CAMBRIDGE, MASS. r.4 1831-1832 ADVERTISEMENT. THROUGH the goodness of God, we are enabled to bring the Fourth Volume of our work to a close. While we feel grateful to Him for the success with which our humble efforts have been attended, we take this opportunity to express our thanks to those gentlemen who have essentially aided us, by contributing articles for our pages, or by extending the circulation of the work. We now enter upon our fifth volume with the expectation of rendering the publication still more worthy of patronage. We have made but a slight approximation to the idea, which we have in our minds, of the perfection to which such a work may be carried. The two great objects which we have had in view have lost nothing of their magnitude. One of these is the RECORD OF FACTS. We consider it to be of great importance that one publication should be a repository of such things as are worth recording, and transmitting for the benefit of future times. No other periodical in the Christian world is devoted to this object. Six or eight volumes-should the work be continued no longer of well arranged and condensed facts on Education, Literary Institutions, Population and Resources of the United States and of other Christian countries, State of the Religious Denominations, Condition of the heathen world, and a History of the various efforts for the universal diffusion of Christianity, will be of inestimable value at the distance of centuries. Accurate and faithful recorders and chronologists are the benefactors of mankind. Polybius among the Greeks, Tacitus among the Romans, Sharon Turner among the his torians of England, Thomas Prince, Abiel Holmes and Hezekiah Niles among American authors, will always be remembered with respect and gratitude. The other object, which we also esteem to be of primary importance, is the DISCUSSION OF PRINCIPLES, or the examination of certain topics which lie at the foundation of all our efforts for meliorating the condition of the human race, and in which all denominations of Christians are alike interested. So far as it is in his power, the editor intends that the Register shall be a work for Christian America, and for the Christian world, bounded by no sect, nor river, nor territorial limit. Its results he would estimate, not by the accessions, which it brings to a denomination, but by the substantial benefits which it confers on human kind, and by the honors, which it gathers around the common Redeemer of our race. This high ground he may take without presumption, considering the character and ability of those who have contributed, and who will continue to contribute to the pages of the publication. Those subjects which pertain to the Christian ministry, will receive special attention. The union of literature and science, with elevated moral principle, will be always kept in view, in every discussion, and in the notices of all new publications. THE QUARTERLY REGISTER. VOL. IV. AUGUST, 1831. For the Quarterly Register. 66 No. 1. "that one and the self-same Spirit" now blessing souls with renewal unto life eternal, also brings salutary reproof to that pride of generation which inclines to say, we are wiser and better than the men of former ages;" shows us to be behind them in some of the attainments of the Christian life, and should excite to greater energy in the service of the Lord Jesus. Moreover, it acquaints us with the circumstances under which Christian ministers in other times, have been formed for high services, and with the afflictions which purified and brightened them; helps us better to understand that counsel, "think it not strange concerning the fiery trials which try you, as though some strange thing had happened unto you;" shows us that we know, in these days, comparatively little THE name of RICHARD BAXTER is associated, in the minds of most American Christians, with the "Saints' Everlasting Rest," the "Call to the Unconverted," the "Converse with God in Solitude," the Dying Thoughts," and the " Reformed Pastor." His character has been inferred from these works, rather than actually known from biography; and it has doubtless been the wish of many, to know something of the history of the man whose contemplations were so spiritual and heavenly, whose powers of appeal to the unrenewed heart were so masterly, and whose views of the manner of "fulfilling the ministry" were so elevated and enlarged. The memoir of his "Life and Times" has doubtless gratified these wishes to some ex-what it is to "suffer for the name of tent; and it has placed before the Christian world a valuable fund of instruction respecting a good man, living in "a time which tried men's souls." Jesus," to "resist unto blood," striving against "principalities and powers" it also continues unbroken, the chain of Christian biography and influence, from the days of our Lord and his apostles, showing that Christian character, like its author, is "the same yesterday, to-day, and forever." That taste for antiquity is well directed, which thus employs itself in causing some of the good men of former times, "though dead, to speak" again; and to live, once more, for the good of the Christian world. Here we offer a remark on the importance of transferring the influence of good men from past ages to our own, by a new biography. To recall such a man as Baxter before the Christian world, after the lapse of a century, is not less useful than to present a new subject of biography. To know how good men lived, labored, suffered, and prospered in "the work of Christ," in ages past, while it ac- The expectation of being introquaints us with former works of duced into Baxter's closet, and to an the religion which thrives in the closet, accomplishes most for God out of it, and in the perishing world; and that the Christian, asking "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" should hold himself ready to enter any field of labor-perhaps one of which he had never thought, and which, one loving Christian retirement and quietness, would never have chosen; and to try the experiments of Christian influence in a situation where it had been thought a Christian could not live and prosper. The limits of this paper will permit little more than an outline of the character of Baxter, and the suggestion of some practical topics illus acquaintance with his private habits and experience, as a Christian, has not probably been answered fully in the recent work by Mr. Orme. After having been humbled, quickened, and feasted, in perusing the diaries of Brainerd, Martyn, and Payson, it was quite natural to wish the same gratification in a memoir of Baxter. Instead of this, to be introduced to him, not in his closet, but in the camp; not among the scenes of the pastor's life, but in the field of controversy, contending earnestly for the faith;" at one time in the hall of the stormy council; at another in the court room; at another in the prison, has been perhaps a disappointment to some. It is to be re-trated in his public life. membered, however, that the purposes The early life of Baxter shows of the "Head of the Church," re- him a "plant of righteousness” in a specting his kingdom in the world, very unfriendly soil, as to the ministry do not permit that all his ministers under which he lived; and yet, should live in like circumstances of " growing in grace," in such a manpersonal and parochial retirement ner as magnifies the work of the and quietness, that they may prepare Holy Spirit, and proves what can be and leave behind them rich journals done by one who is " strong in the of their pilgrimage, for the gratifica- grace which is in Christ Jesus." The tion of those who come after. Not conversion of his father from a alone is it needful for us to know course of profligacy, to form the how they fed in secret upon the bread young mind of his son for Christ, was of heaven, and "drew water out of one of those events, on which-though the wells of salvation." How they not more remarkable than many other labored in the "harvest of the earth," occasions-we look with interest, as how they wielded the "sword of the the first link in a chain of events, Spirit" upon the "high places of taking hold on the salvation of multhe field; how they stood the trials titudes, and the glory of God. In of "the days of rebuke and blas- his education, Baxter was what we phemy;" how they laid, " in troublous call a self-made man. His habits as times," the "foundations of many a Christian, doubtless derived no generations;" prepared the way for small portion of their energy from our enjoyment of the precious privi- this circumstance. His early experileges of these days; these are matters ence as a Christian was marked with of important interest. Other objects much of doubt and perplexity reof the divine mind likewise, in the specting his spiritual state. It is obvilives of his servants, doubtless are, to ous that his was one of those cases, show, that grace is not given to be in which the enjoyment of religion simply as the sunshine, in which to is abridged by the infirmities of the take comfort and rejoice; but that body. This circumstance, however, by its light and influences there may in connection with his living with be much done, for the glory of Christ" one foot in the grave," made his and the good of men: to show that manner of life and preaching to be grace fits for more than one sphere of that serious, tender-spirited and of movement and influence; that earnest character, which best enforces |