From the Congregational Magazine. MORNING EXERCISES FOR THE CLOSET: for every Day in the Year. By Wil liam Jay. London: Hamilton and Adams 2 volumes octavo. pp. 488-568.

We have many reasons for the satisfaction we feel in announcing these volumes, which we are aware will require from us little more than an announcement, since the name and well earned reputation of their excellent author, will secure for them ready introduction to the notice of the public. We consider them to form a very valuable addition to our comparatively slender stock of devotional literature, and are gratified that Mr. Jay has directed his attention to a work of this character. The title sufficiently designates the object of the publication; it is called Morning Exercises for the Closet, and is intended to assist the Christian in the private engagements of devotion, by furnishing subjects for religious consideration, for selfinquiry, and for prayer. It may be viewed, therefore, as a fit companion to his volume of prayers for the use of families, which has now reached the eleventh edition.-The utility of words like the present is unquestionable. "Whatever," says Dr. Johnson, "withdraws us from the power of the senses, whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future, predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings:" and all experience testifies, that nothing acccomplishes this so effectually as religious retirement. It is in retirement that the faith which converses with the invisible, and overcomes the world, receives its best culture; and as all religion turns in reality upon the moral state and exercises of the mind in secret, a provision for the right employment of our seasons of devout solitude must be of paramount importance. To improve the social hour is of great consequence, but to improve the solitary one is a higher attainment still; and every Christian is anxious to avail himself of every possible assistance in relation to an object on which so much depends.

Mr. Jay has had the rare happiness, in itself a proof of distinguished ability and merit, to comtmand for a long period the attention of the public, in a very eminent degree. In his first considerable publication of two volumes of sermons, issued in the year 1802, he amply sus

tained from the press the reputation which he had from his very youth acquired from the pulpit; and from that period he has taken and maintained his station in the Christian world, not only as one of the most distinguished preachers, but also as one of the most attractive and successful religious writers of his time. His Life of Winter, and his Life of Clark, contributed to make him known in the literary world and proved his power to excel in the difficult task of biography, as well as in that of writing sermons. The former is deservedly popular, among other reasons, from the inte resting character it delineates, and also from the notices it furnishes respecting Mr. Whitfield :-we are surprised that Dr. Southey, who reads every thing, appears to have overlooked these, as they would have been a great assistance to him in the sketch he furnished of that distinguished character in his Life of Wesley. The Life of Clark deserves to be more generally known than it is; it discovers great power of discriminating character, and abounds in useful criticism and information upon different styles of preaching and writing, and is, in our opinion, one of the author's best publications. Four successive volumes of short discourses for families, proved him to be an able and interesting domestic instructor. Besides these, his Essay on Marriage, and numerous sermons preached on public occasions, illustrate alike the versatility of his talents, and his indefatigable industry; for they have all been produced amidst the various avocations incident to the oversight of a large and highly respectable congregation. His recent course of lectures on the Christian contemplated, is, without doubt, one of the best works on practical and experimental divinity which the present century has produced, and while it has become a kind of text-book in many religious circles, we know it has also been read and prized by persons of rank and distinction, and is spoken of with the encomium it merits, by some of the first dignitaries of the Establishment. The preface of that volume, had he written nothing else, would be sufficient to distinguish him as an acute observer of life and manners.

We say, we are gratified that Mr. Jay has directed his attention to a work of this particular character; and we are so, because we entertain a very strong opinion, first of the great utility.

