his decease he requested one of his family to write down for him in a book the following sentence: None but Christ, none but Christ, said Lambert dying at a stake; the same, in dying circumstances, with his whole heart, saith Richard Cecil.' The name was signed by himself, with his left hand, in a manner hardly legible through infirmity." ful acknowledgments to their pious mothers, as the instruments, under the grace and blessing of God, of winning them to himself, let no woman of faith and prayer despair respecting even her most untoward child. Mr. Cecil's MERE ADMIRERS should feel what a weight of responsibility his ministry and his character have laid them under. They gave Such was Mr. Cecil. I sincerely regret that him the ear, but he labored for the heart. some masterly observer did not both enjoy and They were pleased with the man, but he prayed improve opportunities of delineating a more that they might become displeased with themperfect picture of his great mind. I have, selves. They would aid him in his schemes, however, faithfully detailed the impressions but he was anxious that they should serve his which his character made on me during a long Master. How soon must they meet him at course of affectionate admiration of him; nor that judgment-seat before which all must aphave I shrunk from intermingling such re-pear, to receive according to what they have marks, as every faithful observer must find done in the body, whether good or evil! occasion to make while he is watching the unfoldings of the best and greatest of men. CHRISTIAN PARENTS, and particularly CHRISTIAN MOTHERS, may gather from the history and character of our departed friend every possible encouragement to the unwearied care of their children. While St. Austin, Bishop Hall, Richard Hooker, John Newton, Richard Cecil, and many other great and eminent servants of Christ, have left on record their grate His SINCERE FRIENDS are called to imitate his example-to follow him as he followed Christto live above this vain world-to sacrifice every thing to the honor of Christ and the interests of eternity-to bear up under pain and weariness and anxiety, leaning on Almighty strength; till they join him in that world where weakness shall be felt no more! JOSIAH PRATT. REMAINS OF THE REV. RICHARD CECIL, M. A. REMARKS MADE BY MR. CECIL, CHIEFLY IN CONVERSATION WITH THE EDITOR, or in DISCUSSIONS WHEN HE WAS PRESENT. "Multa ab eo prudenter disputata, multa etiam breviter et commode dicta memoria On the Christian Life and Conflict. THE direct cause of a Christian's spiritual life, is union with Christ. All attention to the mere circumstantials of religion has a tendency to draw the soul away from this union. Few men, except ministers, are called, by the nature of their station, to enter much into these circumstantials :—such, for instance, as the evidences of the truth of religion. Ministers feel this deadening effect of any considerable or continued attention to externals: much more must private Christians. The head may be strengthened, till the heart is starved. Some private Christians, however, may be called on, by the nature of those circles in which they move, to be qualified to meet and refute the objections which may be urged against religion. Such men, as well as ministers, while they are furnishing themselves for this purpose, must acquiesce in the work which God appoints for them, with prayer and watchfulness. If they cannot always live and abide close to the ark, and the pot of manna, and the cherubim, and the mercy-seat: yet they are drawing the water and gathering the wood necessary for the service of the camp. But let their hearts still turn toward the place where the Glory resideth. THE history of a man's own le is, to himself, the most interesting history in the world, next to that of the Scriptures. Every man is an original and solitary character. None can either understand or feel the book of his own life like himself. The lives of other men are to him dry and vapid, when set beside his own. He enters very little into the spirit of the Old Testament, who does not see God calling on he says to the Jew, Thou shalt remember all the him to turn over the pages of this history when way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years. He sees God teaching the Jew to look THE Christian's fellowship with God is rather at the records of his deliverance from the Red a habit than a rapture. He is a pilgrim, who Sea, of the manna showered down on him from has the habit of looking forward to the light heaven, and of the Amalekites put to flight bebefore him he has the habit of not looking fore him. There are such grand events in the back; he has the habit of walking steadily in life and experience of every Christian, it may the way, whatever be the weather; and what-be well for him to review them often. I have, ever the road. These are his habits: and the Lord of the Way is his Guide, Protector, Friend, and Felicity. As the Christian's exigencies arise, he has a spiritual habit of turning to God, and saying, with the Church, "Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flocks to rest at noon." I have tried to find rest elsewhere. I have fled to shelters, which held out great promise of repose; but I have in some cases, vowed before God to appropriate yearly remembrances of some of the signal turns of my life. Having made the vow, I hold it as obligatory: but I would advise others to greater circumspection; as they may bring a galling yoke on themselves, which God designed not to put on them. TRUE grace is a growing principle. The Christian grows in DISCERNMENT: a child may play with a serpent; but the man gets as far from it as he can: a child may taste poison;versation. But is he, therefore, not different but the man will not suffer a speck of poison from other men? He is like another merchant near him. He grows in HUMILITY: the blade in the mere exterior circumstance, which is shoots up boldly, and the young ear keeps erect least in God's regard;-but, in his taste!