offers himself to their service as the un- cism of the BRAND, or of immolation and Now, have we not here several very remarkable coincidences. In each work we find the same description given of enthusiasm: in each we find fanaticism defined as a mixture or com bination of enthusiasm with the malignant passions; and again, as enthusiasm inflamed by hatred: and in each, with but one exception, the same forms of fanaticism enumerated; the sword an swering to the BANNER, the brand and rack to the BRAND, and the self-inflicted torments, to the SCOURGE. We must bear in mind, however, that the enumeration in the one case is incidental, and does not profess to be complete; whereas in the other, it forms a necessary part of the subject. The verbal coincidences in the two sets of extracts are sufficiently obvious. Again, in p. 149, there occurs the singular expression murky fanatic. "General phrases like these never content the murky fanatic when he denounces vengeance on his enemies." Now let us turn to " Fanaticism," p. 410, and we shall find: "This is not the mood of the murky fanatic, who seeks to avenge the slights he has personally received from his countrymen, by exulting over public calamities." The expression occurs again in p. 445. We may take this opportunity of remarking that there are many single words which, though not exclusively employed by any particular author, are yet comparatively so uncommon, as, when often occurring in two different works, to give some weight to a cumulative argument like ours. Such are, for instance, subserve, polytheism, religionism, the verb issue used in the sense of to end or terminate, and enhance for to increase; all which are found in common in "The Process of Historical Proof," and in "Fanaticism," and other works of the same author. We must not pass unnoticed the remarkable similarity between the observations on the epistles of St. Peter, in the 11th chapter of Mr. Taylor's work, and in p. 222 of "Natural History of Enthusiasm," (6th edition) and P. 204, and 205, of Saturday Évening," (third thousand). This, again, leads us to remark on the manner of citing scripture employed throughout all the works in common; namely, that when the quotation is of any length, the established version is not used, but a paraphrastic one, made by the author for the purpose. Compare, for instance, those in p. 172 of the Process of Historical Proof, and p. of Saturday Evening; together with the introductory remarks to each. 206 We had marked some other passages for comparison, but forbear to produce them; as those already brought forward, are sufficient to stablish this fact, at least, that if the author of Natural History of Enthusiasm, is not Isaac Taylor, he has either borrowed largely from him without acknowledgment, or else has hit upon a coincidence of sentiments and phraseology little short of miraculous. In speaking in the appendix to Spiritual Despotism," p. 489, of a work of Mr. William Osburn, jun., on the "Doctrinal Errors of the Apostolical and Early Fathers," he says they (Mr. O. and he) "have been travelling over the same ground, and each alike has carried with him, not the solicitudes or the prepossessions of a theologian; but the free notions of a Christian layman: they have moreover reached, on several points, the same general conclusions, and have even happened to express their opinions, * more than once or twice, in a phraseNot ology remarkably coincident." having seen Mr. Osburn's work, we cannot say how far this coincidence extends; but we may safely venture to assert, not to any thing like the degree we have pointed out in the present case. But is not the style of the Process of Historical Proof, much plainer and less eloquent than that of the works of the author of Natural History of Enthusiasm? True, because the subject so requires; but still we could point F out more than one page which would suffice to shew that Mr. Taylor can, when he pleases, or the subject permits, soar high enough to show that his apparent inferiority in that respect does not arise from want of power. Who, for instance, can read the following passages without being forcibly reminded of some in "Saturday Evening "But since neither the nature of the facts nor the extent of their consequences is linked to the testimony, the amount of that testimony cannot, with reason, be made the measure of faith. The bombardment of a town makes itself known to the inhabitants of the surrounding country on the one side, by the full roar of its thunders; but in another direction, perhaps, an intervening range of wood-covered hills so quells the transmission of sound, that the listful fawn of the forest scarcely catches the alarm. Yet the vibration is distinctly perceptible to him who hearkens; and though the down may not guess its meaning, the experienced soldier doubts not for a mo ment what may be its cause. Does then a just logic require that the people on the one side should believe, and those on the other, doubt the fact of the siege, in mathematical proportion to the intensity of the vibrations that reach the ear? This cannot be; for the difference in the quantity of evidence is purely accidental. And certainly, if our faith ought not to be measured by the amount of evidence that may happen to convey to us the knowledge of a remote fact, neither ought it to be regulated by the nature or the consequences of the facts. If the continued discharge of artillery be distinctly, though faintly perceived, our confidence in the fact cannot, in reason, be enhanced or diminished by any supposition relative to the occasion of this firing: it may arsenal; or it may be the storming of a fortress, which will issue in the conquest of a province in the change of a dynasty -in the ruin of an empire."