and next of the actual paucity of superior productions, upon subjects strictly devotional. To those who know the vast extent and compass of English theological literature, it may seem startling to be told how comparatively few are the books specifically appropriate to the Christian's private reading in his hours of sacred retirement. We have sermons innumerable as the sands of the desert, and some of them nearly as barren and dry; we have huge tomes of controversial divinity, under which our shelves groan; we have writings upon the general topics of Christian faith and practice, sufficient to furnish the libraries of ten new Universities; but in the midst of all this prodigality, as folios and Homilies are not exactly to the taste of the present age, the intelligent inquirer, anxious for some readable helps to closet devotion, would perhaps find more difficulty than he anticipated. We have Jeremy Taylor's Golden Grove, and Holy Living and Dying, very valuable in some respects, and not so much read as they ought to be, but closely framed after the rigid models of the Catholic writers who preceded him. Our old acquaintance, Francis Quarles, the author of the Emblems, has a striking little work not much known, under the title of Barnabas and Boanerges, or Judgment and Mercy for afflicted Souls; but which, like all the productions of his fine and vigorous mind, is disfigured with pedantry and conceits. There are excellent thoughts upon meditation, in the works of Bishop Hall, and Dr. Bates, and Richard Baxter, and Bishop Beveridge, and Robert Boltman, whose Directions for a comfortable walking with God, and short Meditations on the Life to come, (only too short,) we have now before us, but these are little accessible to general readers. In later times, we might mention Dorney's Divine Breathings, and Matthew Henry and Dr. Watts on Prayer, and Doddridge's Rise and Progress, which, in spite of Mr. Foster's powerful Introductory Essay, is, we fear, too much neglected. Bennett's Christian Oratory, we have heard of as of high repute, but regret to say, that we cannot speak of it from personal examination. Mrs. Rowe's little work is exquisitely beautiful, but not comprehensive enough, nor universally appropriate. Mason's Spiritual Treasury has some good papers; but he is not always judicious, and, with the pious Bogatzky, is justly complained of for paucity of thought, poverty of expression, and the perpetual recurrence of a few favourite topics. One of the best things recently published, is Sheppard's (of Frome) Private Thoughts on Devotion: and Mr. Cunningham has written a pleasing little book on Select Passages of the Gospel of Matthew, adapted to devotional retirement, though his range of subjects is, from the nature of his plan, exceedingly limited. Bishop Horne on the Psalms, is of standard reputation for its elevated piety, though his principles of interpretation are not always trust-worthy. A work on the Psalms, at once judicious and devout, by Mr. Morison, of Brompton, is in progress, which from the first volume, just published, promises to be a valuable acquisition. Scougal's Life of God in the Soul of Man, Sturm's Reflections, Bishop Wilson's tracts on Prayer, and Meikle's

| Solitude Sweetened, are held in deserved estimation by pious readers.

We have referred to these writers, and additions might have been made to the list, both for the sake of those who may be interested in such productions, and for the purpose of showing, that a work like the present is neither superfluous nor uncalled for; since, if you take from books of this class those which are obsolete, or inaccessible, or unreadable, but few volumes will be found, which men of cultivated minds would refer to, as every way suitable for a daily manual of practical piety. But were the standard authors upon this subject ten times more numerous, we are quite persuaded, that volumes such as these, so replete with practical wisdom, sound theology, experimental religion, and pathetic eloquence, would never require an apology; but would always be deemed a most welcome offering by the Christian public. In truth, it may be considered that a work of this kind, adapted to the taste of the present age, combining purely evangelical sentiments, with devotional fervour and sound practical instruction, unalloyed by objectionable or unguarded statements, has long been a desideratum in the Protestant church.

Some Roman Catholic writers, wise perhaps in their generation, have supplied various compositions, professing to direct the members of their communion in the duties of private meditation and prayer. This was part rendered necessary by their unchristian scheme of withholding from the multitude the pure word of God, (which must always be the only perfect compendium of devotion,) and was in complete unison with the spirit of their system, which renders the influence of the priesthood indispensable to the tranquillity of the conscience; but from whatever cause originating, whether policy or better feeling, their books of piety, as they call them, are numerous. The ancient fathers, St. Chrysostom, and others, displayed commendable assiduity upon this particular point; and it is notorious that some of the most touching and admired of the Collects and Prayers of the English Liturgy, were derived from the Catholic ritual. Some beautiful specimens of religious exercises may be found in the Meditations and Confessions of St. Augustine, in Thomas a Kempis, as the book is called, in Fenelon, and other writers of the same school. It would be tiresome to enumerate even the titles of their more modern publications, such as the Key of Heaven, or a Posey of Prayers; the Guide to Heaven; the Garden of the Soul; Philothea, from the French of Francis of Sales; the Spiritual Combat; the Peace of the Soul; the Pocket Missal, &c. But it is more to our purpose to observe, that they have also books on a plan somewhat similar to the present, on Christian Truths and Christian Duties digested into Meditations for every Day in the Year. The fault of these writers is, that even in their devotional books, there is a perpetual infusion of the errors of their system, doctrine frequently unsound, morality more than doubtful, metaphysics barbarously absurd: and they often tend to enslave the mind to the decisions of the church, to induce a dangerous reliance on forms and observances not enjoined in the word of God, and

fatally to obscure the one and only method of a sinner's justification in the sight of God, "teaching for commandments the traditions of

men.”

With all their faults, however, they attempted to provide for what they deemed the spiritual exigencies of their followers, and were careful to furnish materials, such as they were, for closet devotion;-and it may be worth a question, whether our divines, justly distinguished for a purer faith, and a higher conception of what devotion ought to be, have sufficiently availed themselves of their superior advantages to make a corresponding provision to assist the retired exercises of the Christian, and to furnish comfort and direction to perplexed and burdened consciences.

