOL. II. CONVERSATION AT AN INN. From the Christian Magazine. Messrs. Editors.-Travelling of late in a certain part of Massachusetts, which shall be nameless, I took lodgings for the night in a comfortable public house. Soon after my arrival, Rev. Dr. T., a respectable Unitarian clergyman, called on the same errand as myself. His face and name were familiar to me, though I was probably unknown to him. Having taken his supper, and rested himself a little, the Doctor fell into the following conversation with his host. Dr. T. Well, Col. B., I understand you are about settling a Minister among you. Col. B. We are so, indeed. The Society have given him a call, and the ordination is appointed. Dr. T. Were the Society unanimous in his favor. Col. B. Why, nearly so. There are several of us who do not like his sentiments; but then he advances them very cautiously, and seems to be accommodating, and we think it best to be quiet for the present. Dr. T. He is a Calvinist, I suppose. Col. B. He professes to be; though I have never heard him preach upon the more obnoxious points of Calvinism. Dr. T. And what are his intentions in respect to ministerial intercourse? Col. B. O, we have been careful to settle that point with him, I assure you. He has told us explicitly, that he should never take upon himself to withdraw from any who had been regularly inducted into the ministry; and that he should expect to maintain a free and friendly intercourse with Unitarians. Dr. T. You have done well, Colonel, in being explicit with him on that point; and also in encouraging and aiding his settlement. From your account of him, he is just such a man as we want. You may be surprised when I assure you, that I think he will do more in behalf of our cause, than though he were a professed Unitarian, Col. B. I am happy to have your approbation, Doctor; but I am somewhat surprised, I must acknowledge, at your last assertion. Will you be so good as to explain yourself? Dr. T. I repeat it, my dear sir, we want just such men, and ministers, as you represent your pastor elect to be. We want them, in this region, more than we do open Unitarians. There is a strong tendency in the two classes of Congregationalists in this commonwealth to separate-separate, I mean, in form. But we are not yet prepared for such a separation. It would operate against us. Separated from the great Orthodox community, we should appear few and feeble. We should sink, both in the estimation of others, and in our own. We should be a more palpable object, than we now are, of public odium; and should be less able to resist it. Our policy, therefore, is to keep off a formal separation, at least for the present. And in doing this, we need the help of just such ministers as the one you are about to settle. They will serve as mediatorsor rather as links, to bind the two parties together. They will also serve to keep us in countenance, with many who are inclined to reproach us. When you, for instance, hear it said, that this or that Unitarian minister does not preach the Gospel, and is not fit to preach at all; you can at once silence the allegation, by appealing to the conduct of your minister. Our minister is a good man, as all admit; and he thinks that these Unitarians are good men and good ministers, or he would not suffer them to preach to his people.'And besides; under the ministry of such a man as you are about to settle, the progress of Unitarianism among you will be not less sure, and probably not less rapid, than though he were a professed Unitarian. If he were a professed Unitarian, your Calvinist folks would be dissatisfied, and most likely would withdraw; and they would draw away a great portion of the people after them. Parties would in this case be formed, and all who had separated would be confirmed in their Calvinistic notions. But in the course you are now pursuing, there will be no difficulty. Your minister will preach very little distinguishing Calvinism himself; and the Unitarian ministers whom he introduces, will disseminate their principles, as far, and as fast, as they prudently can. Everything will go on quietly in this way, and-my word for it-your next minister will be a Unitarian, settled, without opposition, over the whole parish. Col. B. Well, I am happy, Doctor, to hear you talk in this way; but should you not like to be made acquainted with our expected minister? Dr. T. I should indeed; does he board in the neighborhood? Col. B. Directly across the street; will you walk over and see him? So they took their hats, and went out; and I took my pen and scribbled down the substance of their conversation-deeply sighing over the weakness of those brethren who thus suffer themselves to be made the dupes of designing men; and who become the mere tools of partisans, whom themselves can scarcely consider in any other light than that of "enemies to the cross of Christ." I only add, that, as the conversation above given was not a private one, it is submitted to your disposal. It needs no comment. NOTICES OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 1. The Gospel according to Paul. A Sermon delivered Sept. 17, 1828, at the Installation of the Rev. Bennet Tyler, D. D. as Pastor of the Second Congregational Church in Portland, Maine. By LYMAN BEECHER, D. D. Boston: T. R. Marvin. 1829. pp. 48. The leading object of this Discourse is to show, that the system. of theology, embracing the doctrines of entire natural depravity, "the impossibility of pardon by the deeds of the law," the atonement, justification by faith, and "the dependance of man upon the Holy Spirit," constitutes the Gospel which Paul preached, and is, of course, the true Gospel. And after repeated perusals, we are constrained to say, that we can form no conception of the state of mind and heart in which an intelligent reader can go through attentively with the discussion here presented, and not feel that this conclusion is abundantly supported. The apostle Paul was unquestionably an Orthodox preacher. He did, beyond all reasonable dispute, teach and preach the doctrines ascribed to him in the Sermon before us. Those of a different opinion may call this dogmatising, or what else they please; we know on what ground we stand. We have studied the Epistles of Paul for ourselves, have considered the bearing and meaning of his words, and we want no higher and better Orthodoxy than they most clearly and fully express. And we regard all the attempts which have been made to force another meaning upon the language of Paul as futile and pitiable. Better, far better, if persons do not like the doctrines of * * Mr. Soame Jenyns, "a writer of eminence in the polite world, who knew extremely little of theological systems, but, who, emerging from a careless infidelity, read the Scriptures with attention and good sense, thus describes the effect produced on his mind by an unbiased study of the sacred books :" "That Christ suffered and died as an atonement for the sins of mankind, is a doctrine so constantly and so strongly enforced through every part of the New Testament, that whoever will seriously peruse these writings, and deny that it is there, may, with as much reason and truth, after reading the works of Thucydides and Livy, assert, that in them no mention is made of any facts relative to the histories of Greece and Rome." See Smith on the Sacrifice of Christ, p. 43. " 'Any man who believes in the whole New Testament must either be a knave at heart, or a fool in his head, if he denies the doctrine of atonement by Jesus Christ." Rammohun Roy. |