could give him that state of mind, but it was not in the province and competency of the Society against which he had thus offended,-whose feelings he had so outraged, whose claims he had so traduced,-to restore him, however penitent, to the standing and privileges of his former profession. This seems the most natural explication, and as might be expected, is the least difficult.-Any morbid horror of innovation is not very peculiar in my habits of mind. They perhaps would induce too great fearlessness of conclusion. The caution of the Reviewer is therefore gratuitous. Will he not suppose that it is possible to love the good old divinity, because it is just as old as the Bible? I love it on no other ground. "Nullius addictus, &c." is a quotation, now nearly worn to rags, and it will express mine equal independence of mind with his. Some novelties I only smile at. A young minister, who I believe occasionally writes critiques, gravely argued among us, from a pulpit in this town, that the Elias on the Mount of Transfiguration was not the translated Tishbite, but the recently decollated Baptist. The youth was pitied, and the caput mortuum was forgiven. But when intelligent and useful young men of the north," (has not Caledonia then retained this astute thinker? or has he also said, " Per tot discrimina rerum, tendimus," in Londinum?) take upon themselves to bring their polar, rather than polarized, light into the southern churches, they must expect our watchmen to look a little narrowly, ere they warn the city which they keep, that the day is breaking, or announce as a sunrise what may be only a meteor of frost and an irradiation of ice.

Nor is it likely that they who know both sides of the Tweed, and

both sides of the popular Mental Hypotheses advocated on each, will be greatly terrified by the bold preference given by "the Reviewer" to Dr. Brown. "Gothic phraseology," it appears, is the fault of our old divines,-poor, light, trivial, unadorned, unsubstantial, as Gothic piles!! A better style is to be brought in, similar to a revolution produced by the aforesaid Professor! That style is clearer than Reid's, and more potent than Stewart's! I am not insensible to his merits. He has substituted a constant memento of a pump-handle for the beautiful gathering of ideas. He has founded his system upon the most baseless theory of Hume, destroying the connection which the human mind must necessarily establish between cause and effect. He has taken Akenside to pieces. If this is all that is promised to us, we may indeed forget and forego our name of Brownists. I will just quote the clear speculation of one of these warm enthusiasts,-may common sense forefend their propagation! "The opposite emotion to beauty is deformity; while ludicrousness stands in contrast with sublimity. Ludicrousness is that light mirth we feel on the unexpected perception of a strange mixture of congruity and incongruity." Here is "a nomenclature of philosophy!" Objectivity and Subjectivity, as the Germans call them, strangely substituted! The cause of an emotion, and the emotion itself, absolutely confounded! And this occurs in what would be a tolerably good book, had not the author (who himself can Review) drudged in the snow, a little sludged, of one who will continue to be read, when Thomas Reid and Dugald Stewart are forgotten!

One error, scarcely to be forgiven in a schoolboy of the lowest

form, seems to have misled this "Reviewer." For a little moment, I could not conceive what was the distinction without a difference to which be clung. He wishes to treat probation as something more than moral agency. And what think you is it? He cannot conceive of probo but as involving approbation. I ask him not whether he has ever consulted the Thesaurus of Robert Stephens, let him resort to his Entick. He may there find that the verb means, to prove, to try, to assay. Approbo signifies the commendation which follows a course of trial. And is the artful cry of " meritoriousness" to scare us? Every appeal of obligation is to us, with this sanction; it is advantageous to obey it, it is detrimental to infringe it. The Reviewer first draws his own conclusion, and then chuckles over it. "Can salvation be of grace, and yet its acceptance be viewed by the Deity as a meritorious act on the part of man? So much is at least implied in the doctrine of probation." O commend me to such power of raising an elenchus ! Who can drive such a sturdy beggar of the question from the door? Who can spurn such a petitio principi? Whatever is duty, the course of action determined by Divine command, must be addressed to our self-love. God has commanded us to love him. Is our love of Him meritorious? Yet has it great reward. God has made it our duty to receive Christ. This is the law of faith. To this law there are affixed the most awful sanctions. "He that believeth shall be saved, he that believeth not shall be damned." The gospel is "now made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known

to all nations for the obedience of faith." I shall not enter on that part of the correspondence which does not concern myself. And therefore amidst assumptions and evasions unparalleled in the compass they occupy, and in the wilfulness they betray, I will only seize on two. I am sorry to think that any person should be disingenuous enough to speak of truth after so garbled a manner.

