of the justice of Christ, and planteth us in Christ,) and he that by true faith doth receive the promise of grace, to him God giveth the Holy Ghost, by whom charity is spread abroad in our hearts which performeth all the commandments. Therefore, he that believeth in Christ, and truly believeth the gospel, he is just and holy before God, by the justice of Christ, which is imputed and given unto him, as Paul saith: We think that man is justified by faith without works.' He is also just before the world, because of the love and charity which the Holy Ghost worketh in his heart.

"Secondly, faith worketh peace and quietness in our hearts and consciences. For by faith we be certain that our sins be forgiven. Therefore saith St. Paul to the Romans, Being justified, we have peace and quietness with God by our Lord Jesus Christ.'

6

"Thirdly, this peace bringeth unto us a great and singular joy in our hearts and consciences, and maketh us for this exceeding benefit of God's mercy and grace towards us, fervently to love him, gladly to laud and praise him, to honour his name, and to profess the same before all the world, evermore to give unto him most hearty thanks, and to be swift and ready to do all things that may please God, and to eschew those things that may displease him." (p. 234.)

It gave us pleasure to see that Mr. Miles is not ashamed of the unfashionable, but truly scriptural doctrines, of predestination, assurance, and final perseverance of the elect. He is not only not ashamed of them, but he brings most striking testimonies of our early Reformers, proving them to be scriptural and profitable.

The third chapter is on Baptismal Regeneration. There are many sensible and instructive remarks in this chapter. The readers of our Review will have seen in former numbers the views which we have taken upon this subject. Totally objecting to the destructive heresy that all the baptised then obtain spiritual regeneration, in its highest sense, as a real passing from death to life, we still think that the scriptures justify the use of the word regeneration in a lower sense, as introducing us into a new world of covenant and church privileges, a sense that may scripturally be applied, as it appears to be in our Church services, to all baptised children. But the fearful abuse of the term by Tractarians must be resisted with all our might, and Mr. Miles here puts much useful armour into our hands. The following passage from Cranmer is important :

"As in baptism, those that come feignedly, and those that come unfeignedly, both be washed with the sacramental water, BUT BOTH BE NOT WASHED WITH THE HOLY GHOST, AND CLOTHED WITH CHRIST; so in the Lord's Supper, both eat and drink the sacramental bread and wine, but both eat not Christ himself, and be fed with his flesh and blood, but those only which worthily receive the sacrament.'"-(p. 440.)

"God worketh wonderfully by his omnipotent power in the true receivers, not in the outward visible signs. For it is the person baptized, that is so regenerated, that he is made a new creature without any real alteration of the water.

... So that, as well in the Lord's Supper as in baptism, the marvellous working of God (passing the comprehension of all man's wit) is in the spiritual receivers, not in the bread, wine, and water, nor in the carnal and ungodly receivers. For what should it avail the lively members of Christ, that God

worketh in his dead and insensible creatures? But in his members he is present, not figuratively, but effectually; and effectually and ineffably worketh in them, nourishing and feeding them so wonderfully, that it passeth all wits and tongues to express.'"-(p. 441.)

He gives a quotation from Ridley, and thence draws a distinct inference that this Reformer did not hold baptism and regeneration to be inseparable:-

"How necessary then it is, if we love life and would eschew death, to try and examine ourselves before we eat of this bread and drink of this cup. For as none is meet to receive natural food, whereby the natural life is nour. ished, except he be born and live before; so no man can feed (by the receipt of the holy sacrament) of the food of eternal life, except he be regenerated and born of God before. Let this passage be attentively considered. Ridley is here admonishing the people. What people? the heathen? No: but the baptized people-a people baptized in their infancy by ministers episcopally ordained; and he warns them to examine themselves, not to see whether they are reformed, or walking virtuously, but lest, being unregenerated, although baptized, they should eat and drink their own damnation. No man,' says he,-that is, no baptized man, for Ridley is not discoursing of Jews, Mahometans, or Pagans, can feed (by the receipt of the holy sacrament) of the food of eternal life, except he be regenerated and born of God before.' Here then we command an irrefragable proof as to the sentiment of this learned and noble Reformer. With Cranmer, he considered that regeneration comes by baptism; as follows: The bread indeed sacramentally is changed into the body of Christ, as the water in baptism is sacramentally changed into the fountain of regeneration, and yet the material substance thereof remaineth all one, as was before.' But then he did not believe that baptism always produces regeneration." (pp. 447, 448.)

