all its affecting accompaniments of re- the senses, we should conceive death to morse, and agony, and despair? Death, be utter annihilation. But distinct from my friends, gives the lie to all such spe- the death of the body, there is what may culations of all such moralists; but it only be called the death of the soul,--not a gives evidence and consistency to the death which consists in the extinction of statements of the gospel. The doctrines its consciousness, for the consciousness of of the New Testament will bear to be guilt will keep by it for ever-not a death confronted with the lessons of experience. which implies the cessation of feeling, for They attempt no relaxment, and no pal- that feeling will continue to the last,though liation-they announce the truth in all its the feeling of intensest suffering-not a severity; nor do they attempt to strew death by which all sense of God will be flowers around the sepulchre, or throw a expunged, for the sense of God's offended deceitful perfume into the rottenness of countenance will prey upon it and agonize the grave. Were a physician to take up it through all eternity. He who undermy case, and speak lightly of my ailment, goes this second-this spiritual death, while I knew that a consuming disease does not thereby cease to have life, but was lurking and making progress within he ceases to have the favour of God, me, I should have no confidence in him which is better than life-he lives, it is or in his remedies. I should like him to true, but it is the life of an exile from see the malady in its full extent, that the hope and from happiness--he lives, but medicine applied may be such as to meet it is in a state of hopeless distance from and to combat with it. Now, Christ, the the fountain of living waters. God is at physician of souls, has taken up our dis- enmity towards him, and in his own heart ease in all its magnitude. There is no there is enmity towards God. This, at covering or concealment thrown over it. least, is the death of all enjoyment; it is Their account of death accords with our the death of every thing which belongs experience of it. What they tell us of to a right moral state of existence. In death is just what we feel it to be. Not this sense verily the soul is dead, though that thing of triumph, to those void of alive, most perfectly alive, to the corroChristianity and beyond the circle of its sions of the worm that never dies;-in influence, that nature says, but a thing of this sense there has been a quenching of distress, and horror, and unnatural vio-its life, though all awake to the scorchlence. He who is weak enough to be carried away by the false and flimsy representations of sentimentalism, must be led to believe that each man who dies is only sinking gradually to repose, or winging his way to an ethereal world. But the Bible talks to us of the sting, and pangs, and terrors of death; and what we feel of the shrinking of nature, proves that it has experience upon its side. And those passages are particularly deserving our attention in which death is spoken of in its moral and spiritual bearings. Death, as it appears to the eye of the senses, is but the extinction of the life that we now live in the world; but that death which is revealed to us in the gospel is the effect and consequence of sin-sin is the root of the mischief, and it is a mischief which Scripture represents as stretching in magnitude and duration far beyond the ken of the senses. Had we no other ken than

ings of that fire which is never quenched. Temporal death in such a case is only the portal to sorer calamities. All who sin shall die-but this is not the conclusion of the sentence-but all who die in sin shall live in torment. Now it promises well for our Saviour's treatment of this sore malady, that he hath, as it were, placed himself at the source of the mischief, and then made head against it. He hath combated the radical force and virulence of the disease-he hath probed it to the bottom, and has grappled with sin in its origin and in its principle-he has taken it away; for, by the sacrifice of himself upon the accursed tree, he has expiated its guilt, and by the operation of the Spirit in the heart of the believer he is rooting out its existence. Had he only put together the fragments of my body, and recalled the soul to its former tenement, he should have done nothing

sin, both in its power and condemnation, petent to awaken this. It loosens the would have claimed me as its own, and spirit's bondage by transforming the asin appalling banishment from God it should pect of the divinity from the face of an have stepped in with an immortality, but enemy to that of a friend-it changes the an immortality of despair. But the au- sinner's hatred into love; and this affecthor of the gospel has swept off the whole tion, from the central, the commanding tribe of combatants, and has made a deci- place, which it occupies, subordinates the sive charge at the very heart and princi- whole man, and so utterly changes his ple of the disease. moral system, as to make a new creature of him. The faith of the gospel is something more than the formation of a new habit-it is the germ of a new heart, and so of a new character. The believer's sensibilities are now awakened to objects to which before he was morally dead. In other words, he now becomes alive to other objects, he expatiates on a new theatre of contemplation, and he rejoices in other scenes and in other prospects than before; he has lost his relish for what he formerly delighted in, and he now delights in what he formerly had no delight; if he is not ushered into life for the first time, he is at least ushered into a new state of things-he undergoes preferment from the animal to the spiritual life; and this life, with the immortality for which it is a preparation, is not only made clear by the gospel, but faith in the gospel may be said to have created it.

