enthusiasm at first produced; and the issue is often found in the adoption of those Antinomian heresies, Which would enclose the human mind in a perfect envelop of abstractions, such as may effectively defend it from the importunate sense of responsibility, or obligation; and such as shall render him who wears it a passive spectator of kis own destinies. The doctrine of fate was seized upon by the Stoics, and is taken up by the Antinomians, because, better than any other principle, it serves the purposes of this peculiar species of illusory delectation.-P. 88. We must not close our analysis of this section without noticing our author's expectation that "the many-coloured forms of ancient heresy having disappeared," and "the fields of error having been fully reaped,” and “an elaborate discussion of all the principal questions of theology having taken place," (p. 95,) "existing differences of opinion are drawing round a single controversy," soon to be decided, touching the authority of Holy Scripture!" (p. 96.) Our author divides the Christian world into three parties upon this great question : 1. The Romish Church, which would make the Scriptures subordinate to the priest. 2. Those sceptical Protestants, who affirm the subordination of Scripture to the dogmas of natural theology; i. e. to every man's notion of what religion ought to be. 3. Those who bow with intelligent conviction to the absolute authority of the word, and know nothing of theology that is not affirmed or fairly implied therein. Our author believes that the differences existing within this latter party are fast vanishing away; and that an auspicious era is about to open upon the Church, When the substantial sin of schism shall no longer be incurred and vindicated on the ground of obscure historical questions, fit only to amuse the idle hours of the antiquary.-P. 97. Our eyes, we confess in serious sadness, are too dim to see these wished-for signs of universal love; our hearts are too sorrowful to be elated with these cheering hopes. The signs of the times portend rather, in our judgment, "lamentation, and mourning, and woe." "The Enthusiasm of Prophetical Interpretation," is the subject of our author's fifth section. The soundest understandings have sometimes lost, in these inquiries, their wonted discretion; no marvel, then, that men of strong imaginations, and feeble judgment, have bewildered themselves in this labyrinth of darkness. At several periods of church history, and again in our own times, multitudes have drunk to intoxication of the phial of prophetic interpretation; and, amid imagined peals of the mystic thunder, have become deaf to the voice both of common sense and of duty. The piety of such persons-if piety it may be called, has made them hunger and thirst, not for "the bread and water of life," but for the news of the political world. In such instances it may be confidently affirmed, previously to a hearing of the argument, that, even if the interpretation were true, it has become entangled with some knotted thread of egregious error.— P. 101. That we agree cordially with our author in his opinion of the impropriety of dogmatizing in prophetic lucubrations, we may shew him, by reference to Vol. X. of the CHRISTIAN REMEMBRANCER, p. 611; that we as cordially condemn what he has said relative to the study of unfulfilled prophecy, we may shew him by reference to Vol. XII. of our Miscellany, p. 415; and we still assert (perhaps "with prosing mediocrity") of "these curious speculations, touching the unaccomplished purposes of God, that they now form no legitimate part of the sound interpretation of prophecy; the only safe expositor of those mysterious legends being historical facts." That we must enter our protest against our author's hypothesis (if we rightly construe his meaning) of the second advent of Christ, he will easily see, by consulting Vol. X. of the CHRISTIAN REMEMBRANCER, p. 613; for we still think the personal reign of our Redeemer upon earth, "a notion utterly irreconcilable with the tenor of Holy Scripture," and an idle tale,*"“ the fruitful source of heresy and nonsense.” * We have felt it to be our duty, again, to condemn what our author seems to state upon the enigmatic idiom of prophecy, as if it were essential to the nature of an enigma, that it should admit of more than one explication;" (p. 109,) or in other words, that "an enigma is designedly so framed as to tempt and to allow a diversity of hypothetical explanations;" nor can we conceive how "AN ERRONEOUS INTERPRETATION of a symbolical prediction, which remains yet unfulfilled, can serve important purposes in the excitement of pious hope!" (P. iii.) 66 66 An enigma admits but of one explication. That explication is purposely concealed in ambiguity: not, however, as a bonus for "competing solutions," but, in the case of prophetic enigmas, that they may be interpreted by the event alone, and "God's providence be there manifested thereby to the world."