Our readers will now be more able to judge for themselves of the character and contents of this valuable contribution to the Idefence of Reformation-doctrines. Would that the members of our Church would for themselves patiently study a solid work like this, or that the students preparing for holy orders were well acquainted with the sentiments of our Reformers as here laid before them. They would not be so easily led captive by the vain imaginations and artful seductions of the Apostacy, and they would be more prepared earnestly to contend for the common salvation which our reformers proclaimed with fresh light and power, and to the truth of which they testified in the fires of martyrdom.

We will close this review with the awakening reflections with which Mr. Miles closes his work :

-

"There yet remains among the English community a strong attachment to the Church of their ancestors-the Church for whose purification Cranmer and Ridley were content to bleed; but we may tremble at the prospect that is before us. The prophetical scriptures warn believers to expect some dreadful issue as a precursor of the closing scene. Let us not deceive ourselves; let us not be lulled into a state of peace when the Lord may be apportioning sorrows; our nation has sinned, and why should not our nation be afflicted? (Jer. v. 29.) O that such apprehensions might disappear as threatening clouds before the rising sun! Yet I must repeat that our Church, and the

weal of our country, are at stake. The 'mischievous fopperies,' and the 'individual frivolities' practised by some of the Tractarian clergy are giving extraordinary offence to their flocks. The shameless manner in which the scriptures are perverted is augmenting the hostility. I do not believe,' says the astute Bishop of Ossory, that outside the Tracts (and the other publications of their authors), it would be easy to find such an example of handling the word of God-I will not say, deceitfully-but certainly with the most irreverent carelessness. . . . . In fact, I hardly regard even the grievous errors which the Tractarians have advocated, as likely in themselves to do more extensive injury than their mode of supporting them, and most of all the abuse of scripture to which they have inured a large class of readers.' Should these matters proceed much further, a decided and lamentable schism will inevitably occur. The people of Great Britain cannot respect such conduct in their spiritual leaders. The enlightened children of the Most High cannot follow their clergy through the mazes of erroneous doctrines. If the crisis arrives-if a part are determined for Rome, and if the remainder are as resolute for Protestantism, what awful calamities shall we not witness! The strength of Britain will depart, with the developement of a divided and distracted church. Her prowess will no longer be manifest-her energies will be paralysed her honour will be on the wane. Alas, for England! when popery and infidelity contend for the mastery! In the century of the Reformation, catholic Spain, gorged with the blood of the children of God, fell, overthrown by the arm of the Eternal; and reformed England took her place upon the throne of the seas, which has been justly called the throne of the world. The winds which engulphed the Armada drew this new power from the abyss. The country of Philip II., struck to the heart because she had struck the Lord's people, let fall from her hands the sceptre of the ocean; and the land of Elizabeth, strengthened by the word of God, found it floating upon the seas, seized and raised it, being called upon to use it to subject all the people of the earth to the King of heaven. It is the gospel which has given our antipodes to England. All that she possesses has been given her by the gospel. If the gospel dies in these illustrious isles, from the blows which Romanism and Puseyism now unite to give, then must be written upon their so long triumphant banner: ICHABOD, the glory of the Lord is departed.

"The perils of our nation do indeed invite the most serious thought. The horizons both of the political and religious hemispheres present many threatening clouds to the eye of the keen observer; and now, if ever, the inhabitants of this realm are bound to examine into the causes which already manifest so much evil. O that we could be faithful to ourselves, and watchful over our truest interests! Has not the curse of God been visibly settled upon popery? Look at the Continent-look at Spain-look at Ireland. Has not the blessing of God rested upon the glorious Reformation? Look at our own prosperous and beloved country; a country, notwithstanding her sins, still beloved and still prosperous. Shall we voluntarily relapse? Shall we suffer ourselves to be compulsorily dragged into the meshes, from which, through the exertions and sufferings of many saints, we were so happily delivered? Shall we return to popery? Shall we embrace a system allied to popery? Shall we henceforward assimilate ourselves, in doctrine and practice, with a Church exhibiting, as has been the case for centuries, the plainest marks of the indignation of heaven? Or, by tampering with the present Tractarian scheme, shall we consent to pave the way for the spiritual enthralment and moral degradation of our posterity? If the clergy apostatize, the laity must decide the matter for themselves. For, in the words of Bishop Barrington, As Protestants we are bound (from the king to the humblest of his subjects) by an imperious duty to the Reformation. If the Reformation was worth establishing, it is worth maintaining; and it can only be maintained by a

CONSTANT VIGILANCE IN SUPPORT OF THOSE PRINCIPLES WHICH EFFECTED IT in the sixteenth century.'"-(pp. 560-563.)

SHORT NOTICES.

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE AND OPINIONS OF FREDERICK WILLIAM III. KING OF PRUSSIA, as narrated by Bishop Eylert of the United Evangelical Church of Prussia. Translated by J. BIRCH. pp. 126. London: Hatchards. 1844.

