water it with a choicer dew, and pour on it the beams of a more brilliant sun, and prune its branches with a kinder and more skilful hand. We will not give up reason to stand always as a priestess at the altars of human philosophy. She hath a more majestic temple to tread, and more beauteous robes wherein to walk, and incense rarer and more fragrant to burn in golden censers. She does well when exploring boldly God's visible works. She does better, when she meekly submits to spiritual teaching, and sits, as a child, at the Saviour's feet; for then shall she experience the truth, that "the entrance of God's words giveth light and understanding." And, therefore, be ye heedful-the young amongst you more especially-that ye be not ashamed of piety as though it argued a feeble capacity. Rather be assured, forasmuch as revelation is the great strengthener of reason, that the march of mind which leaves the Bible in the rear is an advance, like that of our first parents in Paradise, towards knowledge, but, at the same time, towards death.-Pp. 215-217.

Alas! we must quit too soon these laudatory strains, and, sad task, -"must change

Those notes to tragic."-Par. Lost. B. IX. v. 5.

For, in the eighth sermon, (the exordium of which, by-the-bye, is a very excellent refutation of the insane doctrine of the equality of men by nature,) we find our author grievously misstating the fundamental doctrine of Christ's atonement for our sins. We would not misrepresent him; he shall, therefore, tell his own faith in his own words :

man.

....

The sins of every man were punished in Jesus, so that the guiltiness of each individual pressed in upon the Mediator, and wrung out its penalties from his flesh and his spirit. Christ, by assuming our nature, took, as it were, a part of every man. He was not, as any one of us is, a mere human individual. But having HUMAN NATURE, and NOT HUMAN PERSONALITY, he was tied, so to speak, by a most sensitive fibre to each member of the enormous family of And along these unnumbered threads of sympathy there came travelling the evil deeds, and the evil thoughts, and the evil words, of every child of a rebellious seed; and they knocked at his heart, and asked for vengeance; and thus the sin became HIS OWN in every thing but its guiltiness; and the wondrous result was brought round, that he felt every in which can ever be committed, and was pierced by it, and torn by it; and the alone innocent one, the solitary undefiled and unprofaned man, he was so bound up with each rebel against God that the rebellion, in all its ramifications, seemed to throw itself into his heart, and, convulsing where it could not contaminate, dislocated the soul which it could not defile, and caused the thorough endurance of all the wretchedness, and all the anguish, which were due to the transgressions of a mighty population.--Pp. 226, 227.

In like disregard of common sense, Mr. Melvill goes on to assure us that his own sins "ran, LIKE MOLTEN LEAD, along the fibre which bound him to his Saviour," and "poured themselves into the sanctuary of his righteous soul." P. 227.

Now, of all this elaborately-wrought statement we must say that it is a farrago of sheer nonsense; that it is utterly impossible, and, we need not add, wholly unscriptural. It is, moreover, wholly inconsistent with itself; for it begins with informing us that “ THE GUILTINESS OF EACH INDIVIDUAL pressed in upon the Mediator," and then tells us that "the sin of every child of a rebellious seed became Christ's own in every thing

BUT ITS GUILTIN ESS!" Why will men involve themselves in such flat contradictions? Why will men endeavour to explain what God has not been pleased to unfold; for "as the Scripture has left this matter of the satisfaction of Christ mysterious, all conjectures about it must be, if not evidently absurd, yet at least uncertain."* Yet the absurdity, and the uncertainty of these speculations are swallowed up in their mischievousness! Such rash talk about "unnumbered threads of sympathy" cannot but expose the doctrine of the atonement to the laugh of infidels, and the ridicule of scoffers! The transfer of our sins to Christ, so that they "knock at his heart, and ask for vengeance," is a fond fancy, and a delirious dream; for the actions of one man, we boldly assert, cannot be made the actions of another, any more than the moral character of one man cannot be made the moral character of another; nor does the Scripture at all countenance the notion that our blessed and immaculate Redeemer died in a state of guiltiness, or under the displeasure of his heavenly Father. Christ, indeed, sustained the burden of our sins by suffering for them,—by taking upon himself their penal consequences; for he was "numbered with the transgressors," -"treated, i. e. As IF He had been the actual transgressor;" and in virtue of his vicarious sufferings our reconciliation with God has been effected.* But this is very different from "the sins of men rushing against the surety!" For the penal consequence of sin is not sin, any more than the disease of the sensualist, though the appointed punishment of his intemperance, is his sensuality! But of this enough: we proceed with our review, and arrive at the ninth sermon, "St. Paul a tent-maker." It is sensible and original, without paradox, and unusually free from the besetting defects of Mr. Melvill's style. It is the object of this discourse to shew that the Almighty, in leaving St. Paul to toil as a tent-maker, "put much honour upon industry," and that "where he has appointed means, he will not work by miracles." The point, that Christians should be not slothful in business," but at the same time "fervent in spirit, serving the Lord;"—the fact that piety and industry have been associated by God; that there is an instituted connexion between secular employment and spiritual improvement; these truths are well put by our author, and forcibly illustrated by the example of St. Paul: he sends us to the writings of the apostle that we may learn what it is to be industriously religious; and to the workshop of the holy craftsman to teach us what it is to be religiously industrious.

