*"The only thing in which the court of Rome took any interest was the maintenance of its pretensions, and the desire to augment them perpetually. It was for this that it had disfigured the fair face of the Church of Christ; it wished to make an altogether new one, totally contrary to that of the charity, the gentleness, and the humility, which were the true features given to it by its Divine Founder.

*

"The Bishops having become slaves and chaplains of the pope instead of being his brothers as they ought by the institution of Jesus Christ, they too in time indemnified themselves by usurpations of the rights of the inferior Clergy; just as the Court of Rome had usurped their lawful rights and privileges."

We must not be deceived in this high matter by the glosses and palliatives of popish priests among ourselves, soliciting power by the concealment of all the guiltier tenets of popery. † With those men, "confessions” are a mere pious opening of the conscience to heaven; indulgences, mere prayers; idolatry, the worship of God; persecution but argument; and the damnation of all men outside the popish church, simply a pious hope that all men may be saved! For the truth we must look to Rome; to her temples crowded with idols; to her breviary, filled with foul and legendary fables; to her throne, assuming the double power of spiritual and temporal despotism over the world. From living Rome, we must turn to the Rome of prophecy; from the haughty corrupter, as seen by the eye of man, to the doomed criminal, as seen by the eye of God.-Rome, the great adulteress, drunk with the blood of the saints, decked with royal ornaments, the purchase of her guilt, and holding out to kings and their people the golden cup of allurement and abomination. Rev, xvii. 3. But even at this hour the cloud is gathering over her head; at this hour the cry is issuing from more than mortal lips, "Come out from her my people, that ye be not partakers of her plagues." We may madly refuse to hear; but, as sure as there is truth in the oracles of God, those who league with her shall perish with her. She shall fall, and when the smoke of her burning ascends, many are the mighty that shall be cast upon the pile!

Quello che unicamente premeva alla corte di Roma era il mantenimento e l'aumento delle sue pretensione, con cui avendo gia deformata la bella faccia della chiesa di Gesù Cristo, &c.-R.

† See the scandalous prevarications and contradictions in the “Evidence” before Parliament.

Illustrations of Paley's Natural Theology, with descriptive Letter-press. By JAMES PAXTON, Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, London. 1 vol. 8vo. 12s. London. Whittaker.

THIS is a small but well conceived work, containing plates of the principal subjects of anatomy and physiology, adduced by Paley. The author speaks of them as made from nature; and they are obviously a very useful and illustrative explanation. The volume deserves to be in the hands of every one who takes the "Natural Theology" as a guide in one of the most interesting studies that can be offered to the mind of piety and wisdom.

Paley was probably the most popular theologian of his age; and his popularity is so far from being diminished by his death, that his works now fill a still larger space in the public eye, than when he was present to sustain them by his connexion, opulent means, and knowledge of the ways of authorship. Yet the last century possessed some very able theologians, some very learned, and some very dextrous in their solicitation of popularity. Paley has undoubtedly thrown them all into the shade, if celebrity is to be measured by public acceptance, and general utility. Not contending, or not desiring to contend, with the learned fame of Lowth and Warburton, or with the vigorous and controversial prowess of Horsley, he turned his powers to a simpler but more extensive triumph, and has found it a more permanent one. He devoted himself to the humbler occupation of clearing away the difficulties that beset the general path of divine knowledge. A sufficient scholar, and a capable inquirer into the workings of the human understanding, he was thus furnished with all the materials necessary for his task. His residence as a parish priest may have suggested the subjects of his principal works, and possibly taught him somewhat of the simplicity of his mode of illustration. But he seems to have had no remarkable original faculty; to have been altogether destitute of brilliancy or striking invention, and to have found his most congenial employment in explaining and combining the thoughts of other men. Enterprize and vivid discovery were out of the question with his rank of mind; he makes no attempt to master any new power, he soars into no new province of the world of intellect; he leaves the depths and heights to the adventure of more hazardous spirits, and restricts himself to converting the surface into productiveness and beauty, with the implements and after the manner of his fathers.

NO. VIII. VOL. IV.

X

"The only thing in which the court of Rome took any interest was the maintenance of its pretensions, and the desire to augment them perpetually. It was for this that it had disfigured the fair face of the Church of Christ; it wished to make an altogether new one, totally contrary to that of the charity, the gentleness, and the humility, which were the true features given to it by its Divine Founder.

"The Bishops having become slaves and chaplains of the pope instead of being his brothers as they ought by the institution of Jesus Christ, they too in time indemnified themselves by usurpations of the rights of the inferior Clergy; just as the Court of Rome had usurped their lawful rights and privileges."

