We answer all such questions simply by denying the matter of fact which they assume; not altogether, but to the extent to which it is meant to be applied. We assert, howsoever startling the assertion may be to some persons, or howsoever ill it may accord with theories which the philosophy of the world suggests to others, that, to believe "that the worlds were framed by the word of God," is a result, which, easy and simple as it may appear to be, must, after all, depend, for its full and ultimate authority, not upon the workings of man's unassisted intellect, but upon the revelation of God himself. We wish to take up no extreme position; to advance no paradox; to exaggerate nothing; to misrepresent nothing. Least of all, would we disparage the power, or decry the use, of reason, in the investigation of this subject; for what is that but to despise the noblest gift of God to the natural man? We admit, in the words of Locke, that reason is natural revelation, whereby the eternal Father of light, and fountain of all knowledge, communicates to mankind that portion of truth which He has laid within the reach of the intellectual faculties. But then, we affirm that the department of truth now under consideration does not lie, fully and completely, within the reach of these intellectual faculties. Portions of it, indeed, they may discover, and verify by independent and extrinsic evidences; but to survey it in its length and in its breadth, to grasp it in all its actual reality, is a work too vast for their power to achieve. They require, therefore, from an authority superior to their own, the confirmation of many particulars, ' of which, though they do not lie altogether beyond our reasoning, and probabilities, the certainty is by no means equal to the importance.' In saying this, we do not (as the writer, to whom we have referred, charges the enthusiasts of his day with doing) take away reason to make way for revelation, and thereby put out the light of both;' doing (as he says) much the same as if we would persuade a man to put out his eyes, the better to receive the remote light of an invisible star by a telescope.' On the contrary, we invite him to exercise, to the uttermost, all the powers of his natural vision; and, after he has surveyed every quarter of the wide and varied region which lies open to view, we invite him to contemplate others yet more lofty, and broad, and clear; to look through the telescope which revelation puts into his hands, and examine, by its help, the glorious perfections of that truth which, without it, would still fail to be discerned -Pp. 54-58.

We perfectly agree with this opinion. The text is the first and simplest illustration of the nature of faith. The date of its fact is the earliest in the history of the worlds around us, for it asserts that there was a period when God, the universal Spirit, existed alone, his pure immaterial essence was the sole BEING, and that then, while as yet not the smallest atom of matter floated, He, by his own power of creation, made all things out of nothing: and the apostle intimates that this truth is unascertainable by reason, and that we apprehend and admit it upon the evidence of faith.

The limits of natural religion are more narrowly restricted than we generally suppose. It contains but few truths which it can claim as its own discovery. "The invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, even his eternal power and godhead;" but these two are not the sole attributes of the Divinity. The uniformity and the common purpose discoverable in the objects around us, may and do, independently of other means of information, teach us that "he is wonderful in council, and excellent in working." It is well for us deeply to ponder over this fact, in order that we may be alive to our infinite obligations to revelation. Reason could never teach us either the self-existence, or the supremacy, or the omniscience of God; nay more,

to recur to the point of Mr. Anderson's sermon, however habitual the belief may have now become to us, and therefore, however rational it may seem, we owe it to faith, that we even know that He "created the heavens and the earth." Endeavour for a moment to prove, without the authority of Scripture, that matter is not eternal, that the innumerable worlds around us were not made out of some pre-existent, self-dependent mass, but that God spake them into being out of nothing, and we shall find that however numerous the probabilities in its favour, nothing can determine it, but that record, which on its own authority declares that "things which are seen were not made of things which do appear."

The assertion of no intelligent spectator could be a proof. For to declare that matter once existed no where, is the prerogative of that Being alone, who has been every where, and every where at the same instant. Otherwise matter might be there where he had not been, or on his arriving there, it might have then passed elsewhere. Ubiquity is an attribute essential to a competent asserter of such a fact. So that seeing the fact of creation is unsustained by any collateral testimony,-and also, that there are in nature no observable analogies (for re-production, re-organization are not) we are indebted for it to revelation, and we accredit it by faith.

We think that Mr. Anderson is very happy in his answers to objections, taken to the above theory from the natural theology of the ancients and the à priori demonstrations of such christian philosophers as Clarke and Hartley. Nevertheless, we differ from the general inference, which, we think, might be drawn from his remarks upon the latter.