-p. 257. "What remains then? The Gospel History cannot be deemed inexplicable; and it is not manifestly false. It is then manifestly true. And though there are still, and may yet be those who, so long as the argument rests quietly in books, will continue to spurn reason, the time will come when attention towards it shall be quickened; men shall feel their personal interest in the question-the be a mere trial of ordnance at an films of sophistry shall be broken as the gossamer of the morning by the foot of behemoth. The common conviction shall be strong and loud, and shall bear down, with a crushing force, upon the band of malignants whom truth could never move. The time shall come→→ perhaps it is not distant-when, of all the errors that have made sport of the human mind, the most strange, as well as the most fatal, shall seem-the disbelief of Christianity."-p. 294. But it is now time to turn to the more immediate subject of this article, SPIRITUAL DESPOTISM. Superstition had been promised as the next sucinforms us in an advertisement to the cessor of Fanaticism; but the author substituted treatise, that he has seen reason, the grounds of which it is not important to state, for altering the order of the volumes he has [had ?] announced;" and in truth, the change was, as times go, much for the better. It must be allowed on all sides, that, in the present crisis of affairs, there can be few subjects on which it is more important to form clear and just ideas, than that of ecclesiastical polity in all its bearings; and we do not think we are going too far when we affirm, that the present volume is peculiarly well adapted to promote the attainment of that result. Written, as it is, by a layman, and consequently less liable to suspicion, as being the work of an author, free, to use his own words, "from the solicitudes or the prepossessions of a theologian," it is the more likely to make an impression on many who would receive with distrust any suggestions from what they would consider an interested party. too, as he evidently is, with the workWell acquainted, ings and effects of dissent and of the so called voluntary system, (and, if our supposition be correct, educated in the in favor of the episcopal and estabbosom of nonconformity,) his suffrage lished church, is the more valuable. We are also well pleased to find that he, an Englishman, has that just conception of the true nature of popery, in which, unfortunately, the most of his countrymen are deficient ; many of these, too, men of such political weight and influence, that their opinions are anything but a matter of indifference. Would they were more alive to the truth of the observations contained in the following extract!"In seeking for evidence concerning the spirit and practices of the Romish despotism, we should observe two rules, both clearly equitable and necessary; the first is to look to the pages of those writers only who have occupied high stations in the church, and whose decisions are its law; and the second is to confine ourselves to those times during which the church was in her prosperity, and enjoyed an unrestricted authority. The breaking out of the Reformation gave a new and an exasperated character to all the acts and expressions of the Papacy. From that time forward the church spoke in reference to, or in tacit recollection of, her new and formidable adversaries. She was no longer purely spontaneous. The difference of style and feeling occasioned by the Lutheran schism, is very clearly perceptible in the Romanist writers of all classes; for while the bold and intemperate are far more extravagant and impudent than were their predecessors of the same stamp, the reasonable, the conciliatory, and the philosophic, labour with the utmost diligence and ingenuity to soften the features of the Romish tyranny, to excuse its intolerance, to recommend, on general grounds, its superstitions, and to bring it, as far as possible, into accordance with the spirit of Christianity, and with the feelings and usages of modern times. But as we are bound, in fairness, to reject the exaggerated Romanism of the one class of modern writers, so should we pass by, as unauthentic and spurious-the novel liberality, and the spirituality of the other. We do not ask Fenelon, or Pascal, or the Jansenists, or Dr. Doyle, or Mr. Butler, what Romanism is, any more than we put that question to certain infamous Spanish Jesuits of the seventeenth century; but turn to the popes and the authentic doctors of the middle ages. The principles avowed by these high authorities, and the practices founded upon those principles, are consistent one with another; are necessary parts of the great ecclesiastical theory; and are such as must, in every age, be professed and followed by the Romish church, where she enjoys full liberty, and is not compelled to adapt herself to political necessities. Protestantism annihilated, and princes once more brought down to their place, as the obedient sons and champions of the church, and then this church would be, and must be, the very same in spirit and in practice that it was in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In truth, a modern Catholic country, as, for example, Spain, Ireland, or Belgium, would altogether gain, as much as it would lose, in exchanging infra-Lutheran, for supraLutheran Catholicism. That which makes modern popery more tolerable, and in some respects less pernicious to a people than ancient popery was, is precisely that admixture of better notions which it has furtively obtained from Protestantism. But all such mitigations and corrections the consistent Romanist must regard as adulterations, and must wish to exclude and repel. The Romish church can never admit the maxim-' fas est ab hoste doceri.'"