of delivering up ourselves to him as his redeemed people and the purchase of his blood-even to the Father as our reconciled God-to the Son as our Lord and Saviour and to the Holy Spirit as our sanctifier, guide, and helper.

3. It is likewise ordained as a lively and solemn means, whereby the Spirit of Christ may stir up, exercise and increase our repentance, faith, love, desire, hope, joy, thankfulness and new obedience, by a lively representation of the evil of sin, the infinite love of God in Christ, the firmness of the covenant sealed in his blood, the greatness and sureness of the mercy promised-and to work in us a desire after, and help us to the attaining of spiritual communion with God.

4. We may farther observe, that the Lord's supper is ordained to be a public and solemn profession of our faith, love, obedience and gratitude to the blessed Trinity, and of our avowed resolution to adhere firmly to the ways of holiness.

5. At the same time it is intended to be a solemn sign, badge and confirmation of our brotherly love and union in Christ, and readiness to communicate to each other.

I cannot yet see any material objection that can arise from these ends of the ordinance against private communion. But what may be objected here is this-that since it is by divine appointment and in its own nature a public church ordinance, why should it be celebrated in private, except in times of persecution, or in cases of necessity, as sickness or confinement? And I must own that to use our endeavours to promote the more frequent celebration of it among professed church members in public is very expedient, every thing considered. Where we read in scripture of the disciples breaking of bread from house to house, their houses were their churches or stated meeting places, and they had no other then. There was the gathering of the disciples together, and there they had the doctrine of the Apostle, that is, the preaching of the word of God, singing of psalms and prayer, namely the whole of divine worship devoutly performed, of which the sacrament was but a part, the concluding part. This they did as often as they met together as a church; and, as it is supposed, on any day of the week, or any part of the day. But even here it is remarkable that no day in particular is

mentioned in scripture, upon which this ordinance used to be administered, except the first day of the week, Acts xx. 7. in order, I suppose, to consecrate that day in a particular manner to the honourable commemoration of Christ's resurrection, and of the pouring forth of his Spirit, both which fell on that holy day. We have reason to bless God that particular days and particular places are set apart for our more devout and undisturbed attention to solemn ordinances, which perhaps we could not observe so well in times and places of common business.Pp. 58-60.

We recommend especially to the attention of our readers the nine letters on prayer, inserted towards the close of this volume, which it might, perhaps, be desirable to print as a separate tract.

He that seeks God from an indigent temper of mind will not fail to find him, though he may be a stranger to certain forms or methods of prayer; which, by the way, are apt to make us too formal, except particular care and watchfulness be exercised. Though forms, which are the outward clothing, well used, will be helpful to stir up the graces and affections of the soul; yet not so much stress is to be laid on these, as if the whole success of prayer depended upon them. No, it is an unspeakable comfort, and a mighty succour to faith, that we have a sure word of promise, "that every one who asketh shall receive," and that we have many instances, to confirm this promise, of persons applying to our Lord in great simplicity, telling him their minds, and expressing what they desired and wanted, in plain and few words, who all succeeded; and we find not a single instance of any one put off, without obtaining his errand. It is by the good Spirit, that we are awakened to a sense of our wants, and moved to ask. And certain it is, when God inclines the heart to pray, he inclines his ear to hear. The great condition of our success does not consist in many rules, but in one word,-" whatsoever you ask, believing, it shall be done unto you." It is with a view of strengthening the grace of faith that I write this, and not of frustrating my design to give you the best assistance in my power, in this duty.-Pp. 305, 306.

The volume closes with some weighty observations, of which the following are specimens.

Improvement of Time.-We ought to fill up our time with great regard to these three things;-1. To take proper seasons every day for such religious duties as are necessary to improve our minds in saving grace, without which we shall be open to all temptations, and at a loss to do any good;-2. To lay hold of all opportunities which occur, to do all we can for the honour of God, the success of religion, and the good of souls, without neglecting the lower acts of brotherly love and mercy; and we had better sometimes relax a little of our devotion, than refuse such opportunities, it being better to be doing good, than to be reading a religious book in our closet;-3. To have the fear and the glory of God and the last judgment before our view, as much as we can, in discharging the duties of our calling, even in all the common actions of life; for they have all a relation to eternity, and must all be accounted for at the last day, and should all be done with a desire to honour God.Pp. 383, 384.

