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REV. JOHN SUTCLIFF.

ORIGINAL LETTER OF THE LATE REV. JOHN SUTCLIFF. 247 divine truth, in a reverent and audible To the Editor of the New Evan. Magazine. manner, every time we meet to worship ORIGINAL LETTER OF THE LATE its Author, and rather curtail the singing, the prayers, or the sermon, than seem to slight those words, of which it is emphatically said by Him, who is the "faithful and true witness," "they are spirit, and they are life." Examples claiming our imitation may be adduced, as Josiah, Ezra, the first Christians, and our Saviour himself, Luke iv. 17-19. And if a command is required, thus saith the great Apostle of the Gentiles, "I charge you by the Lord, that this epistle be read to all the holy brethren," and "give attendance to reading," &c. Other precepts and precedents may be adduced; but these will occur to your readers while they ruminate on the subject.

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Anxious that our churches may be as
pure in doctrine, and perfect in worship
and discipline as possible, and conceiving
that the omission adverted to above,
ought not to be classed with those
"foolish questions which are unprofit-
able and vain," I cannot but think that
a reformation in this particular will be
one step towards the attainment of an
object so desirable! Let all then, pray
and zealously strive, that every thing
which obscures the beauty of Sion may
be removed-that our churches may
shine forth in a glory resembling that
of the primitive ones that thus they
who are of the contrary part may be
ashamed, having no evil thing to say of
us," but, beholding our faith and order,
may be constrained to exclaim, "How
goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy
tabernacles, Ŏ Israel!" And that the
friends of God and truth in every place
who adhere to what they consider the
original form of church government,
may with exultation point to these sacred
enclosures, and say,
66 Look upon Zion,
the city of our solemnities; thine
eyes
shall see Jerusalem, a quiet habitation,
a tabernacle that shall not be taken
down, not one of the stakes thereof shall
ever be removed, neither shall any of
the cords thereof be broken. But there
the glorious Lord will be unto us a
place of broad rivers and streams;
wherein shall go no galley with oars;
neither shall gallant ship pass thereby.
For the Lord is our Judge, the Lord is
our Lawgiver, the Lord is our King: he
will save us."
I am, Sir,

Your's, very respectfully,
EPENETUS.

SIR, The letter of an old friend, though in itself it may be but of little value, before us, and to call up scenes which serves, like a portrait, to bring him afresh the memory has carefully preserved— which imagination loves to renew-and emotions of sorrow and of joy, loves to which the heart, with mingled dwell. Many of your readers venerate the name of the excellent SUTCLIFF, and will read with pleasure the following letter, which by the kindness of a friend I am allowed to send you.

upon

MY DEAR SIR,

J. B.

Olney, Feb. 12, 1811.

You may well charge me with neglect, in that I have not long ago written. Truly, seldom a day has passed, on which I have not thought of it. Miss S's letter, informing me of her mother's illness, much affected us. But soon after, being in town, I had the pleasure to hear of her recovery. Wish these lines may find you all well. Mrs. S., sister, and self, have all been unwell, and partially confined. For two Lord's days, I was out only once a day, my wife but four times for two months. But we are better. "Here we have no continuing city;" happy if we "are seeking one to come." There let us fix our eye with longing expectation and ardent desire; and in the way that leads thither, let us walk with uninterrupted step and growing ardour. "Now is our salvation nearer than when we first believed."

Not many years their rounds shall run,
Not many mornings rise;
Ere all its glories stand reveal'd,
To our admiring eyes.

How should such prospects eclipse the
glories of this world, and raise our affec-
tions to objects that are heavenly and
divine!

The weakness of my right hand hinders me from corresponding as I wish, yet shall be very glad to hear from you, or any of your family. Mrs. S. unites in love to all our kind friends in F Remember me to Mr. A. &c.

I rest your's, most cordially,
JOHN SUTCLIFF.

To the Editor of the New Evan. Magazine. every form and shape. Yet, we dare

SIR,

It has long been a matter of regret to your correspondent, that so little regard should hitherto have been manifested for the honour of God, in the choice frequently made of ungodly men to take the lead in the various religious societies, with which the present day happily abounds. Is the church of Christ so impoverished "that there are no wise men among us?" Is the circulation of the Scriptures of such secondary importance, or are the calls of millions of perishing heathen "Come over and help us," so powerless in themselves, as only to claim our attention when sanctioned by the condescending stoop of a Right Honourable My Lord, Duke of —— ?

The following letter from Lord Orford, in answer to an invitation sent him to become President of a Bible Society, whilst it affords additional proof that the "carnal mind," however lordly its dwelling, is still "enmity against God," addresses an admonitory lesson to us, first "to try the spirits" of those we engage to fill such dignified offices, "whether they be of God." London, July 6, 1824.

