human nature never did, and never will receive. To the awakened sinner who knows the malignity and aggravation of his sins, it seems absolutely impossible that they should be forgiven; and it is the highest act of confidence to receive God's testimony that Christ's blood has sufficient efficacy to wash them away. To the person who feels that he has deserved hell, it seems impossible than any righteousness should deserve that he should be released and exalted to the endless joys and felicities of heaven. He, who by divine grace has believed this, can never sufficiently express his apprehensions of the preciousness of the blood of Christ.

Faith generally follows after repentance, but it may precede it; none believe that repentance is necessary to give any title to spiritual blessings; few suppose it necessary to give a warrant to receive that promise by which justification is bestowed. The offer itself contains all the warrant that is necessary or conceivable.

The sinner alone who, through his convictions of sin, has forever renounced all dependence on his own righteousness, has any suspicion that he needs the righteousness of Christ; all others are so far from being prepared to receive the offered blessings, that they will not believe that they need them, and no reasoning can satisfy them on this subject. The offer, so far from being believed, is never even correctly understood.

The believer has learned that eternal misery is all that he can ever expect from his own merits, that this expresses God's anger towards him. Yet so great is his confidence in the merits of the Redeemer, that he can look upon an angry God as a reconciled Father; he believes that through Christ, so great is God's love towards him, that the eternal blessedness in reserve for him, alone expresses the depth and duration of that love.

Through the merits of Christ, God is ready to be reconciled to all-his arms of mercy are extended to receive all ; and every thing demanded of them is to have such confidence in the reconciling efficacy of the atonement, as to cast themselves into the arms of Divine Mercy and plead the merits of the Redeemer for the bestowal of every blessing.

The sinner cannot perish because God is insincere in his offers, but purely because he distrusts that sincerity-not from any lack of divine mercy, but from his distrust or con

tempt of that mercy-not because no offers are made, but because offers of infinite blessings are rejected.

It is to be regretted, that in the instructions of the pulpit, we see all attention absorbed by disquisitions on obligation, ability, duty, benevolenteffort, and so little said of the Redeemer's righteousness, without which all the rest is vain, and all exhibitions of obligation powerless. We seldom ever see any systematic effort to exhibit the law as a means of destroying the sinner's hopes from his own righteousness, yet without this, all the offers of mercy are made to the deafthey serve only to mislead and to ruin.

ART. VIII.-REVIEW OF THE LIFE AND TIMES OF WHITEFIELD.

By Rev. RICHARD W. DICKINSON, New-York.

The Life and Times of the Rev. George Whitefield, M. D. By Robert Philip, author of the experimental Guides, etc. New-York: Appleton & Co. 1833.

AMONG recent discoveries for facilitating the mental and moral improvement of society, the new mode of manufacturing books is by no means the least deserving notice. Once, it was deemed not advisable to publish unless it were in our power to contribute something new or valuable to the fund of learning and knowledge; now, whoever understands the process by which any portion of this fund may be converted into small coin for popular use, is seldom backward to avail himself of the secret; and too often does it happen that he secures from the unlettered that meed which is due only to those whose thoughts he has reproduced, or whose works he has either abridged, or presented to the public under a new name and with a modern dress. It may be remarked, also, that in former times an author seldom ventured to expect immediate fame. Great as might have been his powers, he was diffident of himself; nor dared to approve his own productions until he had received the approbation of others. Important as he might have regarded his own principles and opinions, he was distrustful of their favorable reception. Writing as he in

dependently thought, and most solemnly felt, he sent forth his mental progeny to speak for themselves, and to make their unaided way through the crowd of prejudice, of ignorance, or of error. But it would seem, as if our modern. author need not be in the least apprehensive of the sale of his productions, provided only he have adroitness enough to avail himself of the expedients for forestalling public opinion, or sagacity enough to watch the tide of times! He has nothing to do, we had almost said, but to consult the fashionable taste for effeminate literature, to fall in with the current of popular feeling, or with the prejudices of his party; to effect an agreement with some well known publisher, and to secure either by the presentation of a copy of a work, or through the intervention of an interested friend, the favorable notice of the daily prints, and forthwith he is an author of reputation!

Uniting so many advantages, it is not surprising, that many should adopt the modern mode of becoming, at once, authors, and authors of distinction! How much easier is it, to compile than to originate-to deal in common places, than to invent; for one who has not been liberally endowed by nature, or thoroughly disciplined in mind by study, to construct a book out of another's head than his own-to puff one's self into notice, than to earn a solid reputation!

