were ever annually consumed before in our most bloody maritime wars, and in all the collective services of our marine. "When the mind contemplates this dreadful sacrifice, every other price to be paid for the future protection of our Sugar colonies seems of little account:-we sufficiently discern how well Africa will be avenged; and how probably those colonies, for the sake of which we have hugged fondly to our basoms that deformed monster the Slave Trade, after its frightful aspect has been laid bare before the eye of the national conscience, may soon by a righteous Providence be made the sources of our humiliation and ruin. "And yet, Sir, to you as the steward of the national purse, I ought to add the important remark, that such great and enduring efforts of defensive preparation would not be less fatal to our finances, than to the lives of our brave soldiers and seamen.-Did the islands grow not only sugar but gold, they might be bought too dear; and the people of this country might grudge to give for the defence of those colonies another tenth of their incomes. "Even another income tax indeed would probably not long suffice for the new and enormous demands of those distant survices. Nay, if we may judge of their expensiveness on so large a scale, by a reference to the charges of comparatively trivial establishments hitherto maintained in that quarter, all the remaining resources of taxation in Great Britain, would scarcely be able long to supply this vast and unprecedented drain. The manufactures and agriculture of this Island, the produce of our Colonies themselves, and the rich commerce of the East, and all the other tributes, which British industry and enterprise levy through a thousand channels, from the whole civilized globe, in aid of our national revenue; might be devoted to West India security, and yet devoted in vain ::-numerous, various, and extensive, though they are, all might be absorbed in this insatiable gulph, without lessening the force of its devouring vortex. "Charybdin dico? Oceanus medius fidius vix videtur, tot res, tam dissipitas, tam distantibus in locis positas, tam cito, absorbere potuisse!" "We might throw the fate of our funds, into the same scale with that of our navy; while France, by merely tossing the sword of negro freedom, or negro force, into the other, would make it still preponderate." (p. 103111.) In the Fourth Letter our Author suggests various expedients for warding off the threatened danger from our West India islands; and we trust they will meet the eye and engage the serious attention of government, and of every one interested in the subject. He then proceeds to combat both on political and moral grounds, the plan which is supposed to have been in agitation of settling Trinidada by means of Slavery and the Slave Trade; and on this part of the subject we trace the same acuteness of remark, and the same accurate and extensive knowledge of the subject which distinguish his preceding inquiries. But we must deny ourselves and our readers the pleasure of any further quotations, though there are many passages, particularly those, beginning at the 46th and 165th pages, with which we would gladly have enriched our work. To the plan which the Author proposes for the cultivation of the valuable island of Trinidada, as well as to some points connected with it, objections may possibly be urged; but these, as they it is the great object of the work to esare not necessarily connected with what tablish, and as our limits will not admit of entering into any farther details, we shall not now discuss. Could the voice of the Christian Observer reach the great body of West India Planters, of which we entertain little hope, we should earnestly entreat them to give this able pamphlet a careful reading; and though we are aware of the stubborn power of early prejudice, we are disposed to hope that they might not be able wholly to resist the powerful arguments which the Author addresses to their self-interest, even if those which he deduces from much higher sources should be disregarded. The measure of abolition, however, seems now to depend but little on the decision of West Indians. They may continue to resist it, of enslaved Africans in the island; but they may continue to swell the number we fear that in that case they will only accelerate instead of retarding the rui which threatens them. XVII. MILNER's Sermons. (Continued from p. 176.) It is observed in the life of Mr. Milner, prefixed to these Discourses, that his compositions, whether already published, or yet in manuscript, are most perfectly free from plagiarism, and the Sermons before us certainly prove the truth of the observation. They bear every mark of original thought, with the exception of one on 2 Cor. ix. 15. which, though an excellent discourse, least resembles Mr. Milner's usual manner. The general characteristics of these Sermons are boldness, strength, and fidelity, in exposing the prevailing errors and corruptions of human nature, and in exhibiting the Gospel of Christ as a sovereign remedy for both. The various means by which men deceive themselves as to their religious state are here detected and displayed. The man of the world, the careless sinner, the self-righteous formalist, the designing hypocrite, are each presented in his true colours; and, in the delinea tion of these characters, there is an individuality and minuteness of description, as well as a closeness of application, which, while they plainly prove the deep penetration of the author, and his thorough acquaintance with the human