1829.] REVIEW. Rev. E. Irving's Sermons. pleasures*" Such are the operations and institutions of Providence (of which philosophers are the priests, under certain qualifications), as proved by History; and as the passions, arts, or luxuries, which are brought into action by such operations or institutions, cannot be controuled, we think that ascetical systems are unnatural, and that, philosophically speaking, conduct cannot be etherealized above morals and temperance; and if such a result were possible, that it would be inimical to the social duties. Indeed, all monastic and ascetical systems imply some to be lazy masters at the cost of others, being brutal drudges, to provide the former with the means of subsistence. We speak thus, because Mr. Irving sees no green fields in life-all is dreary desert, and all is cruel. Not a solitary passage have we seen in these powerful displays of genius and eloquence, which allows to mankind a single virtue, founded on civil duty, or affection, or patriotism, or industry, or honour, or moral character, or good nature, or any thing else relative to our well being and happiness in this world. All virtue is limited to an ascetical and (as we think) impracticable spirituality. Providence, by giving us bodies (for certainly they were not given to be instruments of torture), disqualified us from such aërial pretensions, and by inducing diseases as punishments of excess, and misfortunes as punishments of folly, has taught us that our duty is to be good and wise, as well as pious. We have spoken thus, because, through the whole of these fine Sermons, there runs a bitter spirit which such a man as Mr. Irving would never have adopted, if he had not deemed it professional duty. But we have been accustomed to judge of men and things by history and philosophy (sciences in which his own wise and gallant countrymen have especially instructed us), and if the laws of Providence and those of the Bible apparently vary, we think that the latter is misinterpreted. At the same time, it is to be admitted that a state of high civilization, and consequent luxury, is unfavourable to sufficient spirituality and abstraction; and that superabundant population causes men to do any thing to obtain a livelihood; and injudicious misma Inquiry into the true Faith, vol. i. p. 68. 339 nagement of the poor laws, disregard of character in the indigent. We know that we are treading upon burning embers, by thus opposing speculation, and appealing to reason, philosophy, and circumstances; but project is not history, nor does theory avail against experience. We are not of opinion that exacerbation will have any other effect, in general, than defiance, unless a worldly interest (sorry we are to say it) is attacked. We think so from the high reason in Bp. Sherlock's Sermon upon "Let not your good be evil spoken of." (Rom. xiv. 16.) Nevertheless, there is excellent forensic and parliamentary reprimand (as to oracular manner) in Mr. Irving's castigations of the dangerous. presumption, "Let us sin that grace may abound" (i. 49); of Unitarianism, as moulding Deity according to its own superficial conceptions (i. 105); of Evangelism, as discouraging theological research, and fostering latitudinarian indifference (i. 136); of irreverence towards superiors, and radicalism in politics (ii. 747); of Bible-pride, rejecting authority and ministerial instruction (ii. 434); of self-interpretation of Scripture, as if a man could learn his letters without being taught them, or a trade, by merely having the tools laid before him" (ii. 445); of the brutal sensuality of labourers and mechanics (iii. 1056); and of idolatry of the Bible, "whereas it was never intended that a book should of itself convert the world, else no more than a book would have been given; and it never hath happened that the Bible itself hath wrought any great reformation in the church." iii. 1241. reason Flogging is a most essential part of Mr. Irving's school-discipline; and we should tremble at being flogged by him, though we think, from sulky obstinacy, that argument and would be more efficacious. But on this head we have said enough; and shall conclude with the following trite, beautiful, and masterly illustration of the blessed effects of piety. "The atmosphere is not more necessary to the vegetation of a plant, than devotion is to the growth of those virtues within the soul, which go to form the soil of a good and honest heart,' whereof we now treat. And very much the same uses which the atmosphere serveth to the growth of plants, doth devotion serve to the growth of all good fruits in the soul. For the plant, by 310 REVIEW. Remarks on Raine's St. Cuthbert. having its roots in the earth, doth in licking up the moisture inhale from the earth a certain substance, which it is as necessary for it to cast off, as it is for animals to cast out through the draughts, the refuse, and dregs of what they eat and drink. All life which is supported upon the earth imbibe a vile intermixture of things, which life must separate and discharge out of the system, otherwise it will soon sicken and die. Now behold you the use of the atmosphere to the plants, which in the season of the night do give out from their leaves that noxious substance which they have separated from the nourishment; and this is the reason why we may not without risk sleep beside plants in the night season. Thus they purge themselves by their commerce with the air