The first statement argues, that were man a probationer under the present dispensation, that probation must cease with the first refusal of saving mercy. Must! Why must it? It is thus sinned against, we know and sin can be only committed on the supposition of this mercy being offered. But may not this probation consist of a series of trials? Does not Providence combine with it, sparing the offender, repeating his opportunities, and bringing him again and again within the reach of salvation? "After so long a time, may not the Holy Ghost say, Today if ye will hear His voice?" God would be just in abandoning every sinner without an intimation and lure of mercy: most just would He be in punishing the very first refusal of His grace. But does it follow that He, therefore, must treat that rejecter of his mercy as no more on trial? Does not every new cry of this mercy in our streets assert that it accounts us needy of it, and responsible for its acceptance?

Further the "Reviewer" screens himself behind a supposititious order, in which certain duties are evolved. Luminously he says: "The great question, What is faith,' can be settled by no inferior authority than the law and the testimony." Indeed! I should have imagined that we needed no supernatural information upon this

point.

We all know what it is to believe as well as to love. I suppose he must intend, the subjects we must credit. He probably is what is called "a simple-faith" man: SO am I, and never yet talked of saving faith. The testimony, and its blessings, alone can save. Here doubtless he is right. But now he insinuates that with him is the victory, because he would first invite the sinner to believe? Does he know any of his brethren who would not? But if he would say, Believe! that is all which is now required! and couple with that exercise of mind no beseeching for mercy, no writhing of self-humiliation,-O my soul, come not thou into that metaphysical and soul-murdering secret! And it is strange that this little party, with all their avowed simplicity, interchange repentance and belief, by turns! Struck by their inconsistency, we ask how is this? Then we are met,-who can say, what is faith without repentance, or repentance without faith? Very well, but surely boasting is excluded! Will they tell me, what are faith and repentance, and how can they be conceived to exist, without prayer?-And then what is the fairness or the cogency of generalities like these?" Prayer is the creature recognizing his relation to his Creator, &c." I have never offered any apology for my "writing," save to confess its faults; nor was it I who called my Open masculine." But surely the "Reviewer" has little right to advise me to "think more clearly, and write more simply." I will try to do both. Still it tasks some little patience to be advised from such a quarter. A definition, forsooth! "Prayer is the creature! &c." Is prayer nothing more than the prostration and homage of the creature? Is it not fervent in

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wrought desire? And then comes the old entangled skein of attempted reasoning. "It is the duty of devils." What can be meant by this rash dictum ? It is their duty to properly regard the Infinite Purity,-to love God,— but has He not punitively rendered it impossible that they should ever acceptably serve Him? Can they be authorized to believe any other than His testimony? That testimony declares that His mercy is clean gone for ever,-they believe and tremble. Can they be authorized to ask any thing more than He has attested himself prepared to bestow? He will not hear. I no intelligible sense then ought they to pray.

The climax is yet to come. It atones for all audacity of statement. It is indeed a calm declination. It breathes of generous concession. What will not candour do? There is no limitation of goodness! "We would not say to any man, you must not pray." O matchless abatement of success in its triumph! O unexampled moderation in victory! You would not! Bring forth bays for such a head! This indeed is the greatness of forbearance! Do manus! Who can conceive of the restraint which a Christian minister must impose upon his zeal,-the sacrifice he must cost his pity, the wrong he must do his soul,-when notwithstanding all the world may object, he will not say to any man, you must not pray." Dear victim of selfconsuming philanthropy! Many have been thy struggles! But thou hast overcome! The hour of temptation has past!" You will not say to any man, you must not pray." This is indeed coming far! It is magnanimous to have gained this point! Now you feel your cross! Hic labor, hoc opus, est! "You will not say to any man,

you must not pray!" Why this is wonderful! How can man climb to disinterestedness like this! Come ye weary and heavy laden, -ye outcasts, ye mourners! The sons of consolation are at length discovered! The ministers of reconciliation no longer hide themselves! Go to them! They are so far softened, they consent to stoop so low, that they "will not say, you must not pray!" Now for conversion! Now for the revival of our churches! "Now for a recompense!" We dare not say you should pray,-but we will relax to this point, we will not say, after all,-you must not!