To estimate aright the new moral existence into which Christ ushers every sinner who receives him, we have only to reflect for a moment on that state of distance and alienation from which He emancipates him. Formerly the man was either immersed in deepest oblivion and unconcern, in reference to that Being who made all and who upholds all, or, if his conscience be at all awake to a true sense of the holiness of the law, he must view the lawgiver with feelings of dread, and discouragement, and jealousy. There is a wide field of alienation between him and his Maker, and the fearful apprehensions of God's displeasure towards him engender in him back again additional dislike towards God. There is no community of affection or fondness between them; and pierced as he is by a conviction of guilt which he cannot escape from, he imagines a scowl on the aspect of the Divinity-an awful barrier of separation by which he is hopelessly and irrecoverably exiled from the sacred presence of the Eternal. His Spirit is not at ease—he is glad to find relief, in the day-dreams of a busy world, from those solemn realities, the thought of which so often disquiets him; it seeks an opiate in the things of sense and of time, against the disturbance which it finds in the things of eternity; and so cradled is he in this profoundest lethargy, that while alive unto the world, he is dead unto God.

We cannot imagine a greater revolution in the heart than that which is produced upon this distrust or apathy being done away. When, instead of viewing God with fear, or shrinking from the thought of him, the sinner can calmly gaze on his reconciled countenance, and be assured of the complacency and good will that are graven thereupon. Now, a simple faith in the glad tidings of the gospel is com

Now all this is the doing of the Saviour. He has fully exposed the disease, and he has brought to it a radical cure. I cannot trust the physician who dwells upon the surface of my disease, and throws over it the disguise of false colouring. I have more confidence to put in him, who, like Christ, the physician of my soul, has looked the malady fairly in the face-has taken it up in all its extent and in all its soreness-has resolved it into its original principles-has probed it to the very bottom, and has set himself forward to combat with the radical elements of the disease. This is what our Saviour has done with death-he hath bereaved it of its sting-he has taken a full survey of the corruption, and met it in every one quarter where its malignity appeared. It was sin which caused the disease, and he hath extricated it-he hath put it away-he hath expiated the sentence-and the believer, rejoicing in the sense that all is clear with God, serves him without fear, in righteousness and

holiness, all the days of his life. The sustains him, it is the merit of the exalted sentence is no longer against us; we be- Saviour. It is not a sense of his own hold the Saviour, and the sentence upon righteousness that gives peace to his conhimself" he bore our iniquities in his science, it is the righteousness of Christ; own body on the tree"-" he who knew it is a hope of being found in him, and a no sin became sin for us, that we might sense of the forgiveness which he has rebe made the righteousness of God in ceived through his hand. In a word, it him." The sentence is no longer in force is Christ who resolves the mystery; it is against us, as the Saviour has cancelled his presence that pours tranquillity and it. He has done more than this-he has joy among such scenes of distress; it is not only cancelled the guilt of sin, he has he who dispenses fortitude to the dying destroyed its power-he reigns in the man; and while despair sits on every heart of the believer-he sweeps it of all countenance, and relations are weeping its corruptions-he takes it up as it is around him, he enables him to leave them he makes it such as it should be he all with this exulting testimony, "O. brings the whole man under a thorough death, where is thy sting! O grave, process of sanctification, so that while he where is thy victory!" lives, he adds one Christian grace unto another-when he dies, he rejoices in hope of the coming glory-when he stands at the bar of judgment, he is presented holy and unblamable in the sight of God and his Saviour. In the whole of his treatment, I see the skill, and intelligence, and superior conduct of a physician, who is up to the disease, and knows where the force of its malignity lieswho has a thorough insight into the properties of the mischief, and has reached forth an adequate remedy to counteract it -who to abolish death, has directed the strength of his attack against sin, which is its origin who has averted the condemnation of sin, by an expiatory sacrifice and who has destroyed its power and influence by the operations of that mighty Spirit, whereby he can break down the corruptions of the human heart, and subdue it unto himself.