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SIR, "I am surprised and annoyed by the contents of your letter-surprized, because my well known character should have exempted me from such an application—and annoyed, because it obliges me to have even this communication with you. I have long been addicted to the gaming table-I have lately taken to the turf-I fear I often blaspheme; but I have never distributed religious tracts; all this was well known to you and to your Society; notwithstanding which you think me a fit member for your President. God forgive your hypocrisy I would rather live in a land of sinners than with such saints."

P.S. On reading the preceding letter of Lord Orford, it brought to our recollection the words of our Saviour, "Cast not your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you," Matt. vii. 6. His pointed rebuke for what he considered to be hypocrisy, if it do not illustrate our Lord's meaning in the text, certainly exhibits ample proof of the alienation of his mind from God and godliness in

say, his lordship took credit to himself for his honesty; and even amidst his open profaneness, could comfort himself by reflecting, that "at any rate, he was no hypocrite!

EDITOR.

To the Editor of the New Evan. Magazine. SIR,

that so solemn an institution as the It is certainly much to be deplored, Lord's Supper, (the design of which is the commemoration of the most imporbe abused in the awful manner in which tant event that ever took place,) should it is in so enlightened an age as the present! Who, that enters into the true spirit and design of this holy orwith horror, when he beholds a man dinance, does not feel his mind seized who sustains the ministerial function, administering it to individuals in dying circumstances, as a kind of passport to heaven? thus lulling pitiable wretches, destitute of a right knowledge of their own state, into a kind of peaceful slumber on the confines of the eternal world.

Such a practice of unparalleled absurdity, Sir, deserves to be exposed by the most unqualified censure whenever exhibited.

An affecting instance of this prevailing evil, communicated by a correspondent, I observe in your number for this month, (December, 1823,) to which, I trust, you will permit me to add another equally lamentable.

Not long since, a clergyman of a certain parish in Northamptonshire, whose pretensions to sanctity and precedence are very notorious, was requested to visit two of his hearers in dying circum

stances.

After having entered the chamber of one of them, with a view to administer the Lord's Supper to her, and finding her too near her dissolution to be able to receive the consecrated elements, he exclaimed to those who were present, "too late, too late to save her!" After entering the room of the other, whose end appeared to be not quite so near, he proposed and administered the holy sacrament, and on leaving the room he said, "Just in time to save!"

What pitiable ignorance, what horrid delusion is here, Sir! surely, such men are "blind leaders of the blind."

Your's, very respectfully,

J.

THE TWO WITNESSES OF THE APOCALYPSE.

THE TWO WITNESSES OF THE

APOCALYPSE.

In the year, 1822, a Sermon was preached before the London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews, by the Rev. George Stanley Faber, B. D. Rector of Long Newton, and printed for Seeley, Hatchard, and other booksellers. In the course of this Sermon, the Reverend Gentleman is led into a pretty elaborate discussion, concerning the 1260 days, during which Antichrist was to reign, and the two witnesses were to prophecy in sackcloth; “In plain English," says he, they were to "preach the word in a depressed and afflicted condition, during a term of 1260 natural years," p. 41, Note. He then proceeds to prove, which he does most syllogistically, that these two Witnesses can be no other than the two churches of the Waldenses and Albigenses. The following is an extract from Mr.

Faber's Sermon:

"After long weighing the subject, and after feeling much dissatisfied with all explanations (my own, which I had previously adopted, among the rest), I assent, with some modifications, to the opinion of Bishop Lloyd and Mr. Whiston, that the two Apocalyptic witnesses are no other than these two very ancient faithful churches, (namely, the Waldenses and Albigenses). The argument for their identity may be thrown into the following brief train of reasoning.

1. It is declared, that the two Apocalyptic witnesses are symbolically two candlesticks, Rev. xi. 3, 4.

2. But a candlestick is expressly stated to be the symbol of a church, Rev. i. 20.

3. Therefore the two Apocalyptic witnesses, as being symbolically two candlesticks, are literally two churches. 4. Now these two witnessing churches are said to prophecy in sackcloth, or to hold forth the light of the Gospel in a depressed and afflicted condition, during that term of 1260 prophetic days, or three times and a half, which is marked out as the reign of the tyrannical little kingdom of the Roman Empire, Rev. xi. 3. Dan. vii. 25.

5. But no two CHURCHES can be found to answer this description, save the two now united CHURCHES of the Waldenses and the Albigenses.

6. Therefore the two churches of the Waldenses and Albigenses are the two

VOL. X.