From this view of the letters of the Rev. Griffith Jones, we now turn to Mr. Melvill's Sermon on the death of Mr. Howels. The text is Hebrews ii. 10. "For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing mauy sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through suffering." From this Mr. Melvill enters into an abstruse and somewhat metaphysical inquiry concerning the lessons which Christ learned from suffering; with which we

are

far from being satisfied. Christ became perfect through suffering, though not, we apprehend, as Mr. M. conceives, by suffering being the medium through which instruction was conveyed, either as to the evil of sin, or the difficulties of redemption. As God he had perfect knowledge on these points; and clearly foresaw all he must undergo, before he engaged in the covenant of Redemption, and said,

"Lo! I come." As man he was perfect in holiness, without spot or stain of sin; but as Mediator he was imperfect until he had offered the required sacrifice, until he had actually paid the penalty -until he had borne our sins in his own body on the tree-satisfied the divine justice, and made atonement for the transgressors. The work of atonement was perfect when the Redeemer having cried, "It is finished," bowed the head and gave up the Ghost; the perfection of the work was recognized when he rose from the dead; his actual installation into the office of Mediator took place when he sat down on the right hand of God, while the effects of his Mediation were evinced in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost.

Our object however is not so much to criticise Mr. Melvill's Sermon, which evinces in every part a powerful and vigorous imagination, rather than a sound and discriminating judgment, as to communicate to our readers some interesting particulars with reference to that distinguished minister by whose death it was occasioned.

The Rev. William Howels was born near Cowbridge in the county of Glamorgan, in the year 1777, and was educated at the grammar school of that town, from which he eventually proceeded to Wadham College, Oxford, where he applied with great assiduity to his studies, and in consequence of a disappointment from a young lady, to whom he was attached, was led to seek consolation from the word of God. He had been early impressed with religion under the instructions of his pious mother, and he now made it his grand concern, reading with great seriousness and devotion the Holy Scriptures, in their original languages, and applying himself to those other studies which are especially calculated to form an able minister of Jesus Christ.

In 1805 Mr. H. left college and was ordained by Dr. Watson, then Bishop of Llandaff, to the Curacy of Langan. Here he enjoyed the ministry of the Rev. Mr. Jones the Incumbent, whom he subsequently characterized as uniting the simplicity of a patriarch with the burning zeal of an apostle;' and also preached himself with great diligence and success among his countrymen.

Mr. Jones dying in 1811, application was made to Lord Clarendon, the patron of the living, on behalf of Mr. Howels, but another incumbent being appointed, by whom Mr. H's services were not required, he proceeded to London, where he became curate to the late Rev. W. Goode, at Blackfriars, and was chosen Sunday Evening Lecturer of St. Antholins in 1813. Mr. Goode dying in 1816, Mr. H. became a candidate for the rectory of Blackfriars, but the Rev. I. Saunders being elected by the parishioners, some friends of Mr. Howels assisted him in purchasing the lease of Long Acre Chapel, on which he resigned the lectureship of St. Antholins, and from March 1817 confined his labours almost exclusively to Long Acre.

On Mr. H.'s first appearance in London, and indeed till sometime after he had entered on Long Acre Chapel, his ministerial labours did not attract much attention. He had been accustomed for several years to preach and converse almost exclusively in the Welsh language, and his English pronunciation was at first not very intelligible, and retained a considerable degree of peculiarity to the last, especially when he was at all excited. There were however from the very first, some who were exceedingly attached to his ministry, and the attachment of his admirers was generally speaking so exclusive as to induce somewhat of an under valuation of the labours of others; a feeling which Mr. H. by no

means approved. The increasing efforts however of the Roman Catholics, and the mistaken support afforded to their claims by some of his Evangelical Brethren, excited Mr. H. to exertions which attracted considerable attention, especially among the higher orders of the religious Irish in the metropolis, and his congregation became at once numerous and respectable. The character of his preaching is thus described by Mr. Melvill:

Your departed teacher possessed a mind of uncommon power. Whilst others were passing on slowly, step by step, he could leap at once to the conclusion. Logical in the arrangement of his thoughts, but quick-sighted to discern truth afar off, he knew how to lead others from stage to stage, but needed not for himself the intermediate demonstrations. His faculties were of that class which would have pre-eminently qualified him for mathematical investigation. And when these faculties were turned on the nobler science of theology, they enabled him to bring out truth in such condensed and concentrated

forms, that less powerful minds could not receive it till broken up and expanded. The style, whether of his preaching or his conversation, accorded precisely with the character of his mind. It was a sententious style. One of his paragraphs would have been another man's sermon. His ideas were great ideas; and when they struggled forth in their naked and unadorned grandeur, there was a nervousness in his speech which vastly more than compensated the want of the beauties of a highly-polished diction. Yet he required to be heard often to be duly appreciated. He was a preacher who, of all others, grew upon his hearers. The stranger who came once might go away disappointed. But each succeeding time he would be admitted so much further into the mind of the speaker that he would quickly refer his disappointment to his own want of discernment. We may say, in short, of the pulpit talents of your minister, that if he did not always win esteem at first sight, he never lost it at second.-Pp. 33, 34.

There is a verse in the prophecies of Malachi which appears to me to describe beautifully his character as a minister, and I would hope also his success: "The

law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips; he walked with me in peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity." There never was a preacher who more magnified Christ, and never one who more insisted upon holiness. He would shew the sinner at the gate of hell, and then, introducing the Saviour, lift him to the gate of heaven. He held in all its fulness the doctrine of election, but flung from him as dishonouring to God, a being of gratuitous love, but not of gratuitous hatred, the doctrine of reprobation. And whilst

he believed in the predestination of God's people, how he would insist on human responsibleness! He knew that free-agency was essential to man's being accountable for his actions; and he therefore held no terms with systems which reduce man virtually into nothing but a machine. He took, moreover, the doctrine of justification by faith in all its power and in all its simplicity. He allowed nothing to be mixed with it. But then a faith not productive of holiness, a faith not working by love-he spurned the thought as an absurdity. Whilst preaching that a man is justified by faith, he pursued sin into all its corners and doublings, and (according to an expression of his own) summoned believers to take no quarter from the world, and to give none. And what he preached he practised. I know he must have had faults, because he was but a man. But I am bold to say, that though I knew his singularities, I did not know his faults. Without question he had them, and he was conscious of them. I remember his speaking to me of the dangers of ministers. He said that when preparing sermons for others, he found himself in danger of destroying his own soul. If the confession shewed that intellectual pride would sometimes struggle for the ascendency, it also showed that he was on his guard against the enemy; and a Christian on his guard is a Christian half a conqueror.-Pp. 35, 36.

Mr. H.'s discourses were by no means finished productions, and were not unfrequently short and sententious. His Sunday morning sermons usually abounded in striking and original ideas. He had read and treasured up in his earlier days the works of many of the puritan and older divines, and these often supplied him with materials for

thinking, when the state of his health would not allow his reading many books. His sermons usually contained some very strong and striking ideas, occasionally paradoxical and quaint expressions, but such as awakened attention, took possession of the memory, and provoked enquiry and discussion. They are however, we apprehend, irrevocably gone--he was not in the habit of writing much himself; and he was so decidedly hostile to such publications as the Pulpit, &c. that he would scarcely allow even а friend, much less a stranger, to take notes while he was preaching. It is somewhat singular that while determinately opposed to Romish emancipation, to the doctrine of the personal reign, and to many of the millenarian and prophetical interpretations of the day, and frequently expressing from the pulpit his opposition in no very moderate or measured language; many of the modern school of prophets, millenarians, and emancipationists, were among his most constant attendants and warmest admirers. However much they might differ from him on minor points, all who knew him were compelled to admire his singleness of eye, his diligence in study, his fervency in devotion.

But the time came when he must die.

