some of the changes which he introduced in certain established ceremonies. Not that Luther at that time meditated an innovation upon the customary observances, or broached any alarming opinions; but he was illustrating more and more the doctrines so essential to all, of repentance, the remission of sins, faith, and salvation by the cross of Christ." one From the men, perhaps, we are are at least sufficiently removed, those of us especially who have no personal connexions with either of their systems, to estimate their relative characters with fairness. If some of the traits on side of the picture (that which Mr. Southey could willingly cast into shade) be not thus perpetuated, their fastfading colours seem to threaten their being for ever lost. Wesley, with the exception of his credulity, was the greater man; Whitfield the more consistent Christian. The one boldly and most disinterestedly thought and acted for himself all his days, and discovered talents for legislation and for government that would have raised him to eminence in any profession and in any country; but he began to teach Christianity according to his own settled and final convictions on the subject, and to reprove the want of it in other teachers, long before he was himself established in its elements-before he was a Christian. The other, of no extraordinary powers of mind, first learned to apply to his own heart all that ever he contended for as the vital doctrines of the faith-was convinced and converted to them in the way in which he preached conversion — and then he taught them. Wesley was the greater divine and more accomplished scholar; better learned in his Aristotle, in biblical criticism, and in all that invaluable class of books which the Christian minister may and ought to read around his bible: perhaps he was equally well acquainted with his rival with the letter of the Scriptures themselves; but Whitfield was the greater and more efficient Christian preacher; if not more at home in the bible, he was less from home with regard to it; he had to depend more on “the bible, and the bible only." Witness the clear, convincing, but unimpassioned addresses, the guarded syllogisms, and original phraseology of the one; and the prominence of Scripture phraseology, the paucity of almost all other peculiarities of style, but, above all, the yet extant recollections of the manner of the other, when he would "Point the word of promise at the heart." What is the marvel of the entire comparison in our view is, that the more logical was the more credulous man, while the orator who most addressed the feelings was least deluded by them. We should not omit to notice, that a brother bard of Mr. Southey, who better understood the characters of these great men, CowPER, has devoted two exquisite passages of his poems to the delineation of them*. Mr. Southey is evidently partial to Wesley :- he admires, but he neither loves nor venerates him; he reminds us of Erasmus's good opinion of Luther. "God had sent him to reform mankind," he owned, " and the man's sentiments were true; but his course was invidious, because he at once attacks the bellies of the monks and the diadem of the Pope. It grieved him that a man of his fine parts should be rendered desperate by the mad cries and bellowings of the monks." The poet laureat may not thank us for the compliment; but we see very much of his temper respecting Mr. Wesley, as a whole, in the epistles of Erasmus to the Elector of Saxony, and others, respecting Luther. What said the reformer to all this? Just what a sensible Methodist might say to our biographer. "I shall not complain of you for having behaved yourself as a man estranged from us, to keep fair with the Papists, our enemies. Nor was I much offended, that in your printed books, to gain their favour, or to soften their rage, you have censured us with too much acrimony. We saw that the Lord had not conferred upon you the discernment, the courage, and the resolution to join with us -and therefore we dare not exact from you that which surpasses your strength and capacity. We even bear with your weakness, and honour that portion of the gift of God which is in yout." For Mr. Whitfield, Mr. Southey has not even the cold and inconsistent admiration he expresses towards Wesley; and from Calvinism he is bigotedly averse. Having quoted from Mr. Wesley what he calls the sum of all that Zanchius and Toplady had said on predestination, our impartial biographer adds "This is the doctrine of Calvinism, for which DIABOLISM would be a better name; and in the WORST and BLOODIEST IDOLATRY that ever defiled the earth, there is nothing so horrid, so monstrous, so impious as this." [Vol. i. p. 371.] And this is "neither extenuating nor exaggerating any thing;" this is Mr. Southey's "accuracy" in reporting on a controverted subject; Mr. Southey's "sense of duty!!" We * See the character of Leuconomus in his poem of "Hope." lift up both our hands, with Whitfield and with Bishop Horsley*, to protest against the revival of such phraseology in religious controversies. Who can reason with it? What obscurity in the subject does it ever help to clear up, or whose understanding? Whom does it prepare to abandon error? What heart to revive truth or improve it? When our author shall be prepared to answer these questions, we shall not be afraid to break a lance with him in defence of Calvinism. Mr. Southey is not equal to the task of becoming the historian of Methodism. He has neither eyes nor ears for the moral phenomena involved in it, but as matters of human policy and present national good. Hence he sees in it stranger portents than ever Shakspeare described :-now he courts it, now he fears it;—now he believes all the ghostly knockings that were heard in the parsonage of the elder Wesley to be supernatural-anon he discards the agency of the Holy Spirit of God in renewing our nature, and "will not believe it, though one rose from the dead." Hence he sees those opposite moral and physical qualities in Methodism, that no other man ever