the scarcity of men like-minded with himself. He plunged into the solitudes of devotion, with a view to escape from the polluting commerce of the world; to gain the highest places of sacred contemplation, and to maintain perpetual intercourse with heaven. That he was no friend to monastic seclusion is certain. He reckoned the greater number of the regular clergy in Roman Catholic countries, to be little better than ignavi fures, rapacious drones; at the same time that he recognized among them a few specimens of extraordinary growth in religion; and thought he had discovered in the piety of some conventual recluses a peculiar and celestial flavour, which could hardly he met with elsewhere. Of their sublime devotion he often spoke with an admiration approaching to rapture; and much he wished, that the sons of a purer faith and discipline could match them in that seraphic strength and swiftness of wing, by which they soared to the topmost branches of divine contemplation, and cropped the choicest clusters of heavenly fruitage. "It is not," he would say, "the want of religious houses, but of spiritual hearts, that glues the wing of our affections, and hinders the more fre quent practice of this leading precept of the divine law,-fervently to lift up our souls unto God, and to have our versation in heaven." His opinion was, that a mixed life, or, as he beautifully termed it, an angelical life, was the most excellent; a life spent between ascending to fetch blessings from above, and descending to scatter them among mortals. Would christians retreat occasionally from the dizzy whirl and tumult of life, and give themselves time to think, they might be come enamoured of those beauties, which lie above the natural ken on the summit of God's holy mountain. Some of the prelates and fathers of the first ages had, according to his notions, hit the happy medium; and, by mingling pastoral ministrations with devotional retirement, had earned a better meed than is due to the votaries of a severe and unprofitable solitude. con Of the devotion which mingled with his own life, flowing easily from a wellspring of divine love in his soul, it would be hard to speak extravagantly. Prayer and praise were his business and his pleasure. His manner of praying was so earnest and importunate, as proved that his soul mounted up to God in the flame of his oral aspirations. Although none was ever less tainted with a mechanical spirit in religion, yet he denied that the use of written forms put to flight the power of devotion; and he himself occasionally used them with an energy and feeling, by which his hearers were powerfully excited. To the Lord's prayer he was particularly partial, and said of it— "Oh, the spirit of this prayer would make rare christians." Considering prayer, fervent frequent intercessory prayer, to be a capital part of the clerical office, he would repeat with great approbation that apophthegm of a pious bishop: Necesse est, non ut multùm legamus, sed ut multùm oremus. This he accounted the vessel, with which alone living water can be drawn from the well of divine mysteries. Without it he thought the application of the greatest human powers to theology, would turn out a laborious vanity and in support of this opinion he adduced the confession of Erasmus, that, when he began to approach the verities of celestial wisdom, he thought he understood them pretty well; but, after much study of commentators, he was infinitely more perplexed than before. With what a holy emphasis would Leighton exclaim in commenting upon those words of David; "Thou, O God, hast taught me :" "Non homines, nec consuetudo, nec industria mea, sed tu docuisti.” It is not, however, to be imagined, that this great prelate, who was himself one of the most learned men of a very learned age, undervalued human erudition. On the contrary, he greatly encouraged it in his clergy; and has been heard to declare that there could not be too much, if it were but sanctified. But then be set far higher store by real piety; and would remark, with a felicitous introduction of a passage from Seneca; "Non opus est multis literis ad bonam mentem, but to be established in grace and replenished with the spirit." Pointing to his books, one day, he said to his nephew, "One devout thought is worth them all;" meaning, no doubt, that no accumulation of knowledge is comparable in value with internal holi ness. Of his delight in the inspired volume the amplest proof is afforded by his writings, which are a golden weft, thickly studded with precious stones from that mine in beautiful arrangement. How would he lament that most people, instead of feeding upon scriptural truths, instead of ruminating on them leisurely, and prolonging the luxury as skilful epicures would do, rather swallowed them down whole like bitter pills, the taste of which is industriously disguised! His French bible, now in the library of Dunblane, is marked in numerous places; and the blank leaves of it are filled with extracts made by his own pen from Jerome, Chrysostom, Gregory Nazianzen, and several other Fathers. But the Bible, which he had in daily use, gave yet stronger testimony to his intimate and delightful acquaintance with its contents. With the book of psalms he was particu larly conversant, and would sometimes style it, by an elegant application of a scriptural metaphor, 66 a bundle of myrrh, that ought to lie day and night in the bosom *:" "Scarce a line in that sacred psalter (writes his nephew) that hath passed without the stroke of his pencil." To him the sabbath was a festive day; and he would repair to God's house with a willing spirit when his body was infirm. One rainy Sunday, when through indisposition he was hardly equal to going abroad, he still persisted in attending church, and said in excuse for his apparent rashness; "Were the weather fair I would stay at home, but since it is foul I must go; lest I be thought to countenance, by my example, the irreligious practice of letting trivial hindrances keep us back from public worship."