but who are warped by an undue anxiety after a fictitious peace, or by a mistaken zeal (often, perhaps, however unsuspectedly, bordering on spiritual pride) of preaching a purer Gospel than that professed by the most exalted Christians of other denominations. At the same time, we humbly imagine, it will make more manifest to all parties, except, perhaps, those who have most need of the monition, the real source from which this desire to shake off all obligation to the law of God often proceeds. We think it will have been made to appear that they are in pursuit of a rest, a peace, a self-complacency, but too congenial with weak and erring nature, yet wholly incompatible with the bracing, quickening, and stimulating principles of the pure, unperverted word of God. We earnestly desire further to make our feeble remarks subservient to shewing the tremendous danger of weakening, in the smallest degree, in the minds of any persons, their sense of obligation, already naturally too weak, to lead a holy and godly life. We unfeignedly believe that many who play unconsciously on the edge of this awful precipice, are themselves operated upon, though they do not know it, by the very sense of obligation which they forbid to others; and are really kept from the practice of sin, by a holy dread of its consequences, and an abhorrence of its nature, and by all those mingled and influential motives of an enlightened conscience, which, notwithstanding, they more or less decline to en force upon their hearers. At least, if this be not the case, we are perfectly confident they will not long be kept out of the practice of sin at all and the fruits of an ungoverned temper, the declining duties. of the closet, and all the necessary accompaniments of neglected or careless self examination will be amongst the first symptoms of their spiritual fall. We do not say how far the divisions already introduced into the church of Christ may be amongst these symptons. But this we are bold to say, that in proportion as the principles in question become more extended, their baleful influence will be more fully felt, and as far as the preachers of them shall succeed in shaking from the minds even of persons once promising better things, and still more of the generality of their hearers, all sense of obligation to do the will of God revealed in his holy commands, except what results from the undefined feelings produced by their notion of "free justification:" so far will the commands of God not be practised; so far will the love of present sin predominate over the sense of gratitude for mercies received and past; and so far will future impunity, according as it is believed, lead to present and vicious indulgence. We are, in these remarks, conscious of returning to the ground on which we had for a moment parted with Mr. Cooper. In treading further in his footsteps we shall only add, that we by no means think he has overstated the danger resulting from this subtle device of our great foe. We think his twelfth letter particularly worthy the notice of the parties concerned, if they are not wholly reckless to all the consequences which may result from a course of doctrine and practice which they think they must pursue. We willingly give, as a specimen of Mr. Cooper's discriminating as well as cogent and affectionate remarks, one paragraph from this letter, which must close our reference to the subject. "And now observe the injuries which hence result to the church of Christ. A needless separation is produced. A members of Christ's body. An alliance, new schism is effected among the real strange and unnatural, is formed be tween two parties, in whom there is no one single point of real congeniality; between the children of darkness and the children of light; between those who dishonour and degrade the Redeemer, meet us here as in the former let and those who seek to honour and exalt him; between those who allow and tole rate, and encourage sin, and those who cordially renounce and hate it. For such is still the case with even these deluded people of the Lord. They have in their heart a seed of holiness, which, in spite of the defiling tenets which they have embraced, still preserves them from utter contamination. By the energy of the divine principle still remaining in them, they are mercifully kept from the practical abominations, to which their new system of doctrine naturally leads. But thongh saved as it were by fire, they yet suffer much loss. They have not united themselves to these dangerous associates without having contracted some of the evils to which such an union must necessarily expose them. They have lost that simplicity of character which they once had, and which, so long as they retained it, was one of their brightest ornaments. They are no longer those humble, plain, unassuming, and retired Christians which they once were. They are become forward, bold, and confident. Puffed up with self-conceit, and raised in their own opinion to a superior point of spiritual elevation, they contemptuously look down on those faithful ser vants of the Lord, whom they once respected and admired, and with whom they formerly walked in Christian friendship and communion. Of these they now speak in terms of disapprobation and disrespect; as if all light, and wis dom, and knowledge, and experience, were confined to themselves, and to be found in their views alone. Thus they disfigure the face of the Christian church; subject both it and themselves to much reproach; and lay up in store for themselves hereafter a bitter portion of self-condemnation and remorse, whenever the Lord, in mercy, shall bring them to soundness of mind, and, by humiliation and repentance, shall recover them from the error of their way." pp. 161-163. Time will not allow us to accompany Mr. Cooper through Letter XIII. on the Visible and the Invisible Church of Christ; and we shall therefore, only remark that the same plain line of common sense, the same experienced maxims of advice, the same tone of conciliation, ters. He has not attempted any of the refinements of elder and more speculative times, upon the exact definition of one visible church as distinguishable from another visible church, with