prayers never change the mind of God. He is always the same. Whatever change therefore takes place, it is entirely in ourselves. God is said indeed to repent and to return. But this language is not to be interpreted literally; it is used in condescension to our limited capacities. He is immutable and immovable; he never changes, never turns. What then does the language mean? It means that man has repented and turned; that there has been such a change of mind in him as justifies a change in the divine dispensations towards him; or that his position in relation to the divine government is changed. While a sinner continues impenitent, there is but one line of conduct which God can pursue towards him; but when he repents and returns, that is to say, when his mind and conduct are changed, God can consistently pursue another line of conduct towards him. While he continues impenitent, there is nothing before him but condemnation and death; but when he repents and comes to God through Jesus Christ, there is pardon for him, a full and free remission of all his sins, a gracious acceptance. God has not changed at all; but the sinner has changed, and therefore experiences a change in the divine dispensations towards him. It is precisely so in the case before us. While we are not in a right state of mind it is impossible that God can hear our prayers; and he cannot change, nor can he consent to dishonour himself. We therefore must change; we must become humble, self-emptied, filled with the Spirit, or we can enjoy no nearness of access to his throne. If we are living in pride, malice, selfishness, he will keep us at a distance from himself. If we are not sufficiently humbled to renounce our own wisdom, and to account it folly; to renounce our own righteousness, and to see its defectiveness and pollution; to renounce our own strength, and to feel that it is perfect weakness,-God cannot honour us with close and hallowed intercourse with himself; we are kept at a distance from his throne by the righteous and immutable laws of his moral government. Ah! yes; him who honoureth God, God will honour; but those who despise him shall be lightly esteemed.

This is necessary even on our own account. If, while in an unhumbled, unsubdued state of mind, God were to hear our prayers and to grant our requests, it would prove an injury to us rather than a benefit; we should speedily sacrifice to our own net and burn incense to our own drag. But when we are imbued with a spirit of deep evangelical humility, and of entire self-renunciation, when we abide in Christ, and his words abide in us, then the nearer we are admitted to the divine footstool, the humbler we become and the holier. God therefore waits that he may be gracious; he expects in silence that he may have mercy upon us; for the Lord is a God of judgment. If, while we lived in the indulgence of one known sin, or in the habitual neglect of one known duty, God were to hear our prayers, it would exert upon us a most hardening influence; our consciences would soon become callous, and we should lose all sense

of the importance as well as of the beauty of holiness. But if God hears us only when we are broken-hearted on account of our past unfaithfulness, when all sin has been searched out, confessed, and doomed to destruction, when we are really concerned to cleanse ourselves from all pollution of flesh and spirit, and to perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord,--then the delights of communion with God make us more watchful; we become more jealous over our own hearts and ways; we are fearful of losing the exalted privilege; and we shun whatever is calculated to grieve the Holy Spirit. God will be sanctified in all them that come nigh unto him. He who consumed the sons of Aaron because they offered strange fire before the Lord, will not, cannot accept our prayers when they come from unprepared hearts.

In the economy of redemption everything is ordered with a view to the promotion of the divine glory, and the interests of true holiness. Christ died for us, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God; and all the arrangements of Divine Providence, all the proceedings of our heavenly Father towards his children, are directed to the same great result-to wean us from the world, to empty us of sin and of self, to bring us near to his footstool, and to fill us with his Spirit.

We may be permitted to remark in conclusion, there is reason to fear that there is amongst us in the present day a sad destitution of the true spirit of prayer. Oh! yes, we need to be more at home at the mercy-seat, to be in such a state of agreement with God that we may speak to him in earnest prayer as a child speaks to his father. We need a more deep-toned spirituality, a more fervent piety, more entire devotion to God; and in order to this, we need a stronger faith, to see the Invisible, and to surround ourselves habitually with the solemnities of eternity.

Brethren, let us seek the true spirit of prayer. We must seek it, not in the world, nor yet in the gay social meeting-though of professing Christians; we must seek it in the retirement of the closet, in close and earnest communion with our own hearts, and in frequent meditation on the realities of the world to come; we must seek it in the word of God, and at the throne of grace.

If we would have the true spirit of prayer, we must pray muchvery much; when we have it we shall pray still more, and our prayers will prevail with God.

Bootle, near Liverpool.

III. THE BAPTISTS AND THE REFORMATION.

BY PROFESSOR S. MULLER.*

In order to understand satisfactorily the distinctions which separate the Baptists from other Christians, we must ascend to the times when the Christian church was stirred and agitated by the events of the Reformation. Those times teach us to recognize the preparation for that great work, which rests alone upon the Bible, in the love of the truth that was excited, and in the desire after and the want of a pure worship. Nevertheless, we see it united with scientific enquiries and learned researches. In these respects we honour Luther and Melancthon, Zuingle and Calvin, and many also of their coadjutors, learned men of the first rank, who knew how to use the weapons which knowledge and acuteness gave into their hands, and also did use them for their own defence with the most salutary effect. Such men were required for a work to be carried on in opposition to the church of Rome. It must be shown that that church which rests upon a denial or perversion of the true sense of Scripture, and in many cases upon human invention, rests upon a wrong foundation. Neither could learning and acumen have been spared, if the reformers would give into the hands of the people the sword of the Spirit; that is, the word of God, translated into the vulgar tongue, in order therewith to encounter their foes and to maintain themselves in their place.