-Pp. cxvii to cxxi. The following brief account of the death of this venerable saint will be read with interest. In the year 1684, Leighton was earnestly requested by Burnet to go up to London. Burnet had not seen him for a considerable time before, and was astonished at the freshness and vigour which appeared in him. notwithstanding his advanced age. His hair was still black, and his motions were lively; and his devotion shone forth with the same lustre and vivacity as ever. On his friend, however, expressing great pleasure at seeing him look so hearty, Leighton observed, that for all that he was very near his end, and his work and journey both were now almost done. This answer made little impression on Burnet at the time; but his mind reverted to it, after the event of three more days had stamped it with a prophetic emphasis. The very next day, he was attacked with an oppression on the chest, and with cold and stitches, which proved to be the commencement of a pleurisy. He sunk rapidly, for on the following day both speech and sense had left him; and, after panting for about twelve hours, he expired without a struggle in the arms of Bishop Burnet, his intimate friend, his ardent and affectionate admirer. Nothing is recorded of his last hours and indeed the disease that carried him off was such, by its nature and rapid progress, as to preclude much speaking. But no record is necessary of the dying moments of a man, who had served God from his infancy; and whose path had been a shining light up to the moment when the shades of death closed over it. God was, assuredly, the strength of his heart in the hour of his last agony, and is now his glorious portion, his exceeding and eternal great reward. It was needless for himself that he should have notice of the bride Song of Solomon, chap. i. v. 13. groom's coming; for his lamp was always trimmed, his loins were always girded. To his surviving friends it could have afforded little additional satisfaction, to have heard him express, on his death-bed, that faith and holy hope, of which his life had been one unbroken example: neither could he have left, for the benefit of posterity, any sayings more suitable to a dying believer than those he daily uttered; living, as he had long lived, on the confines of the eternal world, and in the highest frame of spirituality that it seems possible for an embodied soul to attain. He entered into his rest on the 25th of June, A.D. 1684, in the seventy-fourth year of his age. . Two circumstances connected with his death ought not to be unnoticed. He had often said, that if he were to choose a place to die in, it should be an inn. In such a place he thought that a christian believer might properly finish his pilgrimage; the whole world being to him but a large and noisy inn, and he a wayfarer, tarrying in it as short a time as possible, and then hasting away to his Father's house. Besides, he considered it undesirable to be surrounded by weeping friends and officious domestics, whose sorrowful attentions might unnerve and distract the mind, when it ought to be wholly collected and set upon God; whereas no such disturbance of spirit would result from the unconcerned mi nistry of strangers. This singular wish was gratified, for he breathed his last in the Bell inn, Warwick-lane. While The other circumstance is this. he resided on his diocese in Scotland, his forbearance with his tenants was so great, that at the time of his resignation considerable sums were due to him. His subsequent income seems to have arisen principally from these arrears, which dropped in slowly from time to time; and the last remittance that he had to expect was made about six weeks before his death, so that (to adopt Bishop Burnet's happy phrase) his provision and journey failed both at once."-Pp. cxlix to clii. The life of Mr. Benson appears before us under very different circumstances from that of Archbishop Leighton; the scantiness of materials in the latter instance requiring the utmost exertions of the biographer to produce a brief memoir; while in the former the abundant materials, the large acrecent decease, and the numerous cumulation of private papers, the surviving family and friends, left little for the biographer, except arrangement and selection. We cannot, however, congratulate Mr. M. on either of these particulars. By confining himself too rigidly to the chronological series of events, he has given his work the appearance of a diary, and has in consequence inserted, at short distances, various passages in which the same sentiment is recorded so nearly in the very same words as to produce a wearisome effect on the reader's mind. Far, however, be it from us by this remark to convey the idea, that the production of Mr. M. is unwor thy the notice of our readers. On the contrary, its careful perusal will well repay their serious attention. Mr. B. was a man of considerable talent, of ardent and devoted piety, occupying a public and prominent situation among a large and increasing body of Christians, and favoured with extensive correspondence with the wise and good. It is impossible, that the memoir of such a man should be uninteresting; and both ministers and private Christians will find, in these numerous extracts much which may at once instruct and encourage. Mr. Benson, was born 1748, at Melmerby, Cumberland. His father designed him for the ministry in the Established Church. In early youth he was serious and thoughtful, and so attentive to his books, that he could rarely be prevailed upon to amuse himself with his school-fellows. He was in the habit, after saying his lessons, to read them over again to himself, that he might better remember the remarks which had been made by his tutor. So diligent was he in the acquisition of knowledge, that in those boyish days he did not suffer a moment to pass