lutely to reject the truth, he insinuated a pernicious error in their minds. Taking advantage of the false spirit of love, and unsanctified, anti-christian benevolence, which he had been long infusing into their hearts, he found a soil well prepared for the reception of his damnable doctrine of universal redemption ;-a doctrine not only in direct contradiction to many express declarations of God's word, but utterly at variance with every object that is revealed as to be answered by the incarnation and death of the Son of God; by the creation, fall, and redemption of man. This error spread far and wide: many of God's own children were deceived; and, if they did not absolutely embrace it, received so much of it as for a long time to unsettle their minds, and unhinge their whole scheme of divinity: while indolent and ignorant preachers either did not perceive its consequences, or were too indifferent to their duty to warn men of its danger.

He

As, in calculating the value of the services of Luther and Knox, we must refer to the times, and the grossness of the practices which they were raised up to overthrow; so must we call to mind the state of the church, when we are forming an estimate of the powers of the man whom the Lord raised up to be His witness in another day. While the majority of professors of religion were in the state of mawkish sentimentality which we have above describedwhining and puling about Christian love, although hating God's revealed character in their hearts-Mr. Vaughan was prepared of God to withstand the delusion that Satan had introduced. performed this office in the most effectual, if not in the only, way in which it is possible to meet this heresy; which is, by reference to as much of the ultimate end and purpose of God in all his intermediate acts as is revealed in God's word. The subject has been handled by many divines, among the most eminent of whom may be named Hooker, Charnock, Edwards, and Williams. The first refers to it only by the way, in the course of a treatise on another matter. Charnock takes a more extended view, as the nature of his work required he should do, but without bringing it to bear upon any one specific point. President Edwards alludes to it only in reference to Arminian errors and Williams has written with one great fallacy running through his work, which makes some reject it as altogether deceptious; while others receive it, fallacy and all, without being able to discriminate between them. The form, therefore, which the present heresy has assumed, required Mr. Vaughan to treat the subject in a manner different from all his eminent predecessors.

There are two principal methods on which an argument may be constructed. The one is, by announcing the proposition intended to be proved at the commencement of the oration, and following it up by a series of proofs: the other is, by stealing

on the hearers gradually, and winning them to the conclusion at which it is meant to bring them, without exciting any opposition to their previous prejudices. Both these modes have been used by the masters of rhetoric. Demosthenes seems to have availed himself of them indiscriminately, without giving one a preference over the other. Aristotle points them out; as does also Cicero, in his treatise de Oratore, observing that he used both, but without stating his reasons for employing one or the other. Mr. Vaughan usually adopted the former. Much may be said in favour of both. In the present day of superficial knowledge and apathy in religion, it may be well to state at once some startling proposition, which shall have the effect at least of rouzing the auditors out of their "death-like stilness and their dread repose." On the other hand, so great is the ignorance of religionists, and so little are they in the habit of reflecting or of reasoning, that the plainest truths will be rejected, unless supported by some name in repute amongst them. Examples of this are seen in the universality with which the facts connected with the second coming of the Lord were branded by the whole of the Evangelical oracles as NEW! and the flippancy with which, in their folly, they called the orthodox creed of our Lord's true humanity a heresy.—Mr. Vaughan's object is thus described by himself. By popular essays,' the author means essays 'addressed to the common people, as distinct from the learned; and by this title holds himself excused from going at large into the investigation and defence of every assertion and reference which he may introduce into his work. Following the advice of a judicious prelate, he aims to write "dogmatically rather than controversially;" but desires it to be understood, 'that he advances nothing without serious thought, and some research. He begs his reader not to be dismayed if he meet with a word or sentence here and there which he does not instantly 'comprehend. Before he has finished the number or essay, he 'will probably find some light thrown upon it which removes 'his difficulty. The secrets of God cannot be received or told 6 at once. The author stipulates, therefore, for patience, attention, and repeated rumination. The thoughtless, the superficial, and the desultory, will either disdain to read, or quickly 'throw aside so dull, so laborious, so unpersuasive a performance. The author has not rigidly adhered to the received version in 'his long and multiplied quotations from the Scriptures. Whilst ' he admires the simplicity, energy, and numerous arrangement ' of that version, and is ever ready to maintain that it constitutes a fair transcript of the original volume, sufficiently accurate for general use; still, in collecting and reciting the testimony of God upon any proposed subject, he deems it necessary to exercise a scrupulous fidelity in the rendering of every word,

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clause, and sentence of the parent language, though it be with some offence to the ear and taste, and with the hazard of detracting some little from the more than due veneration with ' which that truly venerable work is commonly regarded. Taking 'it for granted, moreover, that the reader will have his Bible at hand, he has ventured to save expense and trouble by printing only his own exhibition of the sacred text, which he requests 'him, however, to compare with the authorized one. In his quotations from the New Testament, he has followed Professor 'White's edition (Oxford: 1803) even to the punctuation; and in his quotations from the Old, in which he chiefly adopts the ' received version, has used Simons's Hebrew Bible (Amst. ' 1753).'

