of open transgressions of the law of God, alleges that notwithstanding the iniquity of their conduct, they have good hearts. But these persons evidence by such language equal ignorance of their own hearts, and of the word of God. Our Lord teaches us, that the tree is known by its fruits; if, therefore, the fruit be evil, the tree cannot be good. David said, the transgression of the wicked saith within my heart, that there is no fear of God before his eyes.-Psal. xxxvi. 1. If then you have never seen and felt the plague of your own heart, you have never known yourselves, nor known what Saviour and Physician you require for your sins and your maladies.

3. If fallen man be thus depraved, no one, without a change of heart, can enter the kingdom of heaven. Of the nature of the change that must pass on every one that shall inherit glory, it will be our business to speak hereafter; but plain and obvious it is, that since man is totally defiled, and that nothing that defileth can enter the gates of the new Jerusalem, every unconverted sinner, continuing such, must for ever be excluded from that heavenly country. His carnal mind is not subject to the law of God here, neither indeed can be.-Rom. viii. 7. And it would have no relish for the enjoyments, and no fitness for the occupations of the kingdom of glory. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they, and they only, shall see God. But the pure in heart are the renewed in heart. Born of God, they shall go to God, and dwell with God.

QUESTIONS ON THIS ESSAY.

WHAT is the subject of it? What is the text? Into what mistake do inadequate views of their moral malady lead men? What is it to be a Christian? Where is the definition of a Christian? What is the first division of this subject? Second? Third? Under the first head, what is the first portion of Scripture quoted? What the second? third? fourth? fifth? Under the second head, what is the first fact illustrative of human depravity? The second? The third? The fourth? What in the New Testament? What is the first inference? What the second? What the third?

A PRAYER ADAPTED TO THIS ESSAY.

O LORD, all things are naked and open to thee with whom we have to do. Thou didst make man upright,

but he has sought out many inventions, Thou didst form him after thine own image, with knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, but his understanding has been darkened, his will has become perverse, the imaginations of the thoughts of his heart are only evil continually, and there is no health, no spiritual life in him. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint.

If any of us have not felt the plague of our own hearts, O Lord, lead us into their secret chambers, and show us the idols of sin that are there. Let our eye see thy holiness and our own sin, until we loathe ourselves, abhor ourselves, and cry out unclean, unclean, before thee. And oh! sprinkle clean water upon the polluted, that they may be clean. Pour out the Spirit upon them! From all their filthiness, and from all their impurities, cleanse them. A new heart give them, and a right spirit put within them. Take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them hearts of flesh. Make the tree good, that the fruit may be good also.

And as many as thou hast made partakers of a new and divine nature, and enabled, in thy strength, to escape the corruptions of the world, teach them to give all diligence to add to their faith, virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience; and to patience, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, charity. Let all these graces of the Spirit be in us, and abound; and let us neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Stir us up, Lord, to all diligence, in making our calling and election sure; and, upheld by thy power, through faith, we shall never fall. Give us grace, through life, to adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things, until an entrance be ministered unto us abundantly into his everlasting kingdom: and to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be glory for ever and ever.- -Amen.

BIOGRAPHIA PRESBYTERIANA.

No. II.

MICHAEL BRUCE.

To preserve somewhat of historical connexion in these sketches of our "Ulster Worthies," we presented to our readers a memoir of the successor of Josias Welsh, whose character and death had been detailed in an early part of our work. As we had also occasion, in our former volume, to make frequent mention of Mr. John Livingston, and to give copious extracts from his "Life," we shall now, in pursuance of our design, lay before our readers a memoir of Mr. MICHAEL BRUCE, his immediate successor, in the parish of Killinchy, in the County of Down.

From the time that Mr. Livingston had been compelled to leave Ireland, in the year 1637, the Presbyterians of Killinchy remained destitute of a settled pastor. So great, however, was their attachment to Mr. Livingston, that some of them went to reside at Stranraer, in Scotland, where he was settled as minister; and for several years afterwards, multitudes crossed the channel to receive sealing ordinances from his hands. "The sensible and sweet enjoyments of the divine presence which the inhabitants of Killinchy had under Mr. Livingston's ministry, prevailed with some of them to go over and dwell at Stranraer, when he was placed in that parish. And at the stated seasons of his administering the Lord's Supper there, often great numbers, and at one time five hundred persons went from Killinchy, and some adjacent parishes, to partake of that holy ordinance at Stranraer: at another time, Mr. Livingston baptized twenty-eight children there, which had been carried over from Ireland for that end."

