the unconditional election to happiness of the persons of a certain few of the human race, to the exclusion of others, is absurd and wicked, because it destroys the Scriptural idea of the universality of the Divine goodness, and engenders in the human heart, instead of a profound humility, a spirit of pride, vanity, self-love and conceit; for only persuade a man that the infinite and eternal God has selected from the great mass of mankind, a few favourites, to whom he is particularly kind, and that he is one of such favourites, one of these chosen and elected vessels, appointed to enjoy the Divine blessing and favour, and what will it do for him? will it make him humble ? it will not: on the contrary, it will, flatter his vanity-fan his self-love into a flame-make him proud of the fancied choice which the Lord has made of him, and be very likely to lead to the exclamation, "Stand by, I am holier than thou!" In fact, the more the doctrines of Reprobation, Predestination to misery, and partial Election to happiness are examined, the more they will be found to be destructive of human happiness and subversive of all the glorious truths of the christian religion.

If your correspondent A. will again examine the passages which he has submitted to the notice of your readers, he will find that they do not teach the Calvinistic Election of persons, but the true Election, worthy of a Divine Being, which is that of qualities, grounded, not in an arbitrary choice of persons, but in a knowledge of those heavenly qualities, which constitute the true life and internal state of the soul.

...I remain, Gentlemen,

Your much delighted and constant reader,
PHILOTHEORUS.

EXTRACTS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS.

ΤΙ

As the most beautiful object in nature is a modest woman, conscious of attracting merited admiration; the most majestic, a ship with outstretched canvas, sweeping the sea; the most awful, the ocean (the storm having subsided) when it ascends and falls in one swell from the horizon; the most splendid, the canopy of night emblazoned with many stars; the most magnificent, the rising sun; so, the most wonderful is the human mind.

Ensor's Independant Man, Each mind, in fact, is a world within itself. It is peopled with nations, classes and individuals. It is filled with friendships, enmities and indifferences. It is full of the past, the present, and the future; of the springs of health, and of the engines of disease

2

Here, joy and grief, hope and fear, love and hatred, fluctuate and toss the sullen and the gay, the brave and the coward, the giant and the dwarf, the deformed and the beautiful, on ever restless waves. We find all within that we find without. The number and character of our friends within, are just as many, as moderate and irreconcilable as those without. The world that surrounds us is the magic glass of the world within us.

Lavater.

The mind, like a bow, is sometimes unbent, to preserve its elasticity; and because the bow is useless in a state of remission, we make the same conclusions of the human mind. Whereas, the mind is an active principle, and naturally impatient of ease; it may lose indeed its vigour, by being employed too intensely on particular subjects, but recovers itself again, rather by varying its applications, than by continuing inactive.

World.

The memory of man is wonderfully capacious; but, if it be not filled with valuable furniture, it will be crowded with lumber. We should first enrich it, and then confide in it. It will be very faithful. The more we put it to the test, like a generous friend, the more it will repay habitual confidence with fidelity. It resembles, says Erasmus, a net so made, as to confine all the great fish, and to let the little ones escape.

Sulivan's Nature.

Supposing the human mind to have acquired a stock of ideas, by means of the external senses, and that these ideas have been variously associated together; so that when one of them is present, it will introduce others, to which it may have the nearest connexion or relation; nothing more seems to be necessary to explain the phenomena of memory.

Priestly.

Fancy is a boundless, restless faculty; free from all engagements; digs without a spade; sails without ships; flies without wings; builds without expence; fights without bloodshed; striding in a moment, from the centre to the circumference of the world; and by a kind of omnipotency, creating and annihilating things in an instant.

True and virtuous sensibility is no affectation of indiscriminate feeling, on every trivial arrest of our compassionate temper; but rather consists in those disinterested and generous emotions of the heart, which are excited by a becoming sense of decorum, in actions of the indispensible regards for moral rectitude and virtue, grounded on their just principles. True sensibility is not always engaged on the mournful side, but has its starting tear of heartfelt

joy, as ready at the recital of a noble and disinterested action, às at a tale of distress and woe. It feels a generous glow of sympathy on the exaltation of a virtuous character; and scorns to truckle its amiable feelings in behalf of a vicious one. It withholds any large share of its compassion from scenes of insignificant, if not vicious distress, to bestow it, in full measure, on the sorrows of real in

nocence.

There is nothing here which has not a dark side, because our soul, weighed down by a body which oppresses and darkens it, is not capable of seeing every thing. It is in a kind of infancy here below, and should have light in proportion to the weakness of its sight; till death disengages it from the oppressive load which weighs it down. It is like a tender bird, which pants and cries in its nest, till it can spring up into the air, and take its natural flight. Ganganelli.

It is wonderful to observe, how the soul is elevated one moment to a star, and the next falls down to a grain of sand; how it expands over the immensity of the heavens, and how it shrinks back upon itself; how it analyzes the light, and anatomizes an insect; how incessant are its wishes, yet how limited its faculties.

Ibid.

I consider the soul of man as the ruin of a glorious pile of building, where amidst great heaps of rubbish, you meet with noble fragments of sculpture, broken pillars and obelisks, and a magnificence in confusion. Virtue and wisdom are continually employed in clearing away the ruins, removing these disorderly heaps, recovering the noble pieces that lie buried under them, and adjusting them as well as possible, according to their ancient symmetry and beauty.

Tatler.

Review of Books.

Family Prayers; or, some of the most important doctrines and duties of christianity, thrown into a devotional form for the use of families." Printed at Leamington, by Rose and Lapworth, and sold by H. C. Hodson, Simpkin and Marshall, and Goyder, London, &c. pp. 70. price 6d.

