THE BIBLICAL REPOSITORY AND CLASSICAL REVIEW. THIRD SERIES, NO. XIII.—WHOLE NUMBER, XLIX. JANUARY, 1848. CONTENTS OF VOL. IV., NO. I.-THIRD SERIES. VII. A PLEA FOR LIBRARIES, WITH ESPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE WANTS OF WESTERN INSTITUTIONS, By REV. N. PORTER, JR., Prof. Moral Philosophy, Yale College. THE BIBLICAL REPOSITORY AND CLASSICAL REVIEW. THIRD SERIES, NO. XIII-WHOLE NUMBER, XLIX. JANUARY, 1848. ARTICLE I. ECCLESIASTICAL DISCOVERIES OF THE PURITANS. By REV. GEO. B. CHEEVER, D. D., New York. 1. A History of the Work of Redemption, including a Church History in a method entirely new. By JONATHAN EDWARDS, Pastor of a Church in Northampton. 2. Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, with elucidations. By TнOMAS CARLYLE. New York. Wiley & Putnam. 3. The Protector: A Vindication. By J. H. MERLE D'AUBIGNE. New York. Robert Carter. 4. Neal's History of the Puritans. Edited by JOHN O. CHOULES, A. M. New York. Harper & Brothers. MEN seeking God earnestly for themselves, always find him for others. This is the case both with individuals and nations. This is one reason why our blessed Lord, when his disciples returned from their novel and difficult mission with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject to us through thy name, simply and solemnly answered, after assuring them that Satan's power was indeed broken, Notwithstanding, in this rejoice not, that the devils are subject to you, but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven. Take heed to your own holiness and salvation, for thus only can you conquer Satan, by conquering yourselves. One of our elder poets has said that It "Only he who knows Himself, knows more." may be added, that only he who saves himself, saves more. God never saves one alone, but others; and the fountain of power is through individual experience, individual baptism of the soul in fire. A man like Henry Martyn, Brainard, Edwards, Payson, THIRD SERIES, VOL. IV. NO. 1. 1 setting out in such fire after God, builds, with the flame of his own spirit, a chariot of glory, that takes multitudes to heaven. Just so, a nation, seeking God truly for itself, discovers principles and lays foundations, for the salvation of a world. Almost the whole aim of the Puritans was to find God. In this search, passing almost into the Theocracy of the Hebrews of old, by the consuming energy of the impulse with which they started, they discovered principles, or rather wrought them out into noticeable and practicable form, by reason of the ignorance or perversion of which, the whole world, and even the Christian world, had lain in bondage. Starting for salvation themselves, they worked out liberty for others. It was only by degrees that they began themselves to see what great things God might be doing through them; and it is thus that God has made the record of their history more full of himself, a more unmingled shining light of his providence and grace, than almost any other record, out of the Scriptures, in the history of man. The relation in which the work first named at the head of this article stands to those that follow will be recognised at once. It is like an announcement of the true system of the universe in comparison with after investigations concerning particular planets. The work on the History of Redemption was a very grand conception in the mind of Edwards-simple and grand, a view of God's plan almost as by revelation, so comprehensive, so illimitable. Butler's Analogy and Edwards's History of Redemption are two very different works, and yet in many respects very similar; both of them wonderfully acute and comprehensive reductions of vast systems within the scope of common minds. But if Edwards's work had had the felicity of being completed by himself according to his first great conception of it, and published by himself with his own final, best judgment, long considered, long elaborated, it might have been the greatest of the two productions. The title which Mr. Erskine gave to it was as follows: "A History of the work of Redemption, containing the outlines of a Body of Divinity, including a view of Church History, in a method entirely new." The newest thing in this "method entirely new," was not so much the arrangement, as the design and accomplished fact of letting God be seen and not man, or rather God above man, God directing man, and disposing of him and his affairs for the great end of Redemption. The Divine, and not the human, comes out in such a history, or the human only as subordinate to the Divine, and for its purposes. All history is to be viewed in this light, and in its connexon with the scheme, which the mind of Edwards beheld and delineated as the soul and end of all things. Not only God's providence is to be investigated and displayed, but in every part it is to be connected with the onward progress |