Arminians; to hold, that moderate men of both classes may honestly range themselves under the banner of the cross; to believe that our mother, the church, also designed to admit the sober and devout of both classes within her pale; and, receiving the Scriptures in great simplicity of mind, to use indiscriminately, as instruments of their spiritual warfare, all those passages of an opposite tendency, which controversialists had hitherto brandished as the chosen weapons of their particular faction. They appear to us, (as far as we have opportunity of observing them,) on the one hand, not to reject those passages which imply the omnipotence of divine grace; nor, on the other, those which insist upon the necessity of human exertion. But, taking each as they find them prodigally dispersed in the sacred pages, they teach their hearers to trust in God, as though he were to do all, and to labour themselves as though he were to do nothing.

Our objections, however, to the author as to the subject of Calvinism, by no means rest here. It may indeed be true, that a few of these divines hold some of the tenets peculiar to the school of Calvin. But then the Calvinism (if that name must be borrowed to denominate opinions in part distinct from the tenets of Calvin) has scarcely any features in common with the species of Calvinism described by this pulpit warrior. Where, in the whole catalogue of modern calvinistic writers, can be found the man so besotted with his system, as to say, (p. 26.) that "no belief, however sincere, no remorse for sins past," &c. &c. "can rescue the hopeless, helpless, guiltless victim?" Does he not know that every Calvinist would say he who has the belief and the remorse, will assuredly have the "rescue?" The author himself is not a more stern objector to the grosser species of Calvinism, to that species, we mean, which tends to disparage the importance of the law of God, or to supersede human exertions, than ourselves. And we have thought it right, on more than one occasion, pretty loudly to proclaim our opinions. But we conceive those to be both ungenerous and clumsy polemics, who completely amalgamate all classes that differ from themselves; who, like some northern, or, as report says, southern journalists, pass over what they call "the nicer shades of this lunacy;" who, like the Bishop of Lincoln, insist that he who holds one tenet of Calvinism, must, nolens volens, hold all; who, like the present author, fashions a little imaginary monster, whom he christens a Calvinist; and then, as far as his little rapier will assist him, attempts to run him through the body. We cannot but recollect that those excellent prelates Usher and Hall were Calvinists; and we think the opinions of such men entitled at least to toleration. We remember what Bishop Burnet,

himself an Arminian, has said of Calvinism. We remember also what Bishop Horsley, himself an Arminian, and a divine inferior to none in extensive learning and powers of profound disquisition, has said with regard to the Arminianism of the church; and of the modern defenders of it*. "I assert, what I have often before asserted, and, by God's grace, I will persist in the assertion to my dying day, that so far is it from the truth, that the Church of England is decidedly Arminian, and hostile to Calvinism, that the truth is this; that upon the principal points in dispute between the Calvinists and Arminians, upon all the points of doctrine characterising the two sects, the Church of England maintains an absolute neutrality. Her articles explicitly assert nothing but what is believed both by Arminians and by Calvinists." And, in another passage, levelled, we conceive, by anticipation, at the author, he says: "Take especial care before you aim your shafts at Calvinism, that you know what is Calvinism and what is not; lest when you mean only to fall foul of Calvinism, you should unwarily attack something more sacred and of higher origin. I must say that I have found great want of this discrimination in some late controversial writings on the side of the Church; as they were meant to be.... Give me the principles on which these writers argue, and I will undertake to convict, I will not say, Arminians only, and Archbishop Laud, but the fathers of the Council of Trent, of Calvinism." These passages, and many like them, we confess have their weight with us; and dispose us rather to interpose ourselves between the combatants, in this battle of all ages and ranks, than to become partizans on either side. Why should it not be hoped that the Church may at length put off her armour, died as it is with the blood of her own soldiers; hang up, with other trophies in her cathedrals, the casque and shield so long sullied by the dust of controversy; and consecrate her confederated strength to the peaceful toils of instruction and exhortation?

To the next charge of the author, which imputes to the evangelical body a belief in sudden conversion, in miracles performed among themselves, in preternatural effusions of the spirit; in hourly and especial providences; in sudden and celestial influences; in divine visitations, of favour or of vengeance; in tumultuous, inexplicable, and irresistible intimations ;-" (p. 29.) so various is the matter, that we find it difficult to make any comment. We begin, however, by observing that the author, in making out this sort of catalogue, reminds us of the Irishman who, in order to get rid of a bad shilling, slipped it in among some good halfpence; or of the Romans, who, by way of punishing cer

*Pinary Charge, late Bishop of St. A saph.

tain crimes, were accustomed to link a man to an ape and throw both into the Tyber. After the same manner by linking truth to falsehood, good to bad, the author contrives to get rid of both. By connecting" visitations of providence" with "miracles performed among themselves," and "especial providences" with "preternatural effusions of the spirit," the effect is, though we trust the design is not, equally to discredit all these doctrines. The advantage of this to the author is manifest. An open denial of all visitations of providence where God himself asks with regard to certain crimes, "shal! I not visit for these things;" or an explicit rejection of an especial providence where Christ says, "every hair of your head is numbered," would necessarily bring his orthodoxy into suspicion. By the present method these doctrines are sunk in the density of the surrounding matter.

