I hope that you will be determined to find your soul grow rich towards God. All the glories of Christ, all liberty and consolation are only to be found in them, who, like the arrant miser, are intent upon getting more. God does indeed dwell with men, and there is a knowledge of his presence, peace, power, and excellence, thor of "the Book of the Church," has long ago celebrated— -The Prayer that trembles on a yawn to Heav'n; And this Dean's gape, and that Dean's nasal tone, And Roman rites retain'd, though Roman faith be flown.-ED. which is in a little measure paradise regained. Plead, therefore, that which you have received, my dear friend, as an argument to expect much, much more. Plead what you are in yourself, in order to prove to yourself that your unworthiness, your vileness, can be no bar to the communication of spiritual blessings, since when you were an enemy, God set his love upon you. Wishing you a delightful, diligent, use of all the means of grace, a fulness of fellowship with Christ, and a very striking and edifying influence in your daily walk with those around you, I remain, Your sincere friend in Christ, HENRY VENN. POETRY. "THEN SAID I, LO! I COME," &c. SEE, around the throne of God Myriads of bright seraphs stand; Waiting for the awful nod, Swift to fly at his command. Vivid flash the lightnings round, Justice waves the flaming sword; Angel bands, in awe profound, Prostrate fall before their Lord. Hark! a voice in thunder rolls, "Who from heav'n to earth will go, There to die for ruin'd souls, Bearing all their guilt and woe? Of Jehovah's sovereign grace ?" Mute are all the heavenly host; Every form with horror quakes, At a whole creation lost. Michael, in celestial arms, Stands amaz'd, afraid to speak; He who smiled at hell's alarms, Dares not here for glory seek. Abdiel only faithful found, 'Midst rebellious legions wide, Silent hears the awful sound, Fears to brave th' o'erwhelming tide. Hark! blasphemous curses rise From the earth-while angels weep, Justice bends, with flaming eyes, Quick to dash them to the deep. "HOME, SWEET HOME!" WHILE through this barren wilderness wearily we roam, Oh for that Land of Rest above!--our own eternal Home! These trees are not the trees that grow in beauty by the side Home, &c. The tones we hear are not the tones of music and of love, Oh for the death of those that die like day-light in the west, Oh for that Land of Rest above,- our own eternal Home ! STAY, thou orb of golden flame, 'Twas but now thy earliest streak And thy peering disk so meek, Emerged from morning's dewy womb. Quick, too quick, thy tow'ring prime Beholds thee sinking in the deep. Fair the presage of thy morn, Rich too the splendour of thy noon; Lovelier tints yet still adorn The scene where thou shalt vanish soon. Mid that garniture of cloud, And tresses of reflected fire, Glitter, as with Memphian shroud, Consume, as laid on Indian pyre. Linger! sure thy glorious worth Was never felt until withdrawn ; And the lonely darkling earth, Sighs for the coming of the dawn. Ah, too soon the Christian dies, Evening calm, too rapid flies, And palls us in too early night. And purest is its faintest ray. FUTURE REWARDS. R. W. H. For he is not a God of the dead, but of the ENOCH, the seventh from Adam's loins, "Was not;"-and now in glory shines, ELIJAH, in a later day, Had Israel's chariot given, Which rapt his willing soul away With whirlwind into heaven. Once MOSES heard a voice record, (The burning bush when near,) "I'm Abraham's, Isaac's, Jacob's GOD," And hid his face for fear. Thence, with authority, the LORD To cavilling Hebrews said, God owns the living ;-mark the word,- J. S. REVIEW OF BOOKS. THE MODERN PROPHETS. Art. I.-Dialogues on Prophecy, Art. II. The Coming of Mes- Art. III.-The Jew, the MasterKey to the Apocalypse, in Answer to Mr. Frere's "General Structure," and the Dissertations of the Rev. Edward Irving, and By John Ag. Brown. 8vo. 5s. Hatchard and Son. other Commentators. THE Christian public will, perhaps, imagine that the title placed at the head of this article is used in burlesque. It will be necessary, therefore, to show, for our own justification, as well as for the due "trial of the spirits" upon their own assumption, that they claim to be received as the prophets of the age. The following brief extract will exhibit in limine their pretensions, and enable our readers to judge, after some specimens have been presented, whether the individuals concerned are likely to obtain a place in "the goodly fellowship of the prophets." "Anastasius.