the light-hearted gambol on the lea? And I ask further, if the consequence of this, the legitimate and necessary consequence, has not been to lead the rising generation to suppose the acquisition of human learning to be a matter of the last importance, and the knowledge of the Gospel a matter altogether subsidiary and minor? But some man will say, "a knowledge of the Gospel should be acquired at home-it is the duty of the school-master simply to teach the particular branch of science which he professes, and to acquire which the child is placed under his care." I reply, I care not how carefully and constantly the child. is taught the Bible at home, if he be not taught it at school, the consequence will follow which I have stated-the conviction will quietly and firmly settle itself down in his mind, that learning and religion are two things which should not be mingled, and that the former is far in importance above the latter.

Perhaps, however, some one will ask, how would you have religion taught in a school? I answer, there are two aspects of religion-religion in the book, and religion in the heart-statute religion, and religion living and moving in the spiritual man. Now, whilst it should be the aim of every Christian teacher, to implant in all his pupils the religion of the heart, his first duty is to make them conversant with religion in the book. For this purpose he must put the Bible, the statute-book of all religion, into their hands, and endeavour, with pains and with perseverance, to make them familiar with its contents-its characters, its facts, its doctrines, its precepts. To accomplish this, he must begin with things that are merely circumstantial, the number and names of the sacred books, and the meaning of those names, arranging them under their several classes, as they are historical, poetical, prophetical, or epistolary. He must make his pupils acquainted with the geography of those countries which were the theatres of scriptural action-with the manners and customs, the arts and the arms of ancient nations, especially of Palestine. From these things, which are only elementary, he must proceed to the doctrines of the Word, taking them up in some connected order, establishing them by scriptural proofs in the understanding of the child, and, with affectionate earnestness, pressing them upon his heart. Let no one say this is chimerical-there is nothing in it impossible, impracticable, or even difficult.

All the difficulty in the way, is just the remissness of parents in not seeking out and liberally rewarding teachers capable of doing what I have sketched; and, let me add, there is no Christian teacher, who could not, with a very little trouble, qualify himself for conducting a sound scriptural education, such as I have hinted at. Let him study his Bible, and the Abridgment of Horne's Introduction to the study of the Bible, with pains and with prayer, and he will soon be able to conduct a Scripture class with ease to himself, and profit and pleasure to his pupils.

May God soon deliver us from negligent parents, hea. thenized schools, and ungodly school-masters!

III. At the doors of ministers of the Gospel must be laid part of the blame of the ignorance of this professedly Christian land. I have long thought that the modern method of preaching is any thing but what it ought to be. I do not here speak of the truths delivered, or of the lan guage in which they are cloathed, or of the manner in which they are spoken, but of the order in which these truths are brought before the people. You will hear from a minister, this Sabbath, a sermon sound, scriptural, pathetic; but, on the next Sabbath, he gives you a sermon just as far away from the subject of the last as the Nadir is from the Zenith ;-and thus he preaches from Sabbath to Sabbath, perhaps for nearly half a century, until, at length, the people never think of imagining that there is any sort of connexion among the doctrines of God's word, more than among the scenes in the morning dream of an invalid. The Gospel is seen by them, just as a landscape is seen through a mist. Their minds are strewed with Scripture truths, just as the Syble's Cave was with her prophecies, "in dire confusion tossed." The fact is, preachers take too much for granted in their public ministrations; and the consequence is, their preaching is like a story of which you have not heard the beginning. They should begin at the beginning, and show the people, as they proceed, the necessary dependance and connexion of Gospel truths: they should lay a deep and a solid foundation in the character of God, and the condition of man; and as they proceed with the Gospel structure upon it, press upon the attention of the hearer the close joinings and the symmetry and due proportions of the glorious edifice. Now, because ministers neglect this, hundreds sit under their ministry from youth to hoary hairs, and still their views of the

Gospel are the most shadowy and indistinct-their sun, at last, going down among clouds and darkness !

But some one will say, "there is no such orderly teach. ing in the Bible as you speak of; the truths of the Gospel are scattered up and down its pages after the very sort you condemn, and, therefore, your theory of systematic sermonizing is visionary or erroneous.' I answer, the Bible is not a volume of sermons-and, still further, the affirmation of the want of order in the Bible is not founded in fact. The Bible, I maintain it, is most orderly. The Bible has two ways of teaching-first, by embodying that which it is its object to make known, viz: the Gospel, in the lives of men, and of the Son of God. Now, here, the only order which can be observed, is the order of events, not a doctrinal, but a biographical order-and more than half the Bible is biography. But, second, the Bible teaches, by imbodying the great truths of the Gospel, in argumentative and didactive compositions, in the form of argument, illustration, proof, and application. Now, whenever the Bible teaches in this way, it is most orderly, most systematic. Look at the Epistle to the Romans, or to the Hebrews. The first is a regular system of divinity, in which, from the depravity of man, all the peculiar provisions of the Gospel are shown to be essentially necessary. The second is a lengthened proof and illustration of the propositions contained in the first four verses of the first chapter. Now, if Paul's preaching were at all like his writing-and, I think, we have every reason to suppose it was-I maintain it was the very kind of preaching for which I contend. It was not like a number of pearls, at random strung, but a golden chain in which one link was seen to hang by its fellow, which, in its turn, enclasped a third, until the whole became a powerful bond, which, flung around the hearts of men, brought them into submission to the righteousness of Christ. Let no man say such preaching would affect the head only, not the heart. It would affect both. What is better calculated to affect the heart, than the truths of the Gospel?-and is not truth most powerful, when it is presented to the mind in its due order? No sermon, therefore, should be wholly argumentative, or wholly hortatory. What Horace said of mingling the useful with the agreeable in poetry, we might say of mingling proof with pathos, argument with appeal in preaching-it carries every point. Let Paul be