We have perused this small manual of devotion with much pleasure, and we think with considerable profit. Some of the primary doctrines of the true christian religion are here embodied in a devotional form, and throughout the whole, we may say, there breathes a devout spirit of piety. The prayers are fourteen in number: the language is easy and appropriate, and occasionally

some

they may be advantageously adopted, by those who experience inabilities in their domestic or private devotions, as well as by those pious friends who conscientiously prefer prescript to free forms of prayer.

But we wish it to be understood, that written or prescript forms of prayer are by no means useles to those who prefer extempora neous devotions. The careful perusal of such composed forms is attended with much advantage. The judicious phraseology of appropriately composed prayers may contribute to and promote the freedom of our own exercises; prayers of this kind may tend also to correct or mature our devotional ideas; and at the same time be the means of conveying much spiritual edification to the christian mind. We believe the prayers now before us will very much contribute to this end, that is, to mental edification; and as such we recommend them to the church in general. The doctrinal form too, in which they are embodied, will in this respect have its advantages, tending at once to instruct the understanding and improve the will.

It may, perhaps, be thought by some, that the author of these devotions, has omitted to give them that legitimate formality in the constitution of their different parts, which may be deemed requisite in a full and general form of prayer; but, to this it may be remarked, that their particular and doctrinal character in a great measure precludes such formal disposition; for the present little work answers the end of a treatise on the respective points embraced, as well as a manual of devotion. But whether the didactic part may not be carried a little too far for a work professedly on prayer we do not say; but this we safely say, that both the instructive and devotional parts, will be acceptable to the devout and humble christian.

As a specimen of the work, we here introduce the sixth prayer:

For a right Apprehension of the Nature and Quality of the Word of God; or Sacred Scriptures.

ALMIGHTY and Heavenly Father, who hast been pleased to reveal Thyself to Thy sinful and ignorant creatures, by and through thy most holy Word, and hast moreover taught us the necessity of incorporating this Word into our hearts and lives, by instructing us, that man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God, and also by teaching us to address thee in this short but edifying prayer, "Open thou mine eyes that I may see wondrous things out of thy law," Grant us, we beseech thee, a right apprehension of the nature and quality of this thy divine communication, that so we may both understand and obey it, according to thy most Gracious purpose in imparting it to us. With this blessed design in view, may we be enabled to discern, that as the speech of every intelligent being must of necessity consist of two parts, viz. external expression, and internal meaning, without which parts it cannot properly be called Speech, in like manner we are bound to believe that thy holy Word, which may fitly be called thy Divine Speech to angels and men, could not be thy Word, unless it also was a compound both of meaning and expression. But thy meaning could not possibly be any other than a Divine Meaning, adapted to the wants of those to whom it is addressed, and as these wants relate principally to the Wills and Understandings of intelligent beings, who can never be fully satisfied, until they be filled with the know

ledge and love of Thee their Great Creator and Merciful Saviour, Grant us;~ further, the grace to see and acknowledge, that thy Word must necessarily be replete with thy Divine Love and Wisdom, to the intent that these divine treasures may be imparted to thy otherwise ignorant and perishing children. Thou indeed, when here on earth, wast pleased at once to instruct and console thy followers by this declaration, "The words that I speak unto y you they are Spirit and Life," thus teaching them to believe that in every part of thy discourse there was involved the Divine Spirit of truth for the illumination of their understandings, and the Divine Life of thy love for the purification and vivification of their wills. Whilst then we adore Thee for having favoured us with the blessed knowledge of the heavenly contents of thy holy Word, we humbly and earnestly beseech Thee to give us a due sense of the sacred marriage of these two Divine Principles of Spirit and of Life, or of truth and goodness, which is discernible in every part of those con tents. Above all, guard us, we intreat Thee, against profaning and dissolving this Holy Marriage, whether it be by separating Spirit from life, or life from Spirit, that so we may receive thy blessed precepts, not only in our understandings, but in our wills, and not only in our wills, but in our un derstandings. Grant us the grace also to discern clearly, that thy whole written Word is a kind of Parable, in and by which the great spiritual realities of thy eternal kingdom are expressed by natural images, figures, and histories, so that we can never hope to attain the knowledge of thy Divine Speech, only so far as we look through the shadows of its external expressions, that we may feed on the substance of its internal meaning. So will we give Thee everlasting praise for having imparted to us this bread and water of life, and incorporating both into our wills, understandings, and lives, will hope finally to become thy regenerate children, being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.AMEN.

Our Father, &c.

This small work may be repeatedly perused by both the young and aged members of the church to much improvement and edification; and in our Sunday schools it may be advantageously distributed to the rising youths of the Lord's New Jerusalem.

Miscellanea.

MANCHESTER MISSIONARY INSTITUTION.

We have much pleasure in presenting our readers with an account of the Missions supported by this institution; the table annexed will show at one view the various places to which Missionaries are sent, the times when they are visited, and also the name of the Missionary by whom the visit is performed. We rejoice to see the commercial town of Liverpool named on this table: it is highly gratifying to find that the whole of the south part of Lan cashire is embraced by this institution; the Missionaries have an ample field of labour for their exertions. To their industry and ability the result of their services bears striking testimony. Two years ago there were only Two Ordained Ministers in the whole district, there are now FIVE, one of whom is employed as a Minister only, and three of these are School-masters, an employment, which appears in the estimation of the public, congenial to the office of minister. In addition to the places named on the table