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of the British people, and of that faith which was then assailed by enemies indeed worthy of the name of enemies? What was Beattie to such men as these? Such a man as Beattie did very well to be paraded and puffed-he was a worthy good man, but weak as water. He had the vanity to have himself painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, sitting in an elbow-chair in the clouds, with his Essay on Truth in his hands, and Hume, and Voltaire, and Rousseau, and Gibbon, lying under his feet, writhing, in the character of devils. The print from this picture figures at the beginning of his life. Any one who just looks at it for a minute, and considers what the man, with that happy, contented, imbecile, sleepy face did what he was, and what these trampled devils did and were, must blush, if the blood has any way to his cheeks, for the literary triumphs of the Kirk of Scotland.* The clergy of England should imitate the clergy of Scotland; the clergy of Scotland should imitate the clergy of England. But as for such people as Mr Irving, it will be much if they look round them for a little, in either church, and strive to imitate, in the first place, that Christian humility which distinguishes the brightest ornaments of both the one and the other of them.

not been so, indeed, we should not of course have devoted so much space to him and his book. But has he shewn himself to be a great man?-a great orator?a great reasoner?-a masterly and original mind?-a master of English eloquence? No such things. He is neither more nor less than a clever copier of Dr Chalmers of Glasgow.

It is very true, that he has been reading Taylor, Barrow, Baxter, and Hooker, and that he has endeavoured to infuse into his language a spice of their olden rhetoric. The attempt was praiseworthy, but the result has cer tainly been anything but satisfactory to those who read (for we can say nothing as to those who hear,) Mr Irving. Those old writers were admirably accomplished masters of the English tongue; there is a rich mellow luxury about their periods, which, to imitate, is hopeless, unless in very superior hands indeed to the like of Mr Irving. And, besides, he could not-no man could-imitate both them and Dr Chalmers at once. Chalmers has his own merits, but they lie toto cœlo away from those of our old prose classics of the 17th century; and the attempt to blend the two styles has been productive of an extremely unpleasing effect. It has covered the whole strain with an But it is high time we should speak insufferable appearance of affectation a few words about his book-more-double affectation too-of laboured strictly considered as a book. We have already seen how openly Mr Irving avows the highly ambitious views un- The whole style of the orator's thinkder the influence of which he has com- ing, the whole conception of his strain, menced his career of authorship. We are servilely after Chalmers. We are have seen that he despises the name of pretty sure there is not one train of Sermons; that he will write nothing thought at all striking in the book, but Orations after the manner of Ci- the germ of which may not be found cero and Demosthenes, and Argu- even in Chalmers's printed works. But ments or Apologies after the manner to us, who have very frequently heard of the Fathers. We have seen, too, Dr Chalmers preach, the identity of that he expressly says, he means him- the two things is throughout quite palself for the "more learned, imagina- pable painfully so, indeed. The imitive, and accomplished classes; in tation is as close, now, as the imitation other words, that his object is to in- of Jeffrey's way of reviewing by the fuse the spirit of religion into the po- underling imbeciles of his Journal,pular literature, and thence into the as the imitation of the author of Wapopular mind of the age-that he means verley's style by the authors of The to work a revolution in religion and in Cavalier, The King of the Peak, Ponletters. tefract Castle, The Rise and Fall of Somerset, and such books. Now, there is no doubt, that considerable talent may be shewn in the midst of even this kind of imitation; but high talent

And what has been hitherto his success? We admit, at once, freely and fully, that he has shewn himself to be a man of considerable talents; if it had

frigidity of ambitious feebleness-of uninspired extravagance.

Our correspondent has forgotten two really respectable divines of the last age in Scotland, Campbell and Macknight; but still we do not quarrel with his general argument as to this matter.-C. N.

VOL. XIV.

