which a prudent naturalist avoids in the investigation even of the meanest of his creatures.' The Fourth Discourse discusses the main subject of the Calvinistic controversy, whether there be few that be saved,' which, however, is in fact only secondary to the great question, whether each man's destiny has been fixed from eternity; upon which necessarily depend those of election and reprobation, the indefec-. tibility of grace, and the final perseverance of the saints. We consider it unnecessary to pursue the subject through the various arguments by which it is here ably illustrated. One thing is plain, and cannot be denied, without the most wilful opposition to the testimony of reason and revelation; that whether there be few that are to be saved, or many, God intended that we should act as if we might all be saved, and as if it depended, in a great measure, upon ourselves, whether we are saved or not. If the contrary supposition be admitted, we not only make the dictates of our conscience, and the suggestions of our natural reason utterly fallacious and mischievous, but we render by far the greater number of the moral precepts of the Author of our religion nugatory, and the observance of them either involuntary or impossible. How does the Calvinist reconcile his doctrine of election and indéfectible grace with the exhortations to diligence, watchfulness, self-mortification, and fear, which form the leading feature of the evangelical teaching? He will tell us, that election and grace are the operative causes of good works. But, as Dr. Copleston observes, the apostles represent them not as reasons why a man is zealous of good works, but why he ought to be. And if a man cannot be otherwise than zealous of good works, to give him precept upon precept to that effect, cannot be a whit less absurd, than it would be, earnestly to enforce the necessity of sitting still to a man who is fixed to his chair by cords or by a fit of the gout. It is manifestly God's pleasure, as revealed to us both by the light of nature and in his written word, that man should consider himself to be a free agent, and shape his conduct accordingly. The moral precepts of his law all proceed upon this supposition; we are therefore certain of its truth. What, if we find also in the Revelation of his Will an assertion of his eternal counsels and omniscience? We find only a confirmation of what our natural reason had taught us. It is true, we do not find an explanation of them; we are not instructed in what manner they are compatible with the great principle of the moral law. But have we any right to such an explanation? or do we know that our faculties are adapted to receive it? If our faculties are limited, we are sure, that there must be many truths of which, as to the mode of their existence, we neither have, nor can have, the least notion; which are yet perfectly familiar to beings of a higher order; and that there may be many which no finite being whatever is able to comprehend. The question here is not, whether either of the doctrines is irreconcilable with human reason, for that is not pretended; but whether two doctrines, each resulting from the plainest principles of human reason, be reconcilable with each other. It is clear that any difficulty in this respect ought not to be considered as invalidating either doctrine, but only as proving, that some principle ought to enter into the calculation, which we have omitted to take into account; and that principle is the imperfection and insufficiency of human reason when employed as a criterion of the measures of Divine Providence. Such expressions,' observes Dr. Barrow, do import, not that God acteth absolutely in the thing itself, but quoad nos; not that he acteth without reason, but upon reasons (transcending our capacity, or our means to know) incomprehensible or undiscernible to us; not that He can give no account, but is not obliged to render any to us. That the methods of his Providence commonly are inscrutable; that his proceedings are not subject to our examination and censure; that his acting doth sufficiently authorize and justify itself; that it is high presumption and arrogance for us to scan, sift, or contest, or cavil at the equity or wisdom of God's acting.' At the same time it ought never to be forgotten, that since both the prescience of God and the free agency of man are truths distinctly asserted in Scripture, if there be an individual, who feels more of conviction and encouragement to well-doing in one of these doctrines than in the other, he is no fit object of censure, much less of abuse, as long as he holds the leading articles of the Christian faith, and makes his principles subservient to the great ends of the Gospel. The doctrines of the Calvinists only then become a fit subject for reprobation, when they assert one truth to the utter exclusion, or practical annihilation of the other; when they press the doctrine of predestination beyond what is necessary for the comfort and encouragement of all true believers; and disparage, in the hearing of those whose religion must be chiefly practical, the necessity (we will not say the efficacy) of a holy life. Surely it must be by this time obvious to the wisest men of both parties, that no good can result to the cause of religion, and still less to that of the visible church, by the continuation of a dispute, which, by its very nature, can never be decided; but which does admit of a compromise, viz. that each should acknowledge the truth of the doctrine for which the other contends; as not being able to contradict it, but only to conceive its compatibility with his own; that both parties should acquiesce in the imperfection of human reason; and agree in the paramount paramount importance of those duties which neither party calls in question, viz. faith and a holy life. No Irenicum is so effectual as the near prospect of a common danger; and we trust that the period is not far distant, when both parties will lay aside their disputes concerning the abstruse and speculative points of the Quinquarticular controversy, for the purpose of uniting their efforts to crush the pestilent heresy of Antinomianism, and to oppose the presumptuous and heartless system of the God-denying apostasy. We are convinced that Dr. Copleston's book will do much towards accomplishing this desirable compromise, if it be read as generally and as attentively as it deserves. It breathes throughout a spirit of piety and moderation, suitable to the high and difficult nature of the subject which it discusses; and every thing material to the main question is stated with the greatest force and precision, and with the most lucid arrangement of words. In short, we consider