I charge you to remember that your practices and motives are known to Jehovah. The Lord has been here, and has witnessed the intents and desires of your inmost souls. You have been warned, but if the warning has proved ineffectual, and you go on in your uubelief until overtaken by the messenger of death, eternal condemnation inevitably awaits you. Many here present have been the regular attendants on this evening's service during the period of my labours, but, alas! how few are there of the number who are walking as we desire to see you walk.

"My brethren, on parting I wish my own sentiments on one point to be explicitly declared. As regards popularity in preaching, from my heart I disclaim it as far as regards the least, the most incipient desire ever to have attained it. You-nay, the whole parish without exception, the entire borough, I do not hesitate to affirm, is the witness, and after my departure hence will continue to be a witness, that if there is any one thing which I have avoided, which I have never courted directly or indirectly, it is a vain popularity. Perhaps there is no individual in the parish who has led a life of greater retirement; I have been entirely abstracted from the world; never have I been found in worldly society, partaking of worldly frivolities; in no respect whatever have I sought your flattery; as I have never courted the favour of the authorities, but have boldly proclaimed the truth even when the truth has occasioned offence, so, in maintaining principles, your favour has never been desired-not the mere popular favour, the favour of a fleeting hour. It is of importance that this statement should be thoroughly known. It were affectation on my part did I attempt to disown the fact that in the providence of God popularity has been obtained. The present assemblage affords evidence of the fact, and the regularly large congregations which it has been my privilege, nearly ever since the period of my first sojourning amongst you, to address from Sabbath to Sabbath, corroborate the fact. But popularity in itself is vanity; it is often accompanied with vexation of spirit. That you, brethren, have flocked to this church, that you have pressed upon my ministry, that you have waited upon me in private, seeking counsel, asking advice, that you have been brought to respect me, to love me, and to cherish me, it may be an offence in the estimation of some-it is a gratification to me; but it has never been courted, and it is a circumstance over which I have had no control whatever. "Large congregations, unless the members of those congregations receive the words of truth which the minister expounds, are useless to that minister. Of what avail will it be, brethren, either to you or myself, when time shall be no longer, that you have flocked from Sabbath to Sabbath to this place of worship, or that I have been permitted from Sabbath to Sabbath to speak the words of life-what will it avail either you or me unless our souls hereafter shall shine forth as the sun in the firmament, and as the stars for ever and ever? This is the point, believe me, I have ever had in view, viz. to bring souls to Christ. This will be the single desire of my heart wherever I may go; the same truths you have heard will henceforward be unfolded-souls must be brought to Christ, souls converted to Jesus, souls whom we may hail in the realms of bliss-ah! that is an object dear to every faithful minister.

"Oh then, let not these words prove as water spilt upon the ground. Your favour certainly I have not courted, but yet I have sought your eternal interest. As far as God has given me strength and ability, in the pulpit, out of the pulpit, in public and in private, I have laboured to prove as well in doctrine as in practice, that Jesus is the only Saviour, and that in him alone can you find substantial joys. Come then to Jesus-you who are still unconverted, come to Jesus. Let me have the consolation of knowing that God has put increasing honour upon my ministry by giving me souls this night as the fruit of my exertions. Come to Jesus, I entreat you. What avails otherwise, I once more ask, this vast assembly! I do not lightly esteem it; it may be a

harbinger of good. Jesus never preached, but he drew a congregation. Jesus was not in the habit of preaching to a few-multitudes went after Jesus. The whole land came out, as it were, to hear the words of Jesus. Jesus did not preach heterodoxy; Jesus preached truth. He spake as never man spake before; consequently, it does not follow that, because a minister is popular, and because he has large congregatious, therefore his doctrine is unsound. If we may judge from Scripture, the very reverse proves to be the fact. Jesus preached to multitudes, and because he spake with power, (for the truth of God of necessity emanated from his lips) souls were converted and brought home to the Shepherd of Israel. Even so, every faithful ambassador who is bold and honest in the cause of God experiences the presence of God; sinners receive from his lips the words of life; they become, through his labours, more circumspect, more considerate, more anxious, more prayerful, and thus God, through human agency, works here and there until at length he accomplishes the number of his chosen people.

"I say, then, that this crowded assembly may prove a harbinger of good. You, my brethren, have now heard the words of warning; you have been entreated to consider, to examine, to search and enquire whether your souls have undergone a moral and spiritual change. Once again, I press this point upon you. If you are not converted, seek the beginning this night. The Spirit and the bride say, Come; let him that heareth say, Come; let him that is athirst come; whosoever will let him take the water of life freely.' Dear people, why do you linger-why are ye halting between two opinions-why will ye not approach the streams of life-why will ye not be found on your knees this evening imploring mercy, and desiring to participate in the grace of Jesus. O why should you hesitate! There is room in paradise; there is mercy; there is love with Jesus.-Jesus speaks to the conscience-Jesus would speak to the heart. 'Him that cometh unto me,' he saith, I will in no wise cast out.' No, brethren, Jesus, God's eternal Son, left the eternal throne, the throne of glory; Jesus sped his way to the habitation of mortals; Jesus came to the world to seek and to save that which was lost. Come at once to Jesus. Come that you may have peace, come that you may have light, come that you may have joy, come that you may have a foretaste of heaven, come, that with your fellow pilgrims, you, oh you, my people, may run that heavenward course which terminates in unceasing blessedness. Yes, come; Jesus invites, and the Spirit of God would even now persuade.

