but has taken no notice of an Essay which was published by Mr Fuller, in the Biblical Magazine, vol. i. p. 283, and republished among his Tracts. On this subject, he boldly arraigns Owen as guilty of "darkening counsel by words without knowledge." Indeed, we were particularly displeased with the whole of his censorial strictures on the treatise on the "Person of Christ," a work which, together with its continuation, the "Meditations on the Glory of Christ," of all the theological works published by individuals since the Reformation, next to "Calvin's Institutions," we would have deemed it our highest honour to have produced. Let our tasteful and improved divines flout or frown at us for this preference as they list.

The defects of Owen's style are well known. They doubtless detract very considerably from the pleasure which would otherwise be felt in the perusal of his writings; but they will not deter from this any person, however refined his taste, whose mind is thoroughly imbued with the love of evangelical truth, who desires to understand the mind of God in the Scriptures, and who takes delight in profound, penetrating, and elevated views of divine things. It is a mistake to suppose that the faults which perplex and disfigure his style, attach to all his works; and even in some of them which are most faulty, the reader will meet with beautiful and eloquent passages. It is justly observed by Mr Orme, that "the style of the 'Display' (of Arminianism) is simpler and less strongly marked with the peculiarities of the author, than some of his subsequent performances. He had, probably, more time to bestow in correcting and polishing it, than he afterwards could command." This remark might have been extended to others of his early works, particularly to that on the "Death of Christ," which we do not scruple to pronounce extremely well written as a book of polemical divinity. The reason which Mr Orme assigns for the difference in point of style between his earlier and later writings, is so far true; but it does not exactly account for the fact. The Doctor enjoyed abundance of leisure for study in the latter period of his life. But he

had wanted it during the commonwealth. In consequence of the various employments which he then unfortunately submitted to take upon him, he was under the necessity of composing hurriedly for the chair, the pulpit, and the press; and bad habits contracted in middle life are for the most part incurable, or at least not cured. On some other persons, the circumstance mentioned would have produced a different effect. They would have continued to write well, and have learned to think superficially; for if a person has talents for composition, it is not difficult for him to write with perspicuity and energy on the spur of the occasion, provided only he is not required to think coolly, and to go deep into his subject. Dr Owen's mind was cast in a different mould. Style and manner were with him of very small importance indeed, compared with the matter and thoughts; his mind was intensely and undividedly fixed on the latter; and, as the hour for speaking or publishing pressed on, he was obliged to bring out his ideas without due attention to that arrangement of them which conduces so much to perspicuity, and was in the habit of clothing them, not always with those expressions which were the best and fittest, but with those which were nearest at hand, or which occurred to him most readily at the moment.

But after dismissing other subjects, we must not detain our readers with reflections on a point of inferior consequence. We therefore take leave of Mr Orme in the way of repeating our former assurance, that it has not been our wish, in any thing we have been obliged to state, unnecessarily to hurt his feelings. We wish him well as a man and an author; and provided we had had any good reason for believing that our advice would be listened to, we would have given him a proof of this feeling, by suggesting, before concluding our review, certain retrenchments and alterations, which, we think, would improve his work in a second edition, and help to make it-what we are exceedingly desirous to see-a Life of Dr Owen, at once creditable to the author, and worthy of the distinguished individual whose memory it was intended to preserve.

REVIEW OF SIR JAMES TURNER'S

LIFE AND TIMES.*

No period of the history of England is so deeply and so deservedly interesting as that which embraces the events of the Civil War during the 17th century, in which Scotland and Ireland were equally involved. In consequence of the rival claims of successive competitors for the crown, or the turbulence of powerful and ambitious vassals, the country had often before been the theatre of internal conflicts, the interest of which, how great soever at the time, gradually subsided and was forgotten. But there was something magnificent, though terrible, in the spectacle of the people of three kingdoms, who owned the authority of one prince, and resembled one another so closely in language and manners, rising in arms, and ranging themselves under opposite standards, not in sudden tumult, nor to decide whether this or the other individual or family should inherit the crown, but in a contest which involved, on the one side, the prerogatives of an ancient monarchy and a richly endowed clergy, and on the other, national rights, liberty, laws, and religion; one branch of the legislature in open hostility with the other two, and dividing between them the allegiance and affections of the subjects; a king and his parliament,

* Memoirs of his own Life and Times. Turner. 4to. Edinburgh, 1829.

1632-70. By Sir James

[From the Edinburgh Review for April 1830.]

after long negotiation and mutual preparations, deliberately and formally proclaiming war against one another, and waging it for a course of years with dubious success; while the surrounding nations, as if awe-struck, stood at a distance, and remained passive spectators of the struggle. It is impossible to contemplate this scene with indifference, though we should not take into view the unexampled fermentation of opinion, in politics and religion, excited during the progress of this war of principle, which burst forth at last with such fury as to overturn the monarchy and the whole frame of the constitution, and to produce a Commonwealth, with a military Protector at its head, whose death paved the way for the restoration of the royal family, and the re-establishment of the ancient order of things. Earlier portions of English history borrow much of their interest from extrinsic causes. Events which happened ages after the humiliation of King John, emblazoned Magna Charta, and consecrated the plain of Runnemede. In spite of Cressy, and Poictiers, and Agincourt, the reigns of the Edwards, and Henries, and Richards, would have been read by comparatively few, had they not been immortalised by the pen of Shakespeare, from whose pages, rather than those of Rapin or Hume, we recollect the order of their succession, and of the principal events connected with their names. But the transactions during the reign of Charles I. and the Commonwealth, stand in need of no adventitious aids to render them memorable. They have been recorded by many historians, and they have also furnished materials for fictitious composition; but we do not detract from the splendid talents possessed by some of these authors, when we say, they have been indebted to their subject for the interest excited by their writings, more than their subject is indebted to them.

Such being the case, we need not wonder that the documents illustrative of this period should be numerous. Whether the history of it has yet been written in a manner worthy of its importance, we shall not presume here to determine; but sure we are, there is no lack of materials

for such a work. This is, no doubt, to be ascribed, in a great degree, to the anxiety felt by all the parties, political and religious, which grew out of the confusions of that time, to bring forward what they deemed favourable to their respective views. But even at present, when the violence of party spirit has subsided, and the parties themselves are nearly confounded and lost, additions are daily making to the mass which is already collected. It would be unreasonable to expect, that recent discoveries should supply facts entirely new, or furnish grounds for a representation of events substantially different from any which has already been given to the public. But nothing is unnecessary or superfluous which throws the least light on the incidents of so great an era, or tends either to corroborate or to invalidate statements which rest on doubtful and contested authority. On this ground, the publishers of the work now before us are entitled to our thanks.* We do not welcome it the less cordially, that the sentiments which the author expresses on the leading questions which he has occasion to touch, differ widely from our own; and we hasten to give our readers an idea of its contents, taking the liberty, as we proceed, to intersperse a few relative facts from other sources which are not accessible to many.

The author of these Memoirs served during the civil wars as an officer in all the three kingdoms; and accordingly writes, in many instances, of transactions which he saw, and in which he sustained a part. But a great portion of the work, and that which will probably attract the chief attention of most readers, relates to Scotland, and particularly to that transaction which gained for the author a notoriety not of the most enviable kind. We refer to the insurrection suppressed at Pentland in the year 1666. This

Its publication is mainly, we believe we may safely say wholly, owing to the encouragement afforded to the undertaking by the BANNATYNE CLUB-100 copies of the work having been subscribed for by that Association. The public is farther indebted to the learned and accomplished Vice-President of the Club, for those editorial labours which have insured the fidelity and accuracy of the impression.