--Not only before the establishment of the Levitical priesthood was the head of every family a priest in his own house; but in subsequent times God has been pleased to honour laymen by being his prophets. Joshua, David, Solomon, Isaiah, Daniel, and many others might be mentioned, and in these latter days, Sir I. Newton, Mede, Cunninghame, Frere, Bayford, Brown, Tilloch, &c. have been blessed in having their minds enligh tened in the prophetic parts of the Holy Scripture. That this is a very distinguished honour, may be learned from I Cor. xii. 28, where the apostle places the understanding of prophecies as the second highest office in the Christian church."— Dialogues, p. 68. This is, to be sure, tolerably bold for men who can neither work miracles, nor speak with tongues, nor lay claim to any of the specific characteristics of any one of the Old Testament prophets whom they have named. We may suppose that Anastasius, whoever he was, did not include his own name in the above list, but it is abundantly evident that the little junta, whose dialogues are now sent forth to enlighten the age, intend the reader to include them as a whole, as throughout this work they assume, or are made to assume, an air of superior discrimination, a dogmatical determination of the sense of prophecy, and a tone of haughty vituperation of their more cautious brethren, which plainly says "We have the spirit of God." According to Anastasius, who appears to have been one of the leaders in this conference, all the individuals named, and, we suppose, others not named, hold the rank second only to Apostles, dignified by St. Paul with the title of prophets. of prophets. Now without inquiring here whether the term popnrac, in 1 Cor. xii. 28, signifies that quality or office to which these moderns lay claim, we merely observe that the spirit of God cannot lead men to give diverse interpretations. The spirit of prophecy must be uniform, and agree not merely in the matter of all predictions, but in all explanations and applications. There is, however, such a diversity of statement among the interpreters of prophecy, that we think it impossible to admit the claims of the whole body. They stultify one another. And what is to be said? The only resource of a sober and modest judgment is to hold them all at bay with this answer, show me a miraculous proof of inspiration, and I will adhere to the opinion of that individual; otherwise, allow me to wait till events confirm your interpretation, and then I will admit the justness of your opinion. But as things now stand, I can see no ground for faith in the one or in the other, because I cannot be assured of an infallible interpretation. It is possible each may be partially true, or all may be totally wrong in the views you have propounded; and as I can have no security that you possess, either apart or together, any other than merely human aids and human guides, and as you cannot honestly pretend to possess any vantage ground above all other Christians, I cannot consent to give you a rank above ordinary fallible expositors of the word of God. You may have paid more attention to the prophecies, you may have read more books upon the subject, you may possess an acuter and more comprehensive judgment than others; still these are but human instruments; do not preclude the possibility of mistake in your determination; and lay no basis for the faith of the church. Such, it appears to us, prima facie, is the language to be held to all these gentlemen, and all the numerous class to which they belong. But when we enter upon an examination of their actual labours, we perceive so little precision in the use of their critical apparatus, and, withal, so determined a spirit of theorizing, that we cannot even admit them into the first class of Biblical Critics; and as to their pretensions to a clearer and wider illumination, we deem them totally and pestilently fanatical. Scores of men, as wise and good, as estimable and useful, as laborious and spiritual in their day, have undertaken the same work, and have given forth their interpretations of unfulfilled prophecy with at least equal, not to say superior, claims on public attention; but time has proved them little better than shrewd guesses or castles in the air. That some prophecies have served the purpose of anticipation, there can be no doubt; but these have generally been when individual benefit was intended, and we do not at present recollect any purely human attempts, sanctioned by Holy Scripture, in the whole history of prophecy, to decypher and anticipate the unfulfilled portion. The application of prophecy has sometimes been pointed out, but then it has been by an infallible hand; and we do not recollect a single instance in Scripture of that class of interpretation to which the works before us belong. We consider them, in every sense, purely human judgments, and shall treat them as such, notwithstanding the affectionate respect we entertain for some of the individuals concerned in them. It appears to