66

We must not be deceived in this high matter by the glosses and palliatives of popish priests among ourselves, soliciting power by the concealment of all the guiltier tenets of popery. With those men, confessions" are a mere pious opening of the conscience to heaven; indulgences, mere prayers; idolatry, the worship of God; persecution but argument; and the damnation of all men outside the popish church, simply a pious hope that all men may be saved! For the truth we must look to Rome; to her temples crowded with idols; to her breviary, filled with foul and legendary fables; to her throne, assuming the double power of spiritual and temporal despotism over the world. From living Rome, we must turn to the Rome of prophecy; from the haughty corrupter, as seen by the eye of man, to the doomed criminal, as seen by the eye of God.-Rome, the great adulteress, drunk with the blood of the saints, decked with royal ornaments, the purchase of her guilt, and holding out to kings and their people the golden cup of allurement and abomination. Rev, xvii. 3. But even at this hour the cloud is gathering over her head; at this hour the cry is issuing from more than mortal lips, "Come out from her my people, that ye be not partakers of her plagues." We may madly refuse to hear; but, as sure as there is truth in the oracles of God, those who league with her shall perish with her. She shall fall, and when the smoke of her burning ascends, many are the mighty that shall be cast upon the pile!

* Quello che unicamente premeva alla corte di Roma era il mantenimento e l'aumento delle sue pretensione, con cui avendo gia deformata la bella faccia della chiesa di Gesù Cristo, &c.-R.

+ See the scandalous prevarications and contradictions in the "Evidence" before Parliament.

Illustrations of Paley's Natural Theology, with descriptive Letter-press. By JAMES PAXTON, Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, London. 1 vol. 8vo. 12s. London. Whittaker.

THIS is a small but well conceived work, containing plates of the principal subjects of anatomy and physiology, adduced by Paley. The author speaks of them as made from nature; and they are obviously a very useful and illustrative explanation. The volume deserves to be in the hands of every one who takes the "Natural Theology" as a guide in one of the most interesting studies that can be offered to the mind of piety and wisdom.

Paley was probably the most popular theologian of his age; and his popularity is so far from being diminished by his death, that his works now fill a still larger space in the public eye, than when he was present to sustain them by his connexion, opulent means, and knowledge of the ways of authorship. Yet the last century possessed some very able theologians, some very learned, and some very dextrous in their solicitation of popularity. Paley has undoubtedly thrown them all into the shade, if celebrity is to be measured by public acceptance, and general utility. Not contending, or not desiring to contend, with the learned fame of Lowth and Warburton, or with the vigorous and controversial prowess of Horsley, he turned his powers to a simpler but more extensive triumph, and has found it a more permanent one. He devoted himself to the humbler occupation of clearing away the difficulties that beset the general path of divine knowledge. A sufficient scholar, and a capable inquirer into the workings of the human understanding, he was thus furnished with all the materials necessary for his task. His residence as a parish priest may have suggested the subjects of his principal works, and possibly taught him somewhat of the simplicity of his mode of illustration. But he seems to have had no remarkable original faculty; to have been altogether destitute of brilliancy or striking invention, and to have found his most congenial employment in explaining and combining the thoughts of other men. Enterprize and vivid discovery were out of the question with his rank of mind; he makes no attempt to master any new power, he soars into no new province of the world of intellect; he leaves the depths and heights to the adventure of more hazardous spirits, and restricts himself to converting the surface into productiveness and beauty, with the implements and after the manner of his fathers.

NO. VIII. VOL. IV.

X

This is no degradation to his memory. The true honour is not in the multitude of the "talents," but in their exercise. In Theology, beyond all other studies, the useful ought to be the great object; and he who leads but one darkened mind to the truth, achieves a nobler fame than if he were master of all the ostentatious ability and showy knowledge that ever busied themselves in swelling the pride of man. Standing in the immediate presence of Revelation, all the vanities of worldly applause are tenfold vanities; the mighty wisdom of the Divine Spirit, and the awful responsibility of our nature, extinguish all minor things: we are under the eye of God, and must think no more of the eye of man.

pre

The moral to be derived from Paley's success, is the good within the means of the majority. What he might have been qualified to do, we may not so easily decide; but nothing can be more unquestionable than that what he did, many others could have done, and many may still do. We are in no degree inclined to charge the British clergy with wilful indolence; but there are hundreds at this hour restrained from literary effort by presumed inadequacy, who should be stimulated by the sent proof of what can be done by powers and opportunities apparently not ranking above their own. We do not hesitate to place Paley among the most valuable theologians of the last century, distinguished as it was in theological labours. Yet his "Evidences," the work on which his chief utility rests