saw at work together-" high fever” and close "ambition;" "austere notions," and the love of "cordials;" "a dangerous doctrine," which yet opened "the living spring of piety" in the heart: and hence Methodism, strange to say, is sometimes "a dangerous disease," and sometimes" intolerable physic." Mr. Southey is quite clear, that when Methodism, in London, had reached its highest point of extravagance, it produced upon "susceptible subjects" a bodily disease, "peculiar and infectious:" he pronounces with all the gravity of a physician upon the pathology of this malady, and prescribes for it with all the confidence of an empiric. These volumes altogether form a sort of gallery of portraits and caricatures of Methodism, grotesquely arranged; and the latter largely predominating. Their merits are bright, good colouring, and excellent frames. The artist confessedly works from other paintings, and never from the life. We should fear, indeed, that he would tremble too much for *"If ever you should be provoked," says the bishop in his last charge to the clergy of St. Asaph, "to take a part in these disputes, of all things I entreat you to avoid, what is now become very common, acrimonious abuse of Calvinism and of Calvin. At least take special care, before you aim your shaft at Calvinism, that you know what is Calvinism, and what is not; lest, when you mean to fall foul of Calvinism, you should unwarily attack something more sacred, and of a higher origin!" business before a real Wesley; and even under a Whitfield, be possibly inclined to pray rather than to paint. Yet some characteristic features are always retained; and he rarely sins malignantly either against truth or taste. In circles where a living Methodist would be thought to spread the contagion of which Mr. Southey speaks, the work will give some notion of the capabilities and possible influences of such an unhappy being;-to intelligent religious men, it will communicate no information, and little pleasure. [The unexpected delay which has occurred in the appearance of the second volume of Dr. Smith's Scripture Testimony to the Messiah, prevents our noticing that work until our next Number, as we were unwilling to separate the two volumes, and hope by that time to be able to give a review of both.] AMERICAN LITERATURE AND INTELLIGENCE. WHEN we announced, in our Prospectus, that our connexions in America led us very confidently to expect important assistance from that interesting quarter of the globe, we felt persuaded that our trans-atlantic friends could abundantly enable us to redeem the pledge we had given to the British public, of making them better and more accurately acquainted with the history-the legislature-the literature-the manners -the actual condition, moral and religious, of that great branch of the same common family which peoples a large portion of another hemisphere, than mutual prejudices, and the want of a common channel of information, had hitherto permitted them to become. It is, therefore, with unfeigned satisfaction we acknowledge, that our most sanguine expectations have been more than gratified, by the promptitude and liberality with which our correspondents there have supplied us with intelligence, with which we could easily and advantageously fill a far larger space of our journal than we can allot to it, though we have considerably extended the original limits of this department of our work. Whilst we carefully suppress every thing that is personal or complimentary in their communications, we should be doing injustice to the warmth with which some of the most eminent of the literary characters and philanthropists of America, laymen as well as clergymen, have hailed the appearance of a publication, one of whose avowed objects is the furtherance of a good understanding between the two countries, did we not give one extract, by way of a specimen, from the letters we have received in commendation of our design: "I read your prospectus of The Investigator,"" says a clergyman of Boston, whose name would do honour to any journal, "with deep interest, and have since read it to several literary men. It is most gratifying to us on this side of the Atlantic, to learn that such a work is to commence among you, on two accounts." The first we pass over, for a reason above stated; the second is "We have also full assurance, an assurance most gratifying to our national feelings, that justice will be done to the learning and piety of our country." "The independent church of England,” he afterwards remarks," the congregational church in New England, the Presbyterian church of our middle and southern States, and the church of Scotland, (in its better state), have nothing to divide, but every thing to unite them. It is the earnest wish of our most distinguished clergy in New England, that a more free and familiar intercourse was kept up between you and us, that we might know each other better, and love each other more." It is only, we are persuaded, for want of knowing each other better, that our esteemed correspondent does not add to this list a very large portion of the established clergy of England, partakers of the like precious faith, and fellowlabourers with their dissenting brethren in every work of charity and labour of love. We, however, know, and "esteem them very highly for their work's sake;" and it shall not be our fault, if they are not known and highly esteemed in the new, as they deservedly are in the old world. Our friends have not, however, satisfied themselves with commendations of our plan, and wishing us good speed in carrying it into execution. Short as is the interval since we first solicited their aid, in furnishing materials for the work we had projected, our table is literally covered with their communications; and we must hasten, without further preface, to select and arrange the most interesting and recent intelligence with which their kindness has furnished us. The STATE OF RELIGION, first demands our attention; and on this point we are enabled to lay before our readers |