against the objections of Dr. Milner; and his own Principle of Computation proved to be a false one.

• 2. Dr. Milner's extraordinary Mistake about the meaning of Sir Isaac Newton's VERA CAUSA; and his consequent false Application of it to the Hypothesis of the Three first Gospels.'

From this "table sommaire des matières" the reader will at once guess that "A leaden iteration reigns throughout" this new performance of Dr. Marsh; nor will the guess be very inaccurate. The Doctor's argument runs round in a perpetual circle, in which he may write till dooms-day, and neither he nor his few remaining admirers be a whit nearer the truth than they now are. The Prayer-Book is the 'basis' of the Church of England, and the Bible is its foundation;'—but giving away the Bible tends to make people 'forget that they are churchmen,' and the momentous "FACT" is, that this does produce, or tend to produce, or may tend to produce, a neglect of the Prayer-Book, -and then men will become Calvinists, or will have a TENDENCY to become Calvinists, and thus they will play or may play into the hands of the Dissenting Interest:' for Dissenters neglect the Liturgy,' and are therefore not well-affected to the church;' but this 'evil' of giving away Bibles with all its may-be's and TENDENCIES, the giving away Prayer-books tends to correct,' for the Prayer-Book is the basis of the Church of England.' This course brings the Professor very naturally to the point whence he set out; but having gone over the path with some velocity and impetus, the very vis inertia of the revolving body (or mind, if the reader so please to consider it), carries it beyond this precise term, and causes it to run through the same orbit incessantly, except in so far as it may be operated upon by some of the "disturbing causes,' which our author so scientifically handles in his appendix.

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But, be the VERA CAUSA what it may, all philosophers know, that when any luminary moves with great rapidity, it excites the sensation of a continued glare, which dazzles the sight, and prevents the nature and magnitude of the object from being duly estimated: thus also, as it should seem, the unusual lustre shed around by the Professor as he proceeds in his course, has so dimmed the faculties of ordinary mortals, as to occasion their mistaking most marvellously his object and intentions. For our own parts we are not backward to confess that we really understood Dr. Marsh in his former publications, to affirm sometimes, and to insinuate always, that a want of attachment to the Liturgy pervaded the clerical members of the Bible Society, and that they were very negligent in respect to its circulation: we fancied also that he produced documents, such as the accounts of Prayer-Books printed and sold at different

But

places, in order to establish this lamentable "FACT." now" Dr. Marsh has come forward and declared to all the world, that he never intended to impute such a neglect to Clergymen, and that he has been totally misunderstood respecting all that he has spoken on this subject." Mr. Simeon, in his spirited and able little pamphlet, in which, however, we fear he is, sometimes, rather off his guard, avails himself very properly of this circumstance, and congratulates his clerical brethren upon it.

I should never dream (says Mr. S.) that any author, much less one so acute as Dr. Marsh, would write about the consequences of a thing which did not exist; at least, I should have thought, especially if the author was fond of hypotheses, that he would have told us, that both his arguments and his conclusions were hypothetical altogether. The title, to express the author's mind, should have been "The consequences of neglecting to give away the PrayerBook, IF the giving away of Bibles and the consequent justification of that act; should ever produce such a neglect.""

Again,

Be it known then to all the world, that Dr. Marsh disavows any intention of accusing the friends of the Bible Society of neglecting to give away the Prayer-Book. O that every one who has received a false impression, might now be rightly informed! O that all who have circulated Dr. Marsh's pamphlets, or laboured to diffuse his arguments, might now learn from Dr. Marsh himself, that he never intended to impute to the friends of the British and Foreign Bible Society the neglect of which they have been supposed to be guilty: (see pp. 40, 41, of his Reply) but that he only argued on a suppo sition that the giving away the Bible so freely, and the justifying of that act so boldly, as had been done by the friends of the Bible Society, might in time lead to a neglect of the Prayer-Book.