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"Finally, brethren, we commend you to God, praying that you may receive the word of truth, and be enrolled amongst the number of those who have known the power of converting grace. And, as for you, dear believers, ye chosen servants of the Lord, whom the Lord hath gathered to his fold, we commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance amongst all them which are sanctified.' Therefore, my brethren, dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved.'

"The sermon occupied exactly one hour and fifty minutes in its delivery. It is almost superfluous to state that it was listened to with the deepest attention by the vast multitude assembled on the occasion. Its thrilling appeals and nervous and awakening exhortations evidently produced intense feelings of emotion in the breasts of many; and it will be long-very long, we venture to state, before the farewell address of this able and faithful minister be effaced from the recollections of any of those who heard it." Pp. 11-14.

The Prelatical Doctrine of the Apostolical Succession Examined, and the Protestant Ministry Defended against the Assumptions of Popery and High-Churchism, in a Series of Lectures. By THOMAS SMYTH, Pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church, Charleston, S.C. Boston: Crocker and Brewster; New York: 1841, 8vo. Pp. 568.

This is not a work to be disposed of in a mere Critical Notice. It deserves, as we propose in our next Number to give it, a more ample consideration. Had it come into our hands in sufficient time, we should have performed that office in our present Number. But we cannot permit so long a period to pass by, as must necessarily elapse before we have another opportunity to address our readers, without recommending the work to all who take an interest in the questions it discusses. These questions are rising in importance every day, and are destined, we are most firmly persuaded, to convulse not only Britain, but the world. This is not the vision of a day dreamer. Already has the beginning of the end" arrived. Already has the question of the apostolical succession begun to agitate the remotest dependencies of the empire. The loud note of warning sounded by the Bishop of Calcutta (best known to our readers as Daniel Wilson, the evangelical vicar of Islington), the nervousness of that tremour, which is but too manifest in every charge he addresses to his own clergy, and in his letters to Europe, coupled with intelligence transmitted by missionaries of all denominations, render it but altogether too evident that this anticatholic and antichristian assumption upon the part of the prelatic emissaries, will shake, and that right early too, all our Christian institutions in the extreme East. Our colonial possessions in the West, whether insular or continental, as we gather from the public press, and from private letters from our ministers there, which have come into our hands, are at this moment agitated through all their stations, by prelatic bigotry, intolerance, and apostolic pretensions. In the United States of America, from the remote east to the "Far West," the exclusive and excommunicating pretensions to apostolical succession put forth so offensively by the meagre, shrivelled, but noisy and ambitious prelatic sect, bids fair, in a few years, to concentrate upon itself the interest which is at present dissipated over a multiplicity of other questions, civil and religious, and shake the Union by a ruder shock than it has experienced since the war of independence.

The present volume is one of the first fruits of the controversy in America. Mr Smyth, with whom we became acquainted a few years ago through the medium of his admirable "Ecclesiastical Catechism of the Presbyterian Church," was roused to study the controversy by the hierarchical assumptions, the arrogant bigotry, the anathematizing intolerance, and the proselytizing zeal, universally manifested by his Prelatic countrymen. Unestablished though the Prelatic sect in America be, republicau as are all its members in profession, at least, the arrogance, intolerance, and pride of the Anglican Church are there displayed in as hyperbolical and bloated a form as even Laud himself ever put forth. Prelacy, in fact, account for it as we will, has demonstrated in every page of its history, that it is as great an enemy to charity, as destructive of brotherly love and peace, and as inconsistent with liberty of conscience or toleration, as Popery itself. Jealous of the attitude assumed by this sect, and zealous for the faith once delivered to the saints, Mr Smyth was induced to examine the basis upon which such lofty pretensions are supposed to rest; and the present volume is the first fruits of his labours. The work has been already most favourably received, not only among Presbyterians, but also among all other Protestant denominations in America. The Synod of South Carolina and Georgia have issued a resolution, declaring their high approbation of the work, and “cordially recommending it to all our ministers, elders, and private

members." To this expression of high approbation we most heartily respond. This cordial recommendation we feel very great pleasure at having the privilege to reiterate to our brethren in this country. The work is decidedly the best manual of the Prelatic controversy in its present phasis, we have had an opportunity of consulting. The works of our own Calderwoods, Jamesons, Lauders, Andersons, &c., altogether admirable and unanswerable as, even by our most learned and skilful antagonists they were found to be, are yet unsuited to the controversy in its present phasis, although in their main positions as impregnable as ever. The works of our Anglican and continental brethren, even the great master works of Blondel and Salmasins, labour under the same disadvantage, as, indeed, must necessarily happen with replies to controversial works. But the work before us being a reply to works that have appeared within the present century, and principally, indeed, within the last few years, is literally a work for the " Times." Whoever would study the Prelatic controversy, as maintained by the most learned Prelatists of the day, let him by the next steamer order Smyth's Lectures on the Apostolical Succession. The man who possesses this work needs no other. It is full to satiety of extracts from the most popular Prelatic publications both Anglican and American. We shall feel ashamed of our country, or rather of her degenerate sons, if the work has not a wide circulation amongst us. And were we not totally ignorant of the mysteries of "the trade," we would recommend a large importation to meet the very large demand that we are sure must be made for it.