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-anything like commanding talentanything like the talent that is capable of working a revolution, or anything like a revolution, either in preaching, or in any other department of intellectual exertion, is quite out of the question in such a case. Facile est inventis addere, is an old and a true saying; and even if Mr Irving had gone considerably beyond Dr Chalmers in Dr Chalmers's walk, we should never have dreamed of putting him by the side of his master. Even if he had kept all the startling boldness of Dr Chalmers's way of preaching, and yet made his language pure and correct English, instead of the pyebald offensiveness of the Chalmerian style, we should not have said, here is a man worthy of taking his place by the side of Chalmers. But he has done nothing of this sort. He has the audacity without the vigour; the os magna soniturum without the original verve and pith; the wowwov nauyes, without the capacity of the temple behind. He has not equalled the excellencies-nothing like it; and he has kept, ay, and added to the defects.

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All this might, no doubt, have passed off extremely well, if Mr Irving had been contented to speak his orations and arguments, and not to print them. He has probably a vigorous and impressive style of declaiming, and if he had been wise enough to avoid publication, he might, in a place where Dr Chalmers could be little known, have continued to maintain the reputation of a powerful and even of an original preacher. But this printing in a great measure undid Chalmers himself and what wonder that it should have gone near to undo his pupil and imitator altogether? In our opinion, such must have been the effect of Mr Irving's very ambitious debut as an author.

We shall now proceed to justify what we have felt ourselves constrained to say, by a few extracts from the book. The following passage it may be proper to introduce with the remark, that it occurs within three pages of the beginning of the first Oration-that "On preparation for consulting the Oracles of God."

"Who feels the thrilling fear or trembling hope there is in words whereon the eternal destinies of himself do hang? Who feels the swelling tide of gratitude within his breast, for redemption and salvation coming, instead of flat despair and ever lasting retribution? Finally, who, in perUsing the word of God, is captivated through

all his faculties, and transported through all his emotions, and through all his energies of action wound up? Why, to say the best, it is done as other duties are wont to be done; and, having reached the rank of a daily, formal duty, the perusal of the Word hath reached its noblest place. Yea, that which is the guide and spur of all duty, the necessary aliment of Christian life, the first and the last of Christian knowledge and Christian feeling, hath, to speak the best, degenerated in these days to stand rank and file among those duties whereof it is parent, preserver, and commander. And to speak not the best, but the fair and common truth, this book, the offspring of the divine mind, and the perfection of heavenly wisdom, is permitted to lie from day to day, perhaps from week to week, unheeded and unperused; never welcome to our happy, healthy, and energetic moods; admitted, if admitted at all, in seasons of sickness, feeble-mindedness, and disabling sorrow. Yea, that which was sent to be a spirit of ceaseless joy and hope, within the heart of man, is treated as the enemy of happiness, and the murderer of enjoyment; and eyed askance, as the remembrancer of death and the very messenger of hell!

"Oh! if books had but tongues to speak their wrongs, then might this book well exclaim-Hear, O heavens! and give ear, O earth! I came from the love and embrace

of God, and mute Nature, to whom I brought no boon, did me rightful homage. To man I came, and my words were to the children of men. I disclosed to you the mysteries of hereafter, and the secrets of the throne of God. I set open to you the gates of salvation, and the way of eternal life, hitherto unknown. Nothing in heaven did I withhold from your hope and ambition; and upon your earthly lot I and consolation. But ye requited me with poured the full horn of Divine Providence no welcome, ye held no festivity on my arrival: Ye sequester me from happiness and heroism, closeting me with sickness and infirmity; ye make not of me, nor use me for your guide to wisdom and prudence, but press me into a place in your last of duties, and withdraw me to a mere corner of your time; and most of ye set me at nought and utterly disregarded me. I came, the fullness of the knowledge of God; angels delighted in my company, and desired to dive into my secrets. ye, mortals, place masters over me, subjecting me to the discipline and dogmatism of men, and tutoring me in your schools of learning. I came, not to be silent in your dwellings, but to speak welfare to you and to your children. I came to rule, and my throne to set up in the hearts of men. Mine ancient residence was the bosom of God; no residence will I have but the soul of an immortal."

