and said, "That is my experience." He passed through Monday with much composure of spirit; but said little, for want of breath. Upon his mother's expressing her earnest wish that he might yet be raised up again, he said that he did not wish it; but, appeared much to dread returning to a world where he must meet with continual incite ments to swerve from the path of duty he mentioned particularly dress, vain amusements, and gay company; and said, with tears," I wish no one would pray for my life."

:

Early on Tuesday morning, he said to his mother, "I feel myself dying, and have only one thing to trouble me; and that is, how I shall pass through the dark valley. Cannot you read or mention some suitable Scripture ?” The twenty third Psalm being read, and those words mentioned, "At eveningtide it shall be light," he said, "I hope it will be so !" And af ter sitting a little time, as if musing, he said, I have seen the valley: it looks like a little dark arch, which I have to pass under; but I see one at the farther end, holding out a light, and beckoning me to come to him. 'Tis my Saviour!" and then, as if he really saw somebody, he said, "Lord, I will come to thee immediately, but I must stay till thou sendest Death to release me!" Then turning to those in the room, he said, "Perhaps, you think I have been dreaming; but be that as it may, I am sure this is sent to comfort me, and I

have no fear now!"

At nine o'clock he desired his father to pray with him for the last time: then wished that his sisters and brother, who lived at home, might be called; took an affectionate leave of them, and requested that they (with the rest of his brothers) might each have a Bible provided for them on his account, as expressive of his veneration for the Holy Scriptures; adding, that, perhaps, it might be an inducement to them to the more frequent and attentive reading of that blessed book; likewise, Dr. Watts's Psalm

and Hymn-Book. He then urged his mother to send a message to Dr. L-, his kind and attentive physi cian, in London, expressing his sense of obligation; then said, “I am very near death." Soon the painful struggles came on; in one of which he said, "The vision is now plain, — I see it clearly. The will of the Lord be done!" (we suppose he referred to the sight of his Saviour, mentioned before) and then finished his course; and, we doubt not, entered into the presence and enjoyment of God and the Lamb.

MRS. BUCK.

R.

ON Tuesday, July 10, died Mrs. Buck, of Bury, Suffolk, in the fiftyseventh year of her age. Being providentially prevented from setting out that day with Mr. Buck, on a visit to her family in London, she passed the day in taking leave of her friends, and preparing for the intended journey the next morning, It was not till eight in the evening the fatal fit of an apoplexy arrested their progress, and terminated` in her departure for a better world, about eleven o'clock. She had experienced a degree of debility for some considerable time, which be came familiar to herself and family, and furnished frequent occasions for the exercise of tender attention and intercourse. unexpected approach of this dispensation, aggravated the anguish of her surrounding family. times, she expressed fears, lest her last sufferings should be painful and lingering. It pleased God mercifully to supersede the tediousness of her final conflict by the severity and suddenness of the attack.

The awful and

At

The subject selected for a funeral discourse (which was numerous ly and respectably attended) was appropriate to her life of faith and trust in her Redeemer, Rev. xiv. 13, "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth; yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours, and their works do follow them.”

J. B.

A Plea for Religion and the Sacred Writings, addressed to the Disciples of Thomas Paine, and Wavering Christians of every Persuasion. With an Appendix, containing the Author's Determination to have relinquished his Charge in the Established Church, and the Reasons on which that Determination was founded. By the late Rev. David Simpson, A. M. Third Edition, &vo Price 75.

THIS is an edition, very much improved, of a work which has excited considerable attention, and which is rendered remarkably interesting by the vast fund of anecdote which it contains. In the former part of the volume, the author gives us, 1st, Examples of dying Infidels; 2d, Examples of Persons recovered from their Infidelity; 3d, Examples of dying Christians, who had lived in the spirit of the world; 4th, Examples of Persons living and dying in Faith. The prophecies concerning Christ and his church are amply discussed, with a view to demonstrate the divine authority of the sacred writ ings. Mr. Paine's objections to the Scriptures are particularly considered and answered; while his abuse of them is treated with the severity it deserves, and his extreme ignorance and diabolical malignity are properly exposed. This is a part of the work peculiarly valuable. The atrocities committed by the infidel governors of France are depicted in an awful manner. Among the objections made by the Deists to the gospel of Christ, Mr. Simpson takes occasion to introduce some severe censures of the Establishment, and of the Clergy; and dilates largely on the "shameful instances of non-residence, patronage, and pluralities of livings." That there is much to complain of on these and other points on which the author dwells, we believe few good men will deny; yet we can not but think Mr. Simpson dipped his pen in gall when he wrote those pages. From a knowledge of his truly pious and amiable character,

we give him full credit for the best intentions; but had Christian calmness and candour prevailed, he would not have expressed himself with such extreme severity. Let us hear, however, his own apology (page xx, Preface.)

