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and ingratitude, the disappointed | when the inexperience or thought

parent alone can tell the poignancy of his heart-rending distress. It is truly mortifying to have an un. faithful friend; but a rebellious child must be an almost intolerable curse. It is with grateful satisfaction I can say, my son, that you have hitherto been a blessing to

me.

lessness of boyhood can no longer be pleaded in extenuation of error. You know right from wrong, and you stand fully answerable before your Maker for every step of your future progress through life. The most sanguine wish your Father feels, and the most fervent and frequent prayer he ever offers, next to his own salvation, is that you may be a child of God, that you may adorn the Christian character, and finally be a partaker of everlasting felicity. Is your own

The affection of some Parents is divided, and therefore, in some measure weakened, by having a numerous offspring, each claiming an equal portion of their regards. But as it seemed fit to an all-wise bosom animated with the same

Providence to deprive both myself and you of your dear departed mother soon after your birth, all my earthly wishes have centred in you, and a considerable portion of my temporal happiness has depended upon you. I bless God that you have contributed vastly more to my comfort than my sorrow; and your dutiful returns of love and reverence have well remunerated me for my constant attention to your welfare, and have mitigated the severity of the wound which your excellent mother's death has inflicted. But while I thus approve your conduct, do not complacently imagine that I consider you to be faultless. I hope your own judgment and self. knowledge will acquit me of entertaining such an idea for I should indeed be sorry if I thought that I knew you better than you know yourself-I am conscious that the partiality of a Father will too often blind his eyes to the error of his children; but ever keeping in miud that it is your duty as well as your interest to search out those follies and improper passions which paternal fondness or want of opportunity may have prevented me from detecting: at the same time you will bear with me, nay, you will feel grateful to me, if I point out and warn you of those which I have discovered.

You are now arrived at an age

desire, my son? Are these the objects after which your highest ambition soars? Youthful ardour is too often excited by far different stimulants. Your love of literary pursuits, and the amiable principles which appear to regulate your actions will, I have little doubt, prevent you from raking after pleasures in the sink of profligacy: and I believe you possess too much pride to suffer your morals to be corrupted by improper company or bad example. But let me repeat what I have often told you, that neither your talents, your virtuous principles, nor your pride will decide your future conditionThese can neither keep you from Hell, nor carry you to Heaven. They may make you respected by your acquaintances, and flattered by your relatives, but they can never make you comely in the sight of your God.

Though I have sometimes pleased myself with the idea that your consistency of deportiment must proceed from the work of grace having commenced in your heart, yet, as you have never been sufficiently ingenuous to declare even a timid hope that you are the subject of this change, I suspect that you rank amongst a class of young men by no means small in the present day. There are many who, like yourself, having had the inestimable advantage of what is called

a religious education, and having seen the precepts of Christianity daily put in practice by their pious parents, are become so habituated to a regular and virtuous course of life, that vice is despoiled of its allurements, and they are moral characters almost by necessity. I would not drive you into daring wickedness, by presumptuously asserting that there will be no difference between your future state, and that of the most abandoned and degraded slave to sin, if you live and die with no other character than that which I have imagined you to possess: but I am justified in declaring that the only difference will consist in the degree of your condemnation-and can you be satisfied with the reflection, that your hell may perhaps be less intolerable than that of an Infidel or a Deist? What! would it afford you an inducement to commit an offence which the laws of your country punish by transportation, because there are other crimes for which justice demands the life of the perpetrator?

Let me solicit you, at this important era of your life, to lay this subject seriously to heart; and I must request you to read with particular attention those two Sermons of Dr. Watts's, entitled, "A hopeful youth falling short of Heaven." When you have perused these admirable discourses, tell me how far you feel them to be applicable to yourself,

You are now, my dear George, just about to quit the seat of your classical attainments, to follow a profession more laborious and less interesting than that of a scholar. You will find considerable diligence and application necessary, before you can make any proficiency in this barren and forbidding study. But I hope this difficulty will be the means of correcting your most silly propensity - literary pride. When you perceive how much you have to learn, you will draw the

obvious inference, how little you know already. The human heart is naturally steeled against religious impressions, and the pride of intellect covers it with an additional coat of mail. Men of brilliant talents cannot but be conscious of their superiority to the generality of their fellow-creatures. When they speak, they command atten. tion, when they argue, they silence their opponents. But alas! their abilities too often serve them as a shield, to blunt the arrows of truth; and as a sword, to wield against the soldiers of Christ.

I am not apprehensive that you will ever thus impiously oppose the energies of your mind, either to the reformation of your own heart, or the advancement of Christianity in the world-but I do fear that the high opinion you seem to indulge of your own attainments, will present a considerable obstacle to your reception of divine truth. You must form a low and a just estimate of yourself; you must look with contempt upon all that you now so fondly cherish, before you can heartily seek the only true "wisdom which cometh down from above," and which alone " is able to make you wise unto salvation."

It is not my object to damp your literary ardour, for this would be to reflect on myself for the liberal education I have given you, and the personal attention I have bestowed upon your improvement; but I wish to divest human learning of that importance which you attach to it. Talents are valuable in proportion as they improve the moral character of man, and sub. serve the cause of religion. They are often a useful and powerful auxiliary to genuine piety; they enable the Christian to expose the specious sophistry, and counteract the insinuating designs of deism; or to defeat the bolder attempts of infidelity.