Your dear minister (says Mr. Melvill) officiated in this chapel, as you know, with his usual power and fidelity, on Sunday the 11th of this month. On the Wednesday he was seized, though not so as to excite immediate alarm, with the complaint which bore him rapidly away. It was with difficulty that he was prevailed upon to refrain from coming hither to preach the weekly lecture. He remained, however, at home, but rose from his bed at the hour of family worship, and read to the household the thirty-ninth Psalm. On the Thursday the physician observed clearly the advancings of death; and on the Friday, though every means which the most approved experience could suggest was diligently tried, it became apparent that the case was hopeless. It was on

this day, the Friday, that he sent for the before-named friend, whom he wished to appoint his executor. At his request this friend drew up his will. You are aware of the manner in which he disposed

of his property. He shewed exquisitely that though tenderly alive to all the charities of life, God was dearer to him than the dearest of earthly relations. He bequeathed the whole of his effects, with one or two trifling reservations, to the Church Missionary Society; thus proving that the wish which was uppermost in his mind during life, remained uppermost in death, the wish that Christ might be glorified by the conversion of sinners.... There are one or two other particulars in respect to the will which are worthy of remark. This is a striking clause: 'I remit all that is owing to me from every quarter.' Your minister was a singularly generous man; we will add a singularly unsuspicious man. It does not become me to say that advantage was ever taken of these qualities. But certainly I have heard him speak, not bitterly, he could not speak bitterly, but in a strain of honest indignation, of the meanness often met with in professors of religion, who would shew, in money-matters, a less nice sense of honour and integrity than men of the world who make no profession at all. But whatever the treatment he met with, you see he returns it with a full and a free forgiveness. He had had a great debt forgiven him by God, and he remembered the parable, and he forgave his fellowservants. The will concludes with these words, I wish to add, my mind is calm.' We make no comment upon this-the saying will go to your hearts, and be treasured there. During the whole of Saturday he may be said to have been in the grasp of death.

At times he appeared distressed but on his surgeon affection. ately inquiring whether he had any thing on his mind, he replied, 'No, I have nothing on my mind; but there is a great difference between a scriptural view of faith and mere feeling. Guilt is removed from my conscience, and I leave these feelings.'

In the evening of this his last day of mortality, it was evident to his medical attendants that the final change was at hand. The deepened tints of the countenance, and the incipient drowsiness, marked the coming torpor which is the precursor of death in such cases of

disease. His physician, eminent for the union of science and piety, felt it then his duty to strive and produce a reaction in the system, and therefore brought to bear upon the heart the physical and intellectual powers of his patient. Involving in his speech an allusion to his disease, he spoke to your Pastor of that double life, the animal and the spiritual, which God breathed into man at his first creation. 'Yes,' said the dying Minister, startled from the creeping lethargy, and recalling his acquaintance with the original of the Scriptures, he breathed into him the breath of lives.' Mind now triumphed for a while over matter; and the rally of the sinking powers was singularly fine. The physician went on to speak of man as a once beautiful mirror, reflective of Godhead. He admitted that the mirror was broken into shivers, but pleaded that in the fragments might still be found faint traces of the original. The dying man kindled with something of his former fire. He gathered up his declining energies, and thus annihilated the argument. 'It reminds me,' he said, 'of the anecdote of a tiger who, pursuing his prey, entered a house, and encountered a mirror which, reflecting his image, he dashed it to pieces in springing upon his supposed enemy; but seeing in every fragment a tiger, he fled affrighted from his own multiplied likeness.' This was the parting blow which he gave the natural manfrom every fraction of the mirror is reflected the image of Satan. Being relieved by expectorations from the bronchi of the mucus which oppressed those tubes, he expressed his sense of the comfort, but shewed immediately the bent of his thoughts by saying, 'The soul too has its air-tubes, but they are choked by sin and Satan.' The physician's purpose was answered. The heart of his patient was roused, and the general pressure on the system for a while lightened. Conversation then turned on the fourteenth chapter of St. John's Gospel. Your dear Minister took up the subject, and began at the text, In my Father's house are many mansions," adding with great emphasis to his surgeon, "I go to prepare a place for you." These, I believe, were the last words which he quoted from Scripture. He thus commented on them: 'Yes, our Lord says you have been an outdoor servant long enough, I will now make you an indoor servant, and take you