heaven, and are honestly cultivating those affections of the renewed heart, and those graces of the Christian character, which form the indispensable preparation for the delights and the employments of the upper sanctuary. He marks with graphic accuracy the tastes and the tendencies of the new creature; and most instructive to the Christian disciple is it to learn, from one so experimentally acquainted with the hidden operations of the inner man, what are the characteristic graces of the Spirit, and resemblances of the divine nature, that are engraven on his soul, by which, amidst all the shortcomings and infirmities of his nature, not yet fully delivered from the bondage of corruption, he may, nevertheless, have the comfort and the evidence that he is spiritually minded.

And one principal excellence of this useful Treatise is, to guard the believer against the insidiousness and power of those spiritual enemies with which he has to contend-with the deceitfulness of the heart, the natural and unresisted current of whose imaginations is only vanity and evil continually— with the insnaring and besetting urgencies of worldly things, into whose presence his duties and avocations will unavoidably introduce him—with the ever busy temptations of the adversary of souls, to retain or to recover the spirit which is striving to enter in at the strait gate. And, sheathed in the Christian panoply, he reminds him of the struggle he must hold, of the watchfulness he must exercise, and of the constant and persevering warfare he must maintain with them in his earthly journey, ere he can reach the Jerusalem above. In these spiritual

tactics, Dr. Owen was most profoundly skilled ; and it is profitable to be instructed in the guardianship of the heart against its own treacheries, and against those evil influences which war against the soul-which hinder the outset, or are adverse to the growth, of the spiritual life—and which so often grieve the Spirit, and lead him to withdraw his gracious operations, so indispensable for giving the truth a sanctifying influence over his mind.

And

no less important is it to be instructed in the means for the successful cultivation of the Christian life; and, by an entire renunciation of self-righteousness, and even of dependence on grace already received_ by casting himself, in the confidence of faith and of prayer, on Him who is all his strength and all his sufficiency-by being strong in the grace of the Lord Jesus and by abounding in the exercises of faith and of love, of watchfulness and of prayer, of obedience and of dependence on the Spirit of truth, to maintain an evergrowing conformity to the divine image, and to press onwards in his earnest aspirings to reach those higher altitudes in the divine life, which will fit him for a high place among the companies of the celestial.

On the means for the attainment of these higher graces of the spiritual life we might have expatiated; but we must close our remarks, without almost one glance on the heights of Christian experience; or those loftier attainments after which we are ever doomed to aspire, but with hardly ever the satisfaction, in this world, of having realized them; or those high and heavenly communions, which fall to the lot of men of such a sublime sacredness as Dr. Owen;

but for which it would almost appear indispensable, that the spiritual life should be nourished in solitude, and that, afar from the din, and the broil, and the tumult of ordinary life, the candidate for heaven should give himself up to the discipline of prayer and of constant watchfulness. It is, indeed, most humbling to reflect on the paltry ascent that we have yet made along that hidden walk, by which it is that the pilgrim travels towards Zion; and how short we are, after years of something like earnestness, from those untouched and untrodden eminences which are so far above us. Where, may most of us ask, is our delight in God? Where is the triumph of our serene confidence in him, over all the anxieties of this world? Where that love to Christ, and that rejoicing in him, which, in the days of primitive Christianity, were so oft exemplified by the believer, and formed, in truth, the hourly and familiar habits of his soul? Do we count it enough, in the absence of this world's smiles, and when the whole sunshine of them is withdrawn from the bosom, that we still live amid the bright anticipations of Faith, with the protection of heaven above us, and the full radiance of eternity before us? These are the achievements to which we must yet press onward; and perhaps the sensation of a pressure that has yet been ineffectual, is the only evidence, in regard to them, which we can allege of a gracious tendency at least, if not of a gracious acquirement. It is the proof, not of what we have reached, but of the direction in which we are moving. And, at the very time that we are burdened under a feeling of our deficiencies, may we, from our constant inclination to

surmount them, and our many unsatisfied longings after the standard that is higher than ourselves, gather some perhaps of our most precious and legitimate encouragements in the work of selfexamination.

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY

ΤΟ

CALL TO THE UNCONVERTED;

NOW OR NEVER; AND FIFTY REASONS.

BY RICHARD BAXTER.

HAVING already introduced to the notice of our readers one of RICHARD BAXTER'S most valuable Treatises,* in the Essay to which we adverted to the character and writings of this venerable author, we count it unnecessary at present to make any allusion to them, but shall confine our remarks to the subject of the three Treatises which compose the present volume, namely, "A CALL TO THE UNCONVERTED TO turn and live;""Now OR NEVER;" and "FIFTY REASONS WHY A SINNER OUGHT TO TURN TO GOD THIS DAY WITHOUT DELAY."

These Treatises are characterized by all that solemn earnestness, and urgency of appeal, for which the writings of this much-admired author are so peculiarly distinguished. He seems to look upon mankind solely with the eyes of the Spirit, and exclusively to recognize them in their spiritual relations, and in the great and essential elements of their immortal being. Their future destiny is the all-important concern which fills and engrosses

The Saints' Everlasting Rest, with an Essay by Mr Erskine.