-p. 467. The main object of the work will best appear as expressed in the author's own words, which, at the same time, will serve to intimate the line of argument he pursues on some of the questions there brought forward : "The alliance between Church and State is loudly denounced as the source and means of spiritual despotism. But history shows that sacerdotal tyranny may reach its height while the Church is struggling against a hostile civil power. No practical inference, therefore, professing to be drawn from the testimony of facts, can be valid, unless what has been accidental to hierarchical usurpation is clearly distinguished from what was its essential principle. Otherwise, we may unwittingly promote the very abuses we wish to exclude; and may be led moreover to spurn the most important of all the axioms that should give law to the social system. 66 Again; the maintenance of the clergy through the medium of a legal provision has, with as little regard to the genuine lessons of experience, been assigned as a chief cause of the corruption of Christianity. No allegation can stand more fully contradicted by the records of antiquity than does this; nor can any thing be more easy than to disprove the assertion. "Once more: the arrogant and encroaching episcopacy of the early ages, from which the proper counterpoise had been removed, has furnished a specious argument in modern times, bearing against that form of church government which is strongly inferred to have been sanctioned by apostolic practice, which is approved by the common sense of mankind in parallel instances, and a form too which the spread of Christianity at once demands, and insensibly introduces. A main intention then of the present volume is to point out to the candid reader the unsoundness of certain popular opinions on the above-named important subjects; and to show the futility of the arguments that have had any such assumptions as their basis. « While thus, at the threshold of his argument, the author explicitly declares his purpose and opinion-an opinion he hopes to substantiate by proper evidence, he must not be misunderstood as wishing to dogmatise where the wisest, the best, and the most accomplished men have ranged themselves on opposite sides. Not a little oppressed by the consciousness that he must advance what none of our religious parties will altogether approve, and what some of them will vehemently distaste, he throws himself upon the candour and generous sympathy of all, in every communion, whose concern for Christianity is serious and sincere. Disclaiming (as he has endeavoured to repress) every feeling unbecoming the holy gospel which he most earnestly desires to promote, he will not believe that any who entertain the same paramount desire, will account him an enemy, even though he may assail their fondest and their firmest convictions."-p. 1. It consists of ten sections, the titles of which we shall give, to throw a farther light on the nature of its contents, and an appendix, containing some valuable notes and illustrations: there are, besides, in the course of it, many interesting and useful disquisitions on topics more or less connected with the subject. The titles of the sections areThe Present Crisis of Church Power; General Conditions of Hierarchical Power; Sketch of Ancient Hierarchies, and that of the Jews; Rudiments of Church Polity; First Steps of Spiritual Despotism; Era of the Balance of the Civil and Ecclesiastical Powers ; The Church Ascendant; Spiritual Despotism supplanted by Secular Tyranny; Present Disparagements of the Ministers of Religion; General Inferences. As our limits would not permit us to follow the author in his arguments, or to attempt an analysis of the work, which, to do it justice, would occupy much more space than we could devote, we must content ourselves with extracting a few passages that will admit of it, and referring our readers for further information to the volume itself, which, we can assure them, will well reward the time and attention devoted to an attentive perusal. We concur in the opinion expressed in the first section; that the present crisis is not confined in its bearings to the British empire alone, but involves the religious interests of the world at large. To the thoughtful mind this view of the subject invests it with an extreme degree of grandeur. Those, however, who consider it as too fanciful, or unfounded, will, perhaps, be better inclined to attend to another, which is more readily appreciable, and comes more immediately home to ourselves. "The religious interests of the British empire are very unlikely much longer to repose where hitherto they have rested: the powers of change that are awake must be met and directed. Nor is it possible that a greater stake should be at hazard among any people; for the welfare of Britain, momentous as we must think it, is not all that is in question, since, with the religious and civil well-being of our own country the moral and spiritual renovation of all countries is involved. No national vanity is implied in saying so; for none can look at the course of events during the last forty years, or anticipate those almost certain movements of the moral world which await us, without confessing that the brightest and the fondest hopes we entertain on behalf of mankind at large, hang upon the auspicious or the ominous aspect of English Christianity."