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ving himself. But we have a still more serious objection to it; one which, we should hope, will have weight with our author himself, and lead him to regard it with less partiality, if not entirely to abandon it. It appears to us directly opposed to the rule authoritatively laid down by St. Paul, and recommended by his example and success. We are presented with that rule, and with the example of this great apostle, in his own account of his preaching and doctrine, in the Epistle to the Corinthians. We refer particularly to the First Epistle, from the 17th verse of the 1st chapter, to the 7th verse of the 2d chapter. Now let us take Mr. Irving's words as we have quoted them, and place them in a juxta-position with those of the apostle, and they will present, if not a complete contrast, at least two things with great and striking differences between them. And here let it be noted, that the apostle's ministry was exercised among various classes of persons, differing in religious profession, rank of life, mental attainments, disposition, and conduct; and yet he employed one and the same means with all those various classes; viz. the preaching of "Christ crucified;" or in other words, as he explains it elsewhere, the doctrine that Christ died for our sins, and was raised again for our justification; by which resurrection from the dead, he was "declared to be the Son of God with power." Whether he addressed the barbarian or the polished citizen of Corinth, the bondman or the freeman, the Jew or the Gentile, the philosopher or the ruler, this was his theme. Nay, this was his theme, to the exclusion of every other, not involved in, and connected with, it, "I determined," says he, "to know nothing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." He marshals before him the professional men of his day: "Where," says he, "is the wise, where is the scribe, where is the disputer of this world?" and he tells them-that God has made foolish all their wisdom-that his preaching to them should not be on the topics which their wisdom would approve, nor in the words which their wisdom taught. He knew what they approved and sought after. "The Jews," says he, "require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom." But he mentions these things only to renounce them. "We preach," says this faithful servant of the cross, "Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness;" and that, not in the enticing words of man's wisdom." Is there, we ask, in all this, any thing of an example for the ministers of religion to imitate? Is there here any thing authoritative and binding? Was it by this simple, but mighty and overpowering doctrine of the cross, that St. Paul, and the other servants of Christ, in that and the following age, subdued ali opposition, and "turned the world upside down?" Was it, on the cortrary, by a departure from this simplicity of doctrine and preaching, and by an admixture of the philosophy of the day, and by affecting the eloquence, and imitating the arts of the teachers of that philosophy,that, in a succeeding age, Christianity was corrupted and debased into a mere secular system? Let these questions be weighed and answered. Let the apostle's language and example be seriously meditated on; and then let the conscientious minister of religion decide whether he can adopt Mr. Irving's "new method of handling religious truth."

The ambition of novelty, if we may so express it, has been a snare to Mr. Irving, throughout the whole of his work. We may trace to it many of the blots and errors of his production. It has led him, for example, to find fault with that in others, which, immediately after, only in different words, he inculcates himself; to condemn things which good men have been accustomed to approve and recommend; and also to refine in such a way upon some of the plainest subjects, as to render his statements concerning them unintelligible, and, not unfrequently, even ridiculous. We shall furnish a few instances of this,

In his first oration, he says;

"Having no taste whatever for the mean estimates which are made, and the coarse invectives that are vented against human nature, which though true in the main are often in the manner so unfeeling and triumphant, as to reveal hot zeal, rather than tender and deep sorrow, we will not give into this popular strain."

Now whatever may be our views of human nature, we have no more taste for coarse invective than Mr. Irving himself; and we agree with him, that it is with tender and deep sorrow, and, we will add, with deep humility also, that the corruptious and evils of human nature should be exposed. But now let us hear Mr. Irving himself in the very next sen

tence.

“It is a truth by experience revealed, that though there be in man most noble faculties, and a nature restless after the knowledge and truth of things, there are, towards God and his revealed will, an indisposition and a regardlessness. It is most true, that nature is unwilling to the subject of the Scriptures. The soul is previously possessed with adverse interests; the world hath laid an embargo on her faculties, and monopolized them to herself; old habit hath perhaps added his almost incurable callousness; and the enemy of God and man is skilful to defend what he hath already won. So circumstancer, and every man is so circumstanced, we come to the audience of the word of God, and listen in worse tune than a wanton to a sermon, or a hardened knave to a judicial address."

Now it is rather with a bad grace that the writer of all this finds fault with others for making a mean estimate of human nature; and it strikes us that there is something very like coarseness here, in Mr. Irving's own language.

