in consequence of their common attribute of mercy or love." pp. 429, 430.

But it is on that part of the work of Christ, our Redeemer, which consists in advocating our cause with the Father, and sending to his people the gift of his Holy Spirit, that Mr. Gurney dwells with peculiar energy and delight. We quote on this subject what may serve likewise as an instance of his way of applying prophecy.

"It is he who bruises the serpent's head, and destroys the works of the devil: 1 John iii. 8. "The Lord rebuke thee,' said the Angel of the Covenant to satan, when the latter was accusing Joshua the priest The Lord rebuke thee, O satan, even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem, rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?' and to Joshua, who was standing before him, clothed in filthy garments,' he said, 'Be hold I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with change of raiment.' Zech. iii. 1-4. May we not collect from this remarkable narration, that the mighty Advocate, who still pleads for his people against their malicious adversary, rests their defence on the atonement made by his own bloodshedding, and graciously covers them with the spotless robe of his own righteousness? Thus it is that the blessings which Christ died to purchase, he lives to apply." pp. 440, 441.

Our author gives, at pp. 453-455, a very happy exposition of the new, the hidden, the spiritual life of a Christian. The connexion between faith and holiness, is also very correctly and admirably stated in what follows.

"I would venture to entreat the reader's attention to the close and intimate associa} tion subsisting between two great doctrines of Christianity, which may indeed be rightly distinguished, but can never be rightly separated-justification through the blood of Christ, and sanctification through his Spirit. In Scripture, these doctrines are very generally treated of conjointly. Both are represented, by the sacred writers, as essential to the work of salvation; both as originating in the boundless mercy of the Father; and both as arising immediately out of the sacrifice of the Son of God. Was Christ set forth' of the Father to be a propitiation through faith in his blood? Did he bear our sins in his own body on the tree?' Did he thus give himself for us? It was not only for the remission of sins that are past, and for the justification of penitent believers, but also that he might sanctify

and cleanse' his church- that he might redeem us from all iniquity'-that our conscience' might be purged from dead works to serve the living God'-' that we, being dead to sin, should live unto righteousness: Heb. ix. 14; 1 Pet. ii. 24. It is much to be desired that a holy caution should more and more prevail among Christians, lest, by dwelling on either of these doctrines, to the exclusion of the other, they should lose the balance of Divine truth, for, although persons who are accustomed to commit this dangerous practical error may participate in some of the joys, and experience some of the virtue, of true religion, they cannot fail to fall very short of a just apprehension and harmony, and the completeness of the satisfying enjoyment of the beauty, the Gospel dispensation." pp. 456, 457.

Our readers may wish to see, whether our author's description of the work of the Holy Spirit be altogether free from any tinge of the very peculiar notions which have been entertained by many, though, we trust, now, by a decreasing number of the Society of which he is a member. The following paragraph will, we think, satisfy them on this head.

66

Examples may probably sometimes occur of the very rapid, and even sudden production, of that revolution in the sentiments and affections of fallen man which has now been depicted, and of which the beginning only can be properly described as a new birth. Such an example is afforded by the history of the Apostle Paul, who, within the compass of one short journey, was first a persecutor of the Christians, and afterwards a preacher of Christianity;-who left Jerusalem, the proud, furious, sanguinary, bigot,—and entered Damascus the subdued and contrite believer, prepared to be an instrument of honour in his Master's hands, for the most extensive propagation of the Gospel, which any individual has ever been the means of effecting. But, in general, this vital change is very gradual, and its precise commencement, as well as the daily progress of its growth, are often impalpable alike to the regenerate man himself, and to the persons by whom he is surrounded. So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground, and should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear: Mark iv. 26-28. All that we can, for the most part, safely say on the subject is this; that, as the vital principle of religion-the immortal seed

of the kingdom-springs up and unfolds itself in the heart of the believer, the celestial plant is known by its fruits.

-

During the progress of the work of religion -a work, in general, slow and gradual of which the commencement is regeneration, and the end salvation, it cannot be denied, that the individual who has been really quickened by the Spirit, and is therefore born again, is nevertheless exposed to many seasons of doubt and darkness, and wages a painful and often unequal warfare with the infirmity and corruptions of the flesh, with the temptations of the world, and with the power of the enemy. Such a warfare is described, in affecting terms, by the Apostle Paul: We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do, I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I ...........I delight in the law of God after the inward man. But I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The answer to this question was, I thank God, or according to another reading of the Greek text, the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord;' and this answer introduces the full enunciation of that glorious doctrine already adverted to, that the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus 'makes free from the law of sin and death'

-that,' what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled (or completed) in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit: Rom. vii. 14-25; viii. 2-4.

"Although, therefore, the conflict between the flesh and the Spirit, which strive within us, and are contrary the one to the other, is often long continued, and perhaps is seldom entirely finished, [never] until the moment when the thread of the Christian's life is cut, and death is swallowed up in victory, we ought, nevertheless, to be consoled and encouraged under the assurance that Divine Grace is omnipotent, and to press forwards with holy diligence and magnanimity towards the only practical standard proposed to us by the Gospel -the standard of uninterrupted piety, charity, and holiness." pp. 466-468.