While we hold out this triumphant prospect to those who entertain the overtures of reconciliation, we would urge all, even those who have not yet been visited with a spirit of concern and inquiry, to bestow one single thought on the great practical importance of the subject. The very sound of such words as life and death, judgment and immortality, should reduce you to sacredness-should set you to the work of serious reflection on this subject. We have the vantage ground of your own experience on which to stand while we endeavour thus to urge you. For your experience at least tells you thus muchthat the time that is past, when you look back to it, appears as if it were nothing; and you may believe from this, that the time which is to come, will come as quickly, and appear as little, and as unworthy to be suffered to tempt you away from eternity by its pleasures, which are but for a season, as the period of your life that is already gone. The very moment of your final farewell, if you are not pre

This is no matter of mere idle declamation; there is many a minister of Christ who could give you experience for it. He can take you to the house of mourn-viously cut short by death, which is a ing, to the chamber of the dying man. He can draw aside the curtain which covers the last hours of the good man's existence, and show you how a good man can die. He can ask you to bend your ear, and catch the last faltering accents of praise and piety. What meaneth that joy in the midst of suffering-that hope in the midst of approaching dissolution that elevation in the midst of cruelest agonies? It is not his own merit that VOL. I.-7

very possible thing, that moment will come, and old age will come, and the last sickness will come, and the dying bed will come, and the last look you shall ever cast upon your relations will come, and the agony of the parting breath will come, and the time that you will be stretched a lifeless corpse before the eyes of your weeping relations will come, and the coffin that is to enclose you will come, and that hour when the company assemE

him for the important and varied duties of the pastoral care. In due course he was licensed as a probationary preacher, and after serving a short time as an assist ant, he obtained a presentation to the living of Kilmany, over which cure he was regularly placed in 1802. This is a considerable port town on the northern shore of the Frith of Forth; which, from its situation, afforded ample scope for ministerial diligence. Mr. Chalmers spent some years here, without attracting any particular notice beyond the bounds of his parish, or producing any visible reformation in it upon the principles and manners of the people. His studies in

bles to carry you to the churchyard will the divinity class. Mr. Chalmers, howcome, and that moment when you are put ever, did not neglect the peculiar studies into the grave will come, and the throw-more immediately requisite to qualify ing in of the earth upon it, all-all will come on every living creature who now hears me. And in a few little years the minister who now addresses you, and each one who now listens, will be carried to their long home: now all this will come. Yes, and the day of reckoning will come; and the appearance of the Son of God in heaven, and his holy angels around him will come; and the opening of the books will come; and the appearance of every one of you before the judgment-seat will come; and the solemn passing of the sentence which is to fix you for eternity will come; and if you refuse to be reconciled to God in the name of Christ, now that he is beseech-fact were more directed to political econoing you to repent, and if you refuse to turn from the evil of your ways, and to do and to be what your Saviour requires you to be and to do, I must tell you what the sentence is, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels."

THE PULPIT GALLERY.

NO. I.

THE REV. THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D.

my than to practical theology; as his first literary performance evinced. It will seem extraordinary to most persons, that a man of learning, regularly educated for the ministry, and holding a benefice in such a country as Scotland, should have the spirit of religion to acquire, after exercising the teacher's office in a large parish for some years. The case however, though truly lamentable, is by no means singular. During a course of study on several branches of theology, connected with certain articles which he

Professor of Divinity in the University of had engaged to write for an Encyclopæ

Edinburgh.