heart, can scarcely fail to impress and convince the consciences of his readers. Mr. Milner is, however, equally striking and perspicuous in bringing forward the great truths of Christianity, as the remedy for all our spiritual disorders, and in applying them to the heart with all the tenderness and feeling of a true pastor. These discourses afford ample instruction to the serious inquirer, and the most solid grounds of comfort and peace to the sincere penitent. Those who are exposed to trials and temptations will also here find much excellent advice and support, and the experienced Christian encouragement and direction in pressing forwards in his heavenly course. Many other topics occur in these discourses, but those which we have stated appear to be the most prominent and important. The Sermons which seem to us to possess superior excellence, are the sixth, the seventh, and the seventeenth; and from these we shall extract a few passages, to enable our readers to form a true judgment of the spirit and style of the author. The sixth discourse is on Phil. ii. 3, 4, 5. and is entitled, “Lowliness recommended from the Example of Christ," in the introduction to which Mr. Milner shews the inseparable connection which subsists between the doctrines and the precepts of Christianity. In one part of this discourse, the author has drawn a striking picture of "The man who is in a state of nature al together, without any light, or views, or profession of Christian principles. His life may be decent, his character fair, and his conduct in society, in general, blameless or even useful. Or, he may be scandalously immoral. Self, however, in either case, is his end, his grand object, his God. So wrapt up is he in self-love, that he has not any the least relish of living for the love of God or of his neighbour. If he do a kind and useful action to his neighbour, it is, with him, altogether, lost if he do not conceive of it as contributing to the agHe must be praisgrandizement of himself ed, esteemed, and extolled. He would have every one give way to his humour. He would cross others, but he would never be crossed himself. He will kindle strife and contention; but then others,—never himself,—are to blame. He desires to be honoured very much beyond his real desert, yet would be thought other men should be preferred to himself, yet you must not call him a vain-glorious man. He naturally looks at himself as the most important of all beings; to whose satisfaction every one ought to contribute, as if he were more worthy than all others; yet, though he might, one should think, consider that others are as selfish as himself, he makes no allowances for their selfishness; but upbraids them for this very spirit, which he cherishes so much in his own temper. His love extends but little beyond himself, for though he may have some affection for his children and family, perhaps also for his country or his party, yet as he has been used to consider these as parts of himself, his love is still but selfish. He is looking still at his own things, not at the things of others." (p 82, 83.) modest and humble. He cannot bear that Another part of the same admirable Sermon contains a lively description, on the other hand, of a religionist, who, "By hearing the word of the Gospel, has, in a crude manner, acquired superficial notions of the doctrines of the truth; and, though a stranger to the faith and hope of the Gospel, fancies, that because he holds the doctrines of the fall and of salvation by Christ alone, through grace, he must be right. His orthodox opinions he takes for faith, though he never came truly as a lost sinner to Christ; and his decent morality, though it flows not at all from Christian principles, he mistakes for the fruits of the Spirit. Thus he is doubly armed with a false hope. He thinks he has both faith and good works, though, in reality, he has neither. How is he to be tried? Turn not away in an ger, I beseech you, from the charitable work, which is before me, of attempting to undeceive you, and thus to save your precious soul from destruction. But if any will not give a fair hearing; if any are so vainly confident that they are saved by grace, as to fancy that they need not try what manner of spirit they are of, their very unwillingness to be probed, is, itself, a suspicious circumstance against them. Bring your state to the test: you cannot stand the test: your fruits are even contrary to those of a sound Christian. You have the same, or as striking marks of selfishness as the man of mere ignorance whose case we have just before considered; the same covetousness, unreasonableness, envy, contentiousness, vainglory, and pride. Or if you are altered in some respects, still your plan is selfish; though it may now wear a religious form, as it for merly did a worldly one. You may expect to be honoured and looked upon as a person of considerable consequence in Religion: you are infallible as a Pope, and cannot mistake: you bear not the least contradiction with patience: you are ever apt to imagine your attainments in Religion to be greater than those of others; and no one understands so well as you. Is this lowliness of mind? Is this esteeming others better than yourself?" (p. 86.) The foregoing passage evinces a deep acquaintance with the genius of Christianity, and with the human heart, even when covered with the veil of a religious profession. The Sermon on Gen. xlviii. 