Jesus is our Saviour. 'Tis he forgives our sins. And these are the means through which, by faith, we are forgiven. But I have wearied you in laboring a subject which is too plain to require much argumentation. Nothing but the obliquities of a metaphysical theology could have created any doubt upon this subject.If on further examination you are not satisfied, please write again. With all affection, I remain Yours in our common Lord. EDITOR MONTHLY RECEIPTS, For the Christian Baptist, from the 30th December, 1829, to the 11th of February, 1830. From A. Reynolds, Dripping Spring, Ky. for W. Whitman, T. Whitman, J. F. Carpenter, E. Davidson, and W. Ford, for vol. 7.Elder J. Jones, Liberty, Ky. paid 5 dollars for subscribers.-W. Saunders; Indianapolis, Ja. vols. 6 and 7 for B. H. Bradly; do. for M. Morris, and do. for L. M'Farland, vol. 7. From Post-Master, Meigsville, Ten. for W. Kirkpatrick, vol. 7. From Elder J. Favor, jun. Athens, Alabama, for J. Johnson, vol. 6; J. Favor, sen. do. and for self 3 dollars. J. Trevor, Connelsville, Pa. for J. Shallenbergher, vols. 6 and 7; for J. Newmyer, J. Herbert, L. Newton, and J. Gally, vol. 7. L.S.Vail, Goshen, N.Y. for J. Corwine, vol. 6. T. Nicholdson, Maysville, Ky. for W. Grinstead, vols. 2, 3, 4, and 5, and 6 for self. Elder M. Cole, Charleston, la. for J. T. West, vols. 4, 5, 6, and 7; for A. Goodwine, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7; for J. Rawson, 6 and 7; for A. Smith, and W. W. Goodwine. From J. T. Jones, Cincinnati, Ohio, four dollars for subscribers. B. Allen, Louisville, Ky. for L. Lucas, vols. 6 and 7; M. Henshaw, 1 dollar; W. Pettitt, vols. 3, 4, and 5; J. Shrader, vols. 4, 6, and 7; C. Conrad, vol. 7. S. G. Earle, Earle's Store, S. C. paid for vol 7. D. Hook, Louisville, Ga. paid for vols. 4, 5, and 6. Mr. Hunt, Chilesburg, Ky. for T. Ellis, vols. 6 and 7; J. Duval, vols. 5 and 6; and C, W. Albertee, volume 7. J. Cahoon, Dover, Ohio, for vol. 7, for J. Cahoon, Miss Cahoon, and himself. S. E. Shepherd, Alba, Pa. for W. Wood, vols. 6 and 7, and for vol. 6 for himself. Receipts here omitted shall appear in our next. WITH the selections made for this work during my absence I am generally well pleased. One item, the POSTSCRIPT to the letter from Ireland, I would have suppressed had I seen it before it was printed. I saw it for the first time in Fredericksburg, on my way home-and regretted to see it. The remaining numbers of this work shall be chiefly devoted to completing the series of essays on the different dispensations. There will appear two numbers at a time until the 7th volume is closed. EDITOR. ERRATA-C. B. vol. 7, page 51, 7th line from top, for "cultivate," read captivate Volume 7, page 102, line the 10th, and 11th word of it, should be man's, instead of "the." {No. 8. } BETHANY, BROOKE CO. VA. MONDAY, MARCH 1, 1830. {Vol. 7. } "Style no man on earth your Father; for he alone is your father who "is in heaven; and all ye are brethren. Assume not the title of Rabbi; "for you have only one teacher. Neither assume the title of Leader; for "you have only one leader-the MESSIAH." Matt. xxiii. 8-10. “Prove all things: hold fast that which is good.” Paul the Apostle. SERMONS TO YOUNG PREACHERS-No. III. YOUNG preachers are not always young men. I once heard a man say, that, though an old man; he was a young preacher. This was certainly true. For he had been converted, he said, but very recently; and it required no great penetration to see that he had not even learned how ignorant of the scriptures he was, and how incompatible it was for him to presume to teach what he could scarcely read. Yet this man produced more noise, or, as some would call it, more effect, than the most experienced and erudite Doctor could have lone. The people were so accustomed to such warm-hearted and divinely inspired proclaimers, they thought even his blunders were graces of the Holy Spirit, and his flights of unmeaning declamation were the inspirations of Infinite Wisdom. Whenever a person is considered as a legate of the skies, he has gained the day. Whenever a preacher appears before a congregation as one specially called of God and sent, he has but little trouble in gaining the implicit audience of the people. How dare they reject the message of God, and what need have they to examine the truth of one acting under the commission of the Omniscient? Would God send a liar, a deceiver, one unacquainted with his will, one unaccomplished for the task? No, most assuredly. He never did, he never will, call, commission, and send one incompetent agent. And therefore all his proclaimers had an authority which it was impious to oppose. But mind, they could all prove their mission not by words, assertions, or protestations, but by works as supernatural as their doctrine. Neither young nor old proclaimers can, with either reason or scripture to sustain them, make such pretensions now. If, then, we would appear credible, or worthy of the audience of the people, we must <appear before them, not under the assumption or pretension of ambassadors from heaven, or as God's special ministers; but as the pious, and humble, and devout students of the Bible; as persons who have believed the gospel ourselves, and upon such grounds and reasons as will not make us ashamed to give a reason of the hope which we entertain. No disciple, old or young, can, with any consistency of character, refuse to tell the reasons why he believes in, and loves the Lord Jesus. vol. vii, 15 But all who either tell or proclaim in a pulpit, or on a chair, their own convictions and feelings, doubts, fears, and hopes, preach themselves or their feelings, instead of Jesus Christ. 