the intricate monosyllables true or false, mutually, as it maybe, hurled at each other. He has described in few words one great visible church of Christ upon earth, known by a belief more amidst numerous divisions and disor less pure in Jesus Christ, and finctions of its own, separated by that belief from the surrounding mass of Jews, Mahometans, and Pagans. With equal conciseness he has described the invisible or true " holy catholic church," as consisting of such only of the others as with an holy service and a religious faith, "worship the Father in spirit and in truth." The practical point, aimed at by Mr. Cooper in this distinction, is to justify that stricter species of public or private exhortation, which, after all, gives rise to the great quarrel of the world against their more "righteous" neighbours, and of which the object is to call men already belonging to the visible or outer pale of the Christian communion, into the inner circle of vital and spiritual believers. We should have much pleasure in extracting largely from Mr. Cooper on this head; and consider the Christian world much indebted to him, were it only for the clear manner in which he makes this forcible and necessary species of exhortation, stand aloof from all party notes of distinction; and shews it to be the express duty of the minister of Christ's Gospel, whatever be his peculiarities, to set this line, offensive as it is, between the nominal and the real Christian, plainly, palpably, and broadly, before the eye and the conscience of every one of his hearers. But we must proceed to the last three letters in this highly interest ing little volume, and which are on the never-ending subject of the Bible Society. Our hearts sicken, we own, and our pen droops at finding ourselves once more compelled, even though transiently and in Mr. Cooper's company, to view this matter in a controversial light. But for the unaccountable pertinacity displayed in certain quarters, whose periodical tales of wind and fury we presume gain the Society fully as much support as she loses by them, we really should have thought all opposition at an end. Our impatience has, perhaps, too eagerly led us to anticipate the universal reign of common sense upon this head. We thought experience would have fully done its part; and if reason could not, we had hoped that fact would, long before this time, have convinced the most dull, that the Bible is a Bible still though given by Dissenters, and a book good and true though circulated by a society in which they have a voice with Churchmen. We had built something upon the extraordinary and well - attested beneficial effects known to have flowed even from these hated Bible Associations for supplying the lowest orders with Bibles at their own expense, in Spital-fields and the borough of Southwark. That no arms had been detected in the several Bible Society depositories in the country, during the late alarms of treason and rebellion, we thought must have struck a favourable surprise into the breasts of some great demonstrators. Reports from abroad we had always continued to hope would gradually work their way, with facts at home, in convincing all candid persons, and silencing the theorists. We thought, before now, these last must have been positively as much shamed out of their speculations as the followers of Des Cartes out of their imaginary vortices and "hirtlings in the air." But the stubborn evidence of facts still con vinces us, from time to time, of the prematureness of our conjectures. "They tell me," lately observed an aged and acute prelate, "that there are enemies to this Society; a fact which, if I had not heard on undoubted authority, I could not have believed." Now, but for symp toms too intelligible to be misunderstood, we should have supposed those enemies confined to a few misled, but harmless, persons still toiling on, after repeated confutations, under an influence, something like that already alluded to, of an enthusiasm that is determined never to be persuaded, and an independency, which consigns the highest authorities both in church and state, who happen to oppose its views, to one indiscriminating mass of fools and knaves*. But deeper observation convinces us that this treatment of the friends of the Bible Society, high and low, by its enemies, is not the mere effect of a transitory mania confined to a few persons, of no great importance either for rank or influence. On the contrary, Mr. Cooper leads us to consider the subject in a most serious aspect. In his second letter on the Bible Society, he affectingly hints" that in episcopal charges and visitation sermons, in volumes and pamphlets written by the clergy of this country, and by these alone, something like a regular and systematic attempt has been made to check the progress and defeat the objects of this Society......and though it is true that none but the writers are directly responsible for the sentiments which they have advanced, yet the conduct of the clergy in general, with respect to this institution, clearly evinces their agreement with the tenor and spirit of these publications." To this plain * We refer to such language as the fol lowing: "Bible Society....Committees ....half of which are professed Dissenters, and....the other half....always of the fanatical party." and intelligible intimation of our author, and which leads him irresistibly forward in his own mind, to the conclusion, that the spirit of the members of the Church of England, as a whole, is, at this present time, at variance with the spirit of the Bible Society, and with its manifest intentions and operations, we can only apply for ourselves, in the strongest sense, the words used by the Apostle, MH TENOITO. For our solemn and impressive reasons for thus deprecating such a variance and opposition, we cannot do better than refer the reader to the whole subject as most strongly and yet mildly and affectionately treated by the churchman like Mr. Cooper in all his three letters, the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth. Whoever can read in the first of these letters his truly pious aud animated strain of eloquence in viewing the effects and anticipating the results