dable. He is eager to gain acquaintance with learning, eloquence, imagination, in their unmingled and undiluted strength and richness. While others are obtaining a scanty draught at some of the divergent streams he presses upward to slake his thirst at the well-head. But he is delayed among the philological enquiries which are necessary to the accomplishment of his original purpose, until he becomes forgetful of the end, and almost exclusively enamoured of the means. Fanciful interpretations, remote analogies, obscure and distant etymologies, entangle and ensnare him, and while wandering in the maze of words, he forgets that the intent of life is too important and too urgent to be wasted in preliminaries. I have often been astonished to find how little men of indisputable learning have really cultivated of their own peculiar domain. They are masters of language, but they are not masters of the literature to which language is nothing more than the key. I have been tempted to envy them the power which they possessed of unlocking with so much ease the treasures of antiquity, till I have discovered that, as in most other cases, facility has been one cause, at least, of neglect. Of the many who, in this country, are dextrous in all the varieties and peculiarities of classical composition, how few have availed themselves of their skill to travel the delightful round of ancient lore. This is to be accounted for, but the inquiry would be tedious and unprofitable here. It has, moreover, often surprized me, when checked by some of those obstacles which occur in classical reading, to find how easily they yielded to a vulgar process after having resisted all the approved and scientific methods of explanation. After having ineffectually tried the va rious critical tests, applied in vain the usual forms of grammatical solution, and bewildered myself in the pathless wilderness of variorum annotation, the difficulty has given way at once before the question-" if these plain words were laid before an untaught man,without reference to specific construction, what interpretation would he be likely to give?" But this is wandering, where it was designed to be close, and gossipping, in the very teeth of an intention to be succinct. It was wished to suggest the tendency of critical studies to secure a hold upon the mind, unfavourable to the increase of a spiritual frame and habit. A paragraph or two will be sufficient to comprize a few hints on this subject. Devotion is one of the most important portions of the Christian life when taken as including the great system of feeling and worship. It is the fire upon the altar, the heart's sacrifice to the supreme object of love and adoration. It is kept alive and fervent by holy thoughts, heavenly aspirations, and divine communion. Disengagedness from sensual attachments is not enough to prepare the spirit for the lively exercise and enjoyment of this blessed privilege; even innocent partialities and pursuits may usurp the place of higher affections, and intrude themselves into the sanctuary of pure devotion. The mind is made of plastic materials, and shapes itself easily to the mould of circumstances. The bent which is given to it by its habitual occupations is long and obstinately retained, reluctantly quitted, and readily resumed. More especially, then, are we required to stand upon our guard against those engagements which have something of a hallowed semblance, without the distinct reality; which present themselves to us as an expedient and important part of our preparation for the service of the sanctuary, and promise to provide as with an ample furniture for the understanding of the Scriptures. The labours of Mill, Wetstein, and Griesbach, have given us an invaluable apparatus of Biblical investigation, and they have conferred an indelible obligation on the student of Scripture, but they must have achieved their Herculean toil at a heavy cost to themselves, if it interfered, as in one, at least, of the number, it too probably did, with the simplicity and singleness of their love and service. Whitby, Campbell, and Macknight undertook a department of critical investigation which might seem to have brought them more nearly into contact with the spiritual import of Holy Writ; and yet how evident is it that their habits and feelings as critics aided in unfitting them for their higher task. Turn to a comcommentator of a different class-and who that rightly judges, would prefer the well-earned celebrity of the distinguished men just mentioned, to the devotional spirit, the anxious desire to save souls, the experimental knowledge, which characterise the pages of Matthew Henry. He has a humbler fame on earth, but he wears an unfading crown in heaven. In the pulpit, the parade of criticism seems to be especially misplaced. Something must be occasionally done in the way of correction and explanation, but even this sparingly. A habit of this kind in a minister, whatever effect it have may his own upon mind, must tend to weaken the confidence of his hearers in a translation which, though occasionally defective, is on the whole one of singular excellence. Nothing can be more paltry than the affectation of learning in appeals to a mixed auditory; to nineteentwentieths it must be utterly use OBSERVATIONS ON SOME PAS- ́ (Continued from page 576.) "The doctrine of expediency teaches man to be looking abroad. It is a doctrine which not only justifies but enjoins a distrust of the suggestions of the inward monitor, which will not permit the best feelings of the heart, its clearest dictates, its finest emotions, to have the smallest influence over the conduct; and instead of yielding any thing to their directions, cites them at its bar."