But

It must be quite needless for us to criticise the above. It has all the worst

qualities of the Chalmerian school-its vulgarity and its fustian. But the introduction of such a bold figure, as the Bible speaking from the desk with a human tongue, at the very threshold of a sermon, shews such a profound ignorance of all the principles of oratorical composition, that we may well smile to hear this sermon styled, as if par excellence, an Oration. This is an absurdity far, very far, beyond Chalmers's wildest flight. And then to complete the thing, Mr Irving enforces, a page or two after, the propriety of giving prompt and undivided attention to the calls of religious duty-by what argument, think you?-Why, by this, that, when the King asks a man to dine with him, he is " held disengaged, though preoccupied with a thousand appointments!" This is for the imaginative classes of the public. What was "Lieutenant-Colonel to the Earl of Mar," to the like of this?

As another specimen of that extravagance, which totally destroys the best intentions in a person addressing rational men, we must give the following short paragraph from the same

sermon:

"Go, visit a desolate widow with consolation, and help, and fatherhood of her orphan children do it again and again and your presence, the sound of your approaching footstep, the soft utterance of your voice, the very mention of your name -shall come to dilate her heart with a ful

ness which defies her tongue to utter, but speaks by the tokens of a swimming eye, and clasped hands, and fervent ejaculations to Heaven upon your head! No less copious acknowledgment to God, the author of our well-being and the father of our better hopes, ought we to feel when his Word

discloseth to us the excesses of his love. Though a veil be now cast over the Majesty which speaks, it is the voice of the Eternal which we hear, coming in soft cadences to win our favour, yet omnipotent as the voice of the thunder, and overpowering as the rushing of many waters. And though the veil of the future intervene between our hand and the promised goods, still are they from His lips, who speaks and it is done, who commands and all things stand fast. With no less emotion, therefore, should this book be opened, than if, like him in the Apocalypse, you saw the voice which spake ;* or like him in the trance, you were into the third trance translated, companying and communing with the realities of glory, which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived.

"Far and foreign from such an opened and awakened bosom is that cold and formal hand which is generally laid upon the Sacred Volume; that unfeeling and unimpressive tone with which its accents are pronounced; and that listless and incurious ear into which its blessed sounds are received. How can you, thus unimpassioned, hold communion with themes in which everything awful, vital, and endearing, do meet together! Why is not curiosity, curiosity ever hungry, on edge to know the doings and intentions of Jehovah, King of Kings ?"

Now what good is there in thus pushing the best ideas to the verge of absurdity? Will anybody of sound mind listen to a man who says, that every time he opens the book of Revelations, it is his duty to feel the same degree of emotion with which the apostle, in Patmos, saw the heavens opened, and heard the angel of God speak to him the mysteries of futurity? St John himself could not feel the same degree of emotion as this in opening the book which he himself had written even a month afterwards. As well might Mr Irving tell the Duke of Wellington, that he ought to feel the same way when he turns over the history of the battle of Waterloo, as he did when he had the first glimpse of Buonaparte's columns on that great day. As well might he say, that we ought all to feel the same way in reading of, that we should in witnessing with our own eyes, a horrible murder. Such rant as this can have no tendency but to create suspicion in those, who hear a man of " gigantic stature," and with a beard on his chin, we suppose, uttering it. Does Mr Irving mean to say, that he himself sees THE SUN and the green fields every day with the same emotion, wherewith a man, suddenly delivered from blindness, opens his eyes upon the beauty and the grandeur of nature?These are just the sort of things that Whitfield dealt in-they are by no means adapted for being printed. But, to be sure, the book is meant for "the imaginative classes."

Nothing can be more painful than quoting, for the absurdity of language and style, passages which, of course, contain much serious matter for thought; but it must be done. We want to prove the servile Chalmerianism of Irving; and we think if we quoted no more, the following would be enough for our purpose.

* "See a voice!" We have heard of pigs seeing the wind before, but this is new.