We forbear to touch upon the "Calvinisms of Mr. Melvill; but we cannot resist the opportunity afforded us by the present sermon, of remarking that that interpretation of the word of God touching election and predestination, and man's free-agency, which must have either no

* Butler's Analogy, Part II. c. v. p. 247.

Magee on the Atonement, Vol. II. pp. 67-69.

practical consequences, or such only as are mischievous, and with regard to which interpretation (Mr. Melvill's exhortations before us exemplify the correctness of our statement), Christians are admonished to act as if it were false, bears upon its face the stamp and impress of its own refutation!

Would I ascertain my election to the blessedness of eternity? it must be by practically demonstrating my election to newness of life. It is not by the rapture of feeling, and by the luxuriance of thought, and by the warmth of those desires which descriptions of heaven may stir up within me, that I can prove myself predestined to a glorious inheritance. If I would find out what is hidden, I must follow what is revealed. The way to heaven is disclosed; am I walking in that way? It would be poor proof that I were on my voyage to India, that with glowing eloquence, and thrilling poetry, I could discourse on the palm-groves and the spice isles of the East. Am I on the waters? Is the sail hoisted to the wind; and does the land of my birth look blue and faint in the distance? The doctrine of election may have done harm to many-but only because they have fancied themselves elected to the end, and have forgotten that those whom Scripture calls elected are elected to the means. Bible never speaks of men as elected to be saved from the shipwreck; but only as elected to tighten the ropes, and hoist the sails, and stand to the rudder. Let a man search faithfully; let him see that when Scripture describes Christians as elected, it is, as elected to faith, as elected to sanctification, as elected to obedience; and the doctrine of election will be nothing but a stimulus to effort. It cannot act as a soporific. It cannot lull me into security. It cannot engender licentiousness. It will throw ardour into the spirit, and fire into the eye, and vigour into the limb. I shall cut away the boat, and let drive all human devices, and gird myself, amid the fierceness of the tempest, to steer the shattered vessel into port.-Pp. 273-275.

The

Our readers may rest assured that the gaudy and florid verbiage of this long quotation is at variance with our literary taste. We give it as a faithful specimen of the better portions of the declamatory parts of the sermons on our table. We will now afford them a sample of Mr. Melvill's rodomontade, to justify the observations with which we have felt it to be our duty to comment on these. Can any bombast exceed this?

The Mediator, designing to pour forth a torrent of lustre on the life, the everlasting life of man, oh, did he not bid the firmament cleave asunder, and the constellations of eternity shine out in their majesties, and dazzle and blind an overawed creation. He rose up, a moral giant, from his grave-clothes; and, proving death vanquished in his own strong-hold, left the vacant sepulchre as a centre of light to the dwellers on this planet. He took not the suns and systems which crowd immensity in order to form one brilliant cataract which, rushing down in its glories, might sweep away darkness from the benighted race of the apostate. But he came forth from the tomb, masterful and victorious; and the place where he had lain became the focus of the rays of the long-hidden truth; and the fragments of his grave-stone were the stars from which flashed the immortality of man.-Pp. 146, 147.

Take another example.

Never, oh never, would the sheeted reliques of mankind have walked forth from the vaults and the church-yards; never from the valley and the mountain would there have started the millions who have fallen in the battletug; never would the giant-caverns of the unfathomed ocean have yielded up the multitudes

who were swept from the earth when its wickedness grew desperate, or whom stranded navies have bequeathed to the guardianship of the deep; never would the dislocated and decomposed body have shaken off its dishonours, and stood out in strength and in symmetry, bone coming again to bone, and sinews binding them, and skin covering them; had not He, who so occupied the nature that he could act for the race, descended, in his prowess and his purity, into the chambers of death, and scattering the seeds of a new existence throughout their far spreading ranges, abandoned them to gloom and silence till a fixed and oncoming day; appointing that then the seeds should suddenly germinate into a rich harvest of undying bodies; and the walls of the chambers, falling flat at the trumpet-blast of judgment, disclose the swarming armies of the buried marching onwards to the "great white throne."-Pp. 136, 137.

