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gratitude? I cannot, I dare not do it. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless and praise his great and holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. Thou art " my God, and I will praise thee; thou art my God, and I will exalt thee." Shall I not also pray for the Divine blessing through the new period on which I am about to enter? I cannot help doing so. O my God, still guide, guard, uphold, comfort, deliver, supply, and save thine unworthy creature. Let me not be a cumberer of the

The body is a house; and no wonder, that after a course of years, the inclemency of the seasons, and frequent repairs, it at length becomes untenantable. The body is a garment; and who is surprised that in the lapse of time it should become too small for the expanding faculties, and be laid aside, or be worn out, and be found unfit any longer to enwrap the immortal spirit? Yes, every man has a soul, that must live,

"when every fire Of every star shall languish and expire."

This sentiment appears so ra

tional, that the very heathens have professed their belief of it. They justly concluded, since a man might search through creation, and gain all that the world could possibly confer on him, and yet find something that it could not give essential to his happiness, that he was made for a nobler world than the present, and that his nature was immortal.

ground; bless me, and make me a blessing. And surely every one who has the least pretension to seriousness, will now be awakened to solemn reflection. At the end of the year, the merchant examines his accounts, that he may know the exact state of his affairs; and it is important that he should do so; but of how much greater importance is it, that we should examine our cha racters in reference to eternity! It is high time to awaken out of sleep; for our salvation, or our condemnation, is a twelvemonth nearer: and if we are nearer an eternity of joy, heaven ought to have more attractions, and earth fewer; or if we have come thus far onward in the "broad path" to perdition, it ought to be our first concern to leave it, lest God should swear in his wrath that we shall not enter into his rest. Our characters must necessarily be soon, very soon, decided for ever; for when " a few more years are come, then shall we go the way whence we shall not return." Job xvi. 22.

Reader! there is a way in which men go when they depart out of the present life. There is a part of man which does not die.

No one but a bad man, who by his iniquities has made it his interest that there should be no immortality, ever advanced the degrading sentiment that the grave takes the whole of man. Dr. Young admirably remarks,

that

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"üntrembling mouth the heavens:" but if there be an hereafter,

"And that there is,-conscience uninfluenc'd,

And suffer'd to speak out,-tells every

man,

Then must it be an awful thing to die." On the very face of things, without any profound examination of the subject, we may safely pronounce that doctrine to be false, which would fill every good man in the world with the deepest possible affliction, and every villain with ecstatic joy. But Revelation confirms the conjectures of reason, and assures us, that the power that thinks, and wills, and acts, and feels, and hears, and sees, is immortal. It cannot die. The body will returu to its original dust; but the deathless spirit will depart to God who gave it; and it will "profit a man nothing if he gain the whole world, and yet lose his own soul."

Death then is a departure for another world. Thus the Apostle says to Timothy, "The time of my departure is at hand." The believer in Jesus, when "absent from the body," is present with God his Saviour. We read, that when Lazarus died, the angels bore his happy spirit into the heavenly paradise. And we are assured, that "though this earthly house of our tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." When a gentleman, referring to a pious young man, who had often given out the hymns in public worship, and who had recently exchanged earth for heaven, said to Mr. Newton, "Well, Sir, you have lost clerk;"your Nay,” replied the venerable preacher, "6 you talk very unlike a mercan

tile man; is a vessel lost, when she gets into port ?"

Death is a departure also to the wicked; not, however, to happiness, but to the miserable abode, where, for ever, they will reap the fruit of their doings. God, the holy, the faithful God, has said, in reference to the ungodly, "Woe unto him, it shall go ill with him,"-and who,who can alter the terrible decision?

