I

of this truly excellent man, and if any of your readers can furnish the public with only a few traits of his character in your publication, which contains the cenotaphs of many good men, would, am certain, be a satisfaction to some of the honoured few, who have survived him, and are now alive. Wishing you every blessing from the fountain head, I remain, most unreservedly,

Wood Farm, Sussex,
Jan. 4th, 1839.

Yours,

AMICUS.

A NOTE OF THE EDITORS.

We join with our much respected friend, and are desirous with him, and have often wished many years past, and lamented also, that we never saw any token of respect published of this highly distinguished character.

We can only account for the omission, but on this point, namely, upon a great relaxation of vital godliness. Just about his tiwe, there was an attempt to unite men of the most discordant sentiments together in one bond of union. After Mr. Toplady's decease, several clergymen formed what they called an Eclectic Society, which was ably descanted on and exposed in this Magazine, forty years since, by the elegant and nervous pen of Richard De Courcy, the Vicar of St. Alkmonds. William Romaine did not long survive the confederacy, and from those days to the present, the outward profession of religion has increased a hundred fold, and as George Whitefield used to say, woe be to the time when religion walks in golden slippers, and is fashionable, then the essential doctrines of faith will be treated with derision, and the dispensers of the truth as it is in Jesus, held up to contempt. Christianity will be as a veil to hide the deformity of error and infidelity.

Never since the first promulgation of the Gospel, has there been such an influx and increasing tide pouring in upon us, of such immense swarms of devotees. Our spiritual teachers in our little island are computed to be not less than one hundred thousand; bibles and tracts have been distributing all over the country, particularly for the last twenty years, like flakes of snow in winter, yet never were wickedness, error, schism, and doctrines impugning our most holp faith, so prevalent and prevailing, as at the present period. Our wise men of Gotham cannot understand it, and they are now aroused to a pitch of frenzy, and are determined to go forth with their sledge hammers, to break the knotted oak. But alas and alack a day they are not in the secret, that though there be many devices in a man's heart, the counsel of the Lord standeth sure. Education will not accomplish it, it may put a white garment over a cadaverous body, but it will never renovate the heart. The bible, even if there be curiosity to peruse it, will not remove the obduracy of the human will, there must be a faculty given to digest the words of eternal life, otherwise they will be but

In reading the above turgid performance we find ourselves out of our latitude; when we came to the following lines on the first page, in the mechanic's phrase, we "boggled," and could not proceed.

"Anacamptic are the sounds that ring in invert ed order in the architectural concave of superlative bliss.”

In perusing the above, it did not appear to us the mode of speaking of the people of this world; the excuse we made at the time was, that perhaps it may be the language of the inhabitants of the moon. But in writing these lines, it brings to our recollection an incident of a Frenchman, who wanted the definition of "network," he looked into Dr. Johnson's Dictionary for it, where he found it was,-" Anything reticulated or decussated, with interstices between the intersections." He then looked for the word reticulated, and found it was "interstitial vacuities," and in further search for "decussate," the information was, to "intersect at acute angles." Perhaps the above may be an excuse for Mr. Jackson, in taking our great Lexicographer as a model.

-000

The True Church of God, as described in the Oracles of God, in her Essential Constitution, Holy Order, and Efficient Discipline. By Joseph Irons, Minister of Grove Chapel, Camberwell. Regeneration, contrasted with Renovation, addressed to the Church of God, in answer to a Pamphlet. By Joseph Irons.

WE class the above two pamphlets together, because they are in a degree assimilated on one subject; and though perhaps we cannot altogether agree in every iota with this faithful servant of God whom we highly respect and honour, still we are happy to say' that whatever little differences may subsist between us, are so trivial, that they are absorbed in the grand discriminating principles, wherein we bottom our hope for time and eternity. And when we rise up in the image of God, we shall never more disturb our minds respecting Non-conformity or Episcopacy.

Mr. Irons complains that he has been assailed by clerical arroand charged with vacilating from his former principles; which we suppose to have arisen from his cordial love to all those, however they may differ from him, on minor points, but who maintain aud embrace the fundamental principles of the gospel. We quote a paragraph in the above little work which does honour to his head and heart, and that while he stands up for his own independency of principle of Non-conformity, it does not sever the bonds of affection from those of another communion; for he says, "Godly and conscientious men in the National Church, I revere and love; yea, I rejoice to reckon many such among my choicest friends; nor would I willingly grieve one of their minds, or dictate to their

consciences.

Now this is as it ought to be among children of the same family -united under one head, and travelling to the same abode.

And here we make a parenthesis, by observing with the most painful sensations, in recollecting during our peregrinations how we have been disturbed by the peccadilloes of various parties, stopping us in our progress and usefulness, and keeping alight the embers of contention, for the most trivial objections. The very posture wherein we worship God has been made a source of wrangling and dissention. What dreadful commotions have arisen whether we shall offer our prayers and praises by premeditated forms to the Divine Majesty, in prose or in poetry by singing of tunes, and then whether by the organ, the bagpipe, or the vocality of utterance. But the great bane has been that of water: the sceptre of ignorance and intolerance has here swayed with domineering tyranny. Strange, but such it has been, and is now, that a simple ordinance, in itself of Christ's institution, should originate petty disputes, and cut up the root all brotherly affection. Surely with truth it may be asserted, an enemy has done this. Well may it be said, "For modes of faith let rigid bigots fight, he can't be wrong whose life is" hid with Christ in God, and whose hearts are sprinkled from an evil conscience, from dead works to serve the living God. Baptized, not by water only, which is but symbolical, an outward and visible sign, as the Church of England expresses it, of the thing signified, but baptized by the Holy Spirit, into one body, which is Christ, and made to drink into one spirit, as brethren of the household of faith. One Lord, one faith, and one baptism; not baptism by water, for there are various modes, but the one internal baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Mr. Irons in the little space he takes up very judiciously enters his protest, that baptism is regeneration, or, in a new modern term, lately adopted, renovation. He also sets his face against that ridiculous opinion, of a lineal descent of the priesthood, from the apos. tolic ages, which ranks among the mass of popish absurdities.

