This grace is supplied through the "means of grace;" these are the channels through which it flows into the hearts of the saints. The Spirit imparts the needed gifts, but only through the instituted ordinances of religion. To them attention must be given; and how delightful the thought, that in approaching the "throne of grace," in reading the "word of grace," in listening to "the grace of God which bringeth salvation," in "singing with grace," in using speech, "seasoned with grace," I may obtain more grace, receive larger measures of light, and love, and joy, and, in fact, "find grace to help me in every time of need." My necessities are ever present, urgent, great, so must my faith and prayerfulness, and hope be unceasing. My spiritual life is as dependent on God as my natural life. Without incessant aid I must sink and die; without spiritual help, my new nature would faint and expire. Life, safety, peace, happiness are all involved in my attention to the means through which alone the divine bounty is dispensed, the required grace is communicated.

The measure of its bestowment is regulated by infinite wisdom and divine sovereignty. "To every one is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ." To all is imparted grace according to their exigencies, and as those exigencies arise. "And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace." This grace has been given on account of grace, for grace's sake. "To him that hath shall be given;" and moreover has been supplied, in succession and measure, as the case has required. Grace for direction, support, consolation, or perseverance has been, and is being received, and will continue to be supplied according to the "Good pleasure of Him who hath accepted us in the beloved"" He giveth more grace." The passage involves a promise and pledge of the divine faithfulness to the future supply of grace. The resources of the divine beneficence are inexhaustible, and the determinations of infinite love are unchangable. The history of grace confirms the hopes of grace. Promises fulfilled are the pledges of future supplies. "He is faithful that hath promised."-How precious his words. "They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength." "The Lord will bless his people with peace." "I am thy God, I will strengthen thee, I will keep thee, yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness." "Cast thy burden on the Lord," and He will sustain it. "Call on me in the day of trouble and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me." "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee." Who then can doubt that "more grace" will be given in days to come? Let us throw our fears to the wind. The work of grace was commenced in order to be completed, and "he that hath begun the good work, will perform it till the day of Jesus Christ." Grace is the earnest of glory. It is the germ, the bud of immortality; it is the dawn of celestial day, and will increase in brightness till the full splendour of eternity reveal the magnificence of glory. 'The Lord will perfect that which concerneth him."

"The

path of the just is as the shining light, which shineth brighter and brighter unto the perfect day." "He will give grace and glory." Animated by such promises and hopes why should I yield to doubt or despair? My trials may be heavy, my temptations strong, my enemies powerful, and my spiritual conflicts long and harassing; but these are not incompatible with a state of grace, nor can they prevent the supplies of grace. "He giveth more grace" is a divine sentiment, designed to meet my case and encourage my hopes. Relying then on divine grace, and constantly imploring the help of grace, I will proceed in the path of duty, and in the way to glory. I will leave my salvation in the hand of my Redeemer, delighted with the assurance that the work of faith shall be completed, and that my Heavenly Father will never leave me till he has placed my feet in the realms of eternal day.

"Grace will complete what grace begins,

To save from sorrows and from sins;
The work that wisdom undertakes
Eternal mercy ne'er forsakes."

THE JEW.

[We select the following little poem from an unpretending volume written by a gentleman connected with one of our churches, entitled, Important Truths in Simple Verse; being a Collection of Original Poems on Religious and Miscellaneous Subjects, for the use of Young Persons," and, which in our judgment, deserves a place in our Nursery Libraries beside the Songs of Dr. Watts, the Hymns for Infant Minds, and the Original Poems of the Taylor Family.]

I cannot treat the outcast Jew
With insult or with scorn,
With pity I would rather view
A being so forlorn.

Though we in faith may disagree

Our nature is the same, And on our kindest sympathy He hath a brother's claim.

Whatever spirit may be his

I'll show him love is mine,
And thus that my religion is
More holy and divine.

Although a child of scorn and shame,
Degraded and abhorred,

He is a son of Abraham

The favoured of the Lord.

"Twas Jews that wrote the Word of God,

The Saviour was a Jew,

The prophets were of Jewish blood,
And the apostles too.

Then let me never dare despise

His nation or his race,
But view his fate with pitying eyes,
And mourn o'er his disgrace.

Though now degraded and reviled,
The hour is hastening on
When God, his father, reconciled,
Will raise his outcast son.

Low at the great Redeemer's feet
Adoring he shall fall,
And Christ as his Messiah greet,
And on his mercy call.

I'll pray that thus he soon may rise,
To joy and heaven restored,
And learn from him how dreadful 'tis
To sin against the Lord,

REVIEWS.

1.-Unitarianism Confuted: A series of Lectures delivered in Christ Church, Liverpool, in 1839. By Thirteen Clergymen of the Church of England.

2.-Unitarianism Defended: A series of Lectures by Three Protestant Dissenting Ministers of Liverpool, 1839.

THE Liverpool clergymen are certainly not to be charged with want of zeal. Seldom has the faith been deposited in hearts more thoroughly warlike. Every form and species of heresy receives from them its due measure of rebuke and condemnation. They realise the conception of a "church militant." Against Popery, they are peculiarly indignant and active. It is but justice to say that the Popery, in their own church, under the name of Puseyism, is not suffered altogether to escape. Indeed we are inclined to think that they and their brethren, in attacking Rome, really mean to assail Oxford. It is not at all unlikely, that, well knowing that whatever force their invectives and arguments may possess, must prove as "great" a "discouragement" to the "man of sin" within, as without their ecclesiastical community, they wish in opposing the external error, to destroy the internal. This view of the case is borne out by the remarkable increase of zeal against Popery, which has taken place since the rise of Puseyism, and by the few and feeble attempts which have been directly made to check the latter evil by church of England protestants. If the No-Popery movement be not in reality directed against Puseyism, how can they vindicate the impartiality of their hatred to error, or the strength or wisdom of their love to their own church?

