Milton, we shall take the liberty of adding two or three extracts more, from his eloquent prolegomena, observing, en passant, with respect to our first two extracts, that to be eloquent does not always necessarily require our being consistent into the bargain. "It is astonishing that they, (that is, the prose works aforesaid,) should not in our time have been appreciated by the people; and it is greatly to be regretted, not merely for the sake of the author, but for the general interests of truth, and the cultivation of learning, eloquence, and taste among us. "There is not an equal instance of unworthy neglect on record. This is ultimately traceable to the elevated character of the writings themselves. John Milton was a teacher, and the world does not like to be taught. His fit audience in the world will always be few. The world's taste is but the hand-maid and servant of a stronger power, whose empire lies in the passions of the depraved heart; which, while unrenewed, never can and never will cease to treat both the highest poetry and the divinest philosophy with mingled hatred and contempt. "Johnson's misrepresentations and calumnies have had their day; and inconceiv. ably injurious though they have been to the honour of John Milton, sure we are, that the time is fast approaching, yea, now is, when the man, as well as the poet, will be redeemed from obloquy, not by an interpretation of his opinions, however honest, or estimate of his character, however correct; nor even by the panegyrics of his admirers, however eloquent, (and some of surpassing merit have lately been pronounced ;) but the great achievement shall be won and worn by himself alone. With his own strong axe, shall he hew down, not only his adversaries, but their errors." Let him but be heard: here, in this one volume, is to be found their triumphant but neglected refutation. 66 Equally resplendent in the annals of literature and of song, the name of the author of these writings is a sufficient guarantee for their interest to the scholar, their value to the politician, and their utility to every patriotic Christian. They are now cast into a proper shape for circulation, and wherever carried they will administer not less to the delight and profit, than to the intellectual and moral wants and necessities of the age. In them will be found nothing dangerous or anarchical, dishonourable or polluting! the monarch will not find here any thing to derogate from his 66 just authority. His nobles will here learn true magnanimity; his people be built up in their love to their country and to HIMSELF!! The man of taste will be refreshed -the protestant will rejoice in the paramount allegiance of the poet to the great principles of the Reformation. The least will find that he may be useful; the greatest, that he may be worthless; the most ignorant will here find an eyebrightening electuary of knowledge and foresight;" the most learned, that his superior condescended to be most plain. These are the authorized works of a man who never quailed before a tyrant, or bowed before a mob; but, after exerting the greatest abilities in the greatest of causes; in fortitude, in meekness and patience, possessed his spirit, and became, in adversity and prosperity, an exemplar for the imitation of a nation of "heroes, prophets, and sages." "The character of our defender was unassailable and unsullied; his heart was as pure as his intellect, and harmoniously did all their powers and passions unite, to make up the perfect homogeneousness of this exalted specimen of humanity; all his writings illustrate this wonderful permeability (so to speak) of his whole nature; the fine, but thorough articulation of his mental and moral energies; the sublime and perpetual reciprocity and sympathy between all the stores and functions of his soul." Although the latter sentence is somewhat too sublime for the comprehension of such every-day readers as ourselves, and reminds us much of Squire Thornton's erudite proposition to poor Moses, in the Vicar of Wakefield; it must be confessed, that, considering the difficulty Mr. Fletcher must have found in the selection of expressions sufficiently magniloquent to embody his sentiments of admiration, he has acquitted himself handsomely enough in his task. We know not whether most to be pleased with—the becoming confidence, or splendid style of language, which characterizes his essay. We have now, however, to fulfil our pledge, of bringing forward such passages from his favourite author, as will make a suitable appendix to his powerful panegyric, only requesting the reader to compare our extracts with Mr. Fletcher's affirmations, and then to form his own judgment. Milton's prose works consist chiefly of certain pamphlets upon Church Government; a short and utopian tractate upon Education; Areopagitica; a speech for the liberty of unlicensed Printing; four works, including the Tetrachordon,upon the doctrine of divorce, restored, as the author audaciously affirms, for the good of both sexes; a Latin Accidence; Iconoclastes; an Answer to the famous Ikon Basilike; the Controversy with Salmasius and Alexander More; Four Books of a History of England; several Letters, comprising the Correspondence with Foreign States, carried on by Milton, when filling the office of Latin Secretary to Cromwell; Familiar Epistles; a few College Exercises; and, a dull Treatise on the Art of Logic. We have, therefore, variety enough from which to collect our extracts and first, to exhibit the true elegance of diction, adopted by Milton, in controversy, (an elegance which Mr. Fletcher holds up to the imitation of posterity, and falls