"Methinks the affections of men are fallen into the yellow leaf. Of your poets which charm the world's ear, who is he that inditeth a song unto his God? Some will tune their harps to sensual pleasures, and by the enchantment of their genius, well nigh commend their unholy themes to the imagination of saints.* Others, to the high and noble sentiments of the heart, will sing of domestic joys and happy unions, casting around sorrow the radiancy of virtue, and bodying forth, in undying forms, the short-lived visions of joy. Others have enrolled themselves the high-priests of mute Nature's charms, enchanting her echoes with their minstrelsy, and peopling her solitudes with the bright creatures of their fancy. But when, since the days of the blind master of English song, hath any poured forth a lay worthy of the Christian theme? Nor in philosophy, the palace of the soul,' have been more mindful of their Maker. The flowers of the garden and the herbs of the field have their unwearied devotees, crossing the ocean, wayfaring in the desert, and making devout pilgrimages to every region of nature, for offerings to their patron muse. The rocks, from their residences among the clouds to their deep rests in the dark bowels of the earth, have a most bold and venturous priesthood; who see in their rough and flinty faces a more delectable image to adore than in the revealed countenance of God. And the political welfare of the world is a very Moloch, who can at any time command his hecatomb of human victims. But the revealed sapience of God, to which the harp of David and the prophetic lyre of Isaiah were strung, the prudence of God which the wisest of men coveted after, preferring it to every gift which Heaven could confer-and the eternal Intelligence himself in human form, and the unction of the Holy One which abideth,-these the common heart of man hath forsaken, and refused to be charmed withal.

"I testify, that there ascendeth not from earth a Hosannah of her children to bear witness in the ear of the upper regions, to the wonderful manifestations of her God! From a few scattered hamlets, in a small portion of her wide territory, a small voice ascendeth like the voice of one crying in the wilderness. But to the service of our general Preserver there is no concourse, from Dan unto Beersheba, of our people; the greater part of whom, after two thousand years of apostolic commission, know not the testimonies of our God; and the

multitude of those who do, reject or despise them!

"But to return from this lamentation, which may God hear, who doth not disre gard the cries of his afflicted people!" &c.

More consummate affectation-more babyish tinsel, were never, we venture to say, invented for the benefit of the "imaginative classes." We confess, that, regarding the last sentence as part of a printed book, and of a book written solely and expressly to be printed, there is something to us really all but blasphemous in the combination of its phrases. The sermon concludes thus:

"Mistake us not, for we steer in a narrow, very narrow channel, with rocks of popular prejudice on every side. While we thus invocate to the reading of the Word, the highest strains of the human soul, mistake us not as derogating from the office of the Spirit of God. Far be it from any Christian, much farther from any Christian pastor, to withdraw from God the honour which is everywhere his due, but there, most of all his due, where the human mind laboured alone for thousands of years, and laboured with no successviz. the regeneration of itself, and its restoration to the lost semblance of the Divinity.-Oh! let him be reverently inquired after, devoutly waited on, and most thankfully acknowledged in every step of progress from the soul's fresh awakening out of her dark oblivious sleep-even to her ultimate attainment upon earth, and full accomplishment for heaven. And that there may be a fuller choir of awakened men to advance his honour and glory here on earth-and hereafter in heaven abovelet the saints bestir themselves like angels, and the ministers of religion like archangels strong!-And now at length let us have a demonstration made of all that is noble in thought, and generous in action, and devoted in piety, for bestirring this lethargic age, and breaking the bands of hell, and redeeming the whole world to the service of its God and King!

"As He doth know this to be the desire and aim of the preceding discourse, so may he prosper it to the salvation of many souls, that to his poor servant, covered over with iniquities, may derive the forgiveness and honour of those who turn many from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to the service of the living God."+

Have you forgot Cowper?

Does he mean Don Juan ? The verb derive is constantly used by Mr Irving in this totally obsolete sense-we presume it lingers as a Gallowgatism. In like taste, he always talks about "souls" being "wrapt," when the meaning is rapt. Why not wrapture too? And this is the man who will preach like nobody but Cicero who will write for nobody but the "learned and imaginative."