1 presume a pious Mussulman could narrate his feelings, doubts, extacies, and joys in "the Prophet Mahomet." But he who could expect to convert others to any faith by such a course, calculates very largely upon the igno. rance and weakness of his audience. All evidences are addressed to the higher and more poble faculties of man. The understanding, and not the passions, is addressed; and therefore an appeal to the latter, before the former is enlightened, is as unphilosophic as it is unscriptural. As the helm guides the ship, and the bridle the horse, so reason is the governing principle in man. Now in preaching Jesus arguments are to be used-and these arc found in the testimony of God. To declare that testimony, and to adduce the evidences which support it, is to proclaim the gospel. To perceive that testimony and to feel its force, is therefore the first and the indispensable qualification for a proclaimer of the gospel-to be able to discover it to others, to hold it up to the eye of the mind, and to recommend it in its fulness and force, is the second. ence. To make a sermon, and to proclaim the gospel, are two things which are as different as logic and gospel. To make a sermon is the art of logic applied to any theme, whether law, medicine, or general sciTo write or speak a sermon, is an art which requires much study, a general education, or else an extraordinary genius and much reading. The theme for a sermon may be any topic in any science or art in the whole circle. "And Balaam rose in the morning and saddled his ass" is a text, or theme, on which a very logical sermon may be spoken. "Remember Lot's wife" is another suitable theme; so is "God is a Spirit." Each of the proverbs of Solomon, each period in the Bible, each sentence in any book, may be a text on which, by the art of logic, a man may build a sermon. One theme may be more instructive than another, more pleasing and more suitable to the genius or taste of the speaker and his audience; but by the art of logic a grammarian and logician may make a good sermon on any topic. Statesmen make speeches, and Divines make sermons; but there is no difference in the art, and often very little difference in the theme. To make a sermon, and to make a speech, is just one and the same thing-the difference is in the topic on which the sermon or the speech is made. I have heard Lawyers make as good sermons as Divines; and Divines make as good speeches as Lawyers. Sometimes "Ministers" read their sermons; and we had one Judge in the Virginia Convention who read his speeches. The word sermon is the Roman name of a speech; and the word speech is the English name of a sermon. There is one difference. The tone of voice which a lawyer, or a statesman, or a literary lecturer uses, is not generally the same tone which a Divine uses. There is the sacred and the common tone. The same ideas communicated by a Lawyer and a "Minister" differ not only in the place where they are spoken, the pulpit and the bar; but in the tones, semitones, and the gestures which accompany them. The Preacher supposes that, as his subject is sacred, he ought to have a sacred tone; and the Lawyer, who knows his theme is common, conceives that a common tone will be suitable enough, sermonizers. To make a sermon is as much the work of art as to make a speech at the bar, or in the forum. No man can make a good one without much study, training, and general reading. Hence Colleges and Theological Schools are necessary, absolutely necessary, to make Men may talk, declaim, or exhort in public, without much art, or logic, or learning; but to make a good sermon on religion or politics, on physics or metaphysics, requires much learning and many years training. The course of education is too limited and the term of attendance on schools and colleges is too short, especially in these United States, to make many good sermonizers. Men of extraordinary genius in some six or seven years, may make a neat, logical, chaste, and classical oration. But in general, and for ordina ry minds, it requires ten of the best years of a man's life, from 14 to 24, or say from infancy to twenty-one. But it must be noted that a sermon may be logical, ingenius, forcible, and classically correct, and yet not eloquent; and it may be eloquent