as it is in Jesus into the minds of the people; "poetical, historical, scientific, political, and sentimental vehicles," we are at a loss whether to dismiss the phrase as mere verbiage, or to analyse it for the purpose of showing its pernicious consequences. We are suspicious of novelties in the matter of divine truth; we would stand in the good old path, and say "this is the way, walk ye in it." With the first and second chapters of the first epistle to the Corinthians lying open before us, we are quite unable to admit as legitimate, these base admixtures of human inventions with "divine philosophy." The apostle tells us that even among the Greeks, he was determined to know nothing, "save Jesus Christ, and him crucified" he spoke to the Corinthians, not with the confidence and elation of conscious ability, but" in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling"-his "speech" and his "preaching" were not with the " enticing words of man's wisdom," so strongly recommended by Mr. Irving, but "in demonstration of the Spirit and of power" -and he assigns, as the express reason of all this, that the wisdom of men, was an inadequate "vehicle" for that "faith," which acknowledged no other enforcement than the power of God. We are not arguing against the fair use of talent and knowledge in the ministrations of the pulpit, but against the undue weight given to them in the present instance. All this homage which is so peremptorily required for genius and acquisition, is at once injurious to the meek and lowly character which should adorn the Christian preacher, and a dangerous substitution of means purely human for those " weapons of the holy war," which are issued from the armoury of heaven. We acquit Mr. Irving of all intentional trespass; he avows with solemn emphasis his conviction of the

necessity of a spiritual agency; but his whole plan, his lofty claims to originality, his unqualified censure of the received methods of preaching, and the ambitious character of his own effusions, would be sufficient, were there no evidence more direct, to prove the justice of our animadversions. Neither can we forget, that the "vehicle" of which Mr. Irving is pleased to speak with such supreme contempt, has been, and still is, the chosen and efficient form in which the brightest ornaments of the pulpit, the Bossuets and the Massillons, the Saurins and the Supervilles, the Taylors and the Barrows, the Souths and the Horsleys, the Howes and the Baxters, the Leightons and the M'Laurins, have given to the world the rich harvest of their powerful and accomplished minds.

It is with sincere regret that we find ourselves compelled to continue in this strain. It would be far more congenial with our feelings towards Mr. Irving, and with our estimate of his powers, to avoid it altogether; but he has, with singular indiscretion and bad taste, placed himself in an attitude of such censorious and supercilious defiance towards those whom he would, we suppose, term his brethren, that we are constrained to follow him, farther than is either pleasant or convenient, in this rugged track.

"I am convinced, from the constant demand of the religious world for the preaching of faith and forgiveness, and their constant kicking against the preaching of Christian morals; the constant appetite for mercy, and disrelish of righteousness and judgment; or if righteousness, it he the constant demand, that it should be the imputed righteousness of Christ, not our own personal righteousness; from these features of the evangelical part of men, I do greatly fear, nay, I am convinced, that many of them are pillowing their hopes upon something else than the sanctification and changed life which the Gospel hath wrought. Let no one mistake me, (for

though I care little about the mistake on my own account, I am too much concerned for the sake of others in the success of this argument, to wish to be mistaken,) as if I advocated salvation from the wrath to come upon the ground of self-righteousness. But this I argue, and will argue, that unless the helps and doctrine of grace, deservedly in such repute, unless the free forgiveness purchased by the death of Christ, the sanctification by the work of the Spirit, and every thing else encouraging and consolatory in the word of God, have operated their natural and due effect in delivering our members from the power of sin, and joining our affections to Christ and his poorest brethren, and of working deep and searching purification within all the fountains of our heart; then it will only aggravate our condemnation, ten times, that we have known, that we have be

lieved, that we have prized these great revelations of the power and goodness of God, and insisted with a most tyrannical and overbearing sway, that our pastors should hold on pronouncing them unceasingly, unsparingly, Sabbath after Sabbath. I greatly fear, I say again,

that this modern contraction of the Gos

pel into the span of one or two ideas, this promulgation of it, as if it were a drawling monotone of sweetness, a lullaby for a baby spirit, with no music of mighty feeling, no swells of grandeur, nor declensions of deepest pathos, nor thrilling themes of terror; as if it were a thing for a shepherd's love-sick lute, or a sentimentalist's Eolian harp, instead of being for the great organ of human thought and feeling, through all the stops and pipes of this various world; I say, I fear greatly lest this strain of preaching Christ, the most feeble and ineffectual which the Christian world hath ever heard, should have lulled many into a quietus of the soul, under which they are resting sweetly from searching inquiry into their personal estate, and will pass composedly through death unto the awful judgment !