* The history of Nonconformity is a specimen of opposition to the abuse of this principle, and an illustration of adherence to conscience, as enlightened and invigorated by divine truth. It ex *The Sentiments proper to the PreA. M. 1803, p. 48. sent Crisis. A Sermon by Robert Hall, + It is said of the Rev. James Owen, that he studied the terms of conformity hibits the triumph of godliness over temporal interests, and fidelity to the Redeemer, as the sole lawgiver in his church, alike worthy of universal praise and imitation. "Noble was the stand which the nonconformists made in defence of Christian liberty and truth. Glorious will their names ever shine in the British annals, while virtue and integrity are sa cred among us. Peace, and every honour, be upon the memory of these Christian heroes. Future generations will rise, and call them blessed."* Nor can the conduct of the "holy and learned preachers," and their successors, though exhibited as the result of a weak understanding, and a perverse and factious temper,t be justly im-. pugned, until it can be shewn by argument, rather than by sneers, that it is wrong to stand at a distance from the innovations of casuistical refinement and unwarrantable usurpations-or, that adherence to the Scriptures, and the Scriptures "only," is sinful or, that it is not "the perfection of reason which leads us to adhere most closely to the only guide + Do not add affliction to affliction. Be not uncharitable in judging of us as if through pride, faction, obstinacy, or devotedness to a party, or, which is worse than all, opposition to authority, we do dissent. The Judge of all hearts knows it is not so, but it is merely from these apprehensions which, after prayer, and the use of all means, do yet continue; that doing thus and thus we should displease God. Dr. Jacomb's Farewell Sermons. 4to. 1663. p. 115; see also ib. p. 514; Mr. Galpin's Farewell Sermon. Admitting, nevertheless, for ar gument sake, that "the form and colour of an ecclesiastical garment, the wording of a prayer, and the injunction of kneeling at the Eucharist," had been as alleged, "their chief objections:" still conscience, when awakened by a stern imposition of any thing, however trivial in appearance, to be testified by subscription and solemn oath, is also roused to its accountability, as it would be were the decree of Darius to be repeated, and all were again commanded, on pan of being cast into a den of lions, not to ask a petition of any God or man, save the king, for thirty days?+ Indeed, if the judgment of some of the wisest and best Episcopalians is worth regarding, the "mischief of such impositions is so great as to be a sufficient justification of the conduct under consideration." It may fairly be in quired, in this connexion, what less than faith, the most unequivocal, in that which the "holy and learned preachers," amounting to at least two thousand, did not, and could not believe, was the requisition of unfeigned assent, and consent to all and every thing contained in the book of Common Prayer, &c., which they had not the opportunity of seeing Philip Henry thought," says his biographer, and the testimony applies to the rest, "that thereby he should receive the book itself, and every part thereof, rubrics and all, both as true and good; whereas there were several things which he could not think to be so."§ nothing conceded to the cause of * Life of Taylor p. xlvii. + See Daniel vi. Is See Bishop Stilling fleet's Irenicum, and the Confessional, passim; also the Life of the late Bishop Watson, vol. i. p. 395. § Life of Philip Henry, p. 78. infidelity, when the voice of conscience is treated with levity, and the excellent of the earth exposed to derision, as of a weak and puerile understanding, and much worse, because they acted conscientiously, and adhered with an almost supernatural steadfastness to the rule of duty, notwithstanding "cruel mockings," and multiplied privations? Can it be that such persons are harmlessly accused in the face of every fact, of wantonly disturbing "the peace of the religious world?" And that a statute, expressly reviving all the tremendous penalties denounced in former reigns against the disciples of Christ, be pronounced 66 a simple course?"* And an act too, manifestly not aimed at impiety and profaneness, but affecting all the rights of conscience, and intended to expel from the church, "holy and learned preachers," men of principle and exalted piety! But, to carry the case still further, "re-ordination," says Matthew Henry, speaking of his venerable father, 66 was the first and great bar to his conformity, and which he mostly insisted on. He could, by no means, submit to be re-ordained, so well satisfied was he in his call to the ministry, and his solemn ordination to it; and is it a secret that the other "holy and learned preachers" were influ. enced by the same consideration? In the petition for peace, this point is pathetically and cogently represented. The petitioners beseech their "Most Reverend Fathers, and most reverend brethren, that it will not be imputed to them as their unpardonable crime, that * Life of Taylor, p. ci. + Life of Philip Henry, p. 78. London: Printed A.D. 1661. 