This "intelligent and useful young man" may perhaps see his folly ere it is too late. My prayer is, that he may. I hope he is not so wise in his own conceit as to refuse a lttle counsel. He loves Brown in mental philosophy. Let him go back farther. Let him drink of the fountain-head. And when conversant with Adam Ferguson, he will have found a name of which none can have need to be ashamed.

I have obtained no shelter in ambush, I have sought none in sub

terfuge. May the Northern Youth, whoever he be," increase in wisdom!" He does not seem to be utterly incapable, and may turn out better than we expect. Never let us despair. Who can tell? His first distinct conception, his earliest power of expressing that conception, may indicate a career for whose outset we are impatient, and whose start we still most anxiously wait.

Mr. Editor! pardon my helluonism of your pages! Teach the "young idea how to shoot," but not "privily at the upright in heart!" May "this intelligent and useful young minister of the north,”— the place which knew him knows him no more!-receive understanding to distinguish truth, and modesty to learn it! But we are looking for another morning and dayspring on our churches,-not an aurora borealis,-and would remind the good taste of any who have but lately adhered to our ministry, not to try upon it a too thorough reform, nor to expect that their elders, well indoctrinated in old-school theology, can cringe to every tyro! Yours very truly, R. W. HAMILTON.

Leeds, Oct. 14, 1836.

ciful provisions, could not have been saved if they would, but who now may be saved if they will. Yet he says that this does not establish, but overthrow the doctrine of probation. In the very act of quoting his words I had written them conversely; it does not overthrow but establish the doctrine; so evidently does the latter conclusion, and not the former, flow from the premises. What, if pardon be offered to rebels, are they not placed by the very offer

in a state of trial or probation, (for the word just simply means trial,) whether they will accept it? or, according to the statements of my last letter, whether they will enter upon the path of life? The Reviewer must not be permitted to say that because God knows what the result will be, they are not in a state of probation; for if that were a valid conclusion, Adam cannot be said to have been placed in such a state; neither are believers now placed in it. Nor, further, will it be allowed the Reviewer to contend that, since the actual reception of offered mercy is the result of special gracious influence, they are not in a state of probation; for the persevering faith and obedience of Christians are the result of the same influence; and yet they are allowed by him to be in a state of probation. How then, in this very plain case, can the Reviewer contrive to persuade himself that the gospel does not place all men to whom it comes in a state of probation? i. e. in a state of trial, whether they will accept the " proffer of pardon and everlasting life as a boon from their offended Maker." Why by attaching an arbitrary, a limited, and technical sense to the plain and simple word probation. He has apparently thought of the probation of Adam, which involved specialities not connected with the probation of sinners now; and, because the latter are not in that special state of probation in which Adam was placed, he appears to imagine that they are not in a state of probation at all. Adam was placed in his probation whether he would merit the boon held out to him, by obedience. Your Reviewer very justly denies that sinners are placed on probation whether they will merit the boon proffered to them, by faith; hence, he argues, they are

not in a state of trial. Thus there must be merit, and the blessing must be enjoyed on the ground of merit, or there is no probation.Did it never strike this writer to inquire how redeemed sinners can, on these principles, be in a state of probation? Is there merit in their obedience, and is the blessing given to them on the ground of merit? Are we not instructed, even when we have done all that is required, to consider our selves unprofitable servants, and to accept eternal life as a gift, and not as a reward? It may be true that neither Mr. Hamilton nor my. self has given to this subject "the deep examination it deserves;" but I venture to remind the Reviewer that this may also be the case with him. I venture to state that the word probation does not imply, of necessity, the whole of the ideas he attaches to it; that the notion of merit is a speciality, often thrown out from the term, so as to admit of its being used in a more generalized and comprehensive sense; and I venture again to remind him that he has no right to fix upon a technical and special sense of the term, and then to argue that, since sinners are not subjected to this specific trial, they are not in a state of probation at all.

The amount of all that I have contended for, and that I shall continue to contend for, (though no longer in your columns,) since it appears to me a very important truth, is, that all who hear the gospel are as truly in a state of probation, whether they will exercise the first act of faith, as whe ther they will exercise all subse quent acts; in other words, and in the terms of my last letter, whe ther they will become believers, as whether they will continue such. I admit, with the Reviewer, that there is no merit, on the part of the