quitted himself throughout, One of the latest of his works will supply us with a case in point. It is not long, as we remember, since one of the fanatical advocates of the voluntary system, gave to the world what he was pleased to call a scriptural defence of it, and publicly challenged his opponents to refute him by plain and manifest pas sages out of the bible. Now in putting to silence such a foolish person, it is obvious that the mere theologian must be often at a stand, for no critical skill or power of exegesis will ever wring from any text of scripture, the command to establish and endow a church, unless it can be shown, independently, that this is the likeliest and most feasible method to support and diffuse true Christianity. Whilst this prior question remains undecided, divines may combat for ever in the blind conflict of endless logomachies; and for the deciding of this, it is not the knowledge of texts that will avail, but a deep acquaintance, as well with the springs of individual conduct, as with the nature of societies and the general principles of politics.

Here indeed, (in matters of ecclesiastical policy, and those points wherein the church is concerned as an external corporation,) the great majority of those who think at all, will admit that civil prudence and sound philosophy must be combined with the study of divinity. Partly from this reason, and partly from the excitement produced by the connexion of their subject with the temporary interests of the day, that portion of Chalmers' works which concern the church, as a mixed society, have attracted most general attention, and been received with the most marked applause. We allude, in particular, to his Lectures on Church Establishments," and earlier “Essay on Endowments." It is impossible not to admire in these, the patient strength with which, not content to have levelled the citadel and-blown up the curtain-wall of the voluntaries, he goes over the ground, as it were, again and again, and picks up every loose stone, and smooths down every obstacle, until nothing is left that even a child could stumble over. It is impossible not to admire that force of genius, by which the best principles of morals, of political economy, and of theologic science, are combined and brought to bear upon the subject, and that with such a lucid clearness of demonstration, that, while the oldest philosopher may be instruct

We can

ed, the youngest tyro will not find himself beyond his depth. In what instance, then, let us ask, has Dr. Chalmers spoiled with his philosophy the sincere purity of the faith? In what inst ince has he departed a hand's breadth from the unvarying line of evangelical simplicity, and found it necessary to accommodate the mysteries or the precepts of the gospel to the conclusions of carnal wisdom? So far from this being the case, we do not hesitate to say, that in almost every case, his errors arise, not from playing the philosopher or the politician too much, but from indulging too much his cautious fear of doing so. For example, we cannot but think that in his "Lectures on Church Establishments," he has rather unreasonably limited the bounds of civil interference. not ourselves agree to the proposition that the church, once established by the state, is thenceforth to be left wholly to itself in the regulation of all matters of faith and discipline. Surely, if the civil power is supposed in the first instauce capable of judging of the purity and orthodoxy of the church, and is bound to take these matters into consideration, in selecting what church it will establish and endow, it is under the same obligation to consider them in determining the propriety of conti nuing its establishment and endowment, and must be supposed to have an equal capacity of judging aright in this latter case as in the former. In short, we deem the supremacy of the crown, as maintained by the Church of England, a most certain conclusion (so far as principle goes) from the best maxims of political science, and we cannot but think that our Scottish brethren owe much of their quiet and good order to a practical acquiescence in the exercise of that prerogative in the state, which in theory they so strenuously decry. It seems impossible to fix upon any motive whatever; whether regard to the eternal interests of its subjects, or their mere temporal advantage, or its own security, or whatever else may be assigned -we say it seems impossible to fix upon any motive whatever, adequate to persuade the state to form an alliance with a Christian church, which motive will not depend, in some shape or other, upon the nature of the doctrines and discipline of the church, with which it forms the association; and if so, the operation of this motive upon the public will—must vary as the grounds vary, from which

its efficacy is derived. To suppose that the union between church and state is like the union between man and wife, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health," is greatly to mistake the purposes and ends for which it was effected; and to say that the state having selected a church suitable for its designs, by reason (let us suppose) of its episcopal discipline, decent ceremonies, and catholic moderation of faith, is bound to adhere to that society, when it has become Presbyterian in its form of government, or renounced all government whatsoever-when it has stripped off every rag of outward ordinances, and inconveniently narrowed its terms of communion, so as to produce a causeless multiplication of dissentients to say this appears to us to assert the highest absurdity, and to violate the first principles of social law. Now, what is called state interference is in reality no more than the state saying to the ecclesiastical judicatories, "you shall not exercise those rights and privileges which you derive solely from our protection, without our consent. You must allow us to prescribe the conditions upon which your clergy are either to enjoy, or to be deprived of, the endowments which we alone confer; but, you know that, when ever you desire a greater freedom, you may, if you think fit, obtain it, by renouncing your claims to these benefits, and dissolving your connexion with the civil governors." On the whole, therefore, we cannot help considering it a mistake in politics to claim such a species of independence for the church an independence, as it seems to us, only capable of being vindicated on the principles of the Romanist, who would degrade the magistrate into a mere executioner of ecclesiastical de

crees.