fiercely upon Lord Brougham, for not recommending, also, in his inaugural speech to the students of Glasgow,) we beg the reader's attention to the following pas sages. "It is still episcopacy, that before all our eyes wounds and slays the most learned and seeming religious of our ministers, who no sooner advanced to it, but, like a seething-pot set to cool, sensibly exhale and reek out the greatest part of that zeal, and those gifts which were formerly in them, settling in a skinny congealment of sloth and ease at the top; and if they keep their learning by some potent sway of nature, it is a rare chance; but their devotion most commonly comes to that queazy temper of lukewarmness, that gives a vomit to God himself." Of Reformation in England. "Believe it, sir, right truly it may be said, that antichrist is mammon's son; the sour leaven of human traditions, mixed in one putrified mass with the poisonous dregs of hypocrisy, that lie basking in the sunny warmth of wealth and promotion, is the serpent's egg, that will hatch an antichrist, wheresover, and engender the same monster as big or little as the lump is which breeds him."-Ibid. "As for the fogging proctorage of money, with such an eye as struck Gehazi with leprosy, and Simon Magus with a curse, so does she look; and so threaten her fiery whip against that barking den of thieves that dare thus baffle, and buy and sell the awful and majestic wrinkles of her brow. He that is rightly sped with her invisible arrow, if he can be at peace in his soul, and not smell within him the brimstone of hell, may have fair leave to tell all his bags over undiminished of the least farthing."-Ibid. Spoiled, quoth ye? indeed it is so spoiled, as a good song is spoiled by a lewd singer; or, as the saying is, God sends meat, but the cooks work their wills;' in that sense, we grant your bishop's foot may have spoiled it, and made it sapere ollam, if not sapere aulam, which is the same in old Latin, or perhaps in plain English. For certain, your confutation hath achieved nothing against it, and left nothing upon it but a foul taste of your skillet foot, and a more perfect and distinguishable odour of your socks than of your nightcap. And how a bishop should confute a book with his foot, unless his brains were dropped into his great toe,-I cannot meet with any man that can resolve me; only they tell me that such a confutation must needs be gouty. So much for the bishop's foot."-Animadversions upon the Remonstrant's Reply. And so much for Milton's elegance and delicacy. We could quote innumerable passages of the same character, did our limits permit. We cannot, however, refrain from copying the concluding sentences of his treatise on the Reformation, which we suppose Mr. Fletcher would think admirably calculated for the 'cultivation of eloquence and taste among us. It is a noble specimen of gracefulness, feeling, and strict propriety :— "But they, contrary, that, by the impairing and diminution of the true faith, the distresses and servitude of their country, aspire to high dignity, rule, and promotion here, after a shameful end of this life, (which God grant them,) shall be thrown down eternally into the darkest and deepest gulf of hell, where, under the despiteful control, the trample and spurn, of all the other damned, that, in the anguish of their torture, shall have no other ease than to exercise a raving and bestial tyranny over them- -as their slaves and negroes, they shall remain in that plight for ever, the basest, the lowermost, most underfoot, and down-trodden vassals of perdition." As we have already extended our notice to an unusual length, we must reserve our further comments upon Mr. Fletcher and his author till our next. REVIEW.-Christian Ethics; or, Moral Philosophy, on the Principles of Divine Revelation. By Ralph Wardlaw, D.D. Jackson and Walford. London. 1833. THE title of this work, and the name it bears, are alike adapted to raise high expectations; nor are these in any degree diminished by the exemplary modesty with which the author enters upon his to That modesty has long been justly esteemed the distinction-mark of sound philosophy, and of a christian spirit; and when, therefore, as in the case of Dr. Wardlaw, these characters are combined, we need not wonder at the unfeigned diffidence with which he approaches a subject at once so difficult and so important. We rise from the perusal of this series of Lectures* with a persuasion that it has effected much for Christianity, and not a little for moral philosophy; and although we cannot entirely concur in all the views upon the latter subject, which it contains, yet we must candidly confess that we hesitate to take any exception against a work which exhibits so much intellectual acuteness, and so much enlightened piety. Will it be thought disparaging to this work to state, that it develops just such a system as we should have expected from a christian minister, who, devoted to the sacred functions of his office, and engrossed by the infinite importance of those principles which it is his high honour to promulgate to the world, holds all other subjects as subordinate and tributary, and esteems them only in proportion as they can be blended with Christianity, or pressed into its service? yet, although this statement, if true of the work before us, stamps a high value upon it in its most important character, and prepares us to expect much from it of christian instruction; it still renders it improbable that the science of ethics will be recognised by the author distinctly and independently, or, at least, that in that character it will receive entire justice at