Neither will the question undergo any material change, as far as its ultimate decision is concerned, if we turn from the speculations of the heathen, to the abstract arguments of Christian philosophers. Without wishing to detract, for a single instant, from the value which those monuments of human genius possess; or without stopping to inquire whether the consciousness felt by those who reared them, that they had the basis of Christian truth to fall back upon, might not have imparted a greater degree of confidence to their arguments, and of firmness to their conclusions, than otherwise would have been attached to them; still we say that we need some authority superior to theirs, by which we must ultimately be controlled. Precious, indeed, are the writings of the men of whom we speak, for the evidences which they exhibit of subtle investigation, and of sound logical deduction; and most thankful are we in acknowledging, that whensoever the adversary has chosen to enter the field of metaphysical discussion, these writings should have appeared, to prove that thither the champion of the truth has followed, and foiled him with his own weapons. But notwithstanding this, we affirm, upon the admission of some of the most distinguished writers in this department of literature, that there must be some higher authority than that of mere metaphysical reasoning, whereunto we may flee for refuge, or we shall be but ill prepared to "give a reason of the hope that is in" us. Thus, whilst, according to Clarke's celebrated argument à priori for the existence of God, the truth of that doctrine is said by him to follow, with demonstrative evidence, from those conceptions of space and time which are inseparable from the human mind; it is nevertheless observed by Reid, that "these are the speculations of men of superior genius; but whether they be as solid as they are sublime, or whether they be the wanderings of imagination in a region beyond the limits of human understanding, he is at a loss to determine." Dugald Stewart, likewise, who quotes this observation

from Reid, avows that he is not ashamed to confess his "own doubts and difficulties on the same question;" nor wonders that men, who essayed to demonstrate "the being of God from their conceptions of immensity and eternity, in pursuing that lofty argument, should have soared into regions where they were lost in the clouds." Hartley, also, who sets forth the abstract metaphysical arguments for the existence of an infinite independent Being, with a skill and cogency inferior to none, prefaces, nevertheless, that portion of his work, by acknowledging that "some of these arguments are more satisfactory to one person, some to another; but in all there is something of perplexity and doubt concerning the exact propriety of expressions, and method of reasoning, and perhaps ever will be, since the subject is infinite, and we finite." Stronger testimony than this can hardly be required to show, that if man would indeed desire to find a safe and quiet resting place amid "the strife of tongues," he must be guided by a light far clearer and steadier than that afforded by the sparks which himself has kindled.—Pp. 62—65.

Now it were more than possible for the reader here to infer, that all metaphysical à priori reasonings are futile and unsatisfactory. Upon this point, did our limits allow us, we should wish to break a lance with Mr. Anderson. We are firm believers in the distinction between the pure reason and the understanding; and that the immediate and fixed and ultimate truths of the one, command a more trustful credence than the most accurate generalizations of the other; so much so, that the agreement of the former with the dogmatic statements of Revelation is, as a collateral testimony, far more valuable than that of the latter. It may be true that Clarke and Hartley have failed in their demonstrations, but this will only prove, either their individual inadequacy to the task, or that the instrument, how efficient soever it might be for other truths, is here inapplicable.

But we hasten to a close. It must not be gathered from these strictures that the entire of Mr. Anderson's volume is taken up with recondite and philosophical disquisition. Except three sermons, his discourses are most characteristically practical. They will repay any one who resorts to them for moral stimulus and religious consolation. We will take our farewell of them with a passage which will serve as a good specimen of this celebrated preacher's mode and power of eloquent appeal :

Believe me, the spirit of hardened Egypt and of impenitent Israel has not ceased to exist and to work in our own land. Let us see whether we may not be living within its influence. The visitations inflicted upon them have not in the same manner or degree fallen upon us; but have we never seen, or heard of the lightning and tempest, the pestilence and famine, the battle and murder, the shipwreck and the earthquake? Does not the very petition which, in our solemn litany, we have addressed to the good Lord, to deliver us from these, testify our exposure to them? Have not the young, the beautiful, the happy, fallen in the midst of us, with all the freshness of their life upon them? Has not the strong man been struck down in the pride of his manhood, and the rich man been stripped in a moment of the riches wherein he trusted? On every side we have been surrounded with visitations such as these. The bones worn down with sorrow, the desire of the eyes taken away with a stroke, every fearful malady which, to the vision of our immortal poet, was embodied in the vast lazar-house of the world's misery, making havoc amongst us; even the bright intellect, darkened by those clouds which hide its helpless possessor from the gaze of those who loved to see, and wondered as they saw, its workings;

and all the beauteous landscape of existence exchanging its gorgeous and glowing colours for sackcloth and mourning and woe;-these have been seen and heard of by us, and under whatsoever form or circumstances they have come, we must still acknowledge them to have been the token and penalty of sin. How stand we, then, affected by them? Had the blow which has fallen upon others reached ourselves, what would our condition have been? Had the summons which called them to their great account, hurried us away as suddenly from this sphere of action, should we have been able to meet it? If "our earthly house of this tabernacle " had been “dissolved,” and the tongue which now speaks, and the ears which now hear, were mouldering in the grave, where there is no longer "work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom,” should we have been reconciled unto God, through Him who hath come "and preached peace to us?" The very power which we now possess of putting this question to ourselves, shows how mercifully God has spared us in the midst of the perishing world. Has that mercy quickened our love, our watchfulness, our reverence; or are we locked in a deeper slumber than ever? If so, how perilous is our condition! The misery of the foolish virgins, upon whom the door was shut, when "they that were ready" had gone in with the bridegroom "unto the marriage," cannot be more fearful than the state of those who thus wilfully remain insensible to the warnings addressed to them, who thus, after their "hardness and impenitent heart," treasure up unto themselves "wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God."— Pp. 382-384.