Again, in his oration "on the manner of consulting the oracles of God," he says:

Holding of the same superstition is the practice of drawing nigh to the word, in sickness, affliction, and approaching dissolution as if a charm against the present evil, or an invocation of the future good."-" And for studying his will, it is of no importance, save to perform it in the face of all opposition from within and without; therefore, of all seasons, sickness and affliction-when we are disabled from action, and in part also from thought-is, it seems to me, the season least proper for the perusal of the word."

In our former quotation we found our author throwing out a disparaging insinuation against his brethren in the ministry, for doing what he proceeds himself to do in the very next sentence, i. e. making a mean estimate of human nature. In the passage before us he condemns what good

men have united in recommending, viz. drawing nigh to the word of God, in affliction, and sickness, and approaching dissolution. No doubt they are deeply criminal who draw nigh to it only at such seasons, that is, who neglect it at other times; so are they also who read it at those times, as if it were a charm against present evil, or any invocation of the future good." But the reading at any time with such a feeling in view, is no less bad, than in sickness or affliction: and to say, that of all seasons, sickness and affliction is the one least proper for the perusal of it, is to make an assertion in the very teeth of all experience, as well as directly contradictory of the word of God itself. We stop not to prove this: but we hasten to ask Mr. Irving how he should act if summoned to the house of mourning, or to the bed of sickness or death to visit an anxious but ignorant fellow-sinner? Would he refuse to attend? or if he gave his attendance, we should be glad to know, for what purpose it would be? Would it be to tell the inquiring, dying sinner, to shut up his Bible, inasmuch as that, "of all seasons, was the least proper one for examining it?" Would it be to tell him that " his concern about the name and word of God was a symptom only of his weakness?" No: we are persuaded, that in such awful, trying circumstances, he would act a better part: he would turn his back on his unscriptural theory, and in his practice identify himself with his brethren, the ministers of good tidings and peace.

We subjoin the following curious specimen of the uncommon phraseology which our author sometimes employs, as well as of the nice distinctions and subtle refinements by which he too often obscures his subject:

"You will be alarmed, when we carry our censure against the common spirit of dealing with it (i. e. the Word of God,) as a duty. Not that but it is a duty to peruse the Word of God, but that it is something infinitely higher. Duty means a verdict of conscience in its behalf. Now conscience is not an independent power, at the bidding of which the word abides to be opened, and at its forbidding to continue sealed; but the word, let conscience bid or forbid, stands forth dressed in its own awful sanctions.-Believe and live-Believe not and die. If conscience have added her voice also, that is another sanction, but a sanction which is not needful to be superadded."

Again he says:

“To bind this tie (i, e. the relation between the Creator and the creature) nothing will suffice but strong and stubborn necessity. Duty, in truth, is the very lowest conception of it-privilege is a higher-honour higher,-happiness and delight a higher still. But duty may be suspended by more pressing duty-privileges may be foregone and honour forgot, and the sense of happiness grow dull; but this of listening to his voice who plants the sense of duty, bestows privilege, honour, and happiness, and our every other faculty, is before all these, and is equalled by nothing but the stubbornest necessity. We should hear his voice as the sun and stars do in their courses, as the restful element of earth doth in its settled habitation. His voice is our law, which it is sacrilege, worse than rebellion, to disobey. He keeps the bands of our being together. His voice is the charter of our existence, which being disobeyed, we should run to annihilation, as our great father would have done, had not God in mercy given us a second chance, by erecting the platform of our being upon the new condition of probation, different from that of all known existences,"

In conclusion, he adds:

"Necessity, therefore, I say, strong and eternal necessity, is that which joins the link between the creature and the Creator, and makes man incumbent to the voice of God."