it to be a model of discussion upon points concerning the philosophy of religion. An ignorant and blundering libeller, who has probably been foiled in his hopes of obtaining eminence in that University of which Dr. Copleston is so distinguished an ornament, has mentioned these Discourses on Predestination in terms of contempt, which plainly show that he is as ignorant of the importance of the subject, as he is of the manner in which Dr. Copleston has treated it. For our own parts, we cannot conceive a worthier employment for one who holds an ostensible situation in those venerable seminaries of the church, than the endeavouring to recall the attention of disputants in theology from the logomachies of the schools, and from speculations upon matters which are not legitimate objects of human reason, to the great practical purposes of religion. Let us, in conclusion, give one word of advice, and it shall be the advice of Melancthon, to those persons of either party, who persist in declaiming upon these most difficult and unimproving questions, as if the essence of Christianity were involved in them, instead of intimating the moderation and practical good sense of that church to which both belong: 'Gaudeo relinqui altercationem, quæ inter vos fuit, de, justitia ante lapsum humanæ naturæ. Mi Mathesî, de præsentibus nostris ærumnis, de præsenti beneficio disputemus. Hos locos agitandos et illustrandos esse duco. Et in his versari Paulum vides. Omittamus disputationes; quæ plus habent subtilitatis quam utilitatis, ac in nostris Ecclesiis concordiam faveamus. Id autem fieri non potest, nisi nos ipsi interdum quosdam iracundorum hominum aculeos dissimulemus. Hanc philosophiam profecto necessariam esse doctori in Ecclesia judico." ART. ART. V.-Table Talk, or Original Essays. By William Hazlitt. London. 1821. WE E will not take upon us positively to say, that Apollo ever enters our study; but we feel no scruple in affirming, that if he should occasionally condescend to grace it with his presence, he might not, perhaps, be ill-entertained; since it is odds but he finds us occupied (as Perseus found the Hyperboreans of old) in his favourite amusement, the sacrifice of asses-Hone, Hunt, Hazlitt, and other xvadaλa.-Were they not more vicious than stupid, we should almost feel inclined to pity the unconscious levity of the 'beasts' at their fate. Not so Apollo: he, light-hearted deity, laughs outright. Απολλων Χαίρει, γέλα θ' όρων ύβριν Όρθιαν κνωδάλων. Thus beautifully rendered by the Rev. Mr. Dudley: Entering their halls, He caught them offering to the gods Hecatombs Assinine. In such their sacred feasts Apollo much delights. Laughing he views Mr. Hazlitt, our present concern, having already undergone the wholesome discipline of our castigation, without any apparent benefit, a repetition of it would be useless, as far as regards himself: for the sake of the younger class of readers, however, it may not be entirely fruitless to take some brief notice of these crude, though laboured lucubrations. Laboured, we call them; because, in spite of the author's formal renunciation of the toil of revision, every thought is spun out with a pertinacity truly wonderful, except where some paradox is abruptly started in the face of the reader, which is intended to astound him by its unusual condensation. Mr. Hazlitt's character as a writer may, we think, be not inaptly designated by a term borrowed from the vocabulary of our transatlantic brethren, which, though cacophonous, is sufficiently expressive. We would venture to recommend its importation and adoption into the language of this island, for the particular delineation of such persons as we have enumerated above they must be too partial to the produce of a Republican soil, to be displeased with the application. The word to which we allude, SLANG-WHANGER, is interpreted in the American dictionary to be 'One who makes use of political or other gabble, vulgarly called slang, that serves to amuse the rabble.' Those who peruse the 'Table 'Table Talk' will determine how far the definition answers to the case in point; they will observe also the truth of a remark often made, that the disciples of the Radical School lose no opportunity of insinuating their poison into all sorts of subjects; a drama, a novel, a poem, an essay, or a school-book, is in their hands an equally convenient vehicle. A direct attack upon the constitution of the country puts the reader effectually on his guard it is the oblique stroke, like that of the tusk of the boar, which most dangerously assails the unwary. Thus, in Mr. Hazlitt's Essay on Genius and Common Sense,' we are surprized by a spiteful tirade against the speeches of an Attorney and Solicitor General, ornamented by a sort of silhouette, representing the gaunt figure of Mr. Pitt'! It is not wonderful that the image of this illustrious statesman should haunt the distempered imagination of such persons, since they can neither forget nor forgive that prompt energy to which, under Heaven, we mainly owe our preservation from the designs of Jacobins, Spenceans, Radicals, or by whatever other name these pestilent vermin may be distinguished. The passage alluded to is nevertheless curious. Our author has certainly the merit of sometimes making spirited sketches from the life. He gives here a lively picture of the sensitive feelings of one of those consciences which fear each bush an officer.' The subject of the drawing appears to be a friend of the artist; one of those fortunate wights, (those acquitted felons, as they were termed by Mr. Windham,) who in the year 1794, by the admirable tenderness of the English law, escaped the sword of justice. He is presented to us as retiring, after his deliverance, into the enchanting vale of Langollen; but even there,— although the intoxicating gas of a projected epic poem plays round every cell and convolution of his brain, he is unable to steep his senses in forgetfulness, and lull the terrors of his mind, disturbed as it is by daily and nightly visions of halters, gibbets, and government spies. Like the great first Radical, he carries his hell about him, even in the purlieus of Paradise. The tender sympathy of the author for this martyr of liberty' may be easily imagined;but we are pressed for room, and must refer to the book for the syllables of dolour yelled out on the occasion. The volume before us consists of sixteen 'Essays,' on various subjects. We are spared the trouble of copying their titles, since they merely afford occasion for desultory declamation, and for observations which have little or no connection with the respective theses. In the Essay just noticed,* Mr. Wordsworth is characterised *On Genius and Common Sense. as |