The Reformation took generally another form among the Baptists, and particularly among those of the Netherlands. They were not the wise and intelligent, nor the noble and most cultivated, who were at first known by this name. They could not boast, like the remaining sections of the Protestants, that princes, nobles, statesmen, took to heart their conclusions and affairs. No learned men were numbered amongst them to draw the pen as a powerful weapon to withstand and turn aside the world's assaults; they were not found in the higher circles of society, nor even in the large towns, where these especially dwell. On the

* Of Amsterdam. This paper forms a portion of an essay by the learned Mennonite Professor, in the Year Book of the Baptist Churches of the Netherlands, for 1838-9.' The general object of the author is, to show the importance of Baptist history to the perfect understanding of the history of the Reformation; and although his remarks specially refer to the Netherland Baptists, they are equally applicable to the Baptists of that period in general.

contrary, they must rather be sought among the lower classes of the people, who found just as little satisfaction in the solemnities of Rome as the more respectable classes, or the wise and eloquent. To them an outward opportunity was welcome, either to range themselves among the public opponents of the church, or secretly to separate therefrom, and in hiding places quietly to serve God according to the dictates of their conscience.

To restore among themselves the primitive purity of the church of Christ in life and doctrine, was the end for which they united. The foundation on which they built was the Holy Scriptures. Destitute of peculiar learning, but free from previously conceived opinions, they betook themselves with their simple yet clear understandings to the investigation of the Bible, with the intention of learning therefrom what to do and suffer, and thus to become wise unto salvation. The restoration of Christianity to its original purity was, moreover, in their eyes, more than the mere abolition of the abuses which had crept in; it was the founding of a new church, a spiritual and heavenly kingdom here upon earth, according to the precepts of the New Testament, without the hindrances of already existing institutions. Under the Old Testament, which contained the commencement of the education of humanity, God had founded an earthly kingdom; but since that which is perfect is come, God would, therefore, in its place, set up a heavenly kingdom, where all should be peace and love. This kingdom was the Church of Christ, a community without spot or wrinkle, consisting of saints only, and of the chosen children of God. Here, also, Holy Scripture was their only guide. Following this, they came of themselves to the fundamental idea of entire Christianity-the worship of God in spirit and in truth, which had been placed in a clearer light by the appearing of the Son of God in the flesh. Thus proceeding, they began their work with the rejection of infant baptism: they proposed and practised the baptism of adults, as the only true emblem and sign of the entrance of men into the spiritual kingdom.

From this idea flowed many others, which gave to the character and activity of the Netherland Baptists a practical direction. This practical character did not even deny itself in the apparently pure speculative doctrines of the gospel, as that of the incarnation of Christ. The church also must be pure and without stain. Therefore, all who are guilty of the works of the flesh, must be separated, lest the entire body suffer detriment through the corruptions of some. Thence came the ban and avoidance of such persons. A worldly magistrate was in that kingdom superfluous:

for all therein should be rest and peace. Magistrates must possess only a spiritual power, and govern spiritually. Therefore they ought not to use the sword to punish the wicked. Under the old dispensation outward weapons might suitably be employed; but, under the new, they would no more be required. Truth should be in this kingdom the highest law. Oaths, that remedy for preventing falsehood, double-dealing and deceit, must thus of themselves fall away. These things were abrogated with the old covenant, and by the founder of the new expressly forbidden. If the world was not yet ripe for the immediate erection of this kingdom, we must, nevertheless, as far as possible, endeavour to act upon it without the world, in the limited circle of the church, and to express its spirit in our actions. Thence came the severe excommunication, in order to keep the church pure; and also separation from the world in dress and manner of life. So long as the world was not penetrated by the gospel, Christians ought not to be in it otherwise than as strangers and pilgrims, whose fatherland is above. Therefore the Baptists placed persecution and the cross among the signs of the true church of God. From the beginning of the world, they often said, "the human race has been divided into two parties, the children of God, and the children of the world. If any would belong to the children of God, it was inevitable that the world should hate them." All this gave to the character and life of the old Baptists a very practical direction, so that they were less anxious for the pure speculative doctrines of religion in general; while they brought into action those points of faith in particular, which stood directly connected with the promotion of true godliness. Their faith was their life. One knew it only by its fruits.

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We should clearly mistake the origin of the church reformation of the sixteenth century, if we should merely or particularly attribute it to the revival of letters, to the invention of printing, to the desire awakened in the human spirit for liberty in order to oppose the pressure of priestly power, or to any other the like reasons. The origin of that event lay deeper. It was most nearly connected with the holiest wants and inalienable rights of our nature. It was founded in love to the truth, in a warm and living sense of religion as a true and spiritual worship, and in esteem for the Holy Scriptures, as the alone authoritative rule of faith and life. As this appears in the entire training and history of Luther, so it is particularly manifest in the earlier Baptists. It may be that the origin of the Baptists has not been, and perhaps can never be, made out to the satisfaction of the historical inquirer; but there can be no doubt that they were