his hand. Yielding the most respectful attention to those statements in the Dr.'s preface, in which he invites the candid notice of readers and critics to the "avowed extent of his aim," as being to furnish a work "strictly and exclusively elementary;" we still venture to express our opinion, that the objection we have supposed, lies against this admirable performance. After disclaiming all controversy with the atheist and the infidel, and supposing in limine the authenticity and authority of the Bible to be admitted, he proceeds, in his first lecture, to lay down "the Respective Provinces of Philosophy and Theology;" and here we think that his remarks first exhibit that almost exclusive attention to theology, and that neglect of the science of ethics as a distinct science, to which we have already alluded. A few passages will exhibit *The work constitutes the first of a Series of Annual Courses of Lectures delivered in London, at the Congregational Library. "But it is not," says the Dr. " with natural philosophy, it is with moral science, that theology chiefly interferes. It is of these two that I have pronounced the provinces inseparable by any definite and mutually exclusive line of demarcation. There can be no boundary drawn for the philosophical moralist, that does not inclose a portion, far from inconsiderable, of the territory of the theologian. Their ground, on many points, is unavoidably common. Their lines of partition, therefore, are not so much determined by the subjects which they respectively embrace, as by their principles of argumentation, their sources of evidence, and the authorities to which each appeals and pays deference. The theologian exhibits the proofs of divine revelation; and, having established its authority, settles all questions in religion and morals by a direct appeal to its sacred lessons:-the philosopher carries on his own researches in his own way, in the spirit of independence of all such authority, and arrives at his own conclusions. If, as may not unfrequently happen, the doctrines of the one and the decisions of the other are at variance. and that not by a shade of difference merely, but, by direct contrariety, there is no help for it:-each must be regarded as right on his own principles and within his appropriate sphere. "Can any thing be imagined more unfortunate than this position of parties to the interests of truth? as if a thing could be true on one ground, and false on another!-true, when tried by this set The of principles, and false when tried by that!-theologically right and philosophically wrong,-or theologically wrong and philosophically right! philosopher, we shall suppose, works out the establishment of some favourite point by his own process of metaphysical reasoning; the divine, by an appeal to his authorities and sources of evidence, arrives at an opposite result: that is not the sage's concern; it pertains to another department,—to a different chair,-with which he has nothing to do, and from which, as he does not presume to interfere on his part, he reasonably looks for a reciprocity of non-interference on the part of its occupant. The conclusion to which he has himself come, may, for aught he knows, be bad divinity; but he is confident it is sound philosophy: and this is all it concerns him to mind."-p. 9, 10. And again, "There cannot, certainly, be any subject higher in importance, or deeper in interest, than that of morals. It comprehends in it all the obligations, not of human beings alone, but of intelligent creatures universally, in all the relations they can occupy, whether to their Maker, or to each other: together with the great original principles, so far as they can be ascertained, from which these obligations arise. Such is the enlarged acceptation in which I would be understood as employing the term in those discussions, on which, with all diffidence, I am about to enter."-p 28. Now, these preliminary statements appear to us to proceed upon the assumption which we think erroneous, that the Bible contains all the principles of ethics; in fact, that it has no place among pure and separate sciences, that it is not to be considered as that science which teaches the social duties owed by man to man, and those alone; in fact, they seem to deny that there is a set of principles on which men owe duties to each other, irrespectively of their duty to the Divine Being, and whether or not they know and believe in the only true God. Moreover, the admission of such a separate science, and of such separate obligations, would not in the slightest degree interfere with the doctrine of the paramount authority of revelation. On all the points of merely moral duty on which it treats, and to all those who possess it, it will still be regarded as the standard, without appeal; while, on those points on which it is silent, and to all that overwhelming majority of mankind who have never become acquainted with its contents, there will still be obligations emanating from a different source, and binding them to that conduct which the Divine Being has, unknown to them, connected with the harmony and happiness of his creatures. In further elucidation of Dr. Wardlaw's views, we will extract his statements respecting the nature of virtue : * * * * And in * "If these principles be at all correct,-and to me they appear entitled to rank amongst first truths, selfevident elementary principles,-it must follow, that in any subject of God's moral government, virtue must consist in conformity to this will. Recollect, I am not now speaking of the foundation of moral rectitude, or of the question (whether we be competent to find an answer to it or not) why is the divine will what it is? I am speaking solely of the rule or law of duty for his dependent and accountable creatures. this view, it is not only our safest ground,-it is our only legitimate and reasonable ground,-that the virtue or moral rectitude of a subject of God's moral government consists in conformity of principle and conduct, of heart and life, to the will of the Governor ; -a Governor who is necessarily supreme, and whose will, to all his intelligent creatures, is infallible and unimpeachable law."