+ The event, the one event foretold, (we are writing, it should be observed, with special reference to chronological prophecy,) is the sure means of rightly interpreting these predictions; and if "each prophetic symbol," according to Faber, whose opinion we are inclined to adopt, " have its proper definite meaning," it should seem a strange hypothesis to maintain that "it is designedly so framed as to tempt and to allow a diversity of hypothetical explanations." But one key will fit the intricate wards of a good lock: but one solution can unriddle an enigma; how, then, can it be accurate to speak of" several admissible modes of solution?" (P. 110.) True, men may hold different opinions upon the See CHRISTIAN REMEMBRANCER, Vol. XII. p. 416-418; and Vol. XII. p. 270. meaning of certain prophetic declarations; and dogmatism in such dark studies is peculiarly offensive: yet, in the chronology of unfulfilled prophecy, there is but one date that can be applied to predictions of this sort, just as, in the records of history, but one event can be construed to be the theme of any one particular detail. What that date may be, only time can tell; ere the arrival of which era," all dogmatical confidence of interpretation" is, indeed, most severely to be condemned, not less than the fond endeavour now so common, attach the special marks of prophecy to every passing event." "to It is this attempt (writes our author) which sets enthusiasm in a flame.... There is scarcely any degree of sobriety of temper which can secure the mind against fanatical restlessness, when once the habit has been formed of collating daily the newspapers and the prophets; and the man who, with a feeble judgment and an excitable imagination, is constantly catching at political intelligence-apocalypse in hand-walks on the verge of insanity-or worse, of infidelity ..... For a man to proclaim himself the champion of a particular hypothesis, and to employ it as he might an explicit prediction, is to affront the Spirit of prophecy by contemning the chosen style of His announcements. And what shall be said of the audacity of him, who, with no other commission in his hand than such as any man may please to frame for himself, usurps the awful style of the seer, pronounces the doom of nations, hurls thunders at thrones, and worse than thisputs the credit of Christianity at pawn in the hand of infidelity to be lost beyond recovery, if not redeemed on a day specified by the fanatic for the verification of his word!-Pp. 113, 114, 118. All this is excellent; and if the writers in the "Morning Watch," and the minister of the Caledonian chapel, would calmly read the passages now quoted, we might cease, perhaps, to be disgusted with the follies of the first, and to be shocked with the blasphemous exhibitions of the other; to whom, and to all such popular preachers (of whom we know many) as indulge themselves in prophetic sermons, we sincerely recommend the concluding paragraph of the able section before us. It must be evident to every calm mind, that the discussion of questions confessedly so obscure, and upon which the evidence of Scripture is limited, and of uncertain explication, is absolutely improper to the pulpit. The several points of the Catholic faith afford themes enough for public instruction. But matters of learned debate are extraneous to that faith;-they are no ingredients in the bread of life, which is the only article committed to the hands of the teacher for distribution among the multitude. What are the private and hypothetical opinions of a public functionary to those whom he is to teach the principles of the common Christianity? And if these doubtful opinions implicate inquiries which the unlearned can never prosecute, a species of imposition is implied in the attempt to urge them upon simple hearers. It is truly a sorry triumph that he obtains who wins by declamation and violence the voices of a crowd in favour of opinions, which men of learning and modesty neither defend nor impugn but with diffidence. The press is the proper organ of abstruse controversy.-P. 122. But we must quit this attractive field, and direct our notice to the remaining portion of the work, upon the first moiety of which we have been induced to bestow so much attention. The "Enthusiastic Abuses of the Doctrine of a Particular Providence" afford our author a favourable opportunity of displaying his talents; and he has, therefore dedicated his sixth section to its consideration. Feeling, however, that we should do but little justice to him, and afford still less satisfaction to our readers, by a superficial notice of his essay confined to the usual limits of one article, we shall resume our review of his labours in our next number. ART. II.—The Poetical Works of John Milton, with a Life, by the Rev. JOHN MITFORD. In 3 vols. Vol. I. pp. cxxxiv. 