And now that Dr. Marsh has rectified the mistake of the whole -world, permit me also to rectify a mistake of his. He has conceived, and the scope of his book as he now acknowledges it, goes to prove, that the advocates of the British and Foreign Bible Society have justified a neglect of giving away the Prayer-Book. But I am happy to say, that no one member of the Church of England that has advocated the cause of the Bible Society has, as far as I know, on any occasion, justified a neglect of giving away the Prayer-Book: all that any of them have justified is a free and universal distribution of the Bible. It was not any member of the Bible Society that first put the Prayer. Book in competition with the Bible; but Dr. Marsh, who would not suffer members of the Established Church to use their own discretion to give Bibles and Prayer-books when, and how, they pleased; but would insist on their getting Bibles from one place alone (only), and always accompanying the Bible with the Prayer-Book. This right only, of getting Bibles from what society they pleased, and of distributing them in the way they judged expedient, was the thing claimed by any of them.”

Enough has now been said, we trust, by the Episcopalian advocates of the Bible Society, to justify their distribution of Bibles in any way they please. Indeed we think much less might have sufficed, and doubtles would have sufficed, had it not been for the currency given to Dr. Marsh's arguments by the mere authority of his situation. As to the reasonings themselves, they are throughout, of the most absurd, contradictory, narrow, and bigotted stamp; they are rather such as would have been brought forward by some illiterate but shrewd rustic solicitor in defending the encroachments of a petty corporate town, than such as might be expected to flow from the expanded intellect of a Divinity Professor in one of the most celebrated Universities of Europe. But, we recollect the remark of Cicero-" Nihil tam absurdum quod non dictum sit ab alliquo philosophorum :" and we stand corrected.

Dr. Marsh has, in the pamphlet before us, a farewel thrust at the Calvinists. And the way in which he manages this, as well as that in which the Calvinistic controversy is introduced at all into discussions relative to the Bible Society, is very natural and obvious to so acute a logician as Dr. Marsh. Calvinists, as well as other Christians, are members of that society; but there are many things in the liturgy and articles which Calvinists must entirely disapprove; therefore, it must be exceedingly dangerous to give away Bibles alone. There are many "weak men" who see no necessary connexion between the minor and the conclusion of this much-vaunted syllogism. But the way in which it has been generally met, is by a positive denial of the minor; and that by an appeal to fact. Many of the most celebrated fathers, Lady Margaret Professors, and other divines of the English Church, have been notorious Calvinists*; so that it is easy to trace a succession of such men from the times of Cranmer and Latimer, of Hooker, of Beveridge, &c. down to those of Toplady and the venerable Thomas Scott. This our Professor endeavours to rebut in a manner peculiarly his own. He imputes notions to Calvinists which they uniformly disclaim, denies to them sentiments which they as constantly avow, caricatures and distorts many important opinions held by them in common with all pious men; and

*This, says Dr. Ward (one of Dr. Marsh's predecessors in the Lady Margaret Professorship) can I truly add, for a conclusion, that the Church of England, from the beginning of the Reformation, and this our famous University, with ALL those who from thence till now have with us enjoyed the Divinity chair, if we except one foreign Frenchman, [N. B. It is not said whether he had previously studied at a German University.] have constantly adhered to St. Austin in these points." Cocio ad Clerum, Cambridge, 1625, p. 45.

by this strange modification readily produces imaginary religionists who may dislike the Prayer-Book or any other book. According to Dr. Marsh's standard of Calvinism, Calvin himself was not a Calvinist : for he fancies that no man of this persuasion can adopt the proposition "that though we cannot be saved BY our works, we cannot be saved WITHOUT them ;" while the truth is, that Calvin and all Calvinists, except the very few who have run to the antinomian extreme, maintain this proposition with as much energy as Dr. Marsh himself, and with much more consistency.

