PREFACE.

THE close of another year affords to the Editor of "The Englishwoman's Magazine" another opportunity of expressing her sense of the public favour by which that periodical has been distinguished.

With respect to the future conduct of the work, it may suffice that the Editor should observe, that while she must ever be anxious that the Magazine should recommend itself to persons of refined taste and of superior education; and that it should be attractive as well as useful to its readers generally; it will always be her pre-eminent desire and aim to render it, under the Divine blessing, instrumental to the diffusion of the essential principles of Christianity; of those great revealed truths, the vast importance of which will only be fully known when time shall have given place to eternity.

The Vicarage, Appleby, Westmoreland,

Dec., 1851.

Interior of Milan Cathedral, Duchy of Milan, Italy

The Rialto at Venice, Italy

Petrarch's House at Arqua, Italy

The Temple of Vesta, and House of Rienzi, Italy

Naples, from the sea, Italy

Place Salone, Padua, Italy

Watch-Towers at Bologna, Italy

THE

ENGLISH WOMAN'S MAGAZINE

AND

Christian Mother's Miscellany.

JANUARY, 1851.

THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY THEORETICALLY AND

PRACTICALLY CONSIDERED.

BY THE LATE REV. JOSEPH MILNER, M. A., VICAR OF THE HOLY

TRINITY CHURCH, HULL.

PART II.-CHAPTER V.

THE SPIRIT OF HOLINESS.*

o produce HOLINESS, is the end of the various offices of
the Holy Ghost with reference to the human soul. The
Divine dispensations concerning the church all tend to
this that every member of it should be holy; should
be conformed to the image of the Son of God. To
this end, the Spirit has convinced the subject of his Divine operations,
of his want of the image of God; has made intercession for him with
groanings which cannot be uttered; has shown him the Lord Jesus
Christ, as his just God and Saviour; has enabled him to receive Him as
such; and has witnessed with his spirit, that he is a child of God by
faith in Christ Jesus. Thus FAITH and REPENTANCE are formed in his
soul; and the issue will be that HOLINESS which has been described.t
+ Rom. viii. 29, compared with Eph. i. 4.

⚫ Rom. i. 4.

+ Vide Essentials of Christianity, Part I. Chapter III. "Englishwoman's

Magazine" for March, 1850.

The motives, views, and habits of the soul, in which the Spirit of holiness thus resides; the influence of these motives, views, and habits, upon every branch of duty; and the displays of the power of the Holy Ghost in subduing all opposition made to his work, will now engage our attention.

In considering the motives, views, and habits, of the renewed soul, the Preface to the Decalogue may be our guide: I AM THE LORD THY God, who brouht thee out of the house of bondage.

*

It would lead me beyond my present purpose to show, that the whole Old-Testament dispensation was typical of the Christian scheme; that, in particular, the history of the people of Israel, redeemed from Egypt, and conducted by God through the wilderness to the land of Canaan, does constantly, by that mystic allegory which is a peculiar glory of the Sacred writings, intimate to us the spiritual people of God, redeemed from sin and Satan, and conducted through this world to a better. The Epistle to the Hebrews abundantly illustrates this; nor will it be disputed by any whose understandings have been effectually opened, that they might understand the Scriptures.† I shall, therefore, without further apology, make this allegorical use of the Preface to the Decalogue.

I AM THE LORD.-THE SPIRIT is now directing the believer into the way of holiness. He shows him, therefore, in the first place, who and what the God whom he is to worship really is. He is not such a God as men naturally dream of; but the God of the Scriptures; who exists in three Persons; the FATHER, the SON, and the HOLY GHOST; and whose attributes and perfections are infinitely glorious and excellent, and worthy to be loved for their own sake. Glorious and excellent, however, as they are, these attributes and perfections will not excite love in the soul in any such degree as to produce a steady course of obedience, unless the believer have also a view of the Lord as his God: "I am the Lord, THY God." This view the Spirit of adoption has given him; but a further motive to gratitude and loving service is added, in the words, "which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage."

"Hear me;" says God to the believing soul, by his Spirit. "I have caused thee to know me in that peculiar manner in which only my own people know me. Contemplate Me, O my creature. Is there not in Me whatever is calculated to win thy heart and to engage all thy affections? Because thou couldst not reach unto Me, I have come down to thee; and in human flesh have displayed all the glory of my God• Vide Lowth, Prælectio xi. Luke xxiv. 45.