they were less cultivated, or produced less effect on public opinion. In an age like this, habits of deep and serious thought are not easily acquired. Theology-awful in its moral importance, and furnishing, in the detail of its inquiries, the sublimest objects of intellectual admiration-can never be studied with success by minds undisciplined for the pursuit; will open none of its golden treasures to the superficial reader; be always unprofitable to the hasty writer and loose thinker; and will, therefore, uniformly be found to flourish least in those times when circumstances are unfavourable to a close concentration of thought and feeling. With two or three conspicuous exceptions, we have at present no examples, either of that patient and vigorous research or of that rich and noble eloquence which distinguished the instructors of our forefathers, and made their works a storehouse of all that is glorious in theology, weighty in human learning, or sublime in philosophy. "From these united causes, wants have arisen in the public mind which call loudly for attention. While it is supposed to be glutted with knowledge, it is in fact wanting its most useful elements; while opinions are discussed with the greatest appearance of interest, few or no solid principles of reasoning are comprehended. The increasing zeal for popular instruction is mistaken for the actual progress of improvement; and there is reason to fear that the grand engines of truth have remained unmoved, while the gale and the stream have made the greatest noise. We lament to say, that to a considerable degree this is the case with regard to the progress of religion. There is, doubtlessly, much sincere piety and active zeal abroad; but there is also much of ill-supported pretence, much secret infidelity, more of negligence and indifference, and a still greater abundance of sectarian pride, mixed up with all the low cunning and base rancour which the spirit of schism can inspire. Christianity can make little progress, while there is no voice loud enough to make itself heard above the din of infidel clamour, or the whine and murmur of ignorant complainants. Disbelievers in the Gospel, and the haters of the order it would inculcate, have been too long left to think themselves equal on the field of dispute. The worst passions of men have been appealed to, through the worst mediums; and, which is a circumstance that no other age has been so degraded by as our own professors of religion, to carry some point or establish some favourite prin ciple, have leagued with the known enemies of their faith, and confounded the liberty of Christians with the licence of devils. Let this be added to the miserable taste for display which has crept in among some of the ministers of God; which has led them to make anticks on the very ark of the covenant: let it be added to the indifference with which the holiest offices of the Pure Christian church have begun to be regarded; and there will be a sufficient reason to believe, that, if religion have any supporters, now is the time that their exertions are most needed, that plain piety and sound learning are at their full value." We need scarcely add, that in the truth of these observations we entirely coincide; and if we admit their force so applicable to theology and literature in general, we feel them to be of tenfold power with reference to that department of revealed truth to the investigation of which our pages are more especially devoted. That we may not be thought unjustly spargere in auram voces ambiguas, we shall proceed to offer some proof of the justness of the remarks which we have copied from "The Ecclesiastic,' and especially as far as they are applicable to the subject of prophecy. It is well known to the majority of our readers, that about four years ago the publication of Mr. Irving's sermon preached before the Continental Society (Babylon Foredoomed), the letters of Mr. Lewis Way under the signature of Basilicus, the Dialogues on Prophecy, and some other works upon the same subject by Messrs. Fry, Vaughan, Marsh, Noel, M'Neile, Hawtrey, &c. roused the attention of the church, and of the world, to the coming kingdom of the Lord, in a way that it had not been excited for many years: and then it was for the first time perceived, with amazement and grief, that the doctrines advanced in them were charged with being "novel," and of "modern invention." This charge was not made in one, or only in some, of those publications which assume to be the sole legitimate teachers and judges of theology, called "Religious Magazines," and contradicted in others; but they all, of every party, creed, and denomination, united in one concurrent testimony that these opinions were novel and heretical. Not being in the habit of reading Magazines-from considering them, even in their best form, as calculated to furnish spurious and superficial information, and to be therefore rather prejudicial than otherwise to sound doctrine and practical godliness-we were much surprised at what was advanced; and still more so at finding, that, however their respective opinions varied upon every other branch of religion, doctrinal and ceremonial, they were unanimous in spurning the belief of the personal coming of our Lord before the Millennium, and in rejecting the idea of His kingdom on earth ever being more remarkably displayed than in a wider extension of the present state of Christendom. A remark in the Political Register respecting the London newspapers seemed to furnish a key to the solution of this mystery: the author, therein commenting upon the notorious corruption of the public journals, and on their being influenced one day by the gamblers in the funds, and another day by speculators in corn, cotton, coals, hops, &c., observes, that the only sure ground of judging of the truth or falsehood of any of their statements consists in their unanimity; so that, says he, whenever they are all agreed in one story, we may be quite sure it is false. This same rule seemed to be equally applicable to the Magazines; and so upon closer examination it was found to be, in more instances than one-as, for example, the Apocryphal controversy, involving the question of the inspiration of Scripture; on which they all, with the single exception of the Edinburgh Christian Instructor, which is the organ of no particular party, promulgated the most novel and unblushing heresies with perfect unanimity. The first charge-namely, the novelty of the prophetical opinions advanced-is a question of bare fact; and the secondnamely, the orthodoxy-is more a question of opinion. The first charge-namely, their novelty-excited considerable surprise in all who knew any thing of Ecclesiastical History, of the writings of the Fathers, or of the most learned commentators on the Scriptures. It was therefore easily refuted. But the refutation involved, as a necessary consequence, the religious and literary and moral characters of the Magazines: for since their charge was triumphantly rebutted by reference to the Fathers, Ecclesiastical History, and the Commentators, it could only be made from wilful falsehood, or from most illiterate ignorance. They