The learned Doctor has developed a few theological discoveries in this branch of his Inquiry and Reply to which we shall briefly advert. Two or three of his opponents have taken care to remind him of some sermons preached by him in the University church, which contained sentiments unfavourable, as was thought by many, not merely to Calvinism, but to sound evangelical religion altogether. He meets their charge by quoting what, of course, he considers as least objectionable; yet he advances some odd fancies, notwithstanding. He allows most fully the doctrine of justification by faith; he says, the Calvinists are decidedly right in their interpretation of the eleventh article of the Church of England; nay, he says farther, let it be granted to the Calvinists that according to the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth articles, the performance of good works is neither a cause nor a condition of justification: let them remain in possession of a post, which is really impregnable, and should never have been attacked.' But though he

magnanimously concedes them these points, it is only that he may throw them off their guard, and grind them to powder in a new position. To this end he gives to the world a discovery worthy of a Professor of Divinity in the nineteenth century, namely, that justification and regeneration are inseparably connected with baptism! Should Dr. Milner, or his friends, be any more troubled with the inquiries "Is Dr. Marsh a great Divine? Has he excelled all others in promoting the knowledge of true religion?"—this grand discovery will furnish a ready answer. For the intellectual process which led to the discovery, the reader may consult pp. 117, 118, of Dr. Marsh's Reply; and for some lively animadversions upon it, may turn to pp. 25, 26, 27, of Mr. Simeon's Congratulatory Letter. Dr. Marsh presents his readers with a very entertaining, though we humbly venture to think no very logical, chapter, "on the absurdity and mulice of the attempt to represent an opposition to the Bible Society, as implying an opposition to the Bible." Perhaps it might have been still more amusing had he exerted his ingenuity in proving that his opposition to the Bible Society resulted from a genuine love to the Bible itself; VOL. X. 3 C

but, taking the matter as it now stands, we have no room to complain of want of entertainment.

In the 1st place, it is pretended, the charge is absurd. Why? Because Dr. Milner misunderstood the nature of the Professor's boast when he said, I challenge my opponents to declare whether they have laboured harder than I have done, to promote the study of the Bible.' Dr. Milner endeavoured to show that whatever his labours may have been, they have not been very successful; and that even if they had, they were more likely to produce a speculative and critical, than a devotional and beneficial, study of the Bible. Now mark Dr. Marsh's triumphant reply :

In this challenge I boasted of nothing but my industry, of which a man may boast without much vanity but it was sufficient to repel the charge of my opponents. And I properly challenged them to shew, that they had laboured harder than I had done, to promote the study of it, because it shewed the injustice of their insinuations in the stronger light. Whether I have successfully laboured, is another inquiry which has no concern with the present question.'

It is really difficult to conceive that any man capable of counting twenty should delight in such egregious trifling as this. It is, as though he should say, "I know how the methodistic brood will cry up your Dealtrys, and Gisbornes, and Simeons; their unwearied labours in season and out of season' to strengthen men against the assaults of Satan, and promote the humble, devotional, reading of the Bible: and though they may have converted more souls in one sermon than I ever gave Bibles to in all my life, yet I have laboured as hard as any of them; and therefore I may boast of my industry, aye, and properly, too!" Let the reader picture to himself, a hero just returned from Spain, covered with scars and with glory, and fancy a man who had never seen a battle, exclaiming, "Well, he may boast, and so may I: have not I written against Bonaparte in the newspapers; and caricatured him in the print-shops; and did not I for four-and-twenty hours together thrust my head against a horn-work at Cumberland fort, that I might experimentally ascertain whether fortifications could be overthrown by any other means so well as by artillery; and have not I invented an algebraical theorem to compute the relative strengths of batteries made of earth, stone, and bricks, due allowance being made for "disturbing causes?" I don't say that in all this I have laboured successfully, but surely I may boast of my industry?" Could any person laugh at such an idiotic boaster, and yet commend Dr. Marsh?

But, 2dly, the charge to which the Doctor adverts in this chapter, is malicious. How does he prove it? By transcribing a letter sent to him by one who either is, or pretends to be, an