4to. By common consent of the Ministers, drawn up to be presented to the Bishops, at the same time with the reformed Liturgy. Calamy's Abridgment of Baxter's Life and Times, vol. i. p. 160. they were born in an age and country which required ordination by parochial pastors without diocesans, and that re-ordination be not made necessary to the future exercise of their ministry; but that an universal confirmation may be granted of those ordained as aforesaid, they being still responsible for any personal insufficiency or crime. Were these two granted, how great would be the benefit to this unworthy nation; how glad would you make the people's hearts; how thankful should we be (for the cause of Christ and the souls of men,) to those that grant them and procure them; being conscious that we seek not great things for ourselves, or for our brethren, that we are ambitious of no greater wealth or honour than our daily bread, with such freedom and advantage for the labours of our ministry, as may most conduce to their success, the increase of holiness, and peace. We shall take the boldness to second these requests with many of our reasons, which we think should prevail for your consent, chusing rather to incur whatsoever censures or offence may, by any, be taken against our necessary freedom of expression, than to be silent at such a time as this, when thousands of the servants of the Lord, that are either deprived of their faithful teachers, or in fears of losing them, together with the freedom of their consciences in God's worship, do cry day and night to heaven for help, and would cry also in your ears, with more importunate requests, if they had but the opportunity as now we have." "We doubt not," they proceed, "you know how new and strange a thing it is that you require in the point of re-ordination. When a Canon, amongst those called the Apostles, deposeth those that re-ordain, and that are re ordained; and when it is a thing that both Papists and Protestants condemn, when not only the former Bishops of England, that were more moderate, were against it, but even the most fervent adversaries of the Presbyterian way, such as Bishop Baccroft himself; how strange must it needs seem to the reformed churches, to the whole Christian world, and to future generations, that so many able, faithful ministers should be laid by as broken vessels, because they dare not be re-ordained; and that so many have been put upon so new and so generally disrelished a thing.' "'* How does this comport with the assertion, that the persons referred to, "chiefly rested their objections to the form and colour of an ecclesiastical garment, the wording of a prayer, or the injunction of kneeling at the Eucharist ?" and does it not do any thing rather than show that the simple course" of imposition, (viz. of the Liturgy, &c.) in 1662, was in great part to satisfy the people.t It is easy, indeed, in noticing the points at issue between conformists and nonconformists to apply epithets, importing pertinacity, and faction, and schism, and disingenuousness, and absurd bigotry, and " a reasonable suspicion that nothing would content them but the entire proscription of the forms to which they objected; but this will be far from satisfying an inquirer after truth, and a cautious believer in revelation, that a fresh "imposition of the Liturgy, was either necessary or justifiable; or that measures really proposed, of a conciliatory nature, were improperly received; or that king Charles's promise when at Breda"-to the friends * Pp. 2, 3, 10. See also Calamy's Life of Howe, p. 39, 8vo. edit. + Life of Taylor, ut supr. + lb. p. ci. CONG. MAG. No. 72, who restored him to his throne"of ease, was only virtual;" or, whether it "promised liberty and gave hopes of settlement ;* or that there was among the nonconformists a temper unfavourable to peace ;t or that, in short, there was any thing intended by the Act of Uniformity, less than forcible expulsion, pursuant to a plan maturely devised, and resolutely followed. Attempts of this sort, notwithstanding their ingenuity or plausibility, must fail, on due investigation, of any other effect than that of increasing at tachment to principles which are distinguished by intrinsic excellence, and of a nature too sacred to be removed by the mere assertion, that "dissent is more dangerous than conformity."§ Dissent is founded upon the very principles of the Protestant Reformation, and not a moment longer than it will abide the test of those principles, derived as they are immediately from the Divine oracles, will a considerate Dissenter advocate the cause.|| What those principles are, shall be given in the words of the eminent Ecclesiastic before quoted. "When the Protestants first withdrew from the Church of Rome, the principles they went upon were such as these-Jesus Christ hath by his Gospel called all men unto liberty, the glorious liberty of the sons of God, and * Philip Henry's Life, p. 73. See Hume, v. viii. p. 306. Rapin, v. xiii. p. 292. + Life of Taylor, p. cii. Hume, v. viii. p. 314. Brook's History of Religious Liberty, v. ii. pp. 43,44. Life of Taylor, p. cv. It is recorded of the Rev. James which he decided, after the most cauOwen, in reference to the principles on tious deliberation, and much opposition from his dearest kindred, in favour of nonconformity, that that which gave him the most peculiar satisfaction to his thoughts was, that no opposition was made against them from Scripture, or solid reason." Life, p. 7, ut supr. 4 M |