"Now what difference is it, whether the active spirit of a man is laid asleep, by the comfort of the holy wafer and extreme unction, to be his viaticum and passport into heaven, or by the constant charm of a few words sounded, and sounded, and eternally sounded about Christ's sufficiency to save? In the the holy name of Christ, and the three times holy name of God, have they declared they declared aught to men, or are they capable of declaring aught to men, which should not work upon men the desire and the power of holiness? Why then do I hear the constant babbling about simple reliance, and simple dependence upon

Christ, instead of most scriptural and sound-minded calls to activity and perseverance after every perfection."pp. 363-365.

We are "convinced," that Mr. Irving knows nothing whatever about the "constant demand," or the "constant kicking" of the "religious world." On what does he found this sweeping and uncharitable judgment? Has he frequented our conventicles? Has he conversed with our ministers and our laity? Has he held intercourse with the evangelical men and preachers of the Establishment? Then we will venture to affirm that, unless he has ignorautly, or perversely, sought out the few from whom the far larger portion stand aloof, he has found "the evangelical part of men" as zealof Christian morals," and distinous as himself for "the preaching guishing at least as accurately as himself, between the "imputed righteousness of Christ," as our forensic justification in the sight of God, and the sanctification of the heart, exhibited in a "changed life," as the effect of a true faith, and our preparation for the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of God. Mr. Irving has engaged in a specific contest with the prejudices of the higher classes of society, is it to gain favour with them that he turns buccaneer, should wave over his own deck? and fights against the flag which With the exception of the few to whom we have before referred, and who form a sect apart, we know of no" evangelical pastors" who contract the Gospel into "the span of one or two ideas;" and without endeavouring to ascertain how many of them may equal himself in "mighty feeling," "swells of grandeur," "declensions of deepest pathos," or thrilling themes of terror," we would quietly suggest, that he may easily find more legitimate methods of re

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commending the Gospel than the one in question. On the closing sentences of the extract, we shall say but little; we caunot doubt the rectitude of Mr. I.'s intentions, but it would be unmanly to shrink from censuring his language as in a high degree irreverent and indiscreet. The adjuration is both. unnecessary and offensive, and Mr. I. either knows, or is inexcusable in not knowing, that a "simple reliance and simple dependence upon Christ," for our acceptance with God,-and in no other sense is it babbled about by evangelical divines -is entirely compatible with "scriptural and sound-minded calls to activity and perseverance after every perfection."

Mr. Irving, among the censures which he so freely bestows on his ecclesiastical brethren, reproves them for placing the day of judgment" afar off," while he himself speaks of" the long interval from the stroke of death till the trump of God shall ring in death's astonished ear." He avails himself of the doctrine of an intermediate state in which the soul shall be delivered up to the dreadful work of conscience, reviewing the guilty past, and anticipating the penal future, to urge upon his hearers the terrors of an immediate judgment. And who among evangelical preachers has not done the same? Unquestionably Mr. Irving has displayed great power in his management of this awful and mysterious subject; and, although some of his speculations appear to us doubtful, the general effect is wrought up with a force and skill, which might have been advantageously left unimpaired in their impression, by the miserable theological wrangle at the close.

Mr. Irving entitles that portion of the volume with which we are now engaged, an "Argument," Argument," and we shall not quarrel with the

term. But he also tells us, that it is "after the manner of the ancient Apologies," and we confess, that we are unable to perceive any very close resemblance between them. The delightful work of Minucius Felix is a dialogue, and of course, out of the compari son, but we should not suppose, that the wretched theology of Lactantius, the turgid obscurity of Tertullian, the rambling and immethodical manner of Justin, would be thought worthy of revival in the present day, however highly they may have been rated in their own. There is nothing, that we are aware of, peculiarly excellent or uncommon in their plan, to render a modern imitation desirable; nor, in fact, were the recurrence to the antiqué model proved to be expedient, can we discem any thing in the present" argument," beyond a vague and incidental resemblance. But, in truth, this is a matter of slight importance; if the train of reasoning be well conducted and powerfully urged, it signifies little what technical mode of discussion may have been adopted; and, though we cannot say that, in the present instance, we have found much of precision or compactness, nor that we have always been satisfied with the opinions expressed in connexion with the inquiry, we have been deeply interested by the force and vividness with which the subject is impressed upon the reader, and by the earnestness which the preacher displays in his appeals to different classes of men. We shall give a specimen or two as illustrations of his happier moments.