But Popery is not the only enemy which the Liverpool clergymen endeavour to destroy. Dissenters though they be from others--they expose dissent from themselves as a great and incalculable evil; and however much they hate and condemn the "political" character of their religious opponents, they have discovered the art of meddling even with politics, without injury to their religion, or inconsistency with their office!

Their lectures against Unitarianism in 1839, are a proof of their determination to assail error, of every class, and, we are sorry to add, of the superiority of their general orthodoxy to their prudence and Christian spirit. We have no sympathy with Unitarianism. Our belief of its want of essential truth, of moral power, of suitableness to human nature in its present state, increases as our study of it proceeds. Still we esteem it a system of error, that requires for its overthrow a rare combination of learning, intelligence, and charity. Unitarians are not the men to be bullied and frightened into orthodoxy. The state of mind which their system indicates and generates, is far removed from the

reach of any thing but argument. And the argument that Unitarianism demands to eradicate it, is not a superficial and easy one; it never has been, and it is now less so than ever. It strikes its roots deep in the philosophy of our nature. The controversy is not a matter of mere criticism-though critical abilities and acquirements of no trifling order, have been, and must be, employed in it. The interpretation of Scripture is only a part of the process it involves, and from the ground taken by Unitarians, but a secondary part. The question with them is not so much, "What saith the Scripture?" as "What saith mental and moral philosophy?" The writings of Channing and Martineau, Fox and White, are filled more with rational and moral objections against Trinitarianism, than with critical ones. It is assailed as being inconsistent not only with God's written revelation in the Bible, but with his living revelation in man, and we hope that this fact will tend, in some measure, to promote amongst the advocates of evangelical truth, the too much neglected study of metaphysical and ethical science.'

The Liverpool clergymen are deficient here. They seem, for the most part, neither to have understood the system, nor the advocates of the system they attacked. Accustomed to fight without opposition, they concocted a course of lectures, to which they invited the notice of Unitarians, without seeming to think of the possibility of reply; and one of them actually makes a long and ludicrous complaint, that advantages should have been taken by their opponents of the opportunity which they themselves had given, for the purpose of defending their heresies. The lectures do not deal with Unitarianism in its source. Some of them are highly respectable in matter and manner as discussions of the Scriptural questions, but none of them discusses any thing else or, at least, with force. They are the productions of divines, not philosophers. We say nothing of the stiff and technical character which the truth is made to wear in many of them, an evil incident to minds not very vigorous and free, and paying profound respect to human creeds-nor of the numerous specimens they contain of weak thought and vapid composition-our main grief is that they leave Unitarianism untouched in its essential grounds, the plan of the lectures not allowing their discussion. Dr. Tattershall's Defence of the Scripture Canon, Mr. Byrth's Exposure of the Improved Version, and Messrs. M'Neile's and Buddicom's Advocacy of the Atonement, are much the best things in the volume.

The Unitarian lectures present a great contrast every way. Indeed, it would be difficult to bring together combatants of more thorough dissimilarity than the authors of these volumes. On the one side, a dry and logical maintenance of a theological system, including a set defence of the Athanasian creed-on the other, a stern denial that Christianity was intended to bear a dogmatic character at all; on the one side, the clear, simple, dignified, church of England style of composition-on

the other, such fervour, vivacity and imagination, that it is easy to forget, in many parts, that you are reading a controversy.

Mr. Martineau is evidently the presiding genius. It is difficult to convey a due sense of the rich and varied excellencies which he possesses, and we look upon it as not one of the least important fruits of this controversy, that it has revealed to more public notice a man so truly intellectual and generous. He is the English Channing, though, in our view, very superior, in some respects, to the American Unitarian. His mind invests his system with a fascination not its own, breathes into it a breath of life, and causes wonder that the skeleton forms of his theological ideas can be so clothed with beauty and impregnated with power. What might such a mind become under the influence of a fuller and more energetic faith? Mr. M. however is far enough removed from Trinitarianism. He hates it with a perfect hatred. He bases his dislike to it on all possible grounds-critical, metaphysical, and moral. But from his ability to perceive, and readiness to admit some goodness and usefulness in it, his singular freedom from sectarian bias, his courageous pursuit of truth, and even his deep admiration of God and love of men, which now, he thinks, compels and warrants his disbelief, we cannot forego the hope that the truth, as it is in Jesus, may shed upon a mind so fitted to reflect it brightly on its fellows, the glory that excelleth.

The Unitarianism which Messrs. Martineau, Thorn, and Giles maintain, is excessively meagre. It is natural religion. It involves nothing which may not, in their opinion, be discovered without a revelation. The Bible, according to them, adds no new ideas to the religion of unaided reason in its best estate, although it confirms, refines, and diffuses old ones. They regard Jesus Christ not as discovering any truths, which men could not discover without him, but as embodying and expressing conceptions, of God and men, duty and recompense, which may be formed and held without faith in Christianity. Of course the difference between them and Deists may be, not a difference as to the matter of religious truth, but only as to whether God has interposed in a certain manner to substantiate and enforce it.

There are two things very observable-first, that the lecturers diminish the worth and extent of revealed religion-and, secondly, that they exaggerate the value of natural religion. They attach to the one too little, and to the other two much importance. Revealed religion is put on the bed of Procrustes and shortened; natural religion is put on it and stretched out; and the result of the amputation and the extension is, that both are very much of a length.

The doctrines of the Trinity, the Atonement, Satanic Influence, Everlasting Punishment, Justification by faith, are not merely denied, but declared beyond the possibility of proof. Neither God nor man is allowed to prove them. After describing the Atonement, Mr. Martineau says—