But still, it is evident that Dr. Chalmers' mistake-if it be a mistake arose from an over-anxious desire to secure, to the utmost possible extent, the unsullied purity of the church, and emancipate it from those disgraceful intrigues of worldly policy and carnal prudence, which, in all ages, have been a fruitful source of pollution and scandal to Christianity.

We think there are many traces of a similar biasa disposition to trust too little, rather than too much, to reason, and an over-charged antipathy to whatever wears the appearance of speculation, in other portions of Dr. Chalmers' works. In particular, we might

instance his appeal to the historical evidence of a temporal origin of the present state of things, in his " Natural Theology," as the only satisfactory reply to the Pantheism of Mirabaud and Hume. This use of scripture, to be sure, as a mere document of historic proof, is not open to the same logical objection, to which the attempt to establish the facts of natural religion through Revelation, as such, is liable; because in this use of it, there is no assumption of its divine original, or inspired authority. But then we think it is liable to other objections, of a different kind, at once so many and so great, that we can scarcely avoid suspecting that it was a desire to put honour upon the word of God, coupled with a manly preference of testimony and matter-offact, to abstract reasoning, which blinded Dr. Chalmers' sagacity to a perception of the cogency of the arguments by which Christian metaphysicians have refuted those atheistic sophists. We do not intend, nor have we room in the present paper, to enter upon so intricate a subject. But we are persuaded that, by a necessary law of the human mind, wherever we see marks of an arbitrary limitation or distribution of that which seems, of its own nature, indefinite in extent, and indifferent to any particular position-we are instinctively compelled to suppose a cause of the limitation, an act of some powerful will to determine and effect its distribution; and when, out of a number of combinations all apparently possible alike, we perceive those only selected, which are fitted (admirably fitted by the nicest adjustment) to some good and salutary end, we are compelled in like manner, by the invincible instincts of our nature, to refer such arrangements as these to the union of wisdom and beneficence. Nor are these principles, when thus stated, exposed to a retortion upon the uncaused existence of the great supreme himself. Possessed of infinite perfection, there is no stint or boundary to be accounted for ; absolutely simple and uncompounded in his essence, there is no distribution of parts that might be otherwise; and eternally sufficient to his own happiness, there is no trace of his being proportioned to any higher end. As all must equally be obliged to admit that there is some uncaused and necessary being in existence, it is plain, indeed, that the bare present existence of any thing is no proof that it owes that exis tence to a prior cause; but, though

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mere existence cannot furnish such a proof, we contend that the manner of existence may; and that, as our abstract idea of causality seems to be gathered from inferring that there must be some objective real relation in things themselves, corresponding to the necessary instinct by which we refer a known consequent to an anticipated antecedent, so our conception of a being who depends on no extrinsic cause, must resolve itself into a conception of one, who contains within himself that objective reason of existence, and who, therefore, being independent on all others, is not limited or transcended by them. But we have got upon a train of thought but little suited to the taste of an age so full of tongue and weak of brain," as the present. We shall make our escape, therefore, with the observation, that experience supplies us with a far shorter and more decisive proof of the origin in time of the microcosm of the human soul, than the records of history, at their highest value, can be supposed (without assuming their divine authority) to afford of the temporal creation of the universe. Another instance in which Dr. Chalmers, as we think, has given way to the μergía rs άveoλañs may be found in his assertion of the verbal inspiration of scripture. His reasoning upon this subject appears to us so strangely unphilosophical, and of a character so different from his usual manly tone of argument, that we know not how to account for the discrepancy, but by supposing him to have suffered his natural good sense, in this particular, to be overborne by the populur panic about neology. What makes his conduct still more extraordinary is, that he freely acknowledges that the optimism of the bible is as much secured by the supposition of an inspiration of superintendence, as by that of an inspi ration of direct suggestion.