—his with confidence: but the full corn in the ear views!-his science !-his hopes!-his happiinclines itself toward the earth, not because it ness! he is as different from those around him is feebler, but because it is matured. He grows as light is from darkness. He waits for the in STRENGTH: the new wine ferments and frets; coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, who never but the old wine acquires a body and a firmness. passes, perhaps, through the thoughts of those he talks with, but to be neglected and despised! TENDERNESS of conscience is always to be distinguished from scrupulousness. The conscience cannot be kept too sensible and tender: but scrupulousness arises from bodily or mental infirmity, and discovers itself in a multitude of ridiculous, and superstitious, and painful feelings. THE head is dull, in discerning the value of God's expedients; and the heart cold, sluggish, and reluctant, in submitting to them: but the head is lively, in the invention of its own expedients; and the heart eager and sanguine, in pursuit of them. No wonder, then, that God subjects both the head and the heart to a course of continual correction. EVERY man will have his own criterion in forming his judgment of others. I depend very much on the effect of affliction. I consider how a man comes out of the furnace: gold will lie for a month in the furnace without losing a grain. And, while under trial, a child has a habit of turning to his father: he is not like a penitent, who has been whipped into this state it is natural to him. It is dark, and the child has nowhere to run, but to his father. DEFILEMENT is inseparable from the world. A man can nowhere rest his foot on it without sinking. A strong principle of assimilation combines the world and the heart together. There are, especially, certain occasions, when the current hurries a man away, and he has lost the religious government of himself. When the pilot finds, on making the port of Messina, that the ship will not obey the helm, he knows that she is got within the influence of that attraction, which will bury her in the whirlpool. We are to avoid the danger, rather than to oppose it. This is a great doctrine of Scripture. An active force against the world is not so much inculcated, as a retreating, declining spirit. Keep thyself unspotted from the world. THE Christian is called to be like Abraham, in conduct; like Paul, in labors; and like John, in spirit. Though, as a man of faith, he goes forth not knowing whither, and his principle is hidden from the world, yet he will oblige the world to acknowledge: "His views, it is true, we do not understand. His principles and general conduct are a mystery to us. But a more upright, noble, generous, disinterested, peaceable, and benevolent man, we know not where to find." The world may even count him a madman; and false brethren may vilify his character, and calumniate his motives: yet he will bear down evil, by repaying good; and will silence his enemies, by the abundance of his labors. He may be shut out from the world-cast into prison-banished into obscurity-no eye to observe him, no hand to help him-but it is enough for him, if his Saviour will speak to him and smile on him. CHRISTIANS are too little aware what their religion requires from them, with regard to their WISHES. When we wish things to be otherwise than they are, we lose sight of the great practical parts of the life of godliness. We wish, and wish-when, if we have done all that lies on us, we should fall quietly into the hands of God. Such wishing cuts the very sinews of our privileges and consolations. You are leaving me for a time; and you say you wish you could leave me better, or leave me with some assistance: but, if it is right for you to go, it is right for me to meet what lies on me, without a wish that I had less to meet, or were better able to meet it. I COULD write down twenty cases, wherein I wished God had done otherwise than he did; but which I now see, had I had my own will, would have led to extensive mischief. The life of a Christian is a life of paradoxes. He must lay hold on God: he must follow hard after him: he must determine not to let him go. And yet he must learn to let God alone. Quietness before God is one of the most diffiTHERE are seasons when a Christian's dis- cult of all Christian graces-to sit where he tinguishing character is hidden from man. A places us; to be what he would have us to be, Christian merchant on 'Change is not called and this as long as he pleases. We are like a to show any difference in his mere exterior player at bowls; if he has given his bowl too carriage from another merchant. He gives a little bias, he cries, "Flee:" if he has given reasonable answer if he is asked a question. it too much, he cries, "Rub," you see him He does not fanatically intrude religion into lifting his leg, and bending his body, in conevery sentence he utters. He does not sup-formity to the motion he would impart to the pose his religion to be inconsistent with the bowl. Thus I have felt with regard to my common interchange of civilities. He is affa- dispensations: I would urge them or restrain ble and courteous. He can ask the news of them: I would assimilate them to the habit the day, and