unemployed. Hence, when he had finished his regular exercises for the school, he employed the rest of the evening in useful reading; and to do this, he retired to one end of the hall, remote from the fire, even in the coldest weather, while his mother and the female servants were employed in spinning, and the men-servants amusing themselves near the fire. In vain did his mother use her influence to per suade him to abandon such close application; so eager was he to obtain knowledge, and such a sense he had of the value of time. In very early life, the Divine Spirit, by operating upon his mind, discovered to him the vanity of the world, the evil of sin, and the necessity of an entire devotedness to God. When not more than seven years of age, he frequently retired to call upon God in secret; and often in the fields, after meditating upon heaven and hell, did he kneel down and pray for grace, that he might obtain the former, and escape the latter. There was one occasion in particular, which he often afterwards recollected, when he pleaded with great earnestness and tears those words of Jacob, "If God will be with me, and keep me in the way that I go, and, will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, then shall the Lord be my God."-Pp. 7-9. Mr. B. was appointed by Mr. Wesley, in 1766, as Classical Master of Kingswood School, and was shortly after led to adopt the following resolutions : "1. To rise at four o'clock in the morn ing, and go to bed at nine at night. Never to trifle away time in vain conversation, useless visits, or studying any thing which would not be to my advantage. "2. To be careful to maintain private prayer, and not to be content without communion with God in it. To spend from four to five o'clock every morning, and from five to six every evening, in devout meditation and prayer: and at nine in the morning, and at three in the evening, to devote a few minutes to prayer." "6. Let me with a single eye, not for praise, instruct the boys diligently in useful learning, and see that they make as great a progress as possible. Let me, especially, endeavour, depending upon divine influence, to impress a sense of the things of God upon their minds, at the same time that they are instructed in the principles of religion.”—P. 13. Mr. B. was admitted at St. Edmund's Hall, Oxford, in 1769. Having, however, preached in various places, his tutor at length declined any longer to assist him in his studies, and Mr. B. eventually relinquished his connection with the University; a circumstance, on various grounds, to be deeply regretted. Mr. M. remarks, In reference to the causes which led to Mr. Benson's removal from Oxford, the author deems it right to observe, that as all who enter our Universities are bound to conform to its laws or statutes, one of which is, that previous to their being ordained, they shall not act as public teachers of religion; intelligent readers will not be surprised, that Mr. Benson, whose holy zeal led him to preach frequently, while keeping his terms at college, was refused his testimonials for ordination. We grant, that several immoral characters, contrary to the laws and statutes of the Universities, too often, to the discredit of religion, obtain such testimonials; but this does not prove, that students at college, may, in opposition to a law or statute, preach with impunity previously to their being ordained. Every corporate body has laws essential to its existence, the violation of which in theory (and why not in practice ?) deprives any of its members of the advantages accruing from it which they would otherwise possess.-Pp. 26, 27. Mr. B. was thus prevented from entering into the Established Church; to which, however, he retained a warm attachment to the end of life. The following view of Mr. Whitfield's character will gratify many of his admirers. "I have just finished the Memoirs of Mr. Whitfield's Life, by Mr. Gillies. What a man! surely the world has not seen his equal for popularity and usefulness as a Preacher. I am fully persuaded, with the pious author, that his popularity arose wholly from his usefulness. The divine power accompanying the word, attracted hearers, in spite of all the secret insinuations and public clamour, excited by the devil and wicked men, to the disadvantage and reproach of himself and doctrines. His humility, amidst so much honour and success; his fortitude, amidst so much obloquy and sufferings; his diligence, amidst such weakness and affliction; his perseverance and constancy in prosecuting his purpose, for the glory of God and good of souls, notwithstanding the apparently insurmountable obstacles and discouragements which lay in the way, quite astonish me. His inward piety and outward labours, are almost incredible, and that for the space of forty years. But, what above all strikes me in his character, and what I wish especially to imitate, is his perfect superiority to the censures and praises of men; his going steadily forward through evil and good report, only intent upon the pleasing of Him, whom he served in the Gospel of his Son."