15, 16. entitled "Jacob blessing the Sons of Joseph," exhibits a patriarchal scene of the domestic kind, drawn by the hand of a master, with great feeling, and chaste simplicity of colouring, and contains many excellent practical lessons, some of them peculiarly adapted to the circumstances of the present times. In the seventeenth Sermon, which is from 1 Sam. xv. 30. Mr. Milner has, exhibited the character of Saul; the first king of Israel, and in doing so has given a strong and lively portrait of those hypocritical pretenders to religion, who resemble him. Speaking of such persons, he observes, "They will bear no cross; they will exercise no self-denial for God's sake. They consult what is pleasing and agreeable. By this they measure doctrines, practice, and every thing, in which they are concerned. Cheap duties and services, which cost them nothing, they will practise: difficult burdensome duties, which would cause trouble to them, or expose them to reproach, they disregard. Whatever happen to be the fashionable virtues they will follow: what is not agreeable to the manners of the times they live in, they hate; and no precepts of God, however expressly declared, can move them to it. Yet they have a world of reasons and arguments to support their disobedience. The grand source of all their argument, the very hinge on which all their opposition turns,-a rebellious heart Christ. Observ. No. 5. itself, this they neither see nor suspect." (p. 242.) Through the whole of this masterly discourse, the author discovers a thorough knowledge of his subject, and dissects, with great skill, that hollow pharisaical religion, which so frequently passes for what is real, and imposes not only upon others, but upon the person himself. In perusing the last Sermon in the volume, entitled," St. Peter's Courage, and his Want of Faith," we were someof the miracle of that apostle's walkwhat surprised at the use which is made ing on the water. St. Peter's conduct in this instance so much resembles the "Alas! how many, who call themselves Christians, neither know nor care, in any degree, for this love to Christ, nor are anxious to possess the dispositions which flow from it. Fancying that their general cold assent to reand believing little or nothing concerning afvealed Religion is the real faith of the Gospel; fections wrought by the Holy Ghost, they move heavily in all their religious course." (p. 346.) This is, truly, the frigid zone of Christianity; but then there is a torrid zone, which it is quite as dangerous to from one extreme to another. inhabit. Men ought not to be driven There are rash and forward spirits in the religious world, who require a check to prevent them from injuring themselves, and the cause in which they are embarked. To such characters there is a striking lesson of instruction in the that. Mr. Milner should so entirely case of St. Peter, which we wonder overlook in this Sermon. We were disappointed in not finding amongst these Discourses, one wholly 2 S devoted to the important subject of Justification. A full and perspicuous statement of this doctrine, from the pen of so able, so diligent, and so conscientious a Divine, would have been highly gratifying to his serious readers. It is but justice to observe, that we have met occasionally with an expression in the course of this valuable work, which we should gladly have seen exchanged for another, which would have been less objectionable, and yet would have equally conveyed to the reader the author's meaning. But no candid man, who considers all the circumstances under which these posthumous discourses have been given to the world, will for one moment regard this petty imperfection as detracting from their real worth, or justifying any abatement of the just measure of commendation which we have bestowed on their author, who is now indeed insensible to human praise, and is reaping the reward of his great and beneficial labours in the vineyard of Christ. In our next number we shall give some account of the life of this eminent divine, which is written by his brother the Dean of Carlisle, and prefixed to the volume of Sermons now reviewed. (To be continued.) CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS ON XVIII. OVERTON'S True Churchmen ascertained. (From p. 252.) We have in our former numbers given a large analysis of Mr. Overton's work, and we now proceed, according to the purpose which we professed, to state our own ger eral sentiments on this important publication. We shall, however, forbear from minute criticisms. The great features of the work will sufficiently occupy our attention. The object of Mr. Overton is to shew, that the doctrines preached by those of the Clergy, to whom the name of Evangelical has been given, are contained in our Articles and Homilies, and are also the doctrines intended to be asserted by those who had the principal share in laying the foundations of our Church. We conceive that Mr. Overton has in substance proved his point, and that he has done this by quotations so ample and abundant, and by testimonies so clear and concurrent, as to leave little doubt in the mind of any fair and attentive reader of his valuable book. We wish it were possible to submit this question to any man who should be new to the subject, and who, after travelling through the volumes written on the one side and on the other, should decide, with the common justice of an arbitrator, which of the two parties approached the nearest, in point of doctrine, to the letter and spirit of the Articles, and to the opinions of those who assisted in drawing them up. Mr. Overton, in our opinion, would unquestionably be pronounced by such an umpire, so far as the question lay