our model again. What is his invariable method of addressing the heart? Why, he first hammers a truth of the Gospel upon the understanding, until he has drawn it to an acute point, when he immediately proceeds with a therefore," or a "wherefore," to press it down into the conscience and heart. The very reason I would desiderate such preaching as I speak of is, that I believe it is the best calculated to move the heart-for it is unquestionably the heart the preacher should chiefly aim at; and the only use of pouring the rays of gospel light upon the understanding is, that it may act as a powerful lens to concentrate the Gospel's warmth, and pour it in full body upon the conscience and heart. But when there is not spiritual light in the understanding, there can be no spiritual heat in the heart. To produce the one, you must superinduce the other. Knowledge, however, laid up in the understanding without order, is like Ezekiel's vision of the wheels, but without their eyes; or, it is like the component parts of gunpowder mingled in undue proportions, they will not ignite. Therefore, should the Christian minis. ter teach orderly the doctrines of the Gospel, and, in doing so, send them home to the hearts of his hearers, shafts from the quiver of the Almighty. Such preaching, in which each doctrine is ranged in its order, and set with its corresponding duty, "like apples of gold in pictures of silver," will, I can testify from some experience, be plea. sing and profitable to the hearer; and, let me, add, the same to the minister. It will save him the perplexity of choosing a subject, for the subject will present itself in its natural order-it will preserve order among his studies, and will render him at last, "a scribe well instructed into the kingdom of heaven." I do not say that this kind of preaching should be exclusively indulged in-circumstances will present themselves in the course of providence, which will require to be attended to and improved in pulpit ministra. tions; but, I believe, in general, a minister would find that the course which is suggested, is by far the most useful.

Ministers, still further, have been certainly not the innocent occasions of popular ignorance, by neglecting the young. Oh! let ministers remember that youth is the period to lay the foundations of faith and holiness, by gaining a lodgement for the doctrines of God's word in the young mind, before worldliness has set in upon it in full tide!

But, Mr. Editor, I have trespassed too far on your pages, and on the attention of your readers; and I would conclude these hasty hints by earnestly putting up the petition of the 67th psalm, " God be merciful unto us and bless us, and cause his face to shine upon us, that thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations.

I am, &c.,

ww

C.

DR. CHALMERS ON PREDESTINATION.

THE following passages are from a Sermon of Dr. Chalmers, on the declaration in Acts xviii. 31, 'Except these abide in the ship ye cannot be saved.'

We recommend them to the attention of our readers.

"You have all heard of the doctrine of predestination. It has long been a settled article of our church. And there must be a sad deal of evasion and of unfair handling with particular passages, to get free of the evidence which we find for it in the Bible. And independently of Scripture altogether, the denial of this doctrine brings a number of monstrous conceptions along with it. It supposes God to make a world, and not to reserve in his own hand the management of its concerns. Or though it should concede to him an absolute sovereignty over all matter, it deposes him from his sovereignty over the region of created minds, that far more dignified and interesting portion of his works. The greatest events of the history of the universe, are those which are brought about by the agency of willing and intelligent beings; and the enemies of the doctrine invest every one of these beings with some sovereign and independent principle of freedom, in virtue of which it may be asserted of this whole class of events, that they happened, not because they were ordained of God, but because the creatures of God, by their own uncontrolled power, brought them into existence. At this rate, even he to whom we give the attribute of omniscience, is not able to say at this moment what shall be the fortune or the fate of any individual-and the whole train of future history is left to the wildness of accident. All this carries along with it so complete a dethronement of God-it is bringing his creation under the dominion of so many nameless and undeterminable contingencies-it is taking the world and the current of its history so entirely out of the hands of him who formed it-it is withal so opposite to what obtains in every other field of observation, where, instead of the lawlessnes of chance, we shall find that the more we attend, the more we perceive of a certain necessary and established order-that from these and other considerations which might be stated, the doctrine in question, in addition to the testimonies which we find for it in the Bible, is at this moment receiving a very general support from the speculations of infidel as well as Christian philosophers. "We are ready enough to concede to the Supreme Being the administration of the material world, and to put into his hand all the force of its mighty elements. But let us carry the commanding influence of Deity into the higher world of moral and intelligent beings. Let us no erect