us then, that these gentlemen are most offensively presumptuous in classing Sir I. Newton, Mede, Frere, and many living authors, with Joshua, David, and Daniel. The passage we have extracted from p. 68, is, in our opinion, little short of blasphemy: it deserves the softer term of fanaticism only be cause it is not an intentional insult to the Divine Spirit. Joshua, David, Daniel, and the other Scripture authors, had, and proved that they had, the spirit of God, in the original delivery of distinct and numerous prophecies. The Messieurs named have done nothing more than attempt to decypher the prophetic page, and that by the mere light of human intelligence, accompanied with glaring proofs of error; and yet we are now required to class them as partakers with Joshua, Daniel, and Isaiah in the high office of prophets; and St. Paul shall be quoted to sustain their claim ! There needs no clearer proof of the incompetency of the men to fulfil even the ordinary office of biblical critics, than the application, or rather gross misapplication, of 1 Cor. xii. 28. They represent the Apostle as there using the term prophets, for the understanding of prophecy. But what right or reason can they show for this restriction? Were there not, in the early Christian church, persons who possessed the gift of prophecy as really as Daniel and Isaiah; that is, who delivered original prophecy. Was the gift of Agabus, and of the four daughters of Philip the Evangelist, a mere interpretation of prophecy? The distinguished gift referred to by Paul, as second only to the apostolic rank, must have been either what is usually understood by the gift of prophecy, little value, for time would have confirmed and elucidated the prophetic pages of inspiration just as clearly if not a sentence of all these learned dissertations, or of any other uninspired authors, had ever been written; and all the same great ends of prophecy would have been answered. But the contempt for Christian brethren, the perversion of ministerial energies, the querulousness against benevolent institutions, and the attempt to ascertain the line of Christian usefulness, by application of unfulfilled prophecy, cannot fail to effect extensive mischiefs in the church of Christ. or the inspired interpretation and application of prophecy, a gift possessed by the Apostles, and largely used in their controversies with the Jews. But if the term prophets meant, in the passage before us, either of these gifts, or both of them united, it is demonstrable that no modern expositor can soberly lay claim to the office, for no one can reasonably expect the church to receive his lucubrations in any other light than that of human fallibility. We are less disposed to question the different systems of our prophesying friends, than to try the spirit which pervades their writings. Their interpretations and theories are harmless enough. Time will give the best answer to them; but there is a spirit pervading their reasonings and warnings, and there are occasional sentiments thrown out that cannot but be injurious. The prophesyings, if they come true, will be of The "Dialogues" are the conversations of several individuals, lay and clerical, who met last year at Mr. Drummond's house at Albury Park, for the purpose of discussing a variety of leading questions upon prophecy. Irving gives the following account of this prophetic synod in his Preliminary Discourse to Ben-Ezra. Mr. "There arose, in the beginning of last phecy in London, a desire to compare their summer, amongst certain students of proviews, with respect to the prospects of the church at this present crisis; and we from held meetings during the summer, time to time, as we could find opportunity. When one of our number, well known for his princely munificence, thought well to invite by special letter all the men, both ministers and laymen, of any orthodox communion, whom he knew or could ascertain to be interested in prophetic studies, that they should assemble at his house of Albury Park, in Surrey, on the first day of Advent, that we might deliberate for a full week upon the great prophetic questions which do at present most instantly concern Christendom. In answer to this honourable summons, there rank, and church, and orthodox comassembled about twenty men of every munion in these realms. And, in honour of our meeting, God so ordered it, that Joseph Wolff, the Jewish Missionary, a son of Abraham and brother of our Lord, both according to the flesh, and according to faith, should also be of the number. And here for eight days, under the roof of Henry Drummond, Esq. the present High Sheriff of the County, and under the Rector of the Parish of Albury, we spent moderation of the Rev. Hugh M'Neile, the six full days in close and laborious exami |