between him and his adversaries, to be, in point of doctrine, the more true son of the Church. But it may be asked, "if the doctrines for which Mr. Overton contends, be, as and Homilies, how does it happen, that is alleged, conformable to our Articles they should meet with so much opposition even from many of the Clergy themselves? We answer, that habits of thinking are continually undergoing a change; and that although written articles may obstruct and retard that change, they cannot altogether prevent it. That, moreover, a time of indifference respecting doctrines often succeeds a period of peculiar zeal for them; and that in the same manner as the tenets of the Apostles are admitted by us to have been departed from by the Papists, so it is at least possible (we mean not to affirm the two cases to be parallel) that the opinions of the Reformers may be forsaken by some of their successors of the same Protestant Church. Our Clergy, it may be added, are not a few of them the sons of the laity, are educated at the same places, and nearly in the same manner, and naturally partake in the current opinions of the age. In a period, therefore, of the world, in which those sentiments extend themselves, to which the holders of them give the name of liberal, the presumption lies on the side of a considerable departure from the strictness of the an cient faith, even among many of the Clergy. Now, if under such circumstances, a controversy respecting doctrine should arise, the efforts of some Churchmen, and of those especially who should hastily take up their pen in the cause, are likely to be directed to the object of accommodating the articles to the existing taste, rather than to that of maintaining them in their whole original force; we may add that this course of proceeding may more particularly be expected to take place, if there should exist any persons who injure the credit of the real tenets of the Church, either by pushing them to a length not in the contemplation of the framers of them, or even by any little faults or singularities in style or manner, on the part of those persons who should faithfully preach them. Above all, this is likely to be the case, if those articles to which a more lax meaning has come, in process of time, to be affixed by some of the members of the Church, are held, according to their original signification, by any great portion of Dissenters; for, according to this supposition, that class of preachers in the Establishment who strictly interpret their own articles, may be thought in some degree to favour Dissenters, and may at the same time be favoured by them. Under those circumstances, it will be difficult for the sounder members of the Establishment to obtain from their jealous brethren that fair and patient hearing which is necessary to an impartial decision of the subject. We would refer those who may doubt the probability of such a departure from the strictness of the national faith as we have supposed, to the situation of Scotland at the present day. That the doctrines consented to by the members of that Establishment, on their entrance into it, are Calvinistic in a remarkably high degree, no one who reads over the Scotch confession of faith can for a moment doubt; and yet very Anti-Calvinistic tenets have made so great progress in that country, that two-thirds of the clergy may be considered as holding them. Mr. Overton, in his endeavours to prove that the clergymen whom he de fends are true Churchmen, undertakes also to shew that the Calvinistic opinions held by many of them are the opinions of the Church. The doctrinal Calvinism of the Church of England, however, Mr. Overton admits, is of a very moderate and qualified kind. There is in truth, as he also admits, a certain kind of Arminianism, which is distinguished from a certain kind of Calvinism only by a very nice line. We shall not enter into the disquisition of this curious and somewhat metaphysical point, especially as Mr. Overton, (p. 97.) in stating his opinion that the Church of England is moderately Calvinistic, declares, "that whether the Church of England has determined this way or the other on some of the abstract points agitated between the Calvinists and Arminians, is not our determining point; on this circumstance we do not found the truth of our main position." And he also intimates that it is not so much Calvinism which he is anxious to defend as "the doctrine of salvation by grace, through faith in the Redeemer;" a doctrine which he allows many sincere Christians "hold essentially," who disown the name of Calvinist. Thus much it is right to say, in justice to Mr. Overton, and to do away the too exclusive cast which his performance sometimes exhibits. We have observed that the Articles of the Church of England teach those doctrines which are now termed Evangelical; meaning by these Original Sin, Salvation by Grace through Faith in Christ, and Regeneration by the Holy Spirit; and if it be also admitted that they are (as Mr. Overton endeavours to prove) moderately Calvinistic, yet our Church may, as we think, be fairly considered as intending to comprehend within her pale both the devout and evangelical Arminian, and the practical and sober Calvinist. Her Seventeenth Article in particular, though it appears to be Calvinistic, yet seems also to carry in it marks of a compromising spirit. She in this, and in her other Articles, rejects Antinomianism, as every sound and sober Calvinist also does; a heresy, perhaps, the existence of which many of our modern Calvinists may not be so ready as our |