take up any public topic of con- of my mind. But I have smarted for this un der severe visitations. It may seem a harsh, but it is a wise and gracious dispensation, toward a man, when, the instant he stretches out his hand to order his affairs, God forces him to withdraw it. Concerning what is morally good or evil, we are sufficiently informed for our direction; but concerning what is naturally good or evil, we are ignorance itself. Restlessness and self-will are opposed to our duty in these cases. SCHOOLING THE HEART is the grand means of personal religion. To bring motives under faithful examination, is a high state of religious character: with regard to the depravity of the heart, we live daily in the disbelief of our own creed. We indulge thoughts and feelings, which are founded upon the presumption that all around us are imperfect and corrupted, but that we are exempted. The self-will and ambition and passion of public characters in the religious world, all arise from this sort of practical infidelity. And though its effects are so manifest in these men, because they are leaders of parties, and are set upon a pinnacle, so that all who are without the influence of their vortex can see them; yet every man's own breast has an infallible, dogmatizing, excommunicating, and anathematizing spirit working within. Acting from the occasion, without recollection and inquiry, is the death of personal religion. It will not suffice merely to retire to the study or the closet. The mind is sometimes, in private, most ardently pursuing its particular object; and, as it then acts from the occasion, nothing is farther from it than recollectedness. I have for weeks together, in pursuit of some scheme, acted so entirely from the occasion, that, when I have at length called myself to account, I have seemed like one awaked from a dream. “Am I the man who could think and speak so and so? Am I the man who could feel such a disposition, or discover such conduct?" The fascination and enchantment of the occasion is vanished; and I stand like David in similar circumstances before Nathan. Such cases in experience are, in truth, a moral intoxication; and the man is only then sober, when he begins to school his heart. THE servant of God has not only natural sensibilities, by which he feels, in common with other men, the sorrows of life; but he has moral sensibilities, which are peculiar to his character. When David was driven from his kingdom, he not only felt depressed as an exile and wanderer; but he would recollect his own sin as punished in the affliction. Eli had not only to suffer the pangs of a father in the loss of his sons; but he would recal, with bitterness of spirit, his own mismanagement, in bringing up these sons. St. Paul had not only to endure the thorn in the flesh; but he would feel that he carried about him propensities to self-exaltation, which rendered that thorn necessary and salutary DANGEROUS PREDICAMENTS are the brinks of temptations. A man often gives evidence to others that he is giddy, though he is not aware of it, perhaps, himself. Whoever has been in danger himself, will guess very shrewdly concerning the dangerous state of such a man. A haughty spirit is a symptom of extreme danger-4 haughty spirit goeth before a fall. Presumptuous carelessness indicates danger. "Who fears?" This is to be feared, that you feel no cause of fear. Such was Peter's state: Though all men forsake thee, yet will not I. Venturing on the borders of danger is much akin to this. A man goes on pretty well till he ventures within the atmosphere of danger. but the atmosphere of danger infatuates him. The ship is got within the influence of the vortex, and will not obey the helm. David was sitting in this atmosphere on the housetop, and was ensnared and fell. An accession of wealth is a dangerous predicament for a man. At first he is stunned, if the accession be sudden: he is very humble and very grateful. Then he begins to speak a little louder, people think him more sensible, and soon he thinks himself so. A man is in imminent danger when in suspected circumstances he is disposed to equivocate, as Abraham did with Pharaoh, and Isaac with Abimelech. Stupidity of conscience under chastisementan advancement to power, when a man begins to relish such power-popularity-self-indulgence-a disposition to gad about, like Dinah : all these are symptoms of spiritual danger. 1 A CHANGE OF CIRCUMSTANCES in our condition of life is a critical period. No man who has not passed through such a change, can form any adequate notion of its effects upon the mind. When money comes into the pocket of a poor man in small sums, it goes out as it came in, and more follows it in the same way; and with a certain freedom and indifference, it is applied to its proper uses: but when he begins to receive round sums, that may yield him an interest, and when this interest comes to be added to his principal, and the sweets of augmentation to creep over him, it is quite a new world to him. In a rise of circumstances, too, the man becomes, in his own opinion, a wiser man, a greater man; and pride of station crosses him in his way. Nor is the contrary change less dangerous. Poverty has its trials. That is a fine trait in the Pilgrim's Progress, that Christian stumbled in going down the Hill into the Valley of Humiliation. A SOUND head, a simple neart, and a spirit dependant on Christ, will suffice to conduct us in every variety of circumstances. I CANNOT look through my past life without trembling. A variation in my circumstances has been attended with dangers and difficulties, little of which I saw at the time compared with what reflection has since shown me, but which in the review of them make me shud der, and ought to fill me with gratitude. He, these!