-pp. 163, 164. * "The inquiry, then, which next presents itself for our consideration, relates to the manner in which the Divine will is made known. How do men obtain acquaintance with the rule or law by which their conduct is to be regulated and tried? Has the Divine Governor given to the human race any full and infallible discovery of it! To this question I answer at once, with all coufidence, leaving the objections and sneers of philosophy to be afterwards disposed of,He has :-and it is to be found in the volume of divine revelation. This we affirm to be the only complete and absolutely sure discovery of the mind and will of the Divine Being to man. The answer may seem a very common-place one; but I am satisfied it is the only one in accordance with truth. I am aware of the special exception put in against it by philosophers,that nothing can be acknowledged as the rule or standard of virtue to mankind, with which so limited a portion of mankind are acquainted. The standard, they allege, must be something universal,-something of which all men are equally in possession, or to which, at least, all have equal access. It is unreasonable to suppose that the law, by which all are to be tried, should be a law known only to a few. The objection, I grant, is a very natural one, and one which, stated in such a form, appears insuperable; for how is it possible, that a book should be the standard of duty to the millions of men into whose hands it has never come? A little attention, however, to the true state of the case will not only remove the difficulty, but will serve still farther to show, on how many points, in our investigation of such subjects, the doctrine, formerly adverted to, of the fallen condition of man, is found to bear."-pp. 166, 167. Then, after some extended remarks on the fallen character of the human mind, and after refuting the notion that the gospel is a mere "republication of the law of nature," he proceeds to a specific answer to the capital objection to his theory, which he had stated above. "It will very reasonably be asked," says he, "what, in regard to responsibility, is the condition of those who have not this revelation? Their responsibility, we say in reply, must of course correspond to the means they possess of acquaintance with the rule of duty. We have seen it affirmed in this revelation itself, that sin is the transgression of law, and that 'where no law is, there is no transgression.' Have they, then, no law? If they had not, it would follow, that they could have no sin, and could not be the subjects of any sentence of condemnation. I cannot task your patience with any repetition of what was advanced on this subject in last Lecture, when we were commenting on the theory of Dr. Butler. A few additional sentences must suffice.-Under the administration of the same divine Ruler, it is manifest, as already hinted, that there can be only one moral law for the whole community of mankind. Right and wrong, in their great essential principles and requirements, do not vary with climate, locality, condition, or time. They are the same to all. The difference in regard to responsibility, wheresoever it exists, does not arise from a difference in the law, but from a difference in the means and opportunities of knowing it, and in the nature and amount of motives by which it is enforced. This is the principle laid down by the divine Author of Christianity: That servant who knew his Lord's will, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with many stripes; but he that knew not' (that is, had not the same means and the same measure of knowledge, for the absence of all knowledge and all means of knowledge would have nullified accountableness) and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes:'and the same is the principle of the passage in the Epistle to the Romans formerly adverted to:- As many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law; and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law.' Men shall be judged and punished, that is, according to their means of knowing God's will; they who enjoyed the written law, or revelation of that will, having a heavier load of guilt, and a proportionally severer verdict, than those who have not possessed this privilege. "That the law of revelation, and the law of nature and conscience, are substantially the same, the context clearly implies :- When the Gentiles who have not the law' (the written law) do by nature things contained in the law,' (the same written law) these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves,'-not certainly a law different from the other, but the same law, known in another way, and in an inferior degree."