The work before us contains Meditations upon some passages of Scripture for every morning in the year, each averaging about two octavo pages, the brevity of which, as every writer must be aware, must have materially increased the difficulty of the task. They who are acquainted with Mr. Jay's habits of thought, and his terse, pointed, and epigrammatic style of writing, will be prepared for the pleasure they will experience in perusing these volumes, which abound in powerful statements upon almost all points of personal and relative religion. The man immersed in worldly occupa tions, yet anxious to seize a few moments for sacred recollection, either after the distractions of the day are ended, or before its toils commence, may here find something to fix his wandering attention, to compose his anxious thoughts, to remind him of his personal responsibility, and to bring before his view the hopes and consolations of a better world. It is obvious that he will require the concentrated results of reading and research, rather than the parade of abstract disquisition: he will require to be led into all truth, rather than tutored into schemes and systems of theology: he will require those happy and sententious illustrations, of the great truths of the Gospel, which meet his circumstances, and fasten upon the memory, a word upon the wheels," as the Jewish phrase is, rather than ambitious phraseology, and nicely-balanced periods. And he will not be disappointed. He will find that the anticipation of a writer quoted in the preface, (Mr. Wilberforce we believe,) has been realized, and that the author has succeeded in making “such a selection of texts as should involve the whole range of divine truth and presenting it in that combined form in which the Scripture exhibits it, where doctrine, and duty, and privilege blend, like the colours that form the pure brightness of light: where religion is never exposed to view as a bare skeleton, but as endued with all the properties of life, and in actual existence. Pithy sayings, wise experiences, urgent examples, faithful warnings, show the readers all that religion has done for others; all it aims to do for him, and all the evils that flow from the absence of her beneficence."

speedily be in the hands of most of our readers. We were particularly struck with the following passages, as exhibiting the author's peculiar power of seizing circumstances, and illustrating them by impressive historical references. The first is from a paper, entitled the Birth day, for January 14, on Genesis xl. 20, in which, after observing that a birth-day should be a day of thanksgiving-of humiliation-of reflection -and of prayer, he concludes with the following affecting contrast.

"What a difference betweeen the two following references to the birth of the individuals.

Who,' says Voltaire, 'can, without horror, consider the whole world as the empire of destruction? It abounds with wonders; it also abounds with victims. It is a vast field of carnage and contagion. Every species is without pity pursued and torn to pieces through the earth, and air, and water. In man there is more wretchedness than in all the other animals put together. He loves life, and yet he knows that he must die. If he enjoys a transient good, he suffers various evils, and is at last devoured by worms. This knowledge is his fatal prerogative: other animals have it not. He spends the transient moments of his existence in diffusing the miseries which he suffers: in cutting the throats of his fellow creatures for pay; in cheating and being cheated; in robbing and being robbed; in serving, that he might command; and in repenting of all he does. The bulk of mankind are nothing more than a crowd of wretches, equally criminal and unfortunate; and the globe contains rather carcases than men. I tremble at the review of this dreadful picture, to find that it contains a complaint against Providence itself; and I WISH I HAD

NEVER BEEN BORN.'

"Now let us hear the language of the excellent Hallyburton, who died as he lived, full of confidence in God. I shall shortly get a very 'I different sight of God from what I have ever had, and shall be made meet to praise him for ever and ever. O the thoughts of an incarnate Deity are sweet and ravishing. O how I wonder at myself that I do not love him more, and that I do not admire him more. What a wonder that I enjoy such composure under all my bodily pains, and in the view of death itself. What a mercy that having the use of my reason, I can declare his goodness to my soul. I long for his salvation; I bless his name I have found him, and die rejoicing in him. O blessed be God that I WAS BORN! O that I was where he is. I have a father and mother, and ten brothers and sisters, in heaven, and I shall be the eleventh. O there is a telling in this Providence, and I shall be telling it for ever. If there be such a glory in his conduct towards me now, what will it be to see the Lamb in the midst of the throne? Blessed be God that ever I WAS BORN.""-Vol. 1. pp. 38, 39.

Our next extract we take from a text which might have been overlooked by any body but Mr. Jay, and shows how full of materials for practical instruction is the minutest portion of the word of God.

them.'-But who can help observing how many females are mentioned here? Phebe. Priscilla. Mary. Junia. Tryphena. Tryphosa. Persis. The mother of Rufus. Julia. The sister of Nereus. All these, with the exception of two, are not only mentioned, but commended: and these two would not have been saluted by name, unless they had been persons of religious excellence; for Paul valued no other qualities compared with this. But all the rest of these worthies have ascribed to them some attainment or service, 'in the Lord.'