of this invaluable institution; or, in the second, his heartfelt and awful impressions as a member of his own loved establishment at the sight of so much opposition to it within her pale; or, in the third, the almost unavoidable construction that must be put on that opposition by every thinking and impartial observer whether at home or abroad-who ever can read all this without emo tions touching on his tenderest feelings both as a churchman and a Christian, can in our estimation possess but little affectionate allegiance to that church, and little zeal for that holy Name by which we are called. sion for suggesting that our author has a wish to injure the cause of the church in the eyes of the world. We know many unquiet spirits are on the watch, every day to wrest every word that shall make it appear a plausible conjecture, for it is not the fact, that the friends of the Bible Society are the enemies of the church. This spirit of misrepresentation is awfully afloat in the world; as much so, as if to man bad been consigned the mysterious and Divine office of " discerning the thoughts and intents of another's heart." To those who exercise this office in the way in which too many do, we can say no more than this, and we would say it in the same spirit in which it was at first pronounced. "The Lord be judge, and judge between me and thee." We would certainly desire to abstain from every thing that should give even a pretext for unfavourable insinuation; and would close our review, and take our leave of Mr. Cooper's invaluable little manual, with a solemn warning to the friends-of the two causes-properly, indeed, but one of the Church of England and the Bible Society, that they study, as much as in them lieth, to abstain from the very appearance of evil; that their arguments for the Society be fair and legitimate, unaccompanied by any illicit arts or covert insinuations against their opponents; that they carefully abstain from rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing, but contrariwise blessing; that as they were the first attacked, so they be the first to forgive; that they be increasingly watchful over every thing of a general nature which proceeds from them, that it be such as becomes the Gospel they offer to the world; that their statements be sober, their facts solid and well authenticated, their allusions at once just and inoffensive, their eloquence not so much affecting the supposed "excellency of speech and of man's wis dom," as simply explaining or en forcing the point immediately before the speaker--the circulation of Bi bles and Testaments throughout the world. Let the various subsidiary institutions be anxious to preserve inviolable the spirit, as well as the letter, of the Society's fundamental rules; let them take care that their good be not evil spoken of; let them imitate the prudence and integrity of the Parent Institution; let them solemn ly discountenance every measure even though it should come with the purest intention, and from the most friendly quarter, which may have even the remotest tendency to introduce disunion, or party-spirit, or jealousies, or misgivings among the numerous classes of persons who have enlisted beneath the banners of the Society; let them continue to guard most carefully against the effects even of honest zeal, where it is not fully under the influence of Christian discretion, and regulated by a fixed, deep, unalterable, persuasion that all beyond the guarded, prescribed, and avowed object of the institution, however plausible or excellent in itself, or conducive, abstractedly considered, to the great interests of religion, is yet pregnant with consequences of the most fatal nature, and would tend to the extinction of a society intended for the benefit of the whole world. This, if they continue to do, as we trust they will, they may defy the world in arms against them; and, after all, favoured as they have been by so large a portion of its most desirable patronage, they would, we must say it with deference to a Higher Power, incur the weight of the heaviest responsibility, if they should, through their own mismanagement, make it "vitio culpave minorem." It is never unseasonable to remind the supporters of the Society, and especially all its subordinate agents, of the importance of adhering simply to the definite object before them, without connecting with it either in reality or appear. ance any other whatsoever. It is in this quarter chiefly, that its enemies "watch for its balting." It is not asserted by the most violent opposers of the institution, that the Society, as a body, has ever adopted, or even countenanced in others, the slightest infringement on the neutrality of its plan of operation. But it must be obvious to all, what advantage will never fail to be taken of the most trifling defect which may occur in any part of the machinery. Should but the most remote wheel, or cog, or pivot, be deranged, the circumstance will not escape observation or censure. In other institutions many virtues are justly allowed to atone for a few human faults; but this charitable judgment, we fear, would not be adopted by the opposers of the Bible Society. It must furnish, therefore, inexpressible pleasure to the friends of this excellent institution, and ought to be a source of devout gratitude to God, that the character and conduct of the parent committee have been ever such as to furnish the strongest and most unexceptionable guarantee for the Society's proceedings. Even should any appearance of ill-directed zeal hereafter occur in any local establishment, we are persuaded, from the opinion that we entertain of the piety and good sense of the friends of the Society in every part of the kingdom, that the irregularity would be no sooner discovered than corrected; at all events it could not fairly affect the character and credit of the Society at large. But as in the opposition made to this institution fairness seems pretty much out of the question, we can neverthink it inexpedient to remind at least its junior, and some, perhaps, of its less instructed provin cial, friends, of the importance of not merely letting their line of procedure be substantially correct, and |