The next observation that we are tempted to make on this charge is, that it is unsupported by any one proof. And although it might have been easy to show that this body of clergy maintain the doctrines of divine visitations, (using the phrase in a sense which shall be explained) and of a minute and particular providence; we really cannot say that our reading furnishes us with any instances in which they uphold the doctrine of modern "miracles," and "preternatural effusions of the spirit." Here again, then, we cannot help observing, where was the accuracy of the author, and where his conscience, when he brought the accusation? As to the doctrine of divine visitations, it is indeed unscriptural to affirm, that this world is the scene of punishment and reward; it is also enthusiastic to say, that we can always decypher the design of Providence in any particular interference-it is a high degree of arrogance so to interpret all interference in favour of our own creed and party. And it is for the author to prove, that these his antagonists sanction any of these errors. But to hold generally that "godliness is on the whole profitable to the life that now is"-that God sometimes visibly interferes, even here, to punish the bad and reward the good, is neither enthusiasm nor presumption, but an opinion founded both upon experience and scripture. What the author may intend by miracles and preternatural effusions of the spirit, it is impossible to say. The orthodox, however, cannot hope to satisfy a theologian, who contends (p. 114.) that, "we are now left to the common operations of reason.' The next allegation against this body as believers in "tumultuous, irresistible, inexplicable intimations" as the tests of piety, seems to have no parent but the creative imagination of this ardent penman. This charge, however, in part supplies us with the history of the present discourse. Any person who is not deterred by the sermon

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from reading the notes, will find there abundant extracts from Bishop Lavington's attack upon the early methodists. Behold then the mode of attack; the author has heard the evangelical clergy called methodists; and Bishop Lavington attacks the methodists. He takes therefore the episcopal volume, transfers first to modern methodism all the follies of its first converts, and then to the evangelical clergy of the church of England all the follies of methodism in all ages. Now, of course, nothing can be more unwarrantable than such a method of assault. For by the like process, as the "evangelical clergy have been called saints" they may be proved to be angels; and, having been named "puritans," they may be shown to have beheaded the king and dissolved the parliament-deeds certainly not very characteristic of angelic natures.

The great importance of the subject, and the very general ignorance that prevails upon it, will, we trust, induce our readers to bear with us while we examine the only remaining allegation, that of the approach of this body to the spirit and to the usurpations of popery. What can have suggested this analogy to the author, it is impossible to say. We certainly had imagined that no two things in the universe were more unlike than a papist and a methodist. If each may be characterized as a disease, the one is a chill, and the other a fever; the one a paralysis, and the other St. Vitus's dance. Indeed the parallel is so absurd that we should not have noticed it, but that the author has, in pointing out a false likeness, directed our attention to a true one. We cannot then but think that the spirit of popery is in a degree to be discovered in what may be called the very high church party of every establishment, though we grudge any men a title which seems to imply a stronger attachment to the church than that which we glory in professing. Popery is the offspring not of young dissent, but of old establishments; not of a poor but a rich, not of an illiterate but a fastidious, not of a zealous but a worldly body. It was the ambitious scheme of a seculiar priesthood to grasp the sceptre of the world. It doctrines, its gorgeous rites, its penances and miracles were all a sort of machinery by which men were either to be drawn or forced into the power of the priests. The visible church was the great image to be worshipped; the form was to be considered as of a paramount, and alinost exclusive importance. The Bible was to be locked up; the people to be kept in profound ignorance; for all these could readily be shaped into a ladder of steps, by which the pope could mount to the throne of Christendom. When, therefore, we discover in some of our churchmen an endeavour to confound the differ

ence between the church visible and invisible; an absorption of the spirit of religion in the form; a sneaking antipathy to the free circulation of the Bible; a reluctant compliance with the measures adopted for the instruction of the rising generation; we seem to see the crest of popery again lifting itself, and lament, that though the serpent is scotched, it is not killed. We forbear to apply all this, just on the same ground that we should refuse to cast our parent into the Ganges, when we conceived him somewhat decrepid. The church of England indeed is not decrepid. Hers is a green old age. She has, in her constitution, the elements of all that is great and good. For a time, it is true, she seemed to languish, her powers to decay, and her spiritual dissolution to have almost taken place. She was not however, "dead," but "slept." She has arisen from the ground on which she lay, and shaken off the dust which dimmed her original lustre. We feel our "lot to have fallen in a fair ground." We see, with wonder and gratitude, a crisis in which almost every child is taught to read, is presented with a Bible, and is addressed by a faithful interpreter of that Bible. And though we neither "see visions, nor dream dreams," we certainly anticipate a glorious day for religion and for England. She is already lifted as a Pharos to the world-as the watchtower and light of the nations. In the blaze which this glorious contemplation has poured around us, we really cannot stop . again to look for the master of Shrewsbury school, and the black speck in the religious horizon, which he has pretended to discover. Perhaps it is a fly in his glass, which, like the philosophers in Æsop, he has mistaken for a monster in the heavens. Let him, like us, turn aside to "see this great sight." Let him contemplate a far sublimer spectacle than did the hero who watched the rising walls of Carthage, the spectacle of a reviving church; and let him exclaim in the language with which we are all so familiar,

“O fortunati quorum jam mania surgunt."

ART. VI. Further Inquiries into the Changes induced on Atmospheric Air by the Germination of Seeds, the Vegetation of Plants, and the Respiration of Animals. By Daniel Ellis.

THE present treatise, in connection with the " Inquiry,” of which it is a continuation, presents a more ample and scientific investigation of the chemical relations of atmospheric air to the