-his project-his point-the thing that who views this subject aright, will put up par- | has laid hold on his heart-glory-a name— ticular prayer against sudden attacks. consequence-pleasure-wealth-these render the man callous to the pains and efforts of the body! I have been in both states, and, therefore, understand them; and I know that men form this false estimate. Besides-there is something in bustle, and stir, and activity, that supports itself. At one period, I preached and read five times on a Sunday, and rode sixteen miles. But what did it cost me? GOD will have the Christian thoroughly humbled and dependant. Strong minds think, perhaps, sometimes, that they can effect great things in experience by keeping themselves girt up, by the recurrence of habit, by vigorous exertion. This is their unquestionable duty. But God often strips them, lest they should grow confident. He lays them bare-thing! Yet most men would have looked on He makes them feel poor, dark, impotent. He seems to say, "Strive with all your vigor, but yet I am he that worketh all in all." THERE is no calling or profession, however ensnaring in many respects to a Christian mind, provided it be not in itself simply unlawful, wherein God has not frequently raised up faithful witnesses, who have stood forth for examples to others, in like situations, of the practicability of uniting great eminence in the Christian life with the discharge of the duties of their profession, however difficult. FEAR has the most steady effect on the constitutional temperament of some Christians, to keep them in their course. A strong sense of DUTY fixes on the minds of others, and is the prevailing principle of conduct, without any direct reference to consequences. On minds of a stubborn, refractory, and self-willed temper, fear and duty have in general little effect: they brave fear, and a mere sense of duty is a cold and lifeless principle; but GRATITUDE, under a strong and subduing sense of mercies, melts them into obedience. THERE IS a large class, who would confound nature and grace. These are chiefly women. They sit at home, nursing themselves over a fire, and then trace up the natural effects of solitude and want of air and exercise into spiritual desertion. There is more pride in this than they are aware of. They are unwilling to allow so simple and natural a cause of their feelings; and wish to find something in the thing more sublime. THERE are so many things to lower a man's topsails-he is such a dependant creaturehe is to pay such court to his stomach, his food, his sleep, his exercise-that, in truth, a hero is an idle word. Man seems formed to be a hero in suffering-not a hero in action. Men err in nothing more than in their estimate which they make of human labor. The hero of the world is the man that makes a bustlethe man that makes the road smoke under his chaise-and-four-the man that raises a dust about him-the man that manages or devastates empires! But what is the real labor of this man, compared with that of a silent sufferer? He lives on his projects. He encounters, perhaps, rough roads-incommodious inns-bad food-storms and perils-weary days and sleepless nights :-but what are No while I was rattling from village to village, with all the dogs barking at my heels, and would have called me a hero: whereas, if they were to look at me now, they would call me an idle, lounging fellow. "He makes a sermon on the Saturday-he gets into his studyhe walks from end to end-he scribbles on a scrap of paper-he throws it away and scribbles on another-he takes snuff-he sits downscribbles again—walks about." The man cannot see that here is an exhaustion of the spirit, which, at night, will leave me worn to the extremity of endurance. He cannot see the numberless efforts of mind, which are crossed and stifled, and recoil on the spirits, like the fruitless efforts of a traveller to get firm footing among the ashes on the steep sides of Mount Etna." ELIJAH appears to have been a man of what we call a GREAT SPIRIT: yet we never find him rising against the humiliating methods which God was sometimes pleased to take with him; whether he is to depend for his daily food on the ravens, or is to be nourished by the slender pittance of a perishing widow. Pride would choose for us such means of provision, as have some appearance of our own agency in them; and stout-heartedness would lead us to refuse things, if we cannot have them in our own way. THE blessed man is he who is under deucation in God's school; where he endures chastisement, and by chastisement is instructed. The foolish creature is bewitched, sometimes with the enchantments and sorceries of life. He begins to lose the lively sense of that something, which is superior to the glory of the world. His grovelling soul begins to say, "Is not this fine? Is not that charming? Is not that noble house worth a wish? Is not that equipage worth a sigh?" He must go to the word of God to know what a thing is worth. He must be taught there to call things by their proper names. If he have lost this habit, when his heart puts the questions he will answer them like a fool; as I have done a thousand times. He will forget that God puts his children into possession of these things, as mere stewards; and that the possession of them increases their responsibility. He will sit down and plan, and scheme to obtain possession of things, which he forgets are to be burnt and destroyed. But God dashes the fond scheme * See the Adventurer, No. cxxvii.—J. P. |