249

candlesticks, or the two witnessing churches of the Apocalypse: for, if these be not the two churches intended by St. John, though we may find many INDIVIDUALS, we shall vainly seek any other two CHURCHES similarly circumstanced; that is to say, two CHURCHES prophesying in sackcloth throughout the whole term of 1260 years."

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So far this Reverend Divine; but in reflecting upon the subject, it strikes us that this theory must be subject to certain difficulties, not easily surmounted and indeed it is quite astonishing that these difficulties should have escaped Mr. Faber's notice. For instance—these two churches had no legal establishment during any period of their existencethey were churches of Protestant Dissenters-they existed by toleration from the civil government-they acknowledged no earthly Potentate as head of the church-they absolutely protested against every thing of the kind-they had no Book of Common Prayer, no Liturgy, no thirty-nine Articles to guard them from error, heresy, and schismthey had no privileged order of clergymen paid or pensioned for discharging the duty of the pastoral office. Now these must strike every reflecting mind as great difficulties attending Mr. Faber's scheme; but there remains one objection greater than all, and which must be absolutely decisive, namely, that these two famous churches, the Waldenses and Albigenses, were, in fact, two churches of Anabaptists!! This can be demonstrated from their own Catechisms and Confessions of Faith, &c. How then, in the name of common sense, could these be the two wITNESSES; and what must a clergyman of the Church of England be dreaming about, to present us with such a wild speculation? Really, it looks very much like betraying the cause into the hands of its enemies. Oh, Mr. Faber, Mr. Faber!

To the Editor of the New Evan. Magazine.

DEAR SIR,

I have frequently made the enquiry, Why do our Pædobaptist friends, who cannot be charged with indifference with regard to their peculiar sentiment and practice, so very rarely favour their congregations with a sermon on the subject of dispute between us? But L 2 K

Your grateful reader,

ELIMELECH.

LITERARY NOTICES.

Just Published.

LEWELLA: a Poetical Tale; and Miscel

1 vol. 12mo. pr. 3s. 6d. bds.

God with several Eminent Christians, in An Abstract of the Gracious Dealings of their Conversion and Sufferings. Taken from authentic Manuscripts, and published for the Comfort and Establishment of Serious Minds. By SAMUEL JAMES, M.A. tions, and Memoir of the Author. By his Ninth Edition, with considerable AddiSon, ISAAC JAMES. 1 vol. 8vo. 5s. bds.

have never yet received a satisfactory Leaving the above lines to your disanswer. Is it because they find by ex-posal, allow me to subscribe myself, for perience that such discourses produce the pleasure and, I hope, profit I have results exactly opposed to their inten- derived from the monthly perusal of tions and wishes-for this is well known your pages, very respectfully, to be the case;-or is it because they find it to be a very difficult task to meet with a suitable text. Difficult it must be, in my opinion, to find one, at least in the New Testament, that authorizes the baptism of unconscious infants. I did, indeed, once hear a very popular preacher endeavour to defend this practice from a passage in the Old Testa-laneous Poems. By RICHARD MATTHEWS. ment, viz. Ezekiel xvi. 21. "Thou hast slain my children," and I could not help thinking, he must have felt himself sorely put to a shift for a text, to have wandered so far in quest of one. Should any defender of this human invention be reduced to a similar strait, I would recommend the following anecdote to his attention, as it may furnish him with a text, which hitherto he may haye overlooked. How far it may be of use to him, I will not pretend to say; seeing that texts of Scripture, which have no reference whatever to the subject, are so often (at least in print) pressed into the service. The circumstance that furnished me with this new text on the disputed point, was related to me by the venerable Benjamin Francis, who was, I scarcely need to say, for many years the highly respected Pastor of the church at Shortwood, in Gloucestershire, in, as nearly as I can recollect, the following words:

A poor woman, a member of a neighbouring Independent church, requested me to give her a Bible. I replied, "Yes, Mary, I have no objection to give you a Bible, but it must be on one condition." "Well, Sir," said she, "and what is it?" "Why it is this, that you bring me one text from the New Testament that authorizes Infant Baptism." "Yes, Sir, that I will," was her reply; and she went away apparently very much pleased with the success of her application. The next day she came again, I said, "How do you do, Mary-have you got the text?" "Yes, Sir," said she, "the best I could find." "Well, what is it?" She replied, with much seeming satisfaction," It is in 1 Pet. ii. 13. Submit to every ordinance of man, for the Lord's sake, Sir." I do not recollect the close of this short dialogue, except that it contained a promise that the good woman should have the Bible.