"If he is thought severe upon the episcopal and clerical orders of men, let it be remarked, that he esteems them all very highly in love for their office sake, be cause he is persuaded it is of divine appointmeat; and that, if at any time he has given way to his indignation, and expressed himself in strong terms against these orders, it is never intended to affect any but the culpable part of them; and that both the prophets under the Old Tes tament dispensation, and Christ and his apostles under the New, have done the same. We cannot follow better esamples."

Mr. Simpson, having given a compendious account of the present state of church preferments, &c. proceeds to exhibit a view of the religious bodies of Dissenters and Methodists. In his statement of the different classes of Dissenters (see Note on p. 70) we are persuaded he is incorrect: "The Qua kers," he says. " are numerous, being about 50,000; but the Baptists are still more numerous than either the Quakers, or the Presbyterians, or Independents, or Moravians."Some, however, who are well acquainted with these denominations, apprehend the Independents are considerably more numerous than the Baptists.

Two Appendixes are subjoined; the former of which contains some farther thoughts on a national reform; and the latter, the author's reasons for resigning his preferment in the religious establishment of the country. This step, it is well known, he was not permitted to take; the Lord being pleased to remove him, by a short illness, to that only church in which there is` no defect, and in which good men of all classes will cordially unite in the praise of their commion Lord, without a dissonant note.

These Accounts will always be perused with pleasure by the faithful subjects of our common Lord, who rejoice in seeing his kingdom come among any denomination of their fellow-men. Some particulars, extracted from this Number, will appear in our Religious Intel. ligence for the present month.

Sermons on Important Subjects.

Το

By the late Fresident Davies. which are added, Three Occasional Sermons, Memoirs of the Author, &c. Svo, 3 vol. 5th edit. bds. xl. Is. THESE Sermons are already so well known, that a review of them

is scarcely necessary. We are glad to see, however, a new edition, as we believe few Sermons are better calculated for usefulness. Dr. Finley's testimony to the character and abilities of President Davies, supersedes any recommendation of ours. He justly observes, that "his natural genius was strong and masculine; his understanding was clear; his memory retentive; his invention quick; his imagination lively and Horid; his thoughts sublime, and his language elegant, strong, and expressive."

A Lecture on Part of the XVth Chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. By Greville Ewing, Minister of the Gospel, Glasgow. p.p. 105. 8vo.

THIS is a lecture, or exposition, on that memorable passage in the Acts, wherein the apostles, the eld

ers, and the whole church at ferds salein, made a solemn decision on the controverted question, Whether or not the Gentile converts should be circumcised, and obey the law of Moses?

The author maintains, that this meeting is not an instance of a repre. sentative church, consisting of delegates from several congregations; that it was not a council, as the Episcopalians assert, nor a Synod, as the Presbyterians affirm, but a meeting of the whole church (all the multitude, ver. 12.) together with their elders, and all the aposthes then residing at Jerusalem: in short, that it was an Independent church, such as, he thinks, all the primitive churches were: and to confirm his opinion on this subject, he largely quotes, in the Appendix, a learned and scarce work of Mosheim,-De rebus Christianorum ame Constantinum Magnum; of which he also gives an English translation. The title of the paragraph is, Omnes Ecclesia prime etatis Independentes, or, "All the Churches of the first century Independent."

Mr. Ewing, though a friend of the congregational mode of churchgovernulent, expresses himself in strong terms against those who think that every measure, however trifling or obvious, should be brought before the church for general discussion. This he thinks by no means agreeable to the direc tions given to the primitive churches; in which it is plain that the office-bearers governed them by instruction and persuasion, accord. ing to the word of God. In doing this, he adds, “They are entitled, nay, bound, to carry into effect the rules of Scripture; and to require obedience from the church to those rules when laid before them. A different conduct deprives the church of the benefit of govern ment, must give continual encour agement to dissention, and is likely to make discipline degenerate into an engine of faction."

The author proceeds to discuss the several articles in the prohibition published by the church respecting the conduct of Gentile be lievers" to abstain from pollu tion of idols, and from fornication,

and from things strangled, and from blood." He unites the two last clauses together, judging that they belong to the same precept, that of abstinence from blood. The first, he says, guards against eating blood in the flesh; the second, against eating blood separated from the flesh. Things strangled for the mere purpose of killing them conveniently, and from which the blood is afterwards taken, do not appear, from the connexion, to come at all within the meaning of

the precept. But things strangled for the purpose of retaining the blood in them, are certainly forbidden. He observes, that many individuals of exemplary piety make no conscience of abstaining from blood; and that many of the ablest modern commentators understand the clause as only of partial and temporary obligation. But he subjoins, "After all the attention we have been able to bestow upon it, and with all our prejudices in favour of the lawfulness of the practice, we have found it impossible to give to the passage what appears to be its fair and natural explanation, without admitting that it requires the abstinence in question from Gentile believers, in every place, and in every age." support of this opinion, he quotes Clemens Alexandrinus, Tertullian, Minutius Felix, and others; but he candidly adds the contrary opinion of a later Father, Augustine, who speaks decidedly of the prohibition as temporary; as needful only till the wall of partition be tween Jews and Gentiles was demolished; and who says, " What Christian is now so observant of this precept, as not to touch thrushes or smaller birds, unless their blood have been poured out; or not to eat a hare, if it has been struck with the hand on the neck, and not been killed by a bloody wound?