of heaven, from that feculency which they draw up from their intercourse with the ground. Even so doth man by devotion cleanse off the impurities which his spirit deriveth from the business and commerce of worldly life; for, brethren, there is a baseness and wickedness in all human associations, a mixture, to say the best of it, in all human occupations, which clouds and sickens the spirit of a man, damps all its ardours, extinguishes all its holy aspirations, and in time drowns its spiritual life utterly; unless from time to time we do, by confessions and meditations and prayers unto God, and acts of lively faith upon the blood of Christ, purge and cleanse our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.... And observe also the exactness of the em blem, of the growth of plants, with relation to the growth of the spirit. When the plant hath thus cleansed itself, in the season of the night, from the foul substance which it takes in with its nourishment by the roots, then when the Sun ariseth, it is ready for holding a higher and more vital communion with the air of heaven. For now every leaf is diligently occupied inhaling the pure air of life, the oxygen or vital part of the air, by which all healthy and vigorous and joyful life is supported. This is the breathing of the plant, whence it hath the quickening life, which enables it to draw nourishment from the moisture of the earth, as well as the power to purge off the unwholesome and deadly matter which it hath gathered from the earth; and such, in the higher region of devotion, is the communion with the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, which we hold in prayer." ii. 769, 770. Remarks on the "St. Cuthbert" of the Rev. James Raine, M. A. &c. &c. 8vo. pp. 68. MR. RAINE (as we have recently shown in a Review of his work,) has given an elaborate account of the phenomena which accompanied the exhumation of the body (as presumed) [April, of St. Cuthbert at Durham. In the course of his work he has made various reflections on the pious frauds and impostures of the monks, and by so doing, has roused the anger of some Catholics, who have in consequence published this pamphlet, which we have heard attributed to Dr. Lingard. The gist of it is to show, that Mr. Raine did not find the real body of St. Cuthbert, which still lies interred in a part of the church, known only to certain modern Benedictines. Of this secret the following explanation is given: "According to the tradition which has descended to them, [the said Benedictines,] the body of St. Cuthbert was buried under the shrine in the reign of Henry VIII., and was taken up again during the reign of Queen Mary; that the Catholic clergy, previously to their expulsion under Queen Elizabeth, buried many things, which they esteemed sacred, in the vault under the place where the shrine had stood, but for greater security, deposited the Saint's body in a vault in a different part of the church; and that the secret was communicated to the restorers of the English Benedictine congregation by some of those who had actually been employed in this removal. The spot itself is distinctly marked in a plan of the cathedral, which they keep, but that spot they are under an oath of secrecy not to disclose." p. 59. Now a question of fact cannot be determined without experiment; and, as the secret interment is said to have been made in a vault, and vaults in cathedrals are, we presume, accessible, perhaps, without sacrilegious and irreverent disturbance of the remains of the dead, vindication of Mr. Raine may be easy. As to ourselves we are satisfied that Mr. Raine has made out a case not to be disputed, except by physical contradiction, and we sure that the accompaniments found by him, are of the age of St. Cuthbertunquestionably Anglo-Saxon. are There is great ingenuity and equal sophistry in this pamphlet; but we Protestants are not so ignorant, as Catholics presume, as to take brass for gold. For instance, in p. 41, we find the following passage: "Mr. Raine has added a note respecting Harpsfiell and Fox. Certainly he cannot mean to degrade the credit of Harpsfield to a level with that of the Martyrologist." Now, whoever has read Bishop Jewel's Reply to Harding, &c. &c., will find, that Harpsfield was an abstracted convicted liar, and that his IN Ecclesiastical History, we take no pleasure. What ought from the subject to promote only good turns out bad; what ought to bear wheat, produces only tares. What is the cause? Men in agricultural processes consult their necessities by taking care that their wheat crops do not fail; but in ecclesiastical matters virtue does not gratify ambition, which can never thrive by good arts; and ambition has its classifications and grades, from the lowest to the highest rank of life; and where religion is made the ladder of promotion, it is often mistaken for that of Jacob, not a real, but a dreaming one; and those who ascend such ladders are very subject to vertigo, and fall off before they reach the top. These perpetual falls form the disagree able materials of Ecclesiastical History. Moreover, one remarkable providential fact ensues in verification of Scripture, and St. Peter's instruction, "Add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge," viz., that without the two last adjuncts no religious improvement follows. Our Divine physician never made his prescriptions of only one ingredient, nor did he intend that the chemist