If we were to endeavour to state as briefly as possible the separate objects aimed at by the Evangelical party, from the days of Whitefield and Wesley to the present hour, and by Mr. Vaughan and a few others (such as Mr. Goode and Mr. Howells), we should say it was this: that the problem proposed for solution by the former was, "With how small a portion of right knowledge of the revealed character of God is it possible to be safe?" whereas the problem to be resolved by the other class is, "How shall the greatest knowledge of God be attained, that HE may be rightly worshipped and loved?" One would suppose, from the published sermons, that such a prayer as that of the Apostle for the Ephesians was never offered up by any of the former class: "I cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him; the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints." Our present business is not with the former class, or it would be easy to shew that its tendency is to propagate a fearful delusion,-that the followers of it may have a satanic hatred to the God of the Bible, while they may flatter themselves that they are heirs of his kingdom. But we have now to do with Mr. Vaughan.

It is not to be denied that the ultimate end of all God's counsel and operations in creation is the manifestation of Him'self;' and that the object of teaching his creatures to know Him is, that the loveliness of his nature may be known, and he therein loved and worshipped aright. It is impossible that the felicity of God can be in the remotest degree increased or diminished by the existence or non-existence of the works of his own hands. The moving cause, therefore, of his "going out into creation acts," to use a quaint expression of the old writers, is a willingness to communicate as much of that blessedness to

his creatures which is alone in himself, as it is possible for them to receive. In this extended view of the subject the maxims of Bolingbroke and Warburton, versified by Pope, are true :

And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,

One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.

But confined to this present globe these sentiments are not true, and afforded fair ground for the ridicule which was poured upon them by Voltaire, in his tale of Candide. It is true, however, that the amount of evil, sin, misery, and suffering, which forms so large a majority of the present scene, will be found, at the time of the denouement of the great drama, to have been the smallest which was possible, in order to effect the great object of the manifestation of Himself. A metaphysical subtilty has. been mooted by the question, Whether the willingness to communicate of the blessedness, or the manifestation of his own being in order that he may be worshipped aright by the whole of his creatures, ought to be placed as the first idea in the Divine Mind. Now, there is a self-evident fallacy in applying the term "first" to any operation of the Divine Mind; and also in supposing that one quality can have a preponderance over others; the term "holiness," in the abstract, seeming to imply the complete harmony of the whole of God's moral attributes, as the term "glory" seems to express the effect of the manifestation of that harmony upon the intelligent creature. Love is an attribute as necessary to be manifested as any other, but it would involve a contradiction to assert that it were more necessary than any other. Again: it is probable that the whole circle of moral attributes, though appearing to be composed of many to our senses, does not, in fact, consist of divers attributes existing in harmony with each other; but is one, and existing only in unity. But into this question it is not our present purpose to enter. No one, observes Dr. Gooch on Mania, can have read the Bible, even in the most cursory manner, without perceiving that the number of human beings declared to be saved is considerably smaller than that declared to be lost. This learned physician might have advanced much further, and have shewn, that, upon every scheme which admits of future rewards and punishments for offences committed in this life, more must meet with condemnation than with praise. So that the evidence of our senses plainly declares, that which accurate reasoning must determine in like manner-namely, that the suffering of the creature is compatible with the happiness, and with the exhibition of love in the Creator: whence it follows, that as the infliction of pain is the contrary of an exercise of love, the suffering of the creature must be to shew forth some other attribute, commensurate with, although not necessarily opposed to, that of love. Some Deists have felt the force of this so strongly, as to have

found themselves compelled to draw a distinction between those sufferings which are endured in this life, and those which are declared to be eternal. But it is clear that this is only a question of degree, and that the principle remains untouched.

One of the most ordinary mistakes into which persons run who are called, and who call themselves, Calvinists, and who have neither very accurate nor very enlarged minds, is to represent the eternal perdition of sinners as the result of a special decree of God. The essential properties of God cannot be annihilated nor transferred. Creatures have essential properties also. The error of the most refined heathenism was Pantheism; that is, transfusing the Deity though his creatures, so as to make confusion of the essential properties of the two.

Deum namque ire per omnes

Terrasque, tractusque maris, cœlumque profundum.
Hinc pecudes, armenta, viros, genus omne ferarum,
Quemque sibi tenues nascentem arcessere vitas."
"For God the whole created mass inspires:

Virg. G. iv. 221.

Through heaven, and earth, and ocean's depth, he throws
His influence round, and kindles as he goes.

Hence flocks, and herds, and men, and beasts, and fowls
With breath are quickened, and attract their souls."

And again, still more clearly:

Principio cœlum, ac terras, camposque liquentes,
Lucentemque globum lunæ, titaniaque astra
Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus
Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet.

Inde hominum, pecudumque genus, vitæque volantum,
Et quæ marmoreo fert monstra sub æquore pontus.
Igneus est ollis vigor, et cœlestis origo
Seminibus."

Virg. Æn. vi. 724.

"Know first, that heaven, and earth's compacted frame,
And flowing waters, and the starry flame,
And both the radiant lights, one common soul
Inspires, and feeds, and animates the whole.
This active mind, infused through all the space,
Unites and mingles with the mighty mass.
Hence men and beasts the breath of life obtain,
And birds of air, and monsters of the main :
Th' ethereal vigour is in all the same,
And every soul is filled with equal flame.

Neither let it be imagined that Pantheism is confined to the heathen. It is the doctrine of Bolingbroke, Bishop Warburton, and Pope, as appears in the following lines by the latter; and, indeed, of most naturally pious men.

"All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.

That, changed through all, and yet in all the same,
Great in the earth as in the ethereal frame,
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees,
Lives through all life, extends through all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent."

Essay on Man, i. 259.