In

To a man who has been brought really to believe and to feel the im portant truths of Christianity, it must be cause of the deepest sorrow and humiliation to have written such a book as Lackington's Memoirs; and to counteract its baneful tendency must be his ar dent desire and unwearied endea vour. Although we do not trace in these Confessions so much of the former as we expected; yet we rejoice to hope, that the latter was the motive for their publication. Many of the Letters which compose them. having been written when the impressions of truth on the mind of the author were slight, and his convictions weak and wavering, may, perhaps, account for the peculiarity of style, and the want of that seriousness which the subject certainly demands. The two first, which contain a retrospect of the progress of infidelity on the mind of Mr. Lackington and one of his free-thinking companions, afford an awful warning, as they mark the almost certain end of a similar beginning. In several subsequent ones, the influence of infidelity in depraving the morals, destroying the bonds of social obligation, and filling the soul with gloom and uncertainty, is delineat

ed in the experience of the author and his associates. Its awful effects on a death-bed, are strikingly illustrated and pathetically described in an extract iom Dr. Young's Centaur not Fabulous.

The natural enmity of the heart of man to God and holiness, whether manifesting itself in the professed Atheist, the natural Religionist, the dissipated Worldling, or the nominal and formal Christian, is justly remarked and exemplified by some appropriate anecdotes. In the Nineteenth Letter Mr. Lackington begins a more regular account of his "Conversion to Christianity." In the Twentieth he says, "I was effectually humbled, and obliged to cry out, God be merciful to me a dreadful sinner;" and the Twenty-ninth we transcribe for our readers, omitting only (for brevity sake) the poetical quotations.

"Dear Friend,

"WHEN I look into my Memoirs, I shudder to see what I have done. I have wantonly treated of and sported with the most solemn and precious truths of the gospel. O God, lay not this sin to my charge! Other infidels have obscured, as much as they were able, the external evidences of Christianity; but I made a thrust at its vital part. There are many thousands who never had time or opportunity, or who have been, somehow or other, prevented from investigating the external evidences of the Christian religion, who are yet as much assured of its divine authority as they are of their own existence. They "know that Christ is come in the flesh; that they are born of God; that they are passed from death unto life; that they were once blind, that now they see; that old things are done away, and all things are become new;" that they were once niserable, but are now happy; they once were without God in the world, but now, by that "faith which is the operation of God, the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, by this precious faith, they can say, My Father and my God." They can "call Christ Lord by the Holy Ghost." They know what is the communion of saints; and often "sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, and are filled with the fulness of God; and they know when this earthly tabernacle is dissolved, they have a building, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."

"It was this internal evidence which made the martyrs triumph in the midst of

the flames; and this evidence, neither the pretended friends nor the open enemies of Christianity, will ever be able to destroy; - Christianity without this is a body without a soul; — and all those who endeavour to invalidate this internal evidence, are 66 thing; are false spies, that bring an blind, knowing noevil report of the good land: they are in the gall of bitterness and bonds of iniquity, and bave neither part nor lot in the matter;" and, sooner or later, they will be found to be fighters against God.

"I suppose you are ready to ask, how it was possible for me, who "once was enlightened, and had tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,' how it was possible for me to sink into ignorance, blindness, and infidelity? Ah, my friend, nothing is more easy! As a real Christian is one that

has been called out of darkness into marvellous light;" so, as long as "his eye is single, his soul is full of light; and he walks in the light, as God is in the light; and in him is no darkness at all;” yet, if he turn back again into Egypt, he will again be involved in Egyptian daikness. The Sun of Righteousness will no longer shine upon him. Adam, as soon as he disobeyed his God, at once lost his favour and likeness, and sunk into a state of darkness and ignorance; and attempted to hide himself from the all-seeing eye amongst the trees: and when a renewed soul falls again into a course of sin, he is at last smitten with blindness, and he

gropes, but cannot find the door. The candle of the Lord no more shines upon his head. They are blind, and cannot see afar off; and have forgot that they were purged from their sins. They will curse, and swear that they know not the

man.

As they did not like to retain the knowledge of God," he gives them over to blindness and hardness of heart. They have "quenched the Spirit, and done de spite unto it." They no longer know "the things which belong to their peace," they being bid from their eyes. They have eyes that see not, and ears that hear