Soon after the re-establishment of the Presbyterian Church in Ulster, in the year 1642, Mr. William Richardson was ordained as Minister over the adjacent parish of Killileagh, of which, even before Mr. Livingston's settlement, in 1630, Killinchy was reckoned only a "pendicle" or appendage. (Livingston's Life, p. 14.) Under Mr. Richardson, therefore, the people of Killinchy enjoyed for several years the ordinances of the Gospel. But this privilege being attended with considerable inconvenience, they resolved to obtain a resident Minister of their own. Their attention was, naturally enough, first directed to their

former Minister, Mr. Livingston, who, in the meantime, had been removed, by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, from Stranraer to Ancrum. "In the year

1656, the parish of Killinchy having been long vacant, and without a fixed pastor of their own, and earnestly desiring the stated dispensation of Gospel ordinances, began to conceive some hopes of re-obtaining Mr. Livingston; and therefore sent first Captain James Moore of Ballybrega, and then David Moorehead of Ballymacashan. commissioners, to prosecute a call which they sent to him, But the Synod of Mers and Teviotdale refused to loose him from Ancrum, where he was then settled. However such was his affection to his former and dear people of Killinchy, in summer, 1656, he came and made them a visit, as he had done several times before, but did not find here at that time above two or three families, nor above ten or twelve persons that had been in the parish when he was minister there.* He tarried in this kingdom about nine or ten weeks, and then returned to Ancrum. The following year he prevailed with Mr. Michael Bruce, then a candidate for the holy ministry, to come over from Scotland, to take the pastoral care of their souls. He sent with him an ample recommendatory letter, dated July 3d, 1657, directed to Captain James Moore of Ballybrega, to be communicated to the congregation."

Mr. Bruce accordingly came over to Ireland shortly after the date of this letter. He was joyfully received by the people of Killinchy; and having passed the usual trials before the Presbytery, he was soleinnly ordained in the Church of Killinchy, to the pastoral charge of that parish, in the autumn of the year 1657.

Mr. Michael Bruce was descended from the Rev. Mr. Robert Bruce, one of the most eminent Ministers of the Church of Scotland, in the earlier period of her history. He was one of the Ministers of Edinburgh from 1587 to about the year 1605. An ample account of him may be found among the "Scottish Worthies," (Vol. I. p. 140,) among whom he justly holds a most conspicuous place. His descendant, whom we wish to enrol among our

* This sad desolation was owing in part to the persecutions of the bishops in 1638, by which many families were forced to flee to Scotland; but it is chiefly to be ascribed to the cruelties of the Roman Catholics in 1641, which were severely felt in the parishes of Killileagh and Killinchy.

"Ulster Worthies," and who is entitled to an equally distinguished place among his brethren, was, by his mother, the great grandson of Mr. Robert Bruce. His father, Patrick Bruce, of Newton, in Stirlingshire, belonged to a different family,-the Bruces of Clackmannan. At the time of his settlement in Killinchy, the Presbyterian Church enjoyed tolerable peace and security, and the number of her Ministers had considerably increased.Mr. Bruce was one of the most active and laborious Ministers. He is thus described by the Rev. James Reid, one of his successors in the ministry in Killinchy, who had the best opportunities of ascertaining his character:-" He had a great genius, and a liberal education. He was a man of extraordinary zeal for the glory of God and the good of souls; and a most painful and faithful minister, much given to meditation and secret prayer, very fervent and copious in all his ministerial performances. He laboured heartily in his Master's work among his people, both in public and private, to the conversion and edification of many. He was of great reputation for his useful and unwearied labours in the ministry; a thundering, broken-hearted, and most affecting preacher, and of an holy and exemplary conversation. He did not shoot over his people's heads, but used a singularly popular, and familiar style in his sermons, suited to the capacities, and most apt to reach the consciences and affections of his hearers; and every Lord's-day morning, after public singing of God's praises, and before the first prayer, he addressed his audience in a short and awakening preface."

Mr. Bruce was soon interrupted in this course of usefulness. In the year 1661, after the brief interval of only five years, he was, to use the language of the writer whom we have just quoted, "turned out of the church and legal maintenance, because of his non-conformity. But he and his people mutually adhered to their relation to one another, which they thought did not depend upon a legal establishment. And though there were orders for apprehending him and all other non-conforming Ministers, he took all opportunities of preaching and administering the sa. craments to his people, who then used by concert to assemble at different places in the parish, in kilns, barns, or woods, and often in the night." He soon after ventured upon preaching more publicly. Large crowds, attracted by his glowing eloquence, and his bold denunciations of