"Now at length!" as if, forsooth, the conclusion of Mr Irving's first printed sermon were to be a new era in the history of Christian England!

The following passage is another attempt at the soaring style of Chalmers. We confess, we have heard the Doctor speak things not much less wildly worded; but most certainly he has never printed anything quite so bad in that way.

"Obey the Scriptures or you perish.You may despise the honour done you by the Majesty above, you may spurn the sovereignty of Almighty God, you may revolt from creation's universal rule, to bow

li.

before its Creator, and stand in momentary rebellion against his ordinances; his overtures of mercy you may cast contempt on, and crucify afresh the royal personage who bears them; and you may riot in your centious liberty for a while, and make game of his indulgence and long-suffering. But come at length it will, when Revenge shall array herself to go forth, and Anguish shall attend her, and from the wheels of their chariot ruin and dismay shall shoot far and wide among the enemies of the King, whose desolation shall not tarry, and whose destruction, as the wing of the whirlwind, shall be swifthopeless as the conclusion of eternity and the reversion of doom. Then around the fiery concave of the wasteful pit, the clang of grief shall ring, and the flinty heart which repelled tender mercy shall strike its fangs into its proper bosom; and the soft and gentle spirit which dissolved in voluptuous pleasures, shall dissolve in weeping sorrows and outbursting lamentations; and the gay glory oftime SHALL DEPART; and sportful liberty shall be bound for ever in the chain of obdurate necessity. The green earth, with all her blooming beauty, and bowers of peace, SHALL DEPART. The morning and evening salutations of kinsmen SHALL DEPART, and the ever-welcome voice of friendship, and the tender whispering of full-hearted affection, SHALL DEPART, for the sad discord of weeping and wailing, and gnashing of teeth. And the tender names of children, and father and mother, and wife and husband, with the communion of domestic love, and mutual affection, and the inward touches of natural instinct, which family compact, when uninvaded by discord, WRAPS the live-long day into one swell of tender emotion, making earth's lowly scenes worthy of heaven itself-All, all shall pass away; and, instead, shall come the level lake that burneth, and the solitary dungeon, and the desolate bosom, and the throes and tossings of horror and hopelessness, and the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched.

""Tis written, 'tis written, 'tis sealed of heaven, and a few years shall reveal it all.

Be assured it is even so to happen to the despisers of holy writ.”

What hammering of epithets! what conglomeration of figures!-what helpless poluphloisboioism!

The greater part of the volume is occupied with " For Judgment to come, an Argument in Nine Parts." It is plentifully garnished with dulcia vitia of the same kind with these-but really we can see nothing that deserves the name of novelty, either in the general strain, or in the particular illustrations of the argument; and therefore we shall not at present occupy our readers with it. We have no sort of doubt, that many of the sections might produce a very considerable effect, if powerfully delivered from the pulpit

and we have no doubt, that many of the people, who are accustomed to sermon-reading, may be pleased with them also as a variety-but as for this being the sort of thing to introduce religious reading into favour among new, and, forsooth, higher classes of readers (we deny that the higher classes are less religiously disposed, or less acquainted with the literature of religion, than any others-we say this once for all)-the Rev. Edward Irving must excuse us, if we totally dif

fer from him.

We must not, however, omit to state very seriously, that although we make no objections to the general strain of Mr Irving's theology-we think it is extravagant, but we let that pass for the present we do think there is a tone of bold levity, perhaps not meant to be such, in very many of what he probably conceives to be among his most felicitous and original which we are sure can have no tenpassages throughout this Argument, dency, except to excite great and unnecessary disgust; more especially among those classes of persons, for whom his work has been, according to his own story, got up. Chalmers, his master, has been lauded till all the world is well nigh nauseated, for his courage in illustrating the mysteries of religion, by examples and allusions of a sublunar and familiar character. Be it so, that Dr Chalmers has often done something of this kind with great and praise-worthy success. But if so, the reading of Mr Irving's book has certainly impressed us very deeply with a sense of the extreme delicacy requisite in the use of this style, and

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