153. London: Pickering. We are no admirers either of the political or religious character of Milton. His opinions were too nearly coincident with the liberal dogmas of our own times to fall in with our Church-and-King notions of the British Constitution. "The Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill," may almost be traced in the republican spirit of his writings, and Lord John himself could not have framed a more notable scheme of Government, in which the voice of the King would be a præterea nihil, the Lords would have no control over the decisions of the Commons, and all taxes would be regulated by the consent of the people. In Milton's religious code, Christian liberty throws down every restraint of time, and form, and system. All places and all seasons are alike suitable for public worship; the Church and the Sabbath are matters of indifference; the Decalogue is obsolete, polygamy lawful, and all Liturgical forms unnecessary, the Lord's Prayer itself being given for imitation in spirit rather than in letter. As to bishops, they are shaken with the "dead palsy;" the clergy are "hirelings and grievous wolves;" tithes are "unjust and scandalous ;" and all fees "accursed and simoniacal.” Verily Lord King could not have passed a more sweeping anathema against the "trumpery" of the present day. Happily the fame of Milton rests upon a more solid basis than his speculations in prose. His immortal poem has rendered his praise glorious in the annals of his country, and given perhaps a degree of posthumous importance to his authority on state questions, which it is well known his contemporaries lightly regarded. It was after the turbulent events, with which he had been conversant, had passed away, that he sat down, in quiet repose, to indite his Paradise Lost; and, though his former passions sometimes intrude themselves into his retirement, they are softened down into a dignified mildness of expression, which deprives them of the least appearance of offence. No bitterness of invective, no violence of animosity, no obstinate prejudices are permitted to defile the hallowed strains. Even his almost more than Euripidean misogunism betrays itself but rarely; and the repulsiveness of the celebrated See the "Iconoclast," and "Christian Doctrine," passim. passage in the address to Eve is wholly subdued by the tone of tenderness in which the remonstrance is conveyed : O, why did God, Creator wise, that peopled highest heaven Of nature and not fill the earth at once It is owing perhaps to the principles maintained by the great Poet, that none of his biographers have given a fair and unbiassed estimate of his superior mental endowments. Johnson, who hated his republican violence, was scarcely restrained by the just sense of his poetical merits, from inflicting upon his absurd philosophical tenets the chastisement which they so richly deserved. Symmons, on the other hand, mingles his praise of the poet with the most outrageous bombast; and, himself an advocate of the most extreme licentiousness of whiggery, worships the subject of his memoir as the very god of his idolatry. His style, moreover, is tame and vapid; and we cannot but admire the delightful naïveté with which he asserts the incapability of Johnson "to comprehend the greatness and elevation of Milton's mind." The elaborate life by Todd rests materially upon that of Johnson, and is chiefly valuable for the few additional facts which have lately been brought to light in the StatePaper office. Among the earlier lives of the Poet, those of Fenton and Phillips, his kinsman, are the most interesting; but it is their antiquity only which entitles them to any particular attention. A memoir, therefore, unbiassed by party feeling, rejecting all unauthenticated and improbable stories, and detailing, without prolixity, every thing which is calculated to illustrate the character, the genius, and the history of its illustrious subject, may well be entitled to public obligation. Mr. Mitford has not perhaps supplied a perfect sketch of this description; but he has made a nearer approach to it than any of his predecessors. Taking no part in the discussion on those uncertain, and withal unimportant topics, which have exercised the ingenuity of the critics, he has given a faithful and unexaggerated account of the life, the writings, and the opinions of Milton; together with such anecdotes and documents as tend to afford at the same time amusement and instruction to the readers. Among the latter, will be found Milton's agreement with Mr. Symons for the copyright of Paradise Lost; five unpublished letters to the Poet in Greek, Italian, and Latin, from the MS. collection in the British Museum; and a series of extracts from the correspondence of Voss and Heinsius, in which he is particularly mentioned. It is not our intention, nor is it necessary, to enter into a detailed analysis of all the incidents of Milton's life. In the successive memoirs which have appeared, little, if any thing, has been added to what was already known; with the exception of the result of the |