-Pp. 37, 38. is not inapplicable at the present day: The idle and ignorant remarks often made upon sermons by very incompetent judges, are frequently contradictory and absurd. One of the accidental evils consequent on the Reformation, is the little deference which the generality of Protestants pay to the judgment of their pastors, together with their defect of reverence for the sacred office. In avoiding the implicit confidence placed in the decisions of their clergy by the Roman Catholics in general, they are, however unqualified for the purpose, in the habit of magisterially deciding, not only on the doctrines which their ministers inculcate, but upon their talents, manner, and delivery. From the censure of those who come under the word to judge, not to learn, no man, however qualified for preaching the Gospel, wholly escapes. With them, one preacher has and this prevents his sound divinity and good matter, but his manner is shocking, manly sense from producing a good effect. The manner of another is excellent, but there is no depth in his discourses. This minister so hurries from the beginning to the conclusion of his sermon, as not to allow his bearers time to understand what he delivers. But this rapidity, which is unquestionably a great fault, is not without its advocates, who maintain, that those who preach in the most rapid manner, possess such abundance of ideas, that they occur much faster than they can be deliberately expressed. Those contenders for rapidity, censure deliberate preaching, as calculated to produce spiritual deadness, nay, to lull an audience to sleep. In short, with those judges, extremely few of whom are so well acquainted with their mother tongue, as to be able to speak it correctly; some preachers are too dull, and others too lively; the style of some is too plain, and that of others too ornamented; one is an orator, and another not worth hearing; one is a gentleman and a scholar; and another fit only to address such as neither read nor think, but not capable of entertaining persons of sense or taste.-Pp. 39, 40. From such criticisms Mr. B. himself was not exempt; but none of these things moved him. He proceeded with the utmost diligence and regularity in the work in which he was engaged. He considered a day as nearly wasted in which he did not preach once, twice, or oftener. He constantly sacrificed his own ease, and, in order to be fully employed in the work of the ministry, refused to yield to the earnest wishes of his dearest friends We fear the following passage, written about half a century back; and relatives. While engaged in the most diligent and self-denying labours in the cause of God, so far was he from glory ing in himself, that he never allowed his services to be mentioned with praise. His texts were often chosen with a reference to the season, or some passing events. He always preached on the subjects of the fasts and festivals of the Church as they occurred; nor did he omit to improve, to the advantage of all such as were disposed to hear him, seasons of public amusement, when multitudes were assembled. In his sermous, he never called the attention of the people to any trivial or merely entertaining subject On points of curious speculation or criticism he never dwelt, but constantly inculcated the essential doctrines of Christianity, together with its precepts, promises, and threatenings. He spent much time in preparing for the pulpit; and hence, his sermons were fraught with pure divinity skilfully arranged. But his expectation of success was wholly from the Lord, to whom he looked for liberty in speaking, and a blessing on what he delivered.-Pp. 513, 514. As a man of sense, piety, and erudition, he occupied a high ground; and as an author, his numerous publications prove that he was eminently qualified for the task of clearly stating, and ably defending, every branch of scriptural theology. But our respect and admiration are most excited by his ministerial labours. The Rev. Robert Hall, of Leicester, after hearing him preach in his chapel, on being asked by a friend, "How did you like him?" replied, Very much indeed; he is all you described him; his sermon reminded me more of Demosthenes than any preaching I ever heard before."-P. 520. The Appendix to Mr. M.'s volume contains a character of Mr. Benson, by the Rev. Jabez Bunt ing; and an Account of the Church Discipline and Government, &c. of the Methodists, to which we may perhaps have occasion hereafter to refer. Some account of Col. Blackader was presented to the public several years ago, with a recommendatory preface by the Rev. J. Newton, the late venerable Rector of St. Mary Woolnoth; but a considerable accession of materials having been obtained, the former publication has been so enlarged, revised, &c. by Mr. Crichton, that the present may be considered as a new work. Col. Blackader was born in Scotland, and entered into the celebrated Cameronian regiment, which was raised at the Revolution; in which he appears to have served till near the close of Queen Ann's reign, and was consequently engaged in many of the sieges, battles, &c. which took place on the Continent both under King William and the Duke of Marlborough. He afterwards commanded a regiment of volunteers raised on account of the Rebellion in 1715, and was appointed Deputy Governor of Stirling Castle, which situation he appears to have retained till his death in 1729, aged 65. The Colonel's history during these eventful periods presents various striking instances of providential interposition, and at the same time shows the exceeding difficulty with which a conscience void of offence can be maintained in such perilous and ensnaring situations. The perusal of his Diary, &c. is exceedingly calculated to quicken the desires of the true Christian for that period when there shall be no more war, but when the sword shall be beaten into the ploughshare, and the spear into the pruning hook. The Lord hasten this blessed change in his own time! The following extracts are 'deserving of serious attention, though some of them have, we believe, been extensively circulated. His arrival at Maestricht, which he now visited after an interval of many years, brought to his recollection a very memorable and fatal accident of which he had been the innocent occasion, but for which he ever entertained the sincerest regret. This refers to a duel which he fought with a brother officer, the son of a noble family in this country, and in which he was unhappily instrumental in depriving him of his life. The affair took place in 1691, when he was a very young man: It is said to have originated in some trifling verbal dispute with a Captain S, while over their wine, in a company after dinner. Captain' S. it appears, had taken offence at some expressions dropt by his friend in conver |