There is not only a way in which men go when they depart out of the present state, but it is also a way, whence it is impossible they should ever return. The moment the spirit departs, the character is decided; there is "no work or device in the grave." I recollect some, who during the past year have gone into eternity, who, if they were permitted, I fear would be glad to return; and I also recollect others, who would not wish by any means to return again; no, not even to earth's fairest scenes. During the past year, in the recollection of every reader, some young man has gone this way-perhaps it may be said of him, "He was an object of envy to most of his companions-his worldly prospects were most desirable and his whole heart was occupied in earthly pursuits-he thought of getting before his competitors, of settling in life, of rearing a family, of gaining the esteem of all around him, of rapidly acquiring a fortune. Indeed, he thought of every thing but of God, of his soul, of the way of salvation, and of eternity. But he was suddenly called away from the present state-he is gone, and, solemn thought! he is gone the way whence he shall not return."

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this way, during the past year. They wish not to return. They have bid an eternal farewell to their enemies, fears, labours, conflicts, and sorrows; they hunger no more, neither do they thirst any more. The days of their mourning are for ever ended. They behold the face of their divine Redeemer, and they dwell perpetually in his life-giving presence. They know somewhat experimentally of the plenitude of glory referred to in that astonishing passage,-" Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding, an incomparably great, and an eternal weight of glory."* Dear as they once were to us,-dear even as our own souls, yet, when we calmly examine things in the light of divine truth, we could not wish them to No,

some rich man among our ac-
quaintance has taken a last fare-
well of the things of time. And
how lamentable his condition, if,
like multitudes around us, he was
making provision for this world,
as though it were never to have
an end; and for the other world
as though it were never to have a
beginning; if he were saying,
Soul! take thine ease, eat,
drink, and be merry, thou hast
much goods laid up for many
years,'
," and has not been per-
mitted to see the close of one of
those years on which he so con-
fidently relied! The place that
once knew him, knows him no
more for ever. How gladly
would he give the whole of his
treasures, might he return but for
one short day, to attend to the
things which make for his eternal
peace! The wealth of the Indies
could not
the boon. return,
procure
There are impassable barriers
between him and mortals. He
is gone the way whence he shall

not return.

The tomb has also received many a busy inhabitant during the past season. Such seemed to think, if we may judge of their thoughts by their actions, that God did not require of them any love, gratitude, or obedience; that they were sent into the world merely to seek momentary good. They were planning new earthly schemes at the very moment when death summoned them to give an account how they had spent their months and their years. Could they come back again, O how differently would they think, how differently would they act! But they are gone the way whence they shall

not return.

And many a saint,-many a faithful pastor,-many a believer

"What here we call our life,-is such,

So little to be lov'd, and they so much,
That we should ill requite them, to

constrain

Their unbound spirits into bonds again.”

The closing and the opening year should forcibly remind us, That we must soon all go the way whence we shall not return. Our fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live for ever? O no. They are on earth no more; and a moment is rapidly approaching, when we too must exchange our habitations for the tomb. The morning is at hand, when we shall rise for the last time; and the evening is near, when we shall lie down to rise no more. The soul will soon quit its clay tenement, and become instantly mighty to suffer or enjoy.

Reader! bring the subject

So Mr. Hervey renders the expres

in the Lord Jesus, is also gone sive and beautiful original..

home to thy own bosom. It is of infinite moment. You cannot die safely or happily unless the sting of death be taken away. Death is stingless only to the believers in Jesus. "I am the resurrection," says he, "and the life: he that liveth and believeth in me shall never die; and though he were dead, yet shall he live." There is no other name but his in which you can find salvation. O fly to him without delay. Then, if this year, you should be called to relinquish all that is dear to you on earth,--wife, or husband, or children, or friends, or substance, it will be a matter of no regret, for you will be received into "everlasting habitations." Southampton.

REMARKS

UPON THE

B. H.D.

"HISTORICAL MEMOIRS

RESPECTING THE

English, Irish, and Scottish Catholics,

From the Reformation to the present Time.

By Charles Butler, Esq. of Lincoln's-inu:
Two Vols. 8vo." Murray, 1819.

his writings and his influence, towards obtaining the repeal of many severe and oppressive acts during the period of the late reign.

