captain. When the defender of his country is grown up to a boy, his sports should be of the military cast. Without making too much parade, he should begin to work upon some fortification in the corner of a shrubbery. He must be trained also to a sense of honour, and abhor the disgrace of corporal punishment as a soldier ought.

Such is the grand scheme of partition to be made among the professional aspirants according to their destinations of future life. Religion, a good elocution, gardening, and other amusements, a manly constitution of body and mind, and a tenderness of honour, we have always thought to be good for boys as sensitive rational beings capable of instruction, health, and pleasure. To make cunning sport for them, and defraud them of the natural right of amusing themselves in their own way, does not agree with our feelings of kindness for them. It sophisticates them in the very point where they should be most free and natural. But to delegate the moral qualities, such as a just impression of religion and a right sense of honour, to a station or title, or a piece of cloth, or to make the slightest difference in these respects, is to confound the essence of morality, and run deliberately insane upon a spurious conceited wisdom.

Mr. Edgeworth has sometimes taken the liberty of recommending books to his pupils, with which we perceive he does not think it necessary to be much acquainted himself. This is injudicious, because it shakes the credit of his authority with them. The first list he has mentioned is open to this exception. He speaks in it of authors who have most distinguished themselves in ecclesiastical history, and in the eloquence of the pulpit. Hooker, Barrow, Tillotson, Clarke, Atterbury, South, Wilson, and many others, cannot fail immediately to occur.'-Which one of all these authors are we to take as distinguished in ecclesiastical history?

Besides his essays on the more regular professions, Mr. Edgeworth has paid the same regard to the education of the country gentleman, the statesman, and the prince his reasons for giving the title of professional education to his book notwithstanding these anomalous classes, are quite valid. These classes have their appropriate duties.' The art and mystery of a country gentleman is among the most fashionable of our country: it is entailed upon many good families, and from the overflow of commercial opulence new members are constantly flocking into the profession. It was well judged therefore to draw out a survey of their duties for this numerous body of men, and remind them that they should have some better pursuit than that of partridges. We are convinced that if they, as well as statesmen and princes, would acquire the virtues which Mr. Edgeworth inculcates, and act up to his instruction,

they might be an ornament to themselves and their country. It would require greater felicity of style and argument than these essays possess to invite our criticism to them: but we trust that the parties immediately concerned in the subject will not want such inducements to their duty; but be pleased on easier terms with a cheerful communicative writer who will give them abundance of anecdote, and mingle many good stories with his advice.

ART. XI. A Refutation of Calvinism, in which the Doctrines of Original Sin, Grace, Regeneration, Justification, and Universal Redemption, are explained; and the peculiar Tenets maintained by Calvin on those points are proved to be contrary to Scripture, to the Writings of the Ancient Fathers of the Christian Church, and to the public formularies of the Church of England. By G. Tomline, D. Ď. F. R. S. Lord Bishop of Lincoln, and Dean of St. Paul's. London. Cadell and Davies. 1811.

FEW persons can be much conversant in theological controversy,

without frequently regretting, that discussions should have been started on many subjects decidedly above the grasp of human intellect. The Bible is a plain book, which all may understand with ease. The points of necessary belief there laid down, are few and simple, and the path of duty is so straight that none can miss it. Why then have Christians, in all ages, been so busily employed in tracing theological subtleties, and multiplying creeds and articles of faith? Why have they thought it necessary to stir up abstruse questions which have exasperated many bad passions, and generated many unhappy divisions, while they have been productive of no counterbalancing advantages, and have diverted the attention from solid practical duties, to thorny and fruitless speculations? Why, too, have men of the most enlarged and liberal views, and the most exempt from bigotry, added fuel to the flames of controversy, and by taking part in these discussions, given them a degree of firmness and consistency which they could not have otherwise acquired?

To these questions an answer may be given, which is fully sufficient for the defence of at least the more sound, judicious, and temperate members of the christian community who have taken part in them. The subtleties of discussion have not begun with them but with heretics and schismatics, persons of disturbed imaginations, distorted understandings, or over-weening fondness for novelty of opinion. They find perplexing disquisitions already started, nice distinctions and explanations already attempted by others. In these circumstances, it remains no longer to be considered, whether for

bearance on such subjects, be or be not generally desirable. It becomes matter of imperious necessity, to prevent corruption of faith, to pursue subtlety through its various windings, to assert truth as specifically as others have asserted error, and to oppose to every article supporting a wrong opinion, another maintaining what appears to be a right one.

Much less objection would have been started against the Athanasian, creed, if the circumstances which occasioned the several expressions in it had been duly considered. This creed, it may be safely allowed, has apparently the fault which has been charged upon it, of attempting to define with accuracy, and to reduce within the compass of language, matters which are confessedly placed beyond the range of human intellect, and not to be expressed by any terms of human invention. This fault, however, did not arise from the intention of those who framed it. They were called upon to guard against the erroneous opinions of different heretics, who had introduced, on the subjects of the Trinity and the Incarnation, various subtleties of explanation, tending in fact to degrade religion, and to sanction positions inconsistent with just views of revelation. In these circumstances, it was necessary to multiply articles for the purpose of meeting heresy at every point; and to make various affirmations of truth, not so much for the purpose of defining what men ought, as of excluding what they ought not, to believe.

