powers, and the fair prospect of wealth, and fame, and honour, and will wait till the withering hand of age shall have quenched the glory of your faculties, and left you time, and made it necessary, to think of God and of eternity as the only needful things? But how know ye that death will not anticipate the progress of years,-that sickness may not destroy the very ability to think of God,—or that some awful cloud of the Almighty's wrath may not intervene to darken the meridian splendour of your manly powers ?-Behold, now is the accepted time! behold, now is the day of salvation! Labour, therefore, and be mindful of the Lord that made and that redeemed your souls, before that inevitable night shall come, in which you will be able neither to think nor work for your everlasting welfare.

3. Why have you forgotten God? Is it because you have been in all things prosperous through life, and wanted little that could contribute to your enjoyment or ease? But who is it that has made the world thus to smile upon your efforts, and given success to your undertakings and joy to your hearts? It is the very Lord you have forgotten. It is he that has controlled the operations of secondary causes for your good, and made the natural world to become subservient to your exaltation and earthly greatness. For though man plant, it is God only that giveth to him the increase. But what right have you to expect his blessing,-what hope that he will continue to you his protecting hand, and save you from your enemies and from distress,you remember not to acknowledge his pervading influence, and neither ask nor thank him for the kindness he has shewn?

4. But why have you forgotten God? Is it because you think that from those who are engaged in the ordinary professions and occupations of life, God requires nothing more than a bare industry in their business and callings, and a due discharge of their social and domestic duties? Do you imagine that religion and piety belong only to the aged and the sick, and the appointed ministers of the Lord? And do you think that if as wives and daughters you are obedient and chaste,--if as husbands kind,—as servants diligent,-as tradesmen honest,-in professions laborious and just as men ;-do you think that if you thus fulfil your part in civil life, God will require nothing more at your hands, and that you are at liberty to forget God's eternal glory, provided you do but remember and labour for man's temporal welfare? But what, I would demand, were the apostles of Jesus Christ? What was Paul, and Peter, and James, and John? They were fishermen and tent-makers, working diligently and continually with their hands, that by their industry and skill in their vocations, they might provide for themselves the necessaries of life. Yet, in nothing were they behind the very chiefest of saints. Before all that have since been called by the holy name of Jesus, they were

earnest and assiduous in every office of piety, devout in all their thoughts, studying continually the word of God, and evermore occupied in the services of prayer and thanksgiving and supplications for all men. In the midst of all their labours and all their wants, they held it to be their undeviating duty, never even for a moment to forget that God, whom you deem it your privilege never even for a moment to remember. And their reward is with them in the world to come. It was the promise of the Lord himself that they should sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

5. But perhaps you may plead that you are lowly in your views with regard to the glories of the future, and that you have never dared to lift your thoughts to such an exceeding and abundant reward as these holy and blessed apostles have obtained. To be the least in the kingdom of heaven will satisfy your humble desires; and you cannot persuade yourselves that God will severely punish you for forgetting the performance of those religious duties which are directly addressed to him, provided that in your worldly sphere you fulfil the demands which your friends and society have upon your time. If these be indeed your thoughts and wishes, they are not lowly, but mean and degrading thoughts, unworthy of any who have been honoured with the hope of the Christian calling. It is not ambition under every form-it is only a mean and a worldly ambition-which the gospel forbids. A crown of eternal glory, treasures unfading in the heavens, and a kingdom of immortality, are the very motives by which it stimulates us to holiness; and thus would it preserve us in our allegiance by an appeal to the universal desires of honour, of riches, and of power. To these lofty rewards it calls us, and for these it prepares us by its discipline on earth; and he that by willingly forgetting his God, would forego the dignity and dominion to which he is thus summoned, may bear the badge of his Redeemer, but is altogether undeserving of that glorious privilege. But be your thoughts and hopes and wishes for the world of eternity, as lowly and unaspiring as they may, they never can be realized if you continue to forget God. To the lowest of the mansions in heaven, such lukewarm followers of Jesus can never attain. God's holiness forbids it-God's greatness forbids it-God's wisdom forbids it-God's word forbids it. God's holiness forbids it, because, as he is the most holy of all beings that exist, he is the most worthy of being remembered and served.-God's greatness forbids it, because, as he is so unquestionably above all in honour, he ought also to be above all in being honoured.-God's wisdom forbids it, because, were he to permit any who forget him to escape with impunity, he could never afterwards, with the propriety of justice, punish others for a fault which he had already overlooked in some.-Above all, God's word forbids it. In the text he declares, through his prophet, that he will

never reward even in the slightest degree-that he will, on the other hand, most undoubtedly and most angrily visit-those that forget him, with his vengeance. "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all

the people that forget God."

And what a fearful punishment is here! The forgetter of his God is placed upon the very same level with the worker of iniquity: both are considered in their final treatment as alike, and not one single difference is made between them in the abode of their wretchedness;-both are to be turned into hell. And what is that place of horrors;—and what are the horrors of that place? Of its actual position, or its peculiar pains, we know little or nothing from revelation. A few dark images of dreadful anguish are all that are left to guide our judgments. But they are enough for every purpose of godly warning; and if we cannot be roused from our sluggish forgetfulness of our Maker by the terror of a fire that cannot be quenched,—of a worm that will not die,-of enduring torments and everlasting burnings, there is no other motive that can reasonably be expected to have any effectual operation upon our feelings and fears.