are wholly exculpated from the first imputation, which is moral, but arraigned on the latter, which is in itself only literary: but, in either case, these writers stand self-convicted of incompetence as teachers of others. No answer whatever has been made to the subjects advanced; but since they have been attempted to be run down, through personal attacks upon the individuals who hold them, it is obvious that there is no method left to obtain for them a candid investigation, but to break the spell by which the Christian public is bound, and to shew the real merits of those writers who have presumed to anathematize all who do not kneel before them. If any one suppose that the question at issue is one of merely speculative theology, and which may be entertained as an episode in his scheme of Christianity, and be received or rejected without any detriment to his soul's health and safety, he is most egregiously mistaken. If it were indeed as he supposes, it would be a very idle disputation. The point at issue is neither more nor less than what God has revealed to be his chief end in creation and redemption; to which end all other acts of God in providence are only subordinate: the great importance of which subject has been well shewn by President Edwards. The object of all doctrines is to bring us to know and to enjoy Go; and unless they do this, they are nothing but puerile subtleties, fit only for the amusement of the idle schoolmen of the dark ages. It cannot be too often inculcated and borne in mind, that the knowledge of God is not the knowledge of an invisible metaphysical abstraction, but the knowledge of an acting God; "in whom"-that is, in whose acts-"we" ourselves "live and move and have our being;" of an AGENT, who is only to be known by his acts; and which acts can only be admired as they are perceived to be conducing to some proposed end. So that the point at issue contains the sum and substance of all religion, as the greater includes all its subordinates. However lightly they may treat the matter, it is nevertheless one of the highest importance; nor will we deny the conclusion to which, if we are wrong, they may justly drive us, of being under a fearful delusion, and perverting a large portion of Scripture. On the other hand, if we are right, they are infidel to nine-tenths of what God has said: and between these extremes there is no middle course, in all that respects our hope, our watchfulness, our prayers, and our brotherly love. We are expecting the Seed of the woman, the Son of Abraham, the Son' of David, the Son of Mary, to drive Satan out of this earth; to take possession of the promised land; to sit upon David's throne in Zion; to govern the world in righteousness and true holiness; and to produce the happiness of the whole race: They are expecting Him never to come, but for twenty-four hours, to burn up the globe: Wherefore the object of our hope is essentially different. We are of opinion that Christendom is full of infidelity; that the time is arrived to punish the nations for their apostasy (whether Papal, Greek, or Mohammedan), and to repay all the cruelties which they have committed on the Jews for eighteen hundred years; that the modern religious societies, however useful they may have been in calling out God's elect to the ark of Christ's church, are nevertheless full of selfrighteousness and Pharisaism, and tend much faster to ripen the world for judgments than to convert it; and that Christ is just at hand to destroy suddenly all Protestant nations and churches, as well as the Papal: They are of opinion that the societies are to go on getting more money, and sending out more books and preachers, till the whole world is gradually converted by them, without any judgments at all: Therefore, either we are groundless alarmists, or they are lulling men to certain perdition, and crying Peace, peace, whilst sudden destruction is at the door; and thus our watchfulness, both in the thing to be watched for and in the necessity for it, are essentially different. We believe that the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah are both to be reunited under one King, even Christ, in their own land; and that they will then produce the conversion of the world: They believe that neither of the kingdoms is ever to return to its own land; and that they are just like Heathens, Mohammedans, or other unconverted men, and to be prayed for with the same end: Therefore, the object of our prayers touching the Jews and the world is different. We believe that they who deny these things are infidels to the greater part of God's word: They believe that we are under delusion, and are perverting God's word: Therefore, our brotherly love for each other is much disturbed. A small volume has lately appeared from the pen of Dr. Hamilton, professing to be against the views of the Millenarians. It contains shreds of sentences dragged from their contexts in various writers, and placed in such juxta-position as to shew the opinions of the said writers to be contradictory to each other; an attack upon the politics and sentiments of some writers, that have no connection whatever with the subject; a few misquotations from the Fathers; mistakes in ecclesiastical history; a string of coarse epithets applied to his opponents; and two awful passages of heresy (awful, considering they come from the pen of an Evangelical Doctor in the Church of Scotland!), one of which is flagrant Pelagianism, and the other denies the mortality of the human nature of our Lord. As soon as this extraordinary performance appeared, the Evangelical Magazine, under the false pretext of reviewing it, pronounced a panegyric upon the whole Work-scurrili y, misquotations, heresy, and allgave no analysis of its arguments, or of the opinions which it was written to assail; but applauded the whole, because it was calculated to shew "how little the Millenarians are entitled to public confidence;" in furtherance of which laudable object heresy itself is no offence in the eyes of the Reverend Evangelical conductors of this Magazine. It would not be just, however, to include the Christian Observer in the strictures which have been made upon the other magazines; for, although the standard of its theology is the lowest that is possible within the verge of orthodoxy, and although it is one of the foremost in proclaiming an approaching Millennium by means of Bible and Missionary Societies and Infidel Universities, yet it has never attempted to crush all inquiry into the present subject: on the contrary, some very wellwritten papers have appeared in its columns on both sides of the question; and in the style of its criticisms, on those points on which it differed most widely from us, it formed a perfect contrast to the coarseness of some of its contemporaries. The Baptist Magazine has also endeavoured to discuss the subject, although with remarks on private individuals perfectly unjustifiable. Whether it has examined the question well or ill, is not now the point: it has not attempted, at least, to put its veto upon all who should presume to differ from it. The Editor of "the Christian Guardian and Church-of-En |