We have not met with a modern publication more full of deeply interesting matter than what is contained in this brief work. It appears to be a selection from a larger volume. We trust that the whole work may hereafter be given to the English reader. We think it likely to be eminently useful to all classes, and especially to the highest classes in the state and in the Church. There is a freshness, a depth, a fulness, and a reality of thought in it peculiarly instructive.

Those who have read Alison's very touching account of the revival of the national and moral character of Prussia, while under the oppressive dominion of Napoleon, may here learn the secret springs of that revival, in the spiritual change which, through his trials, God wrought in the heart of the king in 1808 and 1809. We may learn also the vast importance of the religious character of the monarch to the real welfare of nations, and how vain is the theory that would so separate government and religion, as to hinder governors from giving their power and influence to the support of scriptural religion.

Dr. Borowsky was the honoured instrument used of God for producing this change in Frederick William the Third; and the king's account of it is well calculated to meet the infidel spirit of modern statesmen. It is as follows:

"The circumstances that led to the unfortunate times, when I, my house and people, were struck down, he sought not to gloss with opiative excuses, but frankly laid bare the fundamental causes, and placed them in the true colours before my eyes-not sparing me.

"Whatever he said was not the so-called submissive advice,-neither the well-intentioned counsel, where the adoption or non-adoption depended on my will and pleasure. No: all he said was clothed in biblical sentences, having the power of the will and commands of God-and I valued what he said as such.

"He made me conversant with prophetic theology, of which I was wholly ignorant until then. He proved to me, from the world's history and its annalled transactions, illumined by the light of biblical prophecy, that in conformity to the divine government of the world, a regenerated and improved people would always rise again, and that an immoral and arrogant people had ever been abased.

"With a serene and inspired confidence he announced to me better and

more happy times! fully convinced that the heavy dispensation that had befallen our country, if well turned and bravely borne, would prove the means and way to greater national prosperity than ever.

"If, in those awful times, big with the fate of Prussia, when all appeared dark and gloomy, I doubted-and fretfully asked after the how, where, and when? the good man displayed, in the most amiable manner, his discontent; -took hold of the button of my coat, patted me on the shoulder, shook me by the hand, and spoke with the earnestness and dignity of a Nathan: “You must learn to believe. It happens to man according to his faith." All this was factly and personally new to me; so had I never been addressed before." -(p. 14, 15.)

The following remarks will answer the error so unhappily advocated on a recent occasion by our prime minister :

:

"On one occasion, when council was held relative to a weighty matter about to be terminated, I permitted myself to remark-It appears to me to be desirable in a political point of view, and would give new and important combinations. He replied, I don't value that; such human calculations generally throw up minus instead of plus. So long as politics are nothing more than expediency, all political wisdom will concentrate in being cheated, only to be cheated again, owing to the mutability of men, things, and combinations; the probable does not take place, and the improbable is realized. "To do that which is right-to fear God and confidently trust in himis the best of all policy; that alone brings a blessing; at least, we preserve therein pureness of conscience :-If God be for us, who can be against us?'"-(pp. 28, 29.)

It appears from statistical tables, that the greatest number of children, in reference to population, in comparison with other countries, are receiving education in Prussia. The king's remarks on education are truly Christian, and very weighty:

"I could wish to see all my subjects happy; but no human being can be truly happy who is not good; and to be good from heart and soul, the tranquillizing, regenerating power of religion is indispensable. There can be no doubt about it, when the question relates to the connection in which man stands in respect of God; it is also true in respect of the connection between man and man; but in this instance, if those powers which are implanted in human nature by divine grace, do not awaken, urge, and vivify him, his natural powers will soon flag and lose strength.

"It is delusion to suppose that knowledge of the sciences and fine arts, is sufficient to make men good. To cultivate, to polish, to make agreeable,-O yes! but to make the heart pure and upright, true and stedfast! that must come from another quarter.

"Is religion not added, does it not in domestic and school instruction keep step for step with science,-is it not made the leading power, then does another power take possession of mankind; and that is the aboriginal power of self-love, which growing apace, produces the poisonous fruit, Egotism. Egotism then renders the intellectual powers sophistical and pettifogging; and strange to say, it singles out the most sagacious and learned, as the readier victims; it teaches them to play at bo-peep in a thousand ways; and the understanding so operated on, the individual loses character, and becomes crafty, sly, and deceitful. Everything born of egotism deteriorates man; that only which humbles him (Christianity), betters him. Culture of intellect, without moral ennoblement, poisons human society. It is like a bundle of figurantes, whose study is to cheat and deceive each other in the most courteous manner; still worse,-for cultivated minds practise like them decep