Remember then, my brethren, how great is the sin and the danger of forgetting God; and pray to him that he would heal in you this canker of the soul. Consider that God cannot be justly, any more than he can be safely, forgotten. He is so great and so good, that he ought ever to be had in the remembrance of our gratitude. His kindness to us deserves, and his holiness demands, the perpetual memorial of prayer and of praise, and his justice will punish the neglect. Consider these things, and be wise in time, that in eternity ye may be saved. Consider these things, and be mindful of the Lord, that made you by his power, and that redeemed you by his blood, before it be too late to escape the damnation of hell.

REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS.

ART. I.-A Greek and English Lexicon to the New Testament, from the "Clavis Philologica" of Christ. Abr. Wahl, late Senior Pastor of Schneeberg, now Superintendant of Oschaz, in Saxony. By EDWARD ROBINSON, A. M. Assistant Instructor in the Department of Sacred Literature, Theol. Seminary, Andover. Andover (North America), 1825. 8vo. pp. 852. London: imported by Miller.

SACRED literature has, within a few years, been greatly improved by the labours of several distinguished oriental scholars on the continent of Europe. The learned researches of Michaelis are well known to most biblical students, through the version of the present Bishop of

Peterborough, whose annotations are sometimes more valuable than the text of the original author. Mr. Leo, encouraged by the munificence of the University of Cambridge, is presenting to English students the profound lexicographical researches of Gesenius, in a translation of his great Hebrew and German Lexicon. And the Lexicon to the Greek Testament, which we are now to introduce to the notice of our readers, is one of several valuable publications on sacred philology, which, within the last five years, have issued from the press of the Theological Seminary, in the State of Massachussetts, in North America.

The Lexicons of the New Testament which have hitherto been chiefly accessible to students in this country, are those of Parkhurst and Schleusner. Valuable as the labours of Parkhurst confessedly are, it must not be concealed that his fanciful and sometimes extravagant theory of etymology has not given entire satisfaction to those who have entered more deeply and critically into studies of a philological nature, and who have thus become attached to principles of interpretation, which are founded upon maxims of plain and sober common sense. Thirty-five years have elapsed, since the first edition of Schleusner's Lexicon issued from the press; which, being a dictionary of phrases as well as of words, and being further enriched with numerous valuable philological illustrations, soon surpassed every preceding Lexicon; and it now forms an indispensable part of every student's library.

But, with all its improvements upon preceding Lexicons, it would be strange if there were nothing which could still be improved. "Schleusner," it is well observed in the Preface to the work now under consideration, "appears to have exerted little of that sagacity of mind which seizes, as it were by intuition, on the meaning of a difficult passage, and expresses it in a manner at once concise, perspicuous, and terse. He seems rather to delight in the accumulation of authorities, without exhibiting any attempt at systematic and philosophical arrangement. Hence, instead of an orderly deduction of the derivative meanings of a word from the primitive signification, he has thrown the different meanings together without any regular method. Hence, too, the frequent introduction of a host of authorities on points of trivial importance; and the frequent translation and elucidation of passages, which are in themselves simple and perspicuous, often with as much particularity as is bestowed on those which contain important difficulties. In the later editions of his work, Schleusner has curtailed nothing, has changed nothing; but has merely gone on accumulating, until his Lexicon has become unwieldy and expensive, and in the German editions, from the mode of printing, extremely inconvenient and embarrassing to the student who wishes to consult it."

There are, however, two other grounds of complaint against

Schleusner's massy tomes, which, we think, tend to render them unsafe guides for the more inexperienced student of the Greek Testament, though the more advanced student may still consult them with advantage. The first is, that he has not kept pace with the spirit of the age, in regard to the philology of the Greek language. During the thirtyfive years which have elapsed since the publication of his first edition, greater progress has been made in this department, than perhaps in any other equal portion of time since the revival of learning; yet, of the results of this progress, not a single trace is to be seen in the pages of Schleusner. The other ground of complaint is more serious, and it is this that, deriving his materials from very numerous authors, especially German critics, Schleusner has fallen into that heterodox interpretation, the evils of which, in Germany, were last year so ably exposed by Mr. Rose, in his discourses before the University of Cambridge.

From these defects, the "Clavis Philologica Novi Testamenti" of WAHL (which appeared at Leipsic in 1822, in 2 vols. 8vo.), professes to be free. In his Preface, he states it to be his object to place in the hands of theological students a manual, which, without being cumbersome, should yet contain the results of the latest and highest efforts in respect to both the philology and interpretation of the New Testament; and at the same time be free from that excess of philological speculation and lax interpretation, for which so many German biblical critics are unhappily distinguished. The following is an outline of Wahl's plan:

In defining words, those significations are placed first, which accord with Greek usage, and these are illustrated by references to the writers who lived after the age of Alexander: and if they accord likewise with the more ancient Greek, references are also made principally to Xenophon, though often to Thucydides and other writers. Then follow those significations which depart from Greek usage, and which are either to be illustrated from the Septuagint, as compared with the Hebrew, or which depend solely on the usus loquendi of the New Testament writers. The arrangement of the primitive and derivative significations of the words is such, as to present (as far as possible) to the student's eye, the regular gradations by which the latter have sometimes apparently deviated so widely from the former. A sufficient number of examples is adduced in support of each definition, while the more difficult passages are every where fully illustrated and happily explained. We have been particularly struck with the dissertation (for such in fact it is) on the use of the Greek article, under the word ó, n, ro, and with the concise but comprehensive geographical and historical notices, which occur in the course of the work.

It now remains, that we briefly state the manner in which Mr.