between the humbler existence of inferior animals, and the eternal torments of a being like man, in comparison of which, the life of the most abject animal must be PARADISE !

System-Christians, and visionaries, make equal havock with the simplicity of Gospel-truth. A fervid mind makes out its visionary creations, with the greatest ease, from a few given words. Daniel, chap. the viith, verses 13 and 14, and the texts xxi. of Revelations, 1st and 2d, less definite still in their application, become easily convertible to whatever shapes, colours, and phantoms imagination may give to them-thus they expand themselves in the seraphic and mystic reveries of the Swedenborgians; and then these mystic reveries, beginning from so obscure and small a source, are solemnly pronounced "TRUE Christian Religion!" Such visions are embraced with ardour by minds of kindred heat the trumpet of the Apocalypse sounds, "BABYLON the GREAT is fallen;" the angel appears with the key of the bottomless pit- and the City of the New Jerusalem rises in visionary glory, to receive the seraphic enthusiasts at its golden gates.

On the other hand, a scholastic dialectician finds the word "appointed," or "predestined." These expand themselves into unalterable decrees then personal election - then utter reprobation! Those of kindred temper follow shouting "Election" to themselves the decree or destiny of eternal torment, "where the worm dieth not," to all whose

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per,

more sober understanding, or more Christian temhails the awful words of Scripture, but rejects with horror the human inferences. So important is a calm, dispassionate view of the great Scriptural doctrines, in their simplicity and majestic truth.

The fantastic, the melancholy, the visionary, or metaphysical, thus engender and embody their conceptions from isolated portions of the Divine Revelation, and these conceptions become at last, like the wild grotesque monsters, serpents and dragons, which preposterously garnish, from the zenith to the nadir, the celestial globe; the Oriental origin of Predestinarianism and these figures being indeed the same,

Lastly, we may observe that these extravagant principles and feelings, relating to a subject the most awful to man, and demanding the most dispassionate judgment, can never germinate, if I may say so, unless in a heated atmosphere, and where the ground is disturbed. As certain noxious weeds, buried for centuries, on the earth being moved shoot out again, so forgotten doctrinal subtleties are revived, when the surface of the rubbish is again disturbed.

As the Articles of the Episcopal Church are frequently referred to in such contests, I shall here say a few words on them.

An opinion of a great Statesman has been recorded, that the National Church is distinguished by "Calvinistic Articles-a Popish Liturgy and an

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Arminian Clergy." Thus Legislators for the Church are often pleased to describe the Church and its tenets. Lord Chancellor Erskine affirmed that "the Church of England professed to believe"-in what? one God? no-" every thing visible and invisible !" Mr. Canning affirmed that the Church believed in "Consubstantiation," and therefore it might as well believe in Transubstantiation! The Episcopal Church professes its belief in neither. Mr. Brougham, uncontradicted in the Senate, asserted that every one who took a Living "professed he was moved by the Holy Ghost to take that Living!"* And all these are as true as the assertion that the Church of England has "Calvinistic Articles."

The Articles that admit that "we may fall from grace given" cannot be Calvinistic-that Ritual cannot be a Romish Ritual which contains the prayers of the primitive Church, long before the Church held forth human traditions for Scripture-and the Clergy cannot be Arminian who profess that salvation "is not from works, lest any shall boast."

That some among the Clergy of the present day

* Mr. Attwood, a few days ago, whilst I am correcting this sheet, informed the wondering House of Commons- that such was the poverty of the times, a poor man, having no money, gave a " working Clergyman" a cut of a shoulder of mutton for a baptismal fee! This, the solemn Senator declared, he stated" on good authority!" On such good authority most of the judgments against the Clergy are pronounced! There is no "baptismal fee," Mr. ATTWOOD!

construe the Articles as completely Calvinistic, and wish they were more explicitly so, I do not gainsay! That such esteem the affecting formulary of our prayers as little better than the remnant of Popery, though they have declared "their unfeigned assent and consent," I do not gainsay. That such as these believe the "true Churchmen" are confined to themselves, and that all others are graceless Arminians, I do not gainsay: nay, the Articles are Calvinistic, and even the Bible Calvinistic, according to some popular "comments!" But this I am bold to affirm, that the Articles contain one, the most essential of all of them, it is this, "that whatsoever is not read in holy Scripture, or can be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man that it should be believed an article of faith!" The Bible, therefore, is the religion of Protestants-the BIBLE is the religion of the Church of England.

I verily believe that no one could be a Calvinist, except from "comments!" I would therefore earnestly entreat the younger student of Divinity, as he would feel indeed "joy and peace in believing," not to shut his eyes to ten thousand luminous and illumining passages, which would strike him on an attentive survey of the Holy Scriptures in their holy simplicity and truth; instead of placing himself, with tottering steps and bandaged face, in the go-cart of some elaborate, sophistical, and heartless expositor. Beautifully has Jeremy Taylor spoken of the effect of such studies: "I remember a saying of

Erasmus, that, when he first read the New Testament, with fear and a good mind, with a purpose to understand and obey it, he found it very useful and very pleasant; but, when afterwards he fell on reading the vast differences of commentators, then he understood it less than he did before, then he began NOT TO UNDERSTAND IT. For, indeed, adds our own great and eloquent Divine, "the TRUTHS of GOD are best dressed in the plain culture and simplicity of the spirit, but the truths that men commonly teach are like the reflections of the multiplying glass." To which most just observation I would add that he who reads the Bible by the aid of a doctrinal commentator, becomes so used to the obscure glass of the mind of another, the greater part of what is natural, and beautiful, and affecting in the original Gospel, escapes him, till by degrees he has not a thought out of the hacknied track of his commentator.

In writing the Life of an English Bishop, I have thought it my duty to speak freely respecting the spirit of CALVINISTIC PURITANISM, the fruits of which, in a former age, were so immoral, and baneful, and which seems evidently gaining ground in the present age.

I cannot conclude my remarks on this subject without adverting to what has been said by a learned Bishop, Dr. Horsley, in an Episcopal Charge. We are told that many talk of CALVINISM, without knowing what Calvinism is; and that there are sundry good Christian lessons to be learnt from Calvin's