Now, since by the optimism of the bible so good a reasoner must needs understand, not its absolute or metaphysical perfection, but its being suited in the best possible manner to the ends which God designed it to answer; what is this but to concede that these ends might be just as well answered by leaving honest and competent persons to express divinely suggested conceptions in their own phraseology, as by directly suggesting the expressions as well as the ideas? And if this be once conceded, there can hardly, we should suppose, be much hesitation in

any impartial person's mind as to which of the hypotheses it is most reasonable to adopt. That God acts always for what is best on the whole, it would be the worst impiety to deny. But this very regard to the general good may often interfere; and, doubtless, does often interfere, with the apparent perfection of particular things. There is a sense in which, according to the poet,

"Whatever is, is BEST."

But this is very consistent with the existence of many obliquities and imperfections in the parts of the great whole. To determine, therefore, upon the plenary inspiration of scripture, from the doctrine of optimism, one must be able to determine first, whether it were better, on the whole, that the apostles should be left to use their own words, or should have the words, as well as the ideas, infused into their minds. When a man can be found who shall seriously declare himself a competent judge of this matter, why then the sooner he is locked up the better. For ourselves we deem it a much more decent and becoming course, to examine the phenomena themselves, and from them to ascertain what God seems to have done ; rather than presumptuously to lay down beforehand what he ought to do. But having spoke so much of the matter, it is time that we should say something of the manner of Dr. Chalmers' works.

The first peculiarity that must strike every reader, however careless, is the uniformly rhetorical, and what may be called forensic style of composition. Every where you have the persuasive urgency, the figurative language, and the copious amplification of the pleader. Whatever be the subject-whether the most recondite portion of metaphysical abstraction-the driest matters of fact -or the most involved porisms of political economy-the argument is clothed in the same declamatory form, and pressed with the same earnestness of ardour, and plenitude of illustration. Yet though the conduct of Dr. Chalmers' argumentation is full charged with the matter of oratory, at every turn exciting the fancy and stirring the heart, and though it is evident that in the author's own mind, the imagination and the feelings must have been in constant exercise, it is strange that they nowhere seem to embarass the energy of the reasoning faculties, or impair, in any perceptible degree, the

accuracy of his thoughts, or the severity of his logic. Could we suppose that, after having first reasoned out the truths, which he meant to inculcate, he afterwards carefully selected such images as he judged suitable to illus trate, adorn, and recommend them, we might easily explain the difficulty. But in Chalmers' style there is none of the artificial retinue which must necessarily result from such a process. His compositions bear all the marks of being struck out at a heat. They have all the glow of recent birth upon them. They are obviously the rapid productions of a mind teeming with ideas, and possessed of a sort of improvisatore readiness of expression, which, like a jet of water when the cap is taken off, is no sooner called on for a supply than it overwhelms the memory with a torrent of good words. But greatly as one must needs admire so rare a combination of excellencies, we own that there are some subjects on which this style and manner is misplaced. When a writer is discussing, in a work intended for the leisurely perusal of the closet, grave questions of philosophy and speculative reason, one prefers the chaste calmness and reserve of judicial dignity, to the diffuse explanations, glittering embellishments, and varied rhetoric that become an advocate's harangue. Where the process of reasoning is long, as soon as we thoroughly understand one step, we are naturally anxious to get forward; and this anxiety begets impatience when our guide (not satisfied to inform us) stands still to dilate on the information, and insists upon our hearing out whatever his fertile wit shall enable him to pour forth; and this impatience creates a sense of tediousness, and tediousness (according to Dr. Johnson) is the worst fault that ever disfigured composition. But these very qualities which make Dr. Chalmers occasionally tiresome in the closet, are the causes of his superior excellence in the pulpit. There his spirit-stirring appeals, his exuberance of fancy, his patience of explanation, are admirably fitted for producing an effect in a public assembly, where every thing depends upon being perfectly intelligible at the monent, and where the limits and nature of the subject are alike suited to such a mode of

treatment.