Perhaps it would be difficult to find, in the same compass, in any author, more of what is absurd and ridiculous, than Mr. Irving has contrived to crowd into these few sentences. He commences by levelling his censure against dealing with the Word of God as a duty. He then acknowledges that it is a duty to read it; but admonishes us that we are not to read it on account of its being a duty. Duty means, he tells us, a verdict of conscience in its behalf. If so, we might conclude, that if this verdict be in behalf of the Word, we should read it. But this, it seems, would be an erroneous conclusion; because conscience is not an independent power, and the Word does not "abide to be opened at its bidding, nor at its forbidding, to continue sealed; but the word, let conscience bid or forbid, stands forth, dressed in its own awful sanctionBelieve and live-Believe not and die." Now this means, if it mean any thing at all, that we are to read the word, whether it be our duty to read it or not. Next comes the binding of the tie between our Creator and us; for which, we are told, nothing will suffice but strong and stubborn necessity. "Then we should hear his voice, as the sun and stars do in their courses-as the restful element of earth doth in its settled habitation." How is that, do we ask? Our author throws no light on the subject; but hastens to inform us, that "His voice is our charter;" that he has given us a second chance, that we may escape running into annihilation;" and that he has done this, "by erecting the platform of our being, upon the condition of our probation;" and subjoins the following lumin ous and very consolatory assurance of the whole matter; "Necessity, therefore, I say, strong and eternal necessity is that which joins the link between the creature and the Creator, and makes man incumbent to the voice of God." Unquestionably Mr. Irving deserves the praise of originality in all this, as well as that of being faithful to his own principle, that of "passing the limits of pulpit theology and pulpit exhortation." But we are disposed to think that a large portion of his readers will be of opinion with us, that, in this instance at least, it would have been bet→ ter if he had "abided" within them.

That part of Mr. Irving's argument on judgment to come, entitled, "Preliminaries to solemn Judgment," requires special notice. It opens by stating the fact, that

"God has appointed a day in which he will call an account of the good and the evil, and make a grand and notable decision between those who regarded him, and those who regarded him not.”

Of this solemn account he remarks—

"That though it be a subject of pure revelation, it is one which may be handled with great deference to human reason, and to our natural sentiments of justice; and therefore he solicits from his readers a lively exercise of all his faculties, and a ready proposal of all his doubts; his ob ject being, not to overawe him with terrific descriptions of things unseen, in which imagination may at liberty disport, but to convince him how JANUARY, 1824.—No. 261.

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consonant things revealed are to the best sentiments and interests of mant kind."

That things revealed are consonant to what ought to be the sentiments, and to what actually are the best interests of mankind, is unquestionable. But it occurs, that Mr. Irving set himself a very difficult and trying, as well as unnecessary task, when he undertook to handle this subject of "pure revelation" with "great deference to human reason, and to our natural sentiments of justice." In a matter of pure revelation, the province of human reason, after having ascertained that it is really a revelation, lies simply in investigating its true and proper meaning, bearing, and application. When it has done this, nothing more remains, than implicitly and cordially to acquiesce in it, as what is wisest and best. There is no point of divine revelation in which it is of more consequence to keep this principle constantly in view, than in that of a judgment to come. Unhappily our author has frequently lost sight of it in the course of this chapter. It contains, however, some things which are excellent and striking, which it will be a grateful office to render prominent, before we enter on the disagreeable task of exposing what is erroneous and mischievous. The manner in which he proposes to treat the subject is explained as follows:

"In order, therefore, to carry the reason of men along with us into this solemn subject of judgment to come, we shall consider the doubts and dif ficulties which the mind hath in meditating the transactions of the great day, and endeavour to render the best resolution of them in our power, before entering upon the very article of the judgment, and the principle upon which it proceeds. These preliminary doubts and hesitations are of two classes; one arising from the difficulties of conception, and the ather arising from our apprehensions, lest justice should be violated."(P. 269.)

Of the first class of doubts he says:

"They spring from ruminating upon the magnitude of the work to be performed, and the incredible multitude to be judged. When we would grapple with the subject, conception is stunned, and calculation confounded, and a most unpleasant incertitude induced upon the mind. Our slow moving faculties cannot reckon the countless multitudes, and our subdivi sions of time cannot find moments for the execution of the mighty work. The details of each case reaching to the inmost thought, the discrimination of their various merit and demerit, with the proportionate award of justice to each, seem a weary work, for which infinite time, as well as Almighty faculties are required. Taking advantage of this confusion of the faculties of conception, many evil suggestions enter into the mind, and destroy the great effect which the revelation of judgment to come is designed to produce. One thinks he will pass muster in such a crowd, and that he need not take the matter to heart; another, that he will find a sort of countenance in the multitudes that are worse than he; a third, that if he be condemned, it will be in the company of those whose company he preferred on earth, and will continue to prefer, so long as he continues to be himself: and thus the whole power of the revelation is laid prostrate." (Pp. 270, 271.)

Our author obviates all objections of this kind, in the usual and only proper way of doing it, by a reference to the infinite intelligence and almighty power of God; showing at the same time, that similar objections may be urged against almost every other part of divine revelation, if we

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