Mr. Butler, as might be expected, in relating the history of Roman Catholics, has endeavoured to show, that, from the period of the Reformation, they have been an oppressed and persecuted people; and, though he cannot deny them to have been in some instances guilty of crimes against the state, that they were provoked to them, and were often joined in them by Protestants; also, notwithstanding they have sometimes burnt Protestants for their religion, that he can prove that Papists have been burned by Protestants! Having summed up the items, he strikes the balance, and finds the account nearly equal.

We are no apologists for persecuting Protestants, nor have we, as Baptists, any cause to blush for the conduct of our forefathers, respecting whom even Mr. Butler says, vol. i. p. 325, "It is observable, that this denomination of Christians,-now THE perseverance with which truly respectable, but in their the Roman Catholics of the united origin as little intellectual as any, Empire have, for several years-first propagated the principles past, applied to government, in of religious liberty!" order that they may be placed upon a level with Protestants of the Church of England as to eligibility to all offices of civil trust and authority, is a subject so big with importance, that it has employed the tongues and pens of the most eminent persons of the community. Among others the author of the volumes before us, who is himself a Roman Catholic, has exerted no small measure of talent on behalf of that communion, and has, doubtless, contributed in a large degree, by

It is not our design to remark upon the whole of these volumes, but to collect information from them respecting the state of the Roman Catholics in the united kingdom, and the principles which they at present hold on those subjects which are essentially and necessarily connected with the question of what has been designated “Catholic Emancipation." This will be done by extracting from Mr. Butler's volumes information as to the proceedings of the English Roman

It was in 1787 that the English Roman Catholics formed themselves into a committee for watching over and promoting their public interests. This committee originally consisted of noblemen and gentlemen; but the next year one of the apostolic vicars, and several priests, were added to their number.

Catholics since they were formed into what is called the English Board of Roman Catholics; and also as to the opposition which they have experienced from the Pope, the Vicars-Apostolic in England, and the Irish Roman Catholics, in all their attempts to procure the repeal of those penal statutes, which are still in force both against Roman Catholics and Protestant One of their first proceedings Dissenters. In these respects both was in 1788 to memorialize Mr. these bodies stand so much upon Pitt, stating the severe laws in a level, that the late eminent force against them. In reply to statesman Mr. Pitt told the Ca- this, Mr. Pitt desired the Cathotholics in 1788, "that whatever lics to furnish him with authentic was conceded to the Roman Ca- | evidence of the opinion of the tholics, the Protestant Dissenters catholic clergy and catholic unimust also enjoy." Vol. ii. p. 109.versities, with respect to the exThe Roman Catholics had ob-istence and extent of the Pope's tained great relief by a bill passed dispensing power. in 1778, at which time the prejudices which existed against them were so strong, that in the year 1780, while other methods for removing penal statutes were contemplated by Parliament, the riots at London, Edinburgh, and Glasgow, took place, to the disgrace of a civilized country, especially of a Protestant state. Another act passed in 1791, which, with some subsequent measures, has entirely secured the persons and property of the Roman Catholics from outrage and vio-vicars apostolic, and by all the lence, and conferred also upon them the most extensive religious liberty. The summary account given us by Mr. Butler of the principal circumstances which attended the act of 1791 for the relief of the English Catholics, contains some curious facts not generally known, but which bring to light some of those causes which have produced so much disunion amongst the Roman Catholics, and which have exposed the English Catholic Board to so much odium and reproach from the Irish Catholics.

They then proceeded to make application again to Parliament for repealing all the laws which placed the English Catholics in a worse situation than the Protestant Dissenters. It was in consequence of this that the late Lord Stanhope framed a "protestation," for the purpose of the Roman Catholics solemnly and publicly disclaiming some of the tenets which were generally imputed to them. This "protestation" was signed by the four

catholic clergy and laity in England of any note, and was printed and circulated throughout the country. A new oath was prepared, in accordance with the clause in the protestation which respected the views of Roman Catholics as to the dispensing power of the Pope. This was,

that no foreign prince, person, prelate, state, or potentate, hath or ought to have, any civil jurisdiction or authority whatsoever within this realm;or any spiritual authority, power, or jurisdiction whatsoever, that can di

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