We have heard Dr. Chalmers called an exhaustive preacher, and compared in this respect with Barrow. But without meaning to deny that there

may be some remarkable resemblances between the two men, there is this obvious difference—a difference that must at once strike every body-that in Barrow there is a constant succession of fresh matter, new topics and ideas following each other so rapidly, and at the same time, so equably, that the mind is often bewildered, and half the effect lost, from the want of any prominent feature upon which to steady its attention. Dr. Chalmers is just the opposite of this. He makes one or two leading thoughts the whole basis of an entire discourse; every thing else is rendered subservient to the end of impressing these upon the hearer. In this sense, certainly Dr. Chalmers is eminently an exhaustive preacher. The subject is explained with a patient minuteness and particularity that leaves nothing which can create any difficulty to the very dullest auditor. The flambeau is carried, as it were, into every nook and corner of the building, and so strong a glare of light is thrown upon every thing it contains, as to leave no possibility of mistake or misconception. And then, the topics, treated of at any one time, are so few, that there is no danger of distracting the thoughts or over-burdening the memory. In the same way, whereas Barrow is singularly sparing of illustration, Chalmers, on the contrary, pours it forth with the profuse prodigality of one, whose ever-salient spring of fancy is always ready to emit its rapid current. In this respect Dr. Chalmers bears a closer resemblance to Bishop Taylor than to Barrow. But his stream of imagery is more turbid and impetuous. In Taylor every group is beautiful; his pictures are as if drawn by a pencil dipt in heaven, and his metaphors ennobled by classical allusion or romantic associations of poetic sublimity. Chalmers on the other hand seems scarcely to exercise any discrimination in selecting the sources of his illustrations. Whether fresh from the pure realms of nature, in all the grace and dignity which she is wont to stamp upon her works, or drawn from the earthlier domain of art, and soiled with the smoke and tarnish of the furnace," so as the image be strong and forcible, he seems little scrupulous about its elegance. Such a style as this may do well enough with a great original author like Dr. Chalmers; but let minor men take heed how they imitate it. What with him is force, will in them be coarseness. What we excuse in

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him as the capricious singularities of genius, will in them pass for nothing better than the absurdities of conceited affectation.

Decipit exemplar vitiis imitabile.

For one who can attain the manly feeling, the sound judgment, and patient thought of Dr. Chalmers, there will be a dozen only capable of reaching an unfortunate resemblance to him in endless repetitions, tedious amplifications, and awkwardly uncouth metaphors. Theirs will be "the contortions of the Sybil, without her inspiration."

Another remarkable characteristic of Dr. Chalmers' style is the freedom with which he draws upon every department of human science, to large the copiousness of his dic

en

tion. The technical vocabularies of jurisprudence, physics, metaphysics, ethics, mathematics, are all laid under contribution. His mind, familiar with the whole circle of knowledge, seems to recur as readily to its most abstruse as to its most obvious portions, so that forms of expression, borrowed from the remotest corners of the regions of art, are often found crowded together upon the same page. In short, Dr. Chalmers' style is, in this respect, the very type of the intellectual character of the present age—an age in which ge

neral science is so universally diffused, that its peculiar nomenclature is rapidly passing into the current phraseology of literature.

It is, no doubt, owing to the same general diffusion of knowledge, and the fact of the public having been long accustomed to all the usual ornaments of composition, that we must ascribe the strange and outré combinations, in which some of our most eminent writers indulge themselves. Yet this marks a depraved state of taste, produced, of course, by a surfeit of literature, but of which the proper remedy ought to be the introduction of some stronger stimulus in the substance provided, rather than in the high and unnatural seasoning of its cookery. Such tokens as these have always indicated a decay of national intellect.

"Cum assuevit," says Seneca, "animus fastidire, quæ ex more sunt, et illi pro sordidis solita sunt, etiam in oratione quod novum est quærit: et modo antiqua verba atque exoleta revocat et profert : modo fingit, et ignota deflectit: modo id quod nuper increbuit, pro cultu habetur. Quomodo conviviorum luxuria, quomodo vestium, ægræ civitatis indicia sunt: sic orationis licentia (si modo frequens est) ostendit animos quoque procidisse.”

WHILE we walked together towards Meurice's, I explained to Trevanion the position in which I stood, and, having detailed, at full length, the fracas at the Salon, and the imprisonment of O'Leary, entreated his assistance in behalf of him, as well as to free me from some of my many embarrass

ments.

It was strange enough, though at first so pre-occupied was I with other thoughts, that I paid but little attention to it that no part of my eventful evening seemed to make so strong an impression on him as my mention of having seen my cousin Guy, and heard from him of the death of my uncle. At this portion of my story he smiled, with so much significance of meaning that I could not help asking his reason. "It is always an unpleasant task, Mr. Lorrequer, to speak in any way, however delicately, in a tone of dispa