—p. 3. "The crisis of the Church we hold then to be the crisis of the Constitution. Renouncing entirely, and even with contempt, those alarms which are made a pretext of by the defenders of corruption, who would fain have us believe that to reform a single abuse in the Church is the same thing as to draw out the ties and pins of the frame-work of the State, it is yet, as we assume, not to be denied that the feeling and the principle which now threaten the Church of England, threaten also, and not very remotely, those civil institutions that stand as a fence against pure democracy."-p. 26. "Be this as it may; the atheistic faction very naturally takes part against the Established Church in the present season of her peril. Political tendencies, irreligious instincts, the prospect of a triumph over things and persons held sacred, the hope of seeing Christianity, in one of her principal forms, levelled with the dust, and exposed to shame; indefinite expectations of booty, and a belief that, notwithstanding the zeal of the sects, religion altogether would not long survive the overthrow of a learned and respectable hierarchy interested in its support; these, and other kindred motives, impel many, as well among the vulgar as the educated, to mix in a controversy foreign to their habits of thinking, and into which they bring no preparation, either of knowledge or of sentiment, that might lead them to a sound conclusion. “This irreligious interference in a religious controversy cannot fail to be in itself pernicious; but it becomes more so when caught at and encouraged by some who should know better how and where to choose allies. The aid we receive in argument, at any time, from persons between whom and ourselves there exists an absolute contrariety of first principles, may well be suspected, even if it ought not at once to be renounced. doubtedly, some capital sophism forms the bond of that accidental connection which makes us one with men whom we must think in every sense wrong. Let the Infidel and the Dissenter join hands in upheaving the Church, and before the ruins have settled in the dust, the former will turn upon the latter, as then his sole enemy, and his easy victim."-p. 15. Un The conclusion of the second section will serve as an excellent summary of the author's sentiments on the conditious of Church power : "We have thus briefly presented to view the four main conditions that affect the power of hierarchies; namely, the quality of the religion, the national temperament of the people, the political position of the clergy in the state, and the source of church revenues. Spiritual des potism, to reach its utmost height, must be favoured by each of these conditions; that is to say, the religion which is the vehicle of it, must be fraught with superstitionthe people must have sunk into a servile and sluggish humour-the Church must have got the better of the civil power; and the wealth of the country must, without regulation or control, be at the command of the clergy. Spiritual despotism is necessarily redressed or excluded—when theology is reformed-when learning and commerce restore intelligence and liberty to the people-when the civil authority resumes its functions and rights, a friendly reciprocity being established between Church and State; and lastly, when the nice matter of revenue is well defined and is set clear of the opposite liabilities, to disorder that affect it. "But there are evils that attend the reaction by which spiritual despotisms are overthrown. These take place when the dread of church power, and the jealous resistance of spiritual encroachments, lead to a rejection, or a virtual exclusion of those potent principles that impart to religion its practical efficiency, and that invest it with a solemn and serious dignity; when the growth of popular sentiments, and the republican feeling, operate to withhold from the clergy so much independent authority as is indispensable to the faithful discharge of their duties; when the magistrate, in his caution against the insidious advances of clerical ambition, holds the church in subserviency to his immediate pleasure, and gives it no leave to exercise its proper legislative and administrative functions; and lastly, when the rapacity of Churchmen is guarded against in either of those extreme methods of which the one tightens too much the dependence of the clergy upon their flocks, and the other snaps it." Of the third section we can only notice the introduction, to show how it is connected with the succeeding one on Church Polity: "The general subject of sacerdotal power, and the abuses to which it is liable, cannot be treated with reference merely to modern institutions, modern notions, and immediate interests. Neither the guiding principles which we have to seek for in the New Testament, nor the real import of the allusions made therein to the constitutions of the primitive Church can be understood without some |