without much logic, grammar, or science. Logan was always eloquent-Dugald Stuart never. The latter was too profound a scholar, too acute a metaphysician, too great a critic to be be eloquent: the former had the feelings of a man and the imagination of a poet, without the fetters of philosophy. A man, to be truly eloquent, must follow natural feeling, and must be born with an imagination, with a fancy, and with an ardor of feeling which never can be acquired, but which may be repressed at school. But a sermon-maker, without education, and without much training, is, to persons of discernment, one of the most disgusting performers, and one of the most useless speakers we can imagine. Hence of all drones, political, economical, or ecclesiastical, I know of none more deserving of neglect, and I know of none more likely to obtain it, than those drivelling, prosing, and illiterate sermonizers. But to make sermons is a business, a trade, or calling by itself. To proclaim or preach Jesus, is a work of another kind. Of this in my next. EDITOR JEWISH AGE-No. XII. THE Jewish religion, as instituted by Moses, as recorded by Moses in the five books, has not a single promise, nor a single curse, which looks beyond time. Whatever previous or subsequent revelations may have taught-whatever the Patriarchs before Moses, or the Prophets after him, may have taught, one thing to me, at least, is celtain-that Moses, in originating or instituting the Jews' religion, taught nothing concerning a future state-not a word concerning eternal salvation, or future and eternal punishment in the Jewish religion. This being a truth not to be resisted, (and if it can, direct me to the chapter and verse)-I say, this being granted, then it must follow that the design of the Jewish religion and the design of the Christian are not the same. The former looked exclusively to this present world; the latter primarily, and almost exclusively, looks to the next. Long life, health, and abundance of corn, wine, and oil-rivers of milk and honey, were the blessings which it promised; and to the disobedient, wasting and famine, and bitter destruction in their persons, families, flocks, herds, and property, were the curses which it proposed. A happy nation, enjoying abundance of all earthly good; victorious and triumphant in war, and secure under the auspices of the Almighty from all foreign invasion, was the tendency and the consummation of that peculiar constitution under which Israel lived. "How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob! and thy dwellings, O Israel!" The moral effect and meaning, and unquestionably the great design of this peculiar institution, is very appositely expressed in the following lines:With Israel's God who can compare? Or who, like Israel, happy are? O people saved by the Lord, He is thy shield and great reward! Upheld by everlasting arms, Thou art secure from foes and harms; In vain their plots, and false their boasts- While they kept the law, or lived agreeably to their institution, they exhibited to all the world the peculiar happiness of living under the institutions and protection of the Almighty. And when they transgressed the law, or departed from the divine institutions, the visitations of Heaven, the judgments and calamities which befel them, taught the world the awful consequences of departing from the living God. By the oracles deposited in their sanctuary, by the institutions of their religion, by their prosperity and security when obedient, and by the calamities which befel them as individuals, families, and as a nation when disobedient, the knowledge of the one only living and true God was preserved in the world-his mercy and his justice-his goodness and his truth were rendered most conspicuous. They read these records and consider the history of this people-they study this institution and examine this religion with very little profit, who do not view it thus. To think that the law of Moses, or the institution from Mount Sinai—to think that the whole or any part of this economy had for its object the eternal salvation of the people under it, is not only to think without reason and contrary to authority, but it is to confound the whole oracles of Cod, and to make christianity a mere continuation of the principle of law amended and improved. There were saints before Moses, cotemporary with Moses, and after Moses, in the other nations, under the constitution given to Noah and his descendants after the flood. Salvation was accessible to the nations who held fast the traditions derived from the family of Noah, as it was to the Jews, who most exactly complied with all the national institutions, As reasonably might we conclude that all who fell in the wilderness through unbelief of God's promise concerning Canaan, or for any of the misdemeanors of which they were guilty, including both Moses and Aaron; are not to partake in the resurrection of the just, never to enter the New and Heavenly Jeru、 |