ART. IV. The Educational Economy of England. Part 1. On the External Economy of Education; or the Means of Providing Instruction for the People. By the Rev. JAMES SHERGOLD BOONE, Minister of St. John's, Paddington. London: Parker. 1838. Pp. 112. MR. BOONE's design in this striking pamphlet, is rather to show what is possible than what is desirable; to view the question of education in a practical light, than to place it upon what he evidently considers the true and legitimate basis.

Some persons may be inclined to argue that, upon a subject of this sort, there can be no room for the consideration of expediency, and that there is no choice in the matter, since that alone can be truly expedient which is really right. Others may feel that, in this imperfect world, that which is abstractedly right can never be rigidly adhered to in practice, and that to pursue an abstract principle without any regard to circumstance or consequence, is the part of a man unacquainted with the world in which he is living, and one of the main ingredients in insanity. Such seem to have been the sentiments under the influence of which Mr. Boone set himself to the discussion of the education question; for, in considering the province of the Church in his sixth chapter, he expressly says "That which is constitutional may not be feasible, and the abstract theory can hardly be applied to the actual condition of the empire" (p. 74); and again, (p. 85), "In general we must doubt whether it would be wise or safe to claim the entire annexation of public instruction to the Church in its spiritual, or to the clergy in their official character." And, (p. 75), " It is not our intention to press the point, [viz. of the Church's legitimate control over grammar schools] .. because the spirit of the age will scout all precedents taken from periods of ecclesiastical domination, from the canon law, or from the council of (the) Lateran."

When, therefore, we find Mr. Boone arguing against certain false principles respecting education which have of late been much canvassed, we are not to suppose that he has put forward his whole strength. Indeed he seldom enters deeply and fundamentally into his subject, because it is not his object and design to do so. His is the part of an antagonist "parcentis viribus, atque extenuantis eas consultò;" for he is throughout taking a practical and not a theoretical view of the question. We must confess that we are somewhat inclined to differ with Mr. Boone upon the policy of this course of argument. We think he might have viewed his subject in an equally practical light, and yet have laid down his principles more definitely and decidedly. His work would have been more convincing and satisfactory, had he first acquainted us with the merits of the question abstractedly considered, and then proceeded to draw those limitations which the iron hand of circumstance makes necessary; for although it is true that principles, when put into action, must be modified by circumstances, yet it is no less certain, that, without fixed principles on which to fall back, our actions will become the slaves of circumstance. We cannot help thinking too that Mr. Boone rather overrates the difficulty of arriving at fixed and general principles. Towards the commencement of his fourth chapter (p. 35), which treats upon the "province of the State," respecting education, he says, "it is a question which does not admit of abstract or universal solution." In other words, that Whether the State is to have the entire control of education, or whether it is to have no hand in it at all; what are the limits of its duty and prerogative, this depends on time, and place, and circumstance. Certainly such is not the case with us in England; because the law of the land has most clearly defined the province of the Church, and, by implication, the province of the State also. Neither can the position be universally true; for the law in this instance is, what it ever should be, the mere interpreter of a higher law, founded in the nature of the two powers, and springing necessarily from the position which the State occupies as governing the temporals, and which the Church occupies as governing the spirituals of the community, We have not space to enter at large upon this topic; but in the abstract idea, whatever difficulties may attach to the practical development of the principle, nothing can be more plain and intelligible. The "Form of Bidding the Common Prayers" in King Edward's time contains the following passage:-" The King's most excellent majesty, supreme head, immediately under God, of the spirituality and temporality of the same church;" which is a more accurate method of speaking, and less liable to mislead, than that now commonly in use when we speak of Church and State. In this form the whole community christian is regarded as one body called the church, and that body is considered in two capacities, its spiritual and its temporal capacity, collectively represented under one head, the king. The clergy are clearly the spiritual rulers, and the state the temporal rulers, of this church; a view of the subject put forward both in the preceding and succeeding reigns, for Queen Elizabeth speaks of " utrumque regni nostri statum tam ecclesiasticum quam laicum;"* and in the 29th Henry VIII.,

Cardwell's Documentary Annals, vol. i. p. 218.