"A warrior in the Christian field

dia projected by Dr. Brewster, he began to suspect the correctness of his former views of the Christian religion. In fol

Who never saw the sword he could not wield." lowing up this doubt, he soon discovered

COWPER.

the reason why his preaching against vice had been so inefficacious. At KilTHIS celebrated ornament of the church many he laboured for more than twelve and of letters is a native of the county of years, and after his removal to Glasgow, Fife, Scotland, where his ancestors have where he had been invited to take charge long been distinguished and respected as of the Zion church, he published an adsubstantial agriculturists. After receiv- dress to his former parishioners, in which ing a grammatical education in the coun- he gave an account of the great change try, he removed to the college of Edin- that occurred in his ministerial conduct burgh, where he was marked as a diligent while resident among them. After minstudent; but did not evince any extraor-istering at the Zion church about three dinary vigour of intellect. Though destined for the ministerial office, he rather preferred the lectures of Professor Robison, who filled the mathematical chair, to those of Dr. Hunter, who presided over

years, Dr. Chalmers was transferred to the more extensive charge of St. John's parish, in Glasgow, where he continued to labour with the most beneficial effect for several years, until he accepted the

chair of moral philosophy in the University of St. Andrew's, from whence he was removed in 1828 to the professorship of divinity at Edinburgh.

gifted and most powerful men, raised up and qualified for great service to the church of Christ; but they are very different in their style and character of mind. The popularity of this eminent divine As to the use of the English language is not an ephemeral admiration, gained and purity of composition, Mr. Hall, the by the art of an insinuating address, or most elegant writer of his day, stands the glare of a specious eloquence. His confessedly vastly superior to Dr. Chalappearance in the pulpit is rather repul- mers, whose corruptions, neglects, invensive than inviting. The inflexibility of tions, and bad taste, make his finest dishis features his small pale eyes nearly courses at times unintelligible. But this half closed-his tone, at the commence- is an introductory and very inferior point ment, low, and almost drawling-his As to power of mind, I should think Dr. utterance, naturally rough, made much Chalmers the more daring and vigorous, more so by his broad Scotch accent-his and Mr. Hall the more delicate and acute gesture, though earnest, not remarkably reasoner. Dr. Chalmers is bold; Mr. expressive-his action, often inelegant Hall beautiful. Dr. Chalmers seizes and unappropriate, may almost prejudice a stranger against him. But he must be a very superficial observer, a very careless and insensible hearer, whose attention is not soon arrested and fixed. The eye kindling into unusual brilliancy-the countenance beaming with intelligence the whole man labouring to give utterance to mighty conceptions:-all force the hearer to confess the preacher's power, and to feel that he is in the presence of a master-spirit of the age.

The forte of Dr. Chalmers is generally thought to be in his mighty power for illustrating the external and internal evidences of Christianity, and the identity of the whole system with the principles of sound philosophy. From the pulpit and through the press he has proved, most clearly and triumphantly, that all which is sound and true in philosophy leads to religion; that all which has a contrary tendency is, by the showing of philosophy herself, false and hollow.

Having placed a portrait of Dr. Chalmers in our group at the commencement of this volume, and associated him with the late Rev. Robert Hall, we will close this sketch by an article from the "Church of Ireland Magazine," in which these two eminent men are placed in juxtaposition, written, it has been thought, by the present bishop of Calcutta.

"TO COMPARE MR. HALL WITH ANOTHER SPLENDID GENIUS OF OUR AGE, DR. CHALMERS, is a difficult, and perhaps an invidious task. They are both highly

one idea, which he expands by amplification and reiteration through a discourse; Mr. Hall combines and works up a variety of arguments in support of his topic; never loses sight of his point; touches every subject briefly, and with exquisite taste; and leaves an impression upon the mind more soft, more pleasing, but perhaps not much less powerful, than his great contemporary. Dr. Chalmers gives only one or two projecting truths, and leaves his subject confessedly incomplete: his sermons are composed of many separate thoughts slightly linked to one another; and like the reaches in the majestic course of the Rhine, which succeed each other by breaks, and expand upon the eye with extraordinary beauty when you enter them, but are succeeded by a narrow flow of the stream at each interval, his sermons are a succession of bold and magnificent truths wrought out with strength, and then left by the preacher, that he may press on to the next mighty idea. Mr. Hall's sermons are a beautiful whole; less daring in the general parts, but more closely connected; coming on the mind with greater conviction, and expanding his one important subject at once before the view; as the wide and fair lakes of Switzerland spread their varied, and complete, and connected beauties before the eye of the spectator. Dr. Chalmers, in short, is more impassioned, Mr. Hall more sublime; the one declaims, the other argues; the first storms the mind, the second charms it and unfolds all