Our limits forbid us to extend our critique. We have shewn our readers what we think of these harangues, and afforded them ample specimens to guide them in forming a judgment for themselves. That Mr. Melvill is a man of talent, is an aggravation of his offence against the laws of right reason, in subversion of the first principles of taste, in derogation of the sanctity of his pastoral office! That his volume, thus fraught with follies and extravagances, has reached a second edition, is an imperative reason why we should have given a fearless opinion respecting it. Yet we can assure our author that we have undertaken the review of his Sermons with no unfriendly hand, but in the hope that his future productions may be more deeply marked by soundness of doctrine, coupled with purity and simplicity of style.

ART. II.-The Remains of William Phelan, D.D. with a Biographical Memoir, by JOHN, BISHOP OF LIMERICK. In two volumes. London: Duncan ; Cochran. Dublin: Milliken and Son. 1832. 2 vols. 8vo. Pp. 462, 364.

THIS work, which has been for some time in our hands, will give us the opportunity of enriching our pages with an account of a highlygifted and truly excellent man. The name of Dr. Phelan is well known as a writer on subjects connected with the Church controversies of the day; but the pursuits more congenial to his nature were those of a christian pastor rather than a polemical divine. His first production in the latter character was a small pamphlet entitled "The Bible, not the Bible Society," powerfully written, and full of sound and sober reasoning, but received with alternate marks of vituperation and panegyric, according to the widely differing sentiments of its readers. In the volumes before us are reprinted an Essay on Scientific and Literary Pursuits," which obtained the prize of the Royal Irish Society in 1813; and an historical sketch, which occupies the whole of the second volume of the "Policy of the Church of Rome in Ireland, from the Introduction of the English Dynasty to the

66

Great Rebellion," which throws considerable light on the ecclesiastical affairs of the country. It is republished "not as a controversial, but purely as an historical, discussion; and it is hoped," says Dr. Jebb, "that, when temporary excitement shall have subsided, it may be studied with advantage by persons of every description; and, not least, by members of the Church of Rome." The other "Remains" are his Donnellan Lectures, and a selection from his Discourses, preached in Trinity College, Dublin, illustrative chiefly of the earlier parts of the gospel narrative.

To the character and merit of these pulpit instructions we shall recur at their proper place in the brief record of their author's life, which we proceed to collect from the delightful biographical sketch of the late and lamented Bishop of Limerick.

William Phelan was born at Clonmel, in the county of Tipperary, on the 29th of April, 1789. His father was a woolcomber, descended from a family reduced by the circumstances of the times from affluence to humility, and he retained, and imparted to his son, the feelings of a gentleman. In 1796, having received from his parent the first rudiments of the Latin language, in which he was himself well versed, young Phelan was sent to a daily grammar school in the neighbourhood; and, though his master, Mr. Ryan, was scarcely competent to complete his education, he spent between six and seven years under his care, with considerable advantage. At length, in 1803, at the age of 14, he was removed, with two of his schoolfellows, through the kind suggestion of their father (Mr. O'Sullivan), to the endowed school of Clonmel, then under the direction of the Rev. Richard Carey. Never was master more revered by his scholars, or better calculated, from his extensive knowledge, critical acumen, and refined taste, to advance their studies, than this amiable man, who was at this time withdrawing from active life, and confining his attention to a very limited number of pupils. An affectionate tribute to his memory by the elder of the three comrades, the Rev. S. O'Sullivan, is closed by a characteristic anecdote of Phelan's first admission into his school.

From the slovenliness, which, in that part of Ireland, then prevailed in the elementary parts of classical education, Mr. Carey had found it necessary to establish the general rule, that all who came to him from other schools, should, however plausible their seeming proficiency, retrace their steps through the Latin grammar. My brother and I, were, from our time of life, (we were a few years junior to our friend,) exempt from all mortification on this score: we were mere beginners; and, of course, were well satisfied to commence at the commencement. Some of the boys, however, officiously told Phelan of the humiliation which awaited him; no slight one, it will be admitted, to a diligent student of six or seven years' standing, who had been already delighting himself with the dense eloquence of Tacitus. He reddened, but said nothing. Then came the trial. A book was put into his hands: when such, at once, appeared his grounded knowledge of the Latin language, and so correctly classical was the diction of some exercises which he produced, that, without the least hesitation, Mr. Carey passed him into his highest class. On being