should set up for the doctor, or his pharmacopoeia be formed out of theory, by charlatans. If, in Swift's mode of speaking, we had no rogues or fools, Ecclesiastical History would consist only of the successive efforts of philanthropists to do good, and would show the real truth, that knowledge has furnished all the mechanical machinery which has developed in action the great excellence of Christianity. Freestone will never bear a polish, but marble may; nor can a rope be made of sand, or a house of cards. There is a previous necessity for what Scripture calls a "fullness of time," modes of living and form of government, upon principles of civili zation; a horse before the cart, or else the proposed Christianization is mere empiricism. Men who obtain their support as hunters or savages cannot be Christians; and no facts are better known than that the "fullness of time," implied a sufficient state of civilization for the promulgation of Christianity; that Popery grew out of barbarism, and Mahometanism out of Sectarianism, and Protestantism out of the revival of learning. The horrors of Ecclesiastical History proceed from nothing else than the ambition or folly of individuals endeavouring to make proselytes to become themselves gods, and their followers idolators. It is a general misfortune, that we cannot find out right roads, without being informed of wrong ones; that we cannot become fish, which escape baits and hooks, without knowing that there are such things. It is physically impossible for man to be without the fear of God, or the instinct of immortality, or the erroneous conception of what he does not understand. All these inevitable circumstances are excellent materials for speculation to improve upon, as darkness is for ghost stories; but after all it is only Art misrepresenting Truth, Nature, and Providence. Providence will be always found to go hand in hand with Revelation, and History will here present no mutation. Excess has been ever followed by disease, and folly by adversity. Temperance and prudence are therefore as distinctly marked by Providence as by Scripture, and all the moral laws come under one or the other of these duties of temperance or prudence. As to revelation, a man is as little vindicated in putting his own arbitrary interpretations upon it, as he is in constructing according to his wishes the will of a testator or the spirit of a statute. However, the aberrations which form the chief materials of ecclesiastical history are of a similar character; and the Devil tried to become God, with just as much rationality as thousands have built castles in the air upon the Bible which they profess to understand by intuition, without any compunction or reflection upon the wickedness of adding to, diminishing, or corrupting the sole standard of weights and measures in piety and morals. Of Spanheim's Ecclesiastical Annals, a most copious, elaborate, and useful compendium, commendation is as un 342 REVIEW. Bayly's necessary, as it would be of the utility of speech or memory. By a homely, though not degrading similitude, we may call it an "Almanack of Ecclesiastical History," and it is just as useful to theologians, as tables are to merchants-great savings of time and trouble. Mr. Wright is an editor, who walks passibus æquis; and with such a Castor as Spanheim, it is no small merit to become a Pollux. We know so little of the Antediluvians, that we shall take our extract from the account of them, in p. 109. "On the impiety of Cain's descendants, and the corruption of the Church, the Scriptures speak decisively. See Moses, Christ, Paul, Peter, &c. And although doctrinal impiety is not so pointedly censured as immorality, yet both are frequently condemned, and may be comprehended under the following heads: 1. Want of faith, of which sin Cain himself was an instance. (Gen. iv. 5; Heb. xi. 4.) 2. Fratricide, a principal cause of the wickedness that ensued. 3. A depravation of doctrine (Jude xiv. 2, Pet. ii. 5), a neglect of the promise respecting the seed that should bruise the serpent's head; the perversion of sacrifices from the end designed; the denial of the Providence and judgment of God, and of the immortality of the soul. 4. The worship of idols, alluded to by Moses, Gen. iv. 26, vi. 5, Josephus, and the orientals. Many learned men admit that idolatry prevailed before the flood. But it is uncertain whether it was the worship of the stars, of heroes, or of demons, and angels. 5. Profligacy of life, tyranny in government, polygamy in wedlock (Gen. iv. 19), sensuality, drunkenness, and adultery. At length the children of Seth, the sons of God,'* united with the wicked descendants of Cain † (Gen. vi. 4), and the wickedness became universal. IV. The time allowed for the repentance of the old world was about 120 years (Gen. vi. 3). Noah, during that period (1 Pet. iii. 20; 2 Pet. ii. 5), continued to warn and preach to the inhabitants, and was then commanded to build the ark, for which a sufficient time was allowed him. His faith and ready obedience deserve notice. The structure of the ark is an object of wonder. Its material was Gopher or cypress wood. Its size was prodigious, being 300 common cubits in length, 50 in breadth, and 30 in height; and was capable of carrying a burden of 42,413 tons. It had three stories, and *Monotheists.-Rev. + Idolators.