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To feed the Church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.

ACTS, xx. 28.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY S. GOSNELL, LITTLE QUEEN STREET, HOLBORN.

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Published by L. B. SEELEY, 169, Fleet Street; to whom Communications may be
sent (POST PAID), addressed "To the Editor of the Christian Guardian."

This Work may be procured regularly of any Bookseller or Newsman in the
United Kingdom.

BODLEIAT

29-9-1923

RARY

PREFACE.

WE are called upon at the end of another year to acknowledge with gratitude to God, and thankfulness to our numerous Friends and Correspondents, the measure of assistance and success which we have experienced.

During the whole of the year our labours have met with great encouragement. Our circulation has increased, and the testimonies of approbation received from various quarters are such as authorize us to hope that our work has not been in vain in the Lord. We are animated, therefore, to proceed with renewed vigour in that holy cause in which we have engaged, and trust that we shall still be supported by all who wish well to our Zion.

Circumstances, which it is not now necessary to explain, prevented our resuming the Short Character of Books so early as was intimated in the last year's Preface. Many, indeed, wished us to continue our Quarterly Supplement; but after giving this proposal a full and final consideration, we have been induced to revert to our original plan, and insert a half-sheet of Review in each succeeding number. In conducting this part of our Work, we have endeavoured to observe a medium between the lengthened articles of more expensive publications, and the meager statements which appear in some of the monthly journals. Our object is to comprise the review of every work which we notice within the limits of a single number; and we trust the reviews already inserted have both been conceived in a strict spirit of impartiality, and are calculated to assist our readers in forming a suitable idea of the principal religious publications which have lately appeared. In this part of our labours we especially need the assistance of others, and trust our numerous and valuable Correspondents will cheerfully vouchsafe their aid.

It has been our custom, on these occasions, to advert to the leading events of the year which has past; but, in a Christian point of view, the period has not been marked by any very novel

Occurrence. The question of Catholic Emancipation succeeded indeed in the House of Commons, but failed in the House of Peers; and though we conceive the dangers both to Church and State on this point are sufficient to excite apprehension, yet we trust, that, through God's mercy, the wisdom of our Nobles and Senators will still avail to prevent the fearful experiment from being tried.

The distresses of the Sister Island are, indeed, great; and at the moment we are writing, fresh tidings of horror are announced from that devoted country. But if Ireland is to be saved, if she is to be rescued from that wretched state of moral degradation to which she is reduced, it must be effected, not by sanctioning and encouraging the mummeries of Roman Catholic superstition, but by pouring forth on her dark and benighted shores a torrent of Christian light, of sound morality, of enlarged and extensive benevolence. It is to the labours of Bible and School Societies we look, and to the efforts of holy and devoted men, who, however despised in some circles and feared in others, are shining as lights in that long-neglected land. May their numbers be exceedingly increased!

We have to congratulate our Readers on the steady progress of the Bible, the Missionary, and the Jewish cause. Trials, indeed, and disappointments in each department occasionally arise to exercise the faith and patience of those who are actively engaged in them; but if in one quarter, as for instance in Greece, their progress is for a time impeded, in others, as in South America, the door is opened to still more extensive success; if death or defection remove some of their instruments, others rise up and enrol themselves under their holy banners. The work of the Lord still gains ground, and each succeeding period furnishes fresh motives for praise and gratitude, and encourages us still more to pray, "Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children; and let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it."

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FOUR FIRST DECADES OF THE REIGN OF GEORGE THE THIRD.

[Continued from Vol. XII. Page 486.]

8. WHILE those who entertain the high Predestinarian notions, not without a mixture of personal enthusiasm, are often led into sectarian feelings, which in a greater or less degree are opposed to the genuine spirit of the Gospel; they are nevertheless on the platform of Christianity, and at intervals experience such counteraction, so to speak, from the fire of divine love, as enables them to rise above the technicalities of system, and glow with affections superior to the narrowness of favouritism. But the charity affected by the supporters of what is called "Rational Christianity" is a false principle. It is a compound of infidelity, conceit, and selfishness.. It professes to open its arms to all who are sin cere in their respective modes; to pity the credulity of the orthodox, whom it considers as idolaters; and to promise salvation to all who regret their past offences, and make satisfaction to the best of their power. It takes credit to itself, meanwhile, for an enlargement of heart, while that heart is too cold and too dead to embrace the animating and genial sublimities of the Gospel. Impenetrable to the affecting testimony which the Father hath given of the Son, they treat as fabulous what they cannot CHRIST. GUARD. VOL. XIII.

rob that Son of his Godhead, and deny the grace of his redemption, than submit to the humiliating truths of his merciful revelation. So true is that rule of the Apostle: "If our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost; in whom the god of this world hath blinded the eyes of them that believe not."

The Antichristian leaven, which fermented even in the day of St. John, now gave rise to a lengthened controversy on the person of the Messiah. It began by the publication of Dr. Priestley, entitled, "A History of the early Corruptions of Christianity." The plausible author endeavoured to make it appear that the light of divine truth had been gradually obscured from the time of the Apostles. The admission of Platonists into the Christian communion was represented as the source of the evil. Corruption began by the doctrine of the Trinity, and more particularly of the divinity of Christ, which was followed by those of the necessity of the sacraments to salvation, worship of martyrs, and the atonement. The increase in the number of esteemed sacraments, with the predominance of Popery, were the topstones of this fabric of error. It is obvious that a work of this nature was calculated to be exceedingly injurious to the purity of Christian faith. It required considerable acquaintance with patristic theo

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