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original uprightness, under the various influences brought to bear upon it. And the infusion of grace, or of the Divine nature, into the renewed heart of the believer, may seem to supersede the necessity of law, by imparting a sort of constitutional holiness, such as, naturally and by the ordinary action of moral causes, must ensure right volitions and right actions. For still, man would be as God, or he would dream of a perfection resolving itself into the idea of absorption into Deity. But if distinct personality is to be preserved, and the personal relation of the individual man to God, law must continue to intervene between them. It belongs to God alone to act from his own nature, or, in scriptural language, " for his own name's sake." Man must be under law. It is true, indeed, that as a strait fence to restrain from excess, and a stern minister of terror to threaten vengeance, the law is "made for the disobedient," and they who are the sons of God are freed from the law, in this secondary aspect of mere force, which transgression has compelled it to assume. But in its primary aspect of authority, it resumes its empire over the disenthralled will, whose very freedom consists in the capacity of thus owning its authority. The truth is, as we have seen, that, in the other view of it, in which it appears simply as a restraining and avenging power, law acts on the will, not by its own weight, but through the influence of motives. It appeals to the inner man through his interested desires or fears. It is the privilege of faith, rejoicing in acceptance through free grace, and in the gift of the free Spirit, to be delivered from the bondage of the law, as a law of constraint and condemnation, that it may recognise it in its higher and purer form, as the law of authority in the kingdom of Him whose reign is now gladly welcomed, and therefore, to all the subjects of that kingdom, the law of love and of liberty.

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Not a few interesting Theological questions here present themselves for consideration; and we are not sure but that important line of distinction might be traced between two Theological schools, or two different modes of stating the Evangelical system; the one, that which would represent the sinner as caught up or apprehended, as a part in the mighty scheme of grace, to be carried on by its machinery, and perfected for glory ; the other, that which would deal with him more as a being of an independent will, and recognise more directly his call to personal exertion. Both of these modifications of the explicitly scheme of grace imply an acknowledgment of the sovereignty of God; but in the one case, it is the sovereignty of his decrees, or his will and power, that is most prominently in view; in the other, it is the sovereignty of his law: in the former, it is his Sovereignty as the great first cause; in the latter, it is his sove

reignty as the Ruler. Perhaps Edwards might be cited to illustrate the former of these views. Never man so thoroughly surrendered himself to the absolute and sovereign will of the Supreme; never man entered with more entire acquiescence and self-abandonment into the councils of the All-wise; counting it his safety and highest honour to be embraced, as an individual, in the infinite ocean of Divine love-to be apprehended and borne along in the march of that Divine providence and gracious purpose of salvation which, issuing from the everlasting Throne, before time was, sweeps into its ample tide the chosen of the Father, and bears them on its bosom to the haven of their eternal rest. On the other hand, were we to select an example of a somewhat different style of Christian thought, recognising, equally with the former, the Divine sovereignty, but placing it somewhat more upon the footing of law, and of the appeal which law makes to the activity and independence of the will, as well as to the loyalty of the conscience-we might point, perhaps, to the recorded experience of the great Reformer, in his prolonged mental struggle preceding his spiritual emancipation, and still more to that practical turn of mind which forms not the least characteristic feature of Luther, whether as a Christian man, or a Theologian. A most interesting study thus presents itself before us, not only tending to illustrate the wisdom of God in fitting his servants, by a diversity of natural tendencies and acquired habits of thought, for their several missions in his kingdom, but opening up a variety of views, connected with the application of Theology to Ethics, which well deserve to be followed out. In fact, it would almost seem as if there were room for a new science, or, at least, for a new division of this branch of the science of mind. For the inquiry respecting the relation in which ethics stand to theology, is distinct from the converse or counterpart inquiry, respecting the right application of theology to ethics. To the former, which may be called the theology of ethics, the principal attention of ethico-theological writers has been directed; and since the revival and expansion of Butler's views by Dr. Chalmers, that branch may be regarded as nearly exhausted. The latter, which may be denominated the ethics of theology, is the proper field of the Christian moralist, in which, both as regards its laying out and its cultivation, much remains to be done.

* See D'Aubigné, vol. i.

+ The theology of Paul is a combination of both. The first chapter of Ephesians, and the seventh and eighth chapters of Romans, may, in this view, be compared.

ART. IX.-The Perils of the Nation. An Appeal to the Legislature, the Clergy, and the Higher and Middle Classes. London. 1843. The Aristocracy of Britain and the Laws of Entail and Primogeniture judged by recent French Writers: being Selections from the Works of Passy, Beaumont, O'Connor, Sismondi, Buret, Guizot, Dupin, Say, Blanqui, and Mignet. London. 1844.