One sentence more we cannot re

frain from extracting, for the value of the sentiment it contains.

"It requires peculiar watchfulness that we do not attempt to lay claim to the consolations of religion, while we continue in our sins. It is an unalterable truth, that without holiness none shall see God: and

in considering the operations of the Holy

Spirit, it is above all things to be remembered, that notwithstanding the weakness of the flesh and the power of temptation, he is our all-powerful, all-sufficient, Sanctifier. The Scriptures afford us every encouragement to believe that those who walk in the light, and dwell under the influence of the Spirit, and who submit with patience to the work of that Holy One of Israel, who is so justly compared by the prophet to the refiner's fire' and the fuller's soap,' (Mal. iii. 2,) are gradually delivered from the power of iniquity. By the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost,' they are actually 'saved' from sin." pp. 473, 474.

6

Such is the scheme of Christian doctrine, which Mr. Gurney has brought before his readers. It furnishes a large view of what we learn from the Scriptures concerning God and man, given with sobriety, discrimination, and skill; manifesting, in the statement of it, a truly catholic spirit; exhibiting very considerable research and learning, and written with much propriety and taste. Still there are a very few passages in these valuable Essays, on which we have one or two observations to make, in the way of exception. The first passage to which we refer is one in which Mr. Gurney raises a question upon the memorable text of Matt. xxviii. 19, 20, and intimates, though only casually and in transition, a doubt whether the participle baptizing is to be understood

as denoting merely the sign of conversion, or the act of converting itself." p. 151. This is the single passage to which we have already alluded as the only one in which, perhaps, any peculiarity of a sectarian creed discloses itself. To our minds the question, whether baptizing in this command means any thing else than that form of ablution which the Apostles in complying with it uniformly practised, is quite superfluous; more especially, as the idea of converting all nations or making them the disciples of Christ, and that of teaching them also whatever they must do to be saved, are mentioned before and after the passage.

There is another sentence in Mr. Gurney's work on which a similar

records of Scripture, that the revelation of it to mankind has been gradually progressive." p. 526.

The discoveries of prophecy are progressive; but the moral law of God may have been made known to Adam with as much clearness as to ourselves, and have only become obscure in after ages through the operation of that cause to which our Saviour refers it: " Men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil."

We think also, that Mr. Gurney in some places speaks of natural religion in terms which imply, that it is a separate source of light and knowledge, instead of being, what we hold it to be, the groping of a benighted mind after a light which has in a great measure forsaken it.

But, as we have before remarked, these are but trifling specks in a work which is both luminous and

comprehensive. We hail it, as an example of unprejudiced discussion upon topics which are too apt to divide even good men, but on which agreement would be more attainable, if the love of disputation and the spirit of party were withdrawn. We hail it not only for the information it contains, but for the spirit which it breathes. We hail it also, as the commencement, we trust-of the return, shall we say? or of the adherence--of at least a large body of the society, whom the author may be said to represent, to those sounder views of Divine revelation and spiritual influence which we consider essen

tial to sobriety and truth: and in that hope we cordially recommend to that esteemed and respected society, an attention to the maxim contained and implied in the following sentence, with which we close our extracts from the volume before us: "That of the Scriptures, considered as a whole, God is the primary author-that the account which they contain of religious truth, rests on the authority of the Supreme Being-and, therefore, that the person who searches for that which is re

vealed, may safely direct his unhesitating

attention to that which is written." p. 544.

The History of the Reformation of the Church of England. By HENRY SOAMES, M. A. Rector of Shelley, in Essex. Vols. 1 and 2, Reign of Henry VIII. Rivingtons. 1826. 8vo. pp. 518 and 647.

Anne Boleyn, a Dramatic Poem. By the Rev. H. H. MILMAN, Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford. Murray. 1826. 8vo. pp. 168.

THE reign of Henry VIII. embraces events which have vitally affected the salutary influence of which has the happiness of England; events, not yet ceased, and, we trust, never will cease to operate, not only on herself and on the continent of

Europe, but, we might add, on the whole habitable globe.

undoubtedly the period at which, The reign of Henry VIII. was in this favoured land, may be said to have commenced the Reformation of our national church from the errors of Popery: and therefore we look back to it, with something should look back to a period in our of the same feelings with which we own private history, when our minds may have undergone some remarkable revolution, and when we may have been led, by the force of some power, gradually to abandon our new and attractive, but irresistible, long cherished and deeply rooted each successive writer, who principles and habits. We welcome unravel to us the steps and instruments of this process of graduation, and develop the secret springs by which its ascendency was secured, and its consummation effected. Much of our gratification, however, must necessarily depend on the views and principles, as well as the merely intellectual qualifications, of

can

the individual who undertakes to retrace the events of the Reformation. Habits of research and powers of discrimination, are not the only requisites for the satisfactory eluci

dation of the recorded annals of a