moral ingredients of which they are composed, which you are called to examine, in ascertaining your true character. There must be a tracing of actions back to their origin, in the interior of the soul, a detecting of their primary impulses, a separating of these impulses from every thing casual or secondary, a bringing of them, as thus separated, to the test of Christian sentiment and Christian law, and a decision pronounced upon them, according to this test, if you wish to throw light on the momentous question, whether you are, or are not, "created anew in Christ Jesus."

Not only is it necessary that all this should be done, but you must be the doer of it, for it is properly your business; and, under the eye of Heaven's omniscience, with the aids of his word and Spirit, it is yours alone, for no creature else is in possession of the secrets which enter essentially into its details.

But if such inquiries are necessary, to show you to yourselves, and thereby to clear your way to confidence and joy in religious exercise, you cannot entertain a doubt, that often-repeated recurrence to them is indispensable to their proper management. The inference indeed is unavoidable, that, if the work you have got to perform be at once so delicate and so arduous-if your comfort here, and preparations for futurity, depend so much on the right performance of it, and if the responsibilities which it involves, belong to you, and admit of no transfer to any other, then surely you are the person, if a person there be in the moral universe, who cannot afford to lose an hour, or neglect a single opportunity, which can be improved for its advancement. The

more you solemnly think of the subject, the more certain must the conclusion appear, that if the secrets of your heart are to be sought out, and inspected so very minutely, there must be seasons, at which you carry it away from every sort of intercourse with every other heart, secluding it entirely from the living world, giving it back to itself in the presence of its Almighty Proprietor, stirring it up to wakeful research, and constraining it to take itself to task, and account to itself for the precious things entrusted to it, and even for the very spirit of those emotions which have gone out of it in the business of secular or religious life. Estrangement from this exercise, is sure to perpetuate estrangement from self-knowledge, and always to deny yourself time for the exercise on any ground whatever, is to allow the paramount business of life to go into fearful confusion.

These thoughts we offer the reader, as a very appropriate counterpart, if not a direct continuation, of our Essay to Judge Hale "On the Knowledge of Christ Crucified." There we attempted to show, that the knowledge of the true God, of our moral relations to him as the Great Supreme, and of that dispensation which he has revealed, to deliver us from sin and misery, is infinitely superior to the most splendid attainments in science and philosophy. Here we introduce the knowledge of ourselves, as absolutely indispensable to a saving improvement of the dispensation of mercy. And we earnestly solicit the reader to keep these two topies distinctly in his view, in perusing the pages of Sir Matthew

Hale, as well as the Volume now before him; for he cannot separate the one from the other, in his efforts for personal religious improvement, without the cer-tainty of greatly perplexing his meditations and inquiries. So exactly do they reciprocate in their influence and illuminations, that the one is utterly unattainable without the aid of the other. We can never know ourselves, except in as far as the light of the knowledge of God in Christ unfolds us to ourselves, by dispelling the darkness of our own understandings; and we can never know God in that remedial dispensation, which discloses his mercy, except in as far as our conceptions are just, and our feelings suitable, about our own inward moral condition. But, if we prosecute the two together, eliciting from the one its illustrations of the other, in humble dependance on the spirit of grace, we may look for rapid advancement in our acquaintance with practical piety, and be able to say, with ravishments of delight, "This is life eternal, to know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

It was with feelings of high satisfaction, that we placed the former Essay under the suffrage of a name, so celebrated as that of Sir Matthew Hale, and it is with emotions somewhat similar, that we connect the present Essay with the volume before us. We have but touched the subject of Self-knowledge; or endeavoured to awaken the reader's attention to its difficulty and importance, and if we have succeeded in exciting a desire for instruction in this most interesting department, our end is accomplished; as there are ample means of gratifying that desire, in the extended Treatise now to be introduced.

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BAXTER'S Treatise on the "MISCHIEFS OF SELFIGNORANCE, AND BENEFITS OF SELF-ACQUAINTANCE," is less known to the reading public than most of his other works, not because it is less valuable, but because it has not been regularly supplied in separate and successive editions. Its excellence consists, not in doctrinally unfolding the economy of grace, or in directly pressing upon the reader the necessity of repentance towards God, or faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ," but in tracing out the involutions of that most intricate economy of thought and feeling, judgment and action, moral liking and moral antipathy, which exists entire, and works apart in the bosom of every individual; and in this way it is powerfully subservient to repentance and faith, by disturbing the apathy, and combatting the ignorant indifference, which so fatally shut them out from men's consciences and hearts. Its general scheme of thought is instructively arranged; and although its topics are numerous, they are not diffusely treated, while, under each of them, there is a rich variety of illustrative matter, judiciously selected, and very aptly introduced. It is idle to say more of its manner of writing, than that it is the manner of Richard Baxter; showing the man in every page, but clear, concise, and simple, beyond several of his other pieces, while it is second to none of them in persuasive eloquence and impressive fervour, clothing thoughts, which are not familiar, in very conspicuous language, and adapting itself, with uncommon felicity, to the inexperienced and the undisciplined. The whole style and spirit of the work is exactly suited to the nature of the subject, and we do think it well enti

tled to a place among the few books, which the Parent selects for his child, or the Pastor for the young of his flock, or the Guardian for his pupil, as a means of awakening religious inquiry, and forming habits of early reflection.

In conclusion, we would say to our youthful readers, to whom the science of moral self-acquaintance is a region unexplored, this is peculiarly a book for you. If other books be more copious in evangelical sentiment, few can better prepare you for appreciating such sentiment. If it be sparing in the balm of inward consolation, it is fitted to awaken those sensibilities, which alone can impel you to seek for consolation. If it fill you with alarm, by unfolding the extent to which sin has so fearfully unmade you, it may also shut you up to the happy conclusion, that "there is not another name, given under heaven among men, whereby we must be saved, but the name of Jesus Christ." But read it

patiently, topic after topic, at seasons consecrated to reflective secrecy, and with the honest determination to use it as a mirror in which to look yourself full in the face. And to give you courage for this, consider the tremendous fact, that while you are a perishing sinner, placed within the reach of Heaven's forgiving clemency, yet ignorance of yourself is hopeless incapacity for the use of this stupendous privilege. God has given you a reasonable soul, a very prominent attribute of which is, the power of discerning its own operations, and thereby conducting its education for eternity. You have fallen into sin, with its curse upon your head, and its manifold evil agencies constantly at work within you. In this con