THE state of the country is certainly one of peril-of great and imminent peril. While wealth and the external means of happiness are accumulating, to an enormous extent, in one portion of society, masses at the opposite extremity are becoming every year more oppressed-more subject to want and misery -less able to make a livelihood by unwearied toil, and are daily sinking into lower depths of ignorance, degradation, and vice. The exposure which has lately been made of the physical and moral condition of large classes of the working population, is absolutely appalling; and the evil is advancing with fearful rapidity. The yawning gulf which separates the upper and lower portions of society is daily widening, and across it, they are regarding each other with ever-increasing mistrust; the one full of jealousy and dread-the other of hatred and defiance. The aristocracy, in their fear, are exerting a sterner and more grinding domination, to repress an apprehended effort to throw it off altogether; and the democracy are harbouring an intenser spirit of revenge. In the most degraded portion of the population, all moral restraint is lost; and even the ties of family, which are in the social world what adhesive attraction is in the material, and without which society itself would be dissolved, are nearly destroyed. If some conducting means be not provided, by which peacefully to restore things to a more natural condition, to render the immense wealth of the upper classes more available for keeping up and rewarding the industry of the lower to stop their downward progress, and raise them to a higher level, and so remove the causes of mutual jealousy and hate, and prepare the way for a kindlier and more healthful tone of feeling among all ranks of men, the equilibrium will, in all probability, ere long be forcibly restored, by a storm which may, at the same time, cast down to the earth the most firmly founded institutions of the country. The call for a remedy is pressingly urgent; but as yet an insuperable barrier has been interposed to any

attempt to provide one, by the system of party policy on which the government of this country has hitherto been carried on. We are not about to decry the existence of political parties in a state, or the system of carrying on government by means of them. In a free country, and under a popular constitution, men must combine in order to act efficiently. It is not to the existence of parties that we object, but to the leading principle by which all parties regulate their conduct. This principle has too exclusively been the promotion of mere party objects, the advancement of the interests of their members, and the conciliating of those classinterests on which they choose mainly to lean for support, at the expense of the interests of the community at large. As "in war itself, the object is not war," so party ought not to be the object of party; and until the principle be adopted, of unhesitatingly and unflinchingly sacrificing personal, class, and party interests to the general weal, no real progress-no effectual commencement even-can be made in the only course that can save the country.

One main obstacle to such a principle being honestly and truly adopted by political parties, as a rule of conduct, is presented by the conviction with which political men appear to be so strongly impressed, that it is impossible for any party to maintain itself in power by means of a government conducted simply with a view to the general good. This we believe to be an error. Unless the extension of the franchise effected by the Reform Bill, have utterly and absolutely failed of its purpose-which we should be unwilling yet to allow a preponderating voice in determining ultimately who shall govern the country is vested in the great body of the middle classes; a number of whom, sufficient always to turn the scale between contending parties, are and ever will be found to be so far non-partisan, as to be actuated by a paramount desire to exercise their political influence for securing to the country good government. On the sound sense and right feeling of this body we confidently rely, as affording security to any administration that their steady and hearty support would be preserved by a continued course of government, patriotic and just, and simply and honestly carried on for the general good of the nation at large. Statesmen, in general, do not yet believe this. Seeing, in the more immediate sphere in which they are called to act, so much of self-seekingsuch continued struggling for personal interests-such indifference to the common weal when put in competition with party ends, and so constant a pretence of serving the state when the real object is thereby to serve the individual, that they have little or no faith in the existence, in any considerable number of

the constituency, of an honest and simple-hearted desire for the good of the country, and a willingness, for its sake, to support that party or administration which shall most disinterestedly seek to advance it.

This want of confidence is undeserved. Even throwing out of view the higher motives which lead men-not trained in a course of party ambition and political intrigue-to strive after the true interests of their country, though at a sacrifice to themselves, the advancement of the interests of the great body of the middle classes must, in most cases, mainly depend on the general prosperity and welfare of the country; and although difference of opinion will arise as to how far particular measures are calculated to promote this, yet, free from the undue bias occasioned by selfish objects, such difference will be much slighter and of rarer occurrence than is generally supposed. What men require in order to secure their support to a government, is a confidence in the honesty of their purpose in their preferring the good of the country to their own personal or party ends in their framing every measure with reference to its bearing on the former object rather than on the latter.

If, therefore, those classes to whom we have referred found themselves under a government on which they could rely-in which they could place confidence-which, though occasionally, it might be, falling into error, undoubtedly sought, and on the whole generally attained, the main object of advancing the wellbeing and happiness of the people, they would, we firmly believe, rally round it with a cordiality and steadiness which, except on the supposition that the power of the aristocracy is still such as to make them independent of the popular voice, would secure its stability. It is not love of change, on the part of the constituency, which has of late served to render governments insecure in their tenure of power, but deficiency, on the part of the governments, in those qualifications which alone can command confidence. If this be so, it is of the utmost importance that it should be pressed on the public attention, with the view of preventing, if possible, recurrence to means of remedying the evil, (without trial of the true method of cure) which might tend to produce, either, on the one hand, anarchy and disorder, or, on the other, a grinding oligarchical domination, that would infallibly issue in a fearful revolution.

Should, indeed, the views above expressed prove unfoundedshould the support to be secured to an administration by means of good government alone not be sufficient to counterbalance that of the combination in favour of class-interests, the prospect for the country would be fatal and alarming; a terrible convulsion would be inevitable, and probably near at hand. It is per

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