-pp. 175 176. Now, from these passages it would appear, that, to those who have the divine revelation, it is the rule and standard of moral duty; while to those who have not, conscience performs the same functions, whose law, the Dr., in the sentence last cited, admits to be "substantially the same " with "the law of revelation." But, we may ask, as all mankind are moral agents, that is, as they all lie under obligagations to certain courses of conduct, and as very few have the light of revelation: and further, as that revelation passes over numerous points of moral duty in silencewould it not be more natural and nearer to the truth, to assign, as the fundamental principle of ethical morality, the conformity of conduct to the dictates of conscience, leaving the further instruction and precepts of Christianity as an independent, and additional light, of which comparatively few are cognizant ? This, however, is but a hint. The full elucidation of this theory would require a far longer dissertation than is consistent with our limits, or the character of our work. We will only add, that it is one, the truth of which is confirmed by the passages of scripture, which the Doctor principally cites and illustrates, by the observation of the apostle Paul respecting his persecution of the church, by the general tenor of scripture, and by our own first notions of equity. Indeed, the very subject and text of Dr. Wardlow's fifth Lecture, when taken together, afford an example of that error into which we are venturing to suggest that he has fallen throughout; they are announced as follows: "ON THE RULE OF MORAL OBLIGATION. 1 John iii. 4. " Sin is the transgression of the law." The very selection of such a passage, (which, unquestionably, has reference only to divine revelation,) as illustrating the rule of moral obligation to mankind, the large majority of whom have never heard of a revelation, and the whole of whom were equally subject to moral obligations long before the hundredth part of that revelation was completed, is of itself sufficient, we think, to throw the general views of the writer, as far as this part of his work is concerned, under considerable suspicion. But, at the same time that we thus venture our opinion that the lecturer has failed to construct a perfect system of ethics, or rather, that, strictly speaking, he has left the science of pure ethics untouched, we still cannot but pay the tribute of our admiration to the masterly way in which he has disposed of the systems of preceding philosophers. He has done it, moreover, in the true spirit of a Christian, and by means which highly exalt the power and efficacy of that religion which he professes. His success is owing entirely to the divine power which accompanies and sanctions his efforts, and to the irrefragable conclusiveness of the doctrines taught in the divine word. The one principle which he employs to the demolition of the system of Butler himself, (which he ingeniously terms "the system of Zeno baptized unto Christ,") is the Scripture doctrine of the depravity of human nature. We will extract the most relevant portion of his controversy with Butler, merely as a specimen of the success with which he contends with the various theories of Paley, Adam Smith, Hume, Brown, and others. After stating the Bishop's position, which is exceedingly analogous to the old stoical scheme, which places virtue in living "according to nature;" and more particularly stating his views of the original constitution of our nature, the Dr. says:— "Now I entertain no doubt, that this is a just account of the original constitution of our nature,that such is the due subordination of its various powers and propensions, such the legitimate order of their respective operations. But you can hardly fail to have been sensible, how little reference there is, in these representations, to the fallen condition and depraved character of this nature. I am far from intending to insinuate, that the fallen and degenerate condition of man has no place in Butler's Theology. When treating, in his Analogy,' of the economy of redemption by a Mediator, he speaks of the world's being in a state of ruin' as a supposition which seems the very ground of the Christian Dispensation,' and argues, on this ground, the reasonableness, from the analogy of divine providence, of the scheme of mediatorial interposition. But he is one of those to whom I have already alluded, as, in their reasonings on morals, appearing at times as if they had forgotten the characters of human nature which, on other occasions, they have admitted: and I must be excused for adding, that not only in this seeming forgetfulness, but also in the vague generality of the terms in which human degeneracy is usually expressed, and in the statements given by him of the influence of the Redeemer's atonement, and of the conditions, on man's part, of acceptance with God, there is evidence, that his impressions of the real amount of this degeneracy, as existing in the moral state and character of each individual man, were hardly adequate to the unqualified and humbling representations of the inspired volume. In the extracts which have just been given from the bishop's sermons, we are certainly, in a great degree, allowed to lose sight of the present character of human nature, and are left to suppose it, in its present state, such as it was designed, by the Author of its constitution, to be. The various parts of the watch are put together by the skill of the artist, each in its proper place, and all relatively adjusted to the production of a certain effect, the correct measurement of time. So is it, according to Bishop Butler's theory, with human nature. It is adapted to virtue' as evidently as a watch is adapted to measure time.' But, suppose the watch, by the perverse interference of some lover of mischief, to have been so thoroughly disorganized,-its moving and its insubordinate parts and powers so changed in their collocation and their mutual action, that the result has become a constant tendency to go |