The address of Mr. Irons to his church as a spiritual body in union with Christ, is most feelingly written, as well as his anxiety for their everlasting welfare, the whole exhibits him, as an overseer, appointed by the Holy Ghost. to feed the flock of Christ, whom he has purchased with his own blood.

POETRY.

CHRIST'S PERSON, CHARACTER AND WORKS.

"Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever."-Heb. xiii. 8.

OH the eternal sameness of the Lord,
'Midst all the varied changes here below;
My soul rejoices in the glorious thought
He ever lives while all the creatures die.

He is the Rock on which my helpless soul

Is based, and stands secure. And 'tis my greatest joy
That t'will so stand, when all things pass away.

Glory to God Most High, my Jesus lives

And says, "Because I live, ye shall live too."

Is he the same in his Eternal Power

And Mighty Godhead, as he was known and prov'd
When earth and heav'n he form'd? He is indeed
Or else they could not, would not be preserv'd.
Their firm upholding is a proof of pow'r
Not less than that which gave them t'exist.
Creation hangs on him, on him alone:

Nor less our breath and being. If he but speak
At once we cease to be; as while he please
No pow'r from earth or hell can us destroy.
But Oh my soul! canst thou not higher rise,
And give greater proof that he is the same,
In all the fulness of his Godhead's pow'r ?
Canst thou not tell of wonders greater far
Than e'en the launching forth of pond'rous globes,
And their upholding by his mighty hand?
Canst thou not tell how his great Godhead shines
In his redeeming thee from sin and woe?
Who but Jehovah, God for ever bless'd,
Could to the utmost save a fallen worm,
An hater of his glorious works, and ways;
Who by the dire transgression of the fall,
And countless sins being he possess'd,
Hath truly merited Eternal Death?

Nor is it him alone: his brethren all

(Who through the grace of God are fellow-heirs
Of the rich gift of life) these too have fall'n :
All sunk in sin. Who then but Him,
Could kill the sin, that would their souls destroy,
And save the guilty race? What pow'r but his

Could take the mighty load, and it remove
Where it is sunk, and never can be found?
Nor is his Glorious Godhead less assur'd

By that great love, that led him thus to do.

Men talk of love, but where is found the man

Who'll take the murd'rer's place, when brought from pris'n
Unto the dreaded tree, where he must die?
Who'll part with life to save an enemy,

By wicked works most manifold proclaim'd?
Or who but Jesus Christ, the same
Both yesterday, to-day, and evermore!
My soul adores him while she sits and sings
His Great Eternal Godhead in his love.
Such love as his a creature could not have,
Nor all the creatures, that his hands bath made,
And that his love and pow'r are still the same
Is easy prov'd, because that he is God.

Dismiss not yet the subject, Oh my soul!
In bis appearance in the flesh, thon't see
Some wonders yet untold. He too was man
As he was truly God. And that he inan

Became, may fill thy soul with greater joy.
Will some deny his Godhead, because he veil'd
His blessed Deity with human flesh;

Sure such can't know the scriptures, nor the pow'r
That make the Scriptures Spirit, Truth and Life;
(For they are they that testify of Him.)
Those blessed holy volumes do declare
He took on him, our father Abram's seed:
They say again, that as his children were
Of flesh and blood partakers, he, bis blessed self,
Did take on him the same: this creature-pow'r
Could ne'er effect: Man can't assume the flesh
Of brute, nor spirit of angel take:

But Jesus did take flesh, and man became,
Because all prior in heaven and earth was his.
Tho' in his birth, Sense sees appearance mean
Yet Faith (in fully crediting Jehovah's truth)
Beholds her mighty and her sovereign Lord;
Eternity's Great Father, God Most High,
And over all, most blessed for ever more:
And oh how glorious this great truth appears
In his bless'd life of sorrows here below:
He could, and so he did diseases heal

Of mind and body too: the blind had sight

The deaf had ears unstopp'd—the halt and lame Exulting leap'd-the lepers were cleans'd from spots; Yea, dead were rais'd, to speak his mighty praise,

Will any bold and daring man essay,

To tell me that by these I cannot prove
His true Eternal Godhead, 'cause that some

Of human race call'd prophets; (who are nam'd
In Sacred Writ) did raise the dead to life?
My answer plainly is, they had the pow'r

Not in themselves, it was given them from above,
God often hath, and still doth condescend
To work by whom he will; but yet the pow'r
The great sufficiency is still of him :

And his it is alone. The cleaving axe
If it is the instrument to fell the tree,

Hath not itself such pow'r-the saw

That's shaken that it may divide and part
The pon'drous timber, cannot move itself:

Men are but saws and axes, yea they are no more
Tho' prophets great they're called, the pow'r

That made them ever useful, is the Lord's.

But Oh my gracious Saviour! how thy pow'r
Truly divine appears in thy great acts
Of pard'ning sin, and saving guilty worms.

This thou didst exercise when here below;

At thy bless'd word 'twas done : Thy people freed
From guilt's tremendous chains, did sing thy praise.
They felt the pardon: knew thee to be God;

For none but God alone can sin forgive.
Satan beneath thy mighty pow'r did bend,
And left possession of the hearts of men,

That thou mights't reign and rule. Nor can
The monster repossess, or once regain