To subserve the cause of truth is the ostensible design of some publications; and if this be the real motive, we honor it; nor do we doubt that reproductive minds may in relation to the community at large, be as useful as minds of an original order; but it requires little observation to perceive that the interests of booksellers too often secure circulation to books which owe their birth not to the throes of intellect, but to the vanity of becoming authors.

"An author! 'tis a venerable name;

How few deserve it, yet how many claim!"

Robert Philip is no unfair specimen of a modern bookmaker; and we cannot but think that he owes his reputation in this country more to the kindness of his American publisher, than to the intellectual merits of his writings. How could we refrain from impatiently anticipating the publication of his last work when it was, for so many months previous, advertised, and strongly recommended? But, after all, what valuable item has he added to our inVOL. V. 60

formation respecting Whitefield? What new light has he thrown on the life or even the times of that remarkable man? What sound remark has he made which has not been expressed before, and with tenfold more propriety and strength? or, if any of the remarks which he has interspersed through this volume, be the result of his own unaided thoughts, they are at once recognized by their triteness, their prejudiced spirit, their colloquial vulgarity, or by their obtrusive Boswellism.

The discerning reader need only examine the Preface to be convinced that R. P. can hardly stand higher in the estimation of the public than he does in his own.

He prefatorily informs us that so far as this work is his own composition, it is written in the "spirit" of Whitefield; that "like Whitefield's actual life, it will help all that is good and expose not a little of what is wrong in all churches;" that his catholicity is honest; that the style is his own, (which no one, we presume, will be disposed to question,) that the time has not yet come for the philosophy of Whitefield's Life; that his "mass of facts will soon be turned to good account by himself, or by some one," and that in "the mean time Whitefield will be known to the public, which he was not until now"--which is as much as to say that every one will, of course, read his work, and that no one can read it without a full understanding and appreciation of the character of Whitefield.

We admit that this Preface has the merit of brevity; but we fear that no one will discover in it the modesty of merit.

But is it correct to say that the time has not come for the philosophy of Whitefield's Life? Surely it were neither a more operose nor premature labor than to undertake the Philosophy of "Fanaticism," or of "Benevolence :" and if, by the philosophy of Whitefield's Life, nothing more be understood than the things which entered into the formation of his character, the reasons which instigated, the principles which guided his course of ministerial action, and the influences which he exerted, both on the condition of the churches and the state of the public mind; in a word, the causes and consequences of the rise of such a man as Whitefield, what more is needed to the accomplishment of such a work than the "mass of facts" which Mr. Philip has at his command? What more suitable time than now; nay, what more urgent need can there ever be for such a work than at the present?

Were it not for the author's prefaratory announcement that "his mass of facts will soon be turned to good account by himself, or by some one," the perusal of his Life of Whitefield, or of any of his previous works, might induce the shrewd suspicion, that his was not exactly the mind to produce the philosophy of Whitefield's Life. Indeed, this clause in the preface strikingly reminds us of one who was wont, whenever he essayed a discourse in public, to inform his auditors that "he could lead them through the mazes of philosophy," or "he might institute a metaphysical inquiry," &c., but to this day we believe he never has; and the reason is, doubtless, that the time has not yet come!

Still, though Mr. Philip may have been capable of writing the Philosophy of Whitefield's Life, he has not brought to his task, we conceive, all the requisite talents to render the Life of Whitefield highly interesting and useful to the public. He lacks what we deem the primary requisite, that power of mind which is capable of being fired by the contemplation of a subject until we partake of all its heat and flame. With this the reader may dispense with literary adornments; but without it, description, however accurate, will be tame, and a portrait, however faithful, must be lifeless. Unfortunately for his task, even the literary qualifications of our author are not of a respectable grade.

Should we criticise his style, we might direct the reader's attention to his affected alliterations, his occasional punning, the frequent vulgarity of his expressions, his poverty of sentiment, appearing, at one time, in inflation of language, and again betrayed by repetition; and, in general, to the careless and unformed structure of his periods. According to his Preface, "in regard to his style, he has nothing to say, except that it is his own way of telling the facts of personal history;" yet, on p. 331, he remarks, that "our taste for the simple, is the reaction of the gorgeous; and that had he never tried to imitate Hervey, he should never have formed a puritanical style for himself." Afterwards, when apologizing for the manner in which he speaks of Whitefield, he observes, "only a character which speaks for itself belongs to biography: and he is no biographer of it, who does not speak in its own style." (p. 524.) Whether his style, therefore, which, after all, he deems it necessary to say something about, be puritanical, Whitefieldian, or his own, it is difficult to decide; but if it be a reaction of Hervey's, we are