"In turning over the sacred books to

examine into this previous question, we

find them full of various information,

concerning the interest which God hath taken in man from the very first, and the schemes which he hath on foot to ameliorate our state, the desire he hath to contribute to our present happiness, and

the views he hath for our future glory. He presents himself as our father, who first breathed into our nostrils the breath of life, and ever since hath nourished and brought us up as children; who prepared the earth for our habitation; and for our sakes made its womb to teem with food, with beauty, and with life. For our sakes no less he garnished the heavens and created the whole host of them with the breath of his mouth, bringing the sun forth from his chamber every morning, with the joy of a bridegroom, and a giant's strength, to shed his cheerful light over the face of creation, and draw blooming life from the cold bosom of the ground. From him also was derived the wonderful work

manship of our frames-the eye, in whose small orb of beauty is pencilled the whole of heaven and of earth, for the mind to peruse, and know, and possess, and rejoice over, even as if the whole universe were her own-the ear, in whose vocal chambers are entertained harmonious numbers, the melody of rejoicing nature, the welcomes and salutations of friends, the whisperings of love, the voices of parents and of children, with all the sweetness that resideth in the tongue of man. His also is the gift of the beating heart, flooding all the hidden recesses of the human frame with the tide of life-his the cunning of the hand, whose workmanship turns rude, and raw materials to pleasant forms and wholesome uses-his the whole vital frame of man, is a world of wonders within itself, a world of bounty, and if rightly used, a world of finest enjoyments. His also the mysteries of the soul within-the judgment which weighs in a balance all contending thoughts, extracting wisdom out of folly, and extricating order out of confusion; the memory, recorder of the soul, in whose books are chronicled the accidents of the changing world, and the fluctuating moods of the mind itself; fancy, the eye of the soul, which scales the heavens and circles round the verge and circuits of all possible existence; hope, the purveyor of happiness, which peoples the hidden future with brighter forms and happier accidents than ever possessed the present, offering to the soul the foretaste of every joy; affection, the nurse of joy, whose full bosom can cherish a thousand objects without being impoverished, but rather replenished, a storehouse inexhaustible towards the brotherhood and sisterhood of this earth, as the storehouse of God is inexhaustible to the universal

world; finally, conscience, the arbitrator of the soul, and the touchstone of the evil and the good, whose voice within our breast is the echo of the voice of God. These, all these, whose varied ac

tion and movement constitutes the maze of thought, the mystery of life, the continuous chain of being-God hath given us to know that we hold of his hand, and during his pleasure, and out of the fulness of his care.

"Upon which tokens of his affectionate bounty, not upon bare authority, command, and fear, God desireth to form a union and intimacy with the human soul. As we love our parents, from whom we derived our being, sustenance, and protection, while we stood in need, and afterwards proof of unchanging and undying love, so God would have us love him in whom we live, and move, and breathe, and have our being, and from whom proceedeth every good and perfect gift. And as out of this strong affection, we not only obey, but honour the commandments of our father and mother, so willeth he that we should honour and obey the commandments of our father in heaven. As we look up to a master in whose house we dwell, and at whose plentiful board we feed-with whose smiles we are recreated, and whose service is gentle and sweet-so God wisheth us to look up to him, in whose replenished house of nature he hath given us a habitation, and from whose bountiful table of Providence we have a plentiful living, and whose service is full of virtue, health, and joy. As we love a friend, who took us by the hand in youth, and helped us step by step up the hill of life, and found for our feet a room to rest in, and for our hands an occupation to work at; so God wisheth to be loved for having taken us up from the womb, and compassed us from our childhood, and found us favour in the sight of men. As we revere a master of wisdom, who nursed our opening mind, and fed it with knowledge and with prudence, until the way of truth and peacefulness lay disclosed before us; so God wisheth us to be revered, for giving to our souls all the faculties of knowledge, and to nature all the hidden truths which these faculties reveal. In truth, there is not an excellent attachment by which the sons of men are bound together, which doth not bind us more strongly to God, and lay the foundation of all generous and noble sentiments towards him within the mind-of all loving, dutiful, reverential conduct towards him in our outward walk and conversation."-pp. 119-122.

With the exception of a phrase or two, the following passage is admirably conceived and expressed.

"There was one attribute of the divinity which he would not lay aside, when