The case is similar, in regard to those theological points on which our church is at issue with the maintainers of Calvinistic tenets at the present day. Fixed fate, free will, fore knowledge absolute,' are subjects which might involve in mazes of endless perplexity, beings far superior to man. Nor are discussions on these abstruse matters, at all necessary to guide the faith, or regulate the practice of the christian world. The general view of the condition of man, his relation to God, and his redemption by the son of God, afforded in every page of the Bible, is amply sufficient for his knowledge and guidance. He is there described as a corrupt and fallen creature, subject to the wrath of God by the depravation of his nature, but redeemed from the consequences of that wrath by the death of Christ. He is universally spoken of as enabled to choose between good and evil; and applications are addressed to his hopes. and fears, which would be useless and unmeaning, if he were not an accountable being. The means of salvation are placed within the reach of all who are disposed to embrace them; the assistance of the holy spirit does not extinguish human endeavours, but suggests and supports them;-the deity foreknows all contingencies, and overrules human affairs by his providence, yet leaves a free agency to his creatures:these truths, openly declared or indirectly inferred from every part of Holy Writ, may, in a general view, be main

tained and believed, without involving any difficulties, and without requiring any stretch of understanding.. Happy would it have been, if men had agreed to receive those points on the authority of scripture, and never sought to define the limits of human freedom and divine prescience; to ascertain precisely what power of doing good remains to unassisted nature, in what proportions human efforts and divine grace co-operate to the same ends, or in what degree the influences of the spirit affect the human will! But when attempts are made to establish on this authority, that the eternal destinies of every individual are fixed by the absolute decrees of God, that some are elected to certain salvation, while others are left to unavoidable misery-that the spirit acts with such irresistible force as to supersede human endeavours-that some, whatever crimes they may commit, have internal assurances of salvation, while others, whatever be their endeavours to perform their duty, are placed under an impossibility of succeeding to the purposes of final salvation;-it surely becomes matter of imperious duty to inquire, whether doctrines so important to the hopes and fears of mankind, are or are not founded on just and correct views of genuine christianity.

The respectable prelate, whose work is now before us, has obeyed this call, and brought together a connected view of the grounds on which the several tenets professed by Calvinists rest. In doing this, he cannot incur the imputation of needlessly reviving a slumbering controversy; for the doctrines which he opposes are well known to be, at the present time, particularly prevalent: the press teems with publications for their support; and nothing is omitted which zeal and industry can effect, to obtain for them a more extensive credence. Nor, if these tenets be indeed founded on false views of christianity, is it unimportant that this should be fully proved; for they are confessedly pregnant with effects of great moment on the feelings and actions of mankind: causing the darkest despair to some, generating presumptuous confidence in others, and giving birth to a spirit of heated enthusiasm, which but ill consists with sound practical piety.

The foundation of Calvinism is the doctrine of absolute decrees; which implies that the Deity has from eternity, independently of all considerations of human merit or demerit, determined, in an arbitrary manner, to bring some individuals amongst mankind to certain happiness, and to leave others to inevitable misery: that those who are thus elected to salvation, are prevented from finally falling by irresistible influences of divine grace; and that those who are reprobated, are consigned to their own efforts, and left destitute of that help which might avail to save them from perdition. In necessary connexion with this doctrine, is that of partial redemption, by which is understood, that Christ died to redeem only the elect, VOL. VI. NO. XI.

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(those who are predestined to salvation,) and that for the rest of mankind his blood purchased no atonement whatever.

To these, we may add the Calvinists' doctrine of Original Sin: namely, that by the fall of our first parents, man has become in his nature a mass of corruption, not only incapable of acquiring the least merit in the sight of God by his own endeavours, but even enhancing his guilt by his best actions and his purest affections. Thus every thing is to be effected by the influence of the spirit; an influence which, according to them, is felt sensibly, and being poured upon the elect at some period of their lives, produces in them a new birth,' a birth from a state of sin to a state of grace. Thus they are led to decry the efficacy of good works; and to uphold the necessity of spiritual influence, and the doctrine of justification by faith, to an extent which must, by a too obvious tendency, operate with bad effect on the morals of mankind. It is not to be understood, that all who favour Calvinistic opicions, maintain the perwhole of these doctrines in their fullest extent: persons of this suasion frequently express themselves so vaguely and indefinitely, that it is difficult to seize their real meaning; often too, when pushed in argument, they recede from the profession of opinions, which, from their general language, they are supposed to hold. But the doctrines now mentioned, form, we believe, a correct general outline of the tenets which all Calvinists more or less maintain.

We must now descend a little into particulars, and follow the learned prelate, through the several heads of which he treats. In considering Calvinistic opinions, he had to prove, 1st, that they are entirely destitute of scriptural foundation; 2dly, that they are contradicted by the authority of the primitive church; and 3dly, that they are not maintained by the articles and liturgy of the church to which we belong. The main question of all is, whether these opinions have any real foundation in scripture. It is from scripture we derive all that we can know or believe in matters of religion; and by this test, every thing which regards our But in pursuing the true faith or our practice must be tried. sense of scripture, the opinions of the earliest members of the church are of great importance. Those persons, the more immediate successors of the apostles, had better means than later christians can have, of ascertaining the truth, and of making deductions from a right understanding of scriptural language. The proof, therefore, that particular opinions were or were not maintamed in the primitive church, must always afford an important step in the proof that they are or are not grounded on scripture. The question, whether our articles and liturgy are to be understood in a Calvinistic sense, has nothing to do with the truth of Calvinistical opinions, except as it