-REV. Fifty Lyrical Ballads. By Thomas Haynes ALL these pieces have been published with music, and many of them have become universal favourites. This collection is not intended for sale, but has been printed at Bath for distribution among the author's noble and private friends. There is much beautiful poetry and pretty sentiment in these lyrics, but some of them want strength and brilliancy. That amiable and talented poet, Lisle Bowles, has remarked, in one of his later works, that "epithets, generally painting to the eye, destroy the sentiment of the melody addressed to the ear;" and has noticed how little this is regarded, particularly by those, with one masterly exception (Thomas Moore), who write songs "expressly" for music. Mr. Bayly may be ranked among the excep tions; but no comparison can be instituted between the pleasant, genteel paces of his Pegasus, and the striking, vivid, and noble ones of the Bard of Erin. The songs "Oh am I not a lover still," "The Bridemaid," "Hand in Hand, Love," "The faded Loveknot," and one or two others, are of a very superior description, and interest us by the depth of feeling, the delicacy of the sentiment, and the beautiful simplicity of the imagery and the language. Among these songs we recognize some which are incessantly rung into our ears at every concert and in every street, which cannot but please and delight, when sung with feeling tempted by every tyro in music. "Oh and taste, but which disgust when atno we never mention her," so charmingly executed by Miss Love; "Fly away, pretty Moth,' I'd be a Butterfly," and its answer, "Be a Butterfly then," which in our opinion is the best written of the two, have reputations that it is difficult to shake, and which they deserve. Some of the playful hu 1829.] REVIEW.-Wolff's Missionary Journal. 66 mourous pieces have merit, and display an inclination for punning to some extent. The principal are, My wife is very musical,” “"Lord Harry has written a Novel," "The Men are all clubbing together," "My Husband means extremely well," &c. We shall conclude our notice of Mr. Bayly's songs, which have given us satisfaction and delight both in the closet and the drawing-room, to say nothing of the theatres, &c. by quoting one piece, which combines the playful and the serious: "Benedicite Daughter. The lady abbess was gone to her rest, Save one who sick of so dull a nest, Was over the battlement peeping; Come down-Benedicite Daughter!' Away! Benedicite Daughter.' The lady abbess awoke--and she heard She counted her brood, and missing a bird, But she tumbled into the water! Missionary Journal of the Rev. Joseph Wolff, Missionary to the Jews. Vol. 1. 8vo. pp. 363. MR. WOLFF's Journal resembles the North-west Passage explorations. It shows the almost insuperable difficulties of the object sought; difficulties here growing out of debasement of character. Unphilosophical enthusiasts, however, as such, idolatrise trouble: like dogs, bones are as much food for them as flesh; and maugre all physical obstacles, Mr. Wolff and his coadjutors have sown seed and turned out cattle for breeding, in an Esquimaux desart of snow; but how is any other than nominal Christianity to be reconciled with Oriental habits, such, 343 for instance, as polygamy, assassination, rapine, and other notorious vices? The Propagandists have, for a long series of years, established missions in Asia: but has the result been attended with any other success than the conversion of a few insulated individuals, at the very best only of star-light instead of day-light? We think that all this implies no more than erroneous navigation. The horrid governments and customs of the East prevent the elevation of mind and sentiment essential to civilization; and as to the Jews, the oppression of them is so shocking, their manners so disgusting, and their roguery and meanness so appalling, (see pp. 33-37, &c. &c.) yet accompanied with such stubborn prejudices, that very few conversions can be deemed sincere, or, if sincere, efficient as to the production of a character befitting Christians. We think, therefore, that the first step is, to prepare the manners of the people for the exemplification of Christianity, before it is worth while to expend money and labour in making converts, whose opinions may be those of angels, and whose actions may be those of devils. It is, nevertheless, but mere justice to Mr. Wolff to state, that he is urgent for establishing schools, and previously civilizing and cultivating the Jews. (p. 272, seq.) Persia seems the most favourable soil; and it is an opinion of our author (p. i.), "that the appearance of our Lord will take place either in Persia or in China." We must, however, refer to the book itself, for a variety of very curious ideas entertained by the Órientals: so barbarous are they, that Druidesses exist at the present day in the Caucasus. There are tribes "Who have no priest, properly so called: a woman, who has acquired the character of great sanctity, or holding communications with the inhabitants of the other world, is consulted by people suffering under distress, sickness, or any loss; there are particular streams, vallies, and groves, that are held sacred, in which festivities are performed with the greatest secrecy. they offer sacrifices, but their great jealousy in preventing people from witnessing their rites, has hitherto prevented them from having positive information." p. 193. Here Mr. Wolff reprobates conversion of Jews to Christianity by means of bribery, for he says, A Jew who leaves his religion on ac |