"Let not therefore females suppose that they are cut off from usefulness, and usefulness even in the cause of Christ. The most eminent servants of God have acknowledged their obligations to them; and ascribed no little of their success to their care and kindness. The public ministry is not indeed open to them-neither is the army or navy, or the senate and good sense will acquiesce in the distinctions and determinations of heaven, especially when it is seen, that they are not founded on any principle of degradation, but in the obvious proprieties of life. If they have not authority, they have influence, which is far better and more deeply effective. Servants have blessed God for pious mistresses. Children have been prepared for the preaching of the word, and the devotion of the sanctuary, by the earlier but important efforts of a mother. How much does even the religious public owe to a Mrs. Newton, a Mrs. Cecil and a thousand more; from whom the churches have derived such able ministers. To Hannah we owe a Samuel: and to Lois and Eunice, his mother and grandmother, we owe a Timothy.

"They are at home in almsdeeds, like Dorcas, who made garments for the poor: and are peculiarly adapted to visit the sick and the afflicted. The wife may win the irreligious husband without the word: and fan his devotion, and give speed to his zeal, when he is in the way everlasting. Who would keep them from those public meetings where feelings are to be excited, which they will be sure to carry away and improve at home. In a word, women have the finest heads, and hearts, and tongues, and hands, for usefulness, in the world. Who does not wish to see them always under a religious principle? Who would not have them appropriately more encouraged and employed as workers together with the servants of Christ;

Help,' therefore, says the Apostle, 'those women that laboured with me in the Gospel, whose names are in the book of life.'-Vol. 1. pp. 146, 147.

We have been sometimes surprised at the skill with which the author has contrived to compress within so very narrow limits, such pointed, and often copious illustrations of the passages in question, containing the fruits of much research, and the materials for lengthened discussion. The book is, therefore, in some respects, a costly one to the author, and comparatively cheap to the public. Few men, besides himself, could in fact, afford to make so lavish an expenditure of their intellectual stores in so simple a form; for, with a very little management, the majority of these Morning Exercises might have been expanded into full and

iftatvoll inferior to

some of the most celebrated productions of the author; we may instance the Addresses on Christmas, Dec. 25, 26, 27, Vol. II., and the two on Lamentations, iv. 20. for April 14, and June 17, and most of those twice on the same text.

The book will be a useful help to ministers in their preparations for the pulpit, and though less directly framed for this particular purpose than Mr. Simeon's great work, "Hora Homiliticæ," whose praise is deservedly in the churches, it is scarcely less valuable, in proportion to its extent, for the ample instruction it offers, and the fervent piety by which it is pervaded. We would beg to suggest to the author, in the event of a second edition, the desirableness of a list of the texts, in the order in which they stand in the Bible; which would greatly facilitate reference; and also a more particular index to the entire work.

It ought to be observed, that while the addresses contain abundant religious consolation, the author has avoided the great fault of similar productions, that of making them exclusively consolatory. We agree with him, that the best way to gain comfort, is not always to seek it directly, but mediately: it is the same with comfort as with reputation, it is more certainly secured as a consequence, than by making it the chief design. The following soliloquy, which shall be our closing extract, will commend itself to every serious mind as a most appropriate morning meditation. It is for August 18, on "My voice shalt thou hear in the morning."

"And when we think of the day before us, how much is there to awaken concern! And what is our concern, without the attention of God? He shall therefore in the morning hear, not only the voice of praise, but the voice of prayer.

"Who is to guide me through the day upon which I have entered? How much depends upon one mistake in my movements? And how easily may I go astray? The way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. 'Cause me to hear thy loving-kindness in the morning, for in Thee do I trust; cause me to know the way wherein I should walk, for I lift up my soul unto Thee.'

"Who is to guard me through the day? And I am much more exposed when awake, than when asleep. My soul is more exposedmore exposed to sin-and sin is the greatest evil. And what am I, to resist a corrupt heart, a wicked world, and all the powers of darkness? 'Hold Thou me up, and I shall be safe. Be Thou my arm every morning; my salvation

also in the time of trouble.'

"Who is to help me through the day? I have many duties to discharge. I am to live soberly, righteously, and godly. I am to walk in wisdom towards those that are without: I am to speak the truth in love: I am to adorn the doctrine of God my Saviour in all things. Lord, without thee, I can do nothing. Let thy grace be sufficient for me; and thy strength made perfect in weakness.'

"Who is to give me success in the business of the day? I know I ought not to be idle; but to be diligently and prudently employed in

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