Whilst you are culling the flowers which grow in the paths of science,

or digging deep for the metal
which lies hid in the mines of legal
learning, remember, my son, that
unless you "walk in the way of
the Lord," and are possessed of
the "riches of his grace," neither
an elegant taste nor extensive
knowledge will avail you any thing
in a dying hour. Should you re-
main carelessly indifferent 'till that
awful season, all your sensibilities
will then be horribly poignant, all
my admonitions will then crowd
upon your agonized soul, and you
will then believe that when I thus
addressed you, I had your best
interests at heart. The limits of
this Letter forbid my adding more
at present; I hope to resume the
subject shortly, 'till then believe
me to be,

Your fond and faithful Father,
G. W. A.

To the Editor of the New Evangelical
Magazine.

SIR,

As I have ever found you friendly and candid in giving place to short ex

tracts from the writings of good men of various persuasions, I trust to your wonted liberality in giving the following just remarks further publicity-they are taken from the "Annual Report of the

Rotherham Independent College," which

Your obliged friend,

has just come to hand.
Hull,
Beptember 4, 1817.

1. T.

finery for solid sense, offering flowers for food, purchasing applause with mean adulation, or departingat all from Scripture models, shall so far "become all things to all men," as to unite taste with simplicity, energy with clearness, grandeur with truth. Even among general hearers, there is such an advancement of intellect, that what would have once passed without censure, will now be almost universally considered as derogatory to the ministerial office.

As we sometimes behold the spirit of free enquiry (laudable in itself) pushed to a daring extreme, inconsistent with due reverence for the book of God; we are fully sensible that such an evil can be restrained and counteracted, only by a ministry of superior qualifications. While the right of conscience, and of private judgment, are to be inflexibly maintained; a strong barrier must be set up against the ever-roving mind of man, lest it should wander into the airy regions of fancy, or be drowned in gulphs of his own making. Even truth herself is often obscured and degraded by superfluous ornament. Objections also against many parts of divine revelation, demanding some reply, are, in our day often founded on modern science, travels, and discoveries, so that no mind however strong by nature, can answer them without the aid of learning.

"CONSIDER, for a moment, the religious character of the age in which we have the happiness to live. Is it not also the æra of mental advancement, of spirited enquiry, of critical exactness and dexterity? There was an age when (much to their honour), the lowest ranks in society, labouring under every disadvantage, made up almost the aggregate of those who dared to hear the glorious gospel. But, thanks be to God, we have now in our congregations, great numbers, whose habits, manners, and literary advantages, seem to require a ministry, which without of dangerous theories. We consioverlooking the humblest and der it highly desirable that the poorest of mankind, substituting | ends proposed in such Institutions

Your Committee are well aware, that from various denominations of Christians, books of criticism bearing more or less on the Sacred Scriptures, are constantly issuing from the press and attracting notice; rendering it highly necessary that some persons should be particularly qualified to estimate their real character, and to decide whether they be useful auxiliaries of Christ, or the unsuspected germs

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had the prospect of deliverance, and the joy set before him. They endeavour to qualify this harsh sense by saying, that Paul only wished to be accursed from Christ, " if it were proper, or could be of any avail to their salvation." But was it proper for him, even on this supposition, to form such a wish? - I think not.

uccursed from Christ, thren, &c. The word iered accursedisanathema, the apostle uses in three er places in the severest sense, Pe 1 Cor. xvi. 22. Gal. i. 8, 9. which has led many to understand him here as " wishing to be separated from the love of Christ, to be alienated from him, to fall from the glory and the salvation purchased by him." And they think it similar to Moses' prayer when Israel sinned in the matter of the golden calf. "Yet now, if thou wilt, forgive their sin; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of the book which thou hast written." Exod. xxxii. 32. Which book is also termed "the writing (or register) of the house of Israel." Ezek. xiii. 9. But it is not clear that Moses' request extended beyond this present life, or his being deprived of the peculiar blessings promised to the nation of Israel, which were in general of a worldly and typical nature. To suppose that Paul wished himself accursed from Christ in the sense of being for ever separated from him, and so shut out from eternal blessedness, appears to me extremely harsh, unnatural and unlawful. The love of Christ to guilty men far transcended that of Paul to his countrymen, but it did not go this length. He submitted to become a curse for them; but he

Again, were we to suppose, that the apostle, from his grief of heart for his countrymen, and ardent desire of their salvation, expresses himself rather rashly here, or beyond the real deliberate wish of his heart, how shall we reconcile this with his solemn declaration, ver. 1.? The utmost therefore that we can suppose the apostle to mean is this, That he was willing to endure the greatest temporal suffering and even death itself, if it could be of any avail to the salvation of his countrymen; which is similar to what he says, Philip. ii. 17. My only objection to this sense is, that I never find the sufferings of the apostles, nor even their martyrdom expressed by their being accursed from Christ; on the contrary, our Lord pronounces such blessed.

Others are of opinion, that this wish is expressive of Paul's state of mind before his conversion; that then, when he was breathing out slaughter against the church, such was his hatred of Christ, that he was wishing to be accursed or separated from him, and to have no part or interest in him; and that his experience of such a state of mind, made him commiserate his countrymen who still continued in the same aversion to Christ.But I have two objections against this gloss. 1. I cannot recollect any passage of Scripture where aversion to any object is expressed by a wish to be accursed from it. -2. I cannot see how this sense answers the apostle's purpose, which is to show his great concern and affection for his brethren, his

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