Shiloh's Sceptre, or the Signs of the Times. By the Rev. THOMAS WATSON, M.A., Minister of St Philip's, Granville Square. Second Edition. London: James Nisbet & Co., 1843.

Full of Christ from first to last-both his sufferings and his glory. It is an able, Scriptural, spiritual, well-written volume. With some things to dissent from, we find more to concur with, and therefore commend it to our readers, adding merely the following quotation:

"It may be well here to introduce, previous to the Lord's second coming, the various signs already fulfilled, or now fulfilling, as enumerated by an able American writer, though we can only do it in a summary way:

"1. The universal proclamation of the everlasting gospel; this gospel shall be preached in all the world as a witness.

2. The pentecostal effusion of the Spirit, or the last reign of grace. "3. The general diffusion of knowledge, both sacred and civil.

4. The growing disposition for the accumulation of wealth, Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.'

5. The increase of infidelity, Where is the promise of his coming?' &c. “6. Perilous times, This know also, that in the last days, perilous times shall come.'

"7. Apostacies from the professed faith of the gospel, Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times, some shall depart from the faith.' "8. The dispersion of the Jews, They shall be led away captive into all natious, and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled.'

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"9. The aspect of the political world, as prophesied by St John, And I saw three unclean spirits,' &c.; and the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell.' That these spirits are political, is evident from the fact, that they come out of the mouth of the dragon, (kings), and beast, (catholic), and false prophet, (Mahommedan, or infidelity), and unclean, signifying they are not holy things.

"10. The church in the wilderness, And the woman fled into the wilder

ness, where she had a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and three-score days.'

"After having mentioned many others, more or less striking, he sums up the whole with the following impressive remark, There seems to be something almost intuitive, that carries conviction to the minds of the discerning of all classes, that an event unprecedented in character is just bursting upon us. That event, from the word of God, and the signs of the times, is evidently, the glorious appearing of our Lord, who will come in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory, to be admired in all them that believe in that day,' and to receive his ransomed bride home. Ye saints of the Most High, lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh.' It is an event too, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that obey not the gospel,' (2 Thess. i. 7, 8.) O impenitent man, or woman, where will you be, when the voice of the archangel and trump of God shall rend the heavens, and the distant realms shall echo back the sound, The great day of his wrath is come!' when the atmosphere shall be ignited into a universal flame, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; when the earth and the works therein shall be burnt up! Unless you repent, believe, and obey the gospel, your doom will be fearful! God has given us warnings of his approaching judgments! Why not take warning from the past? You have examples-think of the world in the days of Noah, Sodom, Gomorrah, Jerusalem, &c. God has appointed a day in which He will judge the whole world. Can ye not discern the signs of the times? God's word shall not fail. Do not presume; but oh, be warned; repent; fly, fly, for refuge to the Lord Jesus Christ-the ark of safety. By the mercies of God, the love of the Saviour-the worth of the soul-the desire of heaven-the 'terrors of hell-by all that is soul-inspiring, be persuaded to fly, and tarry not in all the plain, but escape for thy life!"""

Now, if we are real Christians, and the gospel has come to us not in word only, but also in power and much assurance, if we truly possess what we profess with the lips, then the conclusion is inevitable-we are looking forward to the period, when Christ shall come, and time shall be no longer, as a faithful wife to the return of her husband; as the sea-tossed mariner to his native shores; or the weary pilgrim to his home; and the nearer the hour of their arrival the more glowing is the hope! But the all-important question again presents itself, are we real Christians? Every thing in prospect turns upon this inquiry;-a diamond is intrinsically valuable, provided it be the real stone; but what if it prove to be a counterfeit? Just so, the worth of our common Christianity is the measure of its soundness; if the precious jewels of untold price be wanting, viz. Christ, grace, and the effectual operations of the Spirit—if the new birth, and new life-the entire new man, after God created in righteousness and true holiness, and who is justly styled, God's workmanship, God's building, then there is nothing in earth, or in heaven, that will be found to make up for the deficiency. The future condition of man depends wholly upon his present time-state, and it is impossible for any to be saved hereafter, unless they have already become the subjects of that saving change, of which the Lord speaks in the gospel by St John, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.'" Pp. 94-97.

Brief Expositions of the Epistles to the Seven Churches of Asia. By the Rev. R. M'CHEYNE: being_notes taken by a hearer at the weekly prayer-meeting in St Peters, Dundee. Dundee: Middleton, 1843.

These are very interesting fragments from the weekly expositions of one