Early Piety Exemplified, in a Brief Memoir of Miss Mary Ann MABBS, of Mountnessing, near Billericay, Essex; with Extracts from her devotional Papers. By the Rev. J. THORNTON. 18mo. pr. 1s.

Massillon's Thoughts on different Moral his Works, and arranged under distinct and Religious Subjects. Extracted from Heads. Translated from the French, by RUTTON MORRIS, English Minister at St. Pierre and Calais. 1 vol. 12mo. 5s. bds.

A New Series of Religious Tracts, is in a course of Publication, entitled the SABBATH REMEMBRANCER, by the Rev. ALEXANDER FLETCHER. One Number is published every Saturday, each containing twelve pages of Letter Press, and embellished with a superior wood cut. Price One Penny.

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Vol. XI. of Dr. Owen's Works.

Remarks on Volney's Ruins of Empires. By W. A. HAILS, of Newcastle upon Tyne, to be dedicated, by permission, to the Bishop of St. David's. These Remarks, it is hoped, will supply what has long been considered a desideratum-a regular reply to the sophisms of that daring and popular

writer.

Theological Review.

The Works of John Owen, D.D. ViceChancellor of Oxford, and Dean of Christ Church, during the Commonwealth. Now first collected. Arranged and revised by THOMAS RUSSELL, M.A. Vol. II. to XII. London, Printed for Richard Baynes, 28, Paternoster-row. Price 12s. each. 1824.

WE have, for several months past, had it in contemplation to call the attention of our readers to this republication of the Works of the great Dr. Owen, the prince of modern divines, and the glory of the English dissenters. Let it not be supposed, however, that we intended to write a panegyric upon them; an effort of this kind could have no other effect, than to display the vanity of the writer, and expose him to the contempt of every thinking man. As a laborious biblical student, a profound theologian, and an enlightened advocate of divine truth, Dr. Owen, taking him all in all, has had no superior, perhaps, in any age of the world. But in his day it was the fashion to write folios; a form of publication that is now almost entirely restricted to the printing of Acts of Parliament. In fact, the writings of Dr. Owen were to be found, if found at all, for many of his pieces had long ceased to be procurable at any price, in every conceivable form and shape, from the ponderous folio, down to the humble duodecimo, and, we believe, considerably lower than that. A list of his various productions given by Mr. Orme, at the end of his Life of Dr. Owen, now before us, presents us with the titles of seven folios, thirty-eight quartos, seventeen octavos, and sixteen duodecimo volumes. For the last twenty years a new and uniform edition of this Author's Works has been talked of, and proposals issued for the publication of them; but when the magnitude of the undertaking came to be realized, every projector shrank from it! It is, however, now in train, and a few months more will, in all human probability, see it executed. The first volume will be published at the conclusion of the work, and will contain the Doctor's Life, with his Funeral Sermon by Mr. Clarkson, a Portrait, Indexes, List of Subscribers, and

general Titles for the whole series of volumes. We shall now specify the Contents of those already before the public.

Vol. II. A discourse concerning the Holy Spirit. III. Continuation of the discourse concerning the Holy Spirit, with the Reason of Faith-and the causes, ways, and means of understanding the Mind of God, as revealed in his Word. IV. A discourse of the Work of the Holy Spirit in Prayer.-Two discourses concerning the Holy Spirit and his work.-Of the Divine Original of the Scriptures. Of the integrity and purity of the Hebrew and Greek text of the Scriptures, &c. V. Two short Catechisms.-A displayof Arminianism. -The death of death in the death of Christ.-A treatise of the death of Christ. VI. The doctrine of the Saint's Perseverance explained and confirmed. VII. The doctrine of the Saint's Perseverance, concluded.-The mortification of sin in believers; and the nature and power of temptation. VIII. Vindicia Evangelicæ; or the Mystery of the Gospel Vindicated. IX. A continuation of Vindicia Evangeliæ, &c.-Of the death of Christ, and of Justification.Review of the Annotations of Hugo Grotius.-A dissertation on Divine Justice.

X. Communion with God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.-The same subject vindicated.-A brief declaration and vindication of the doctrine of the Trinity; and of the Person and

Satisfaction of Christ. XI. The doctrine of Justification by Faith; and Gospel grounds and evidences of the XII. ChristoloFaith of God's elect. gia.-Discourses on the Person and Glory of Christ.

The reader has now before him the contents of the volumes already published. It is calculated that four volumes more will complete the undertaking, with the exception of his great work on the Hebrews, which, having already been published in octavo, and being now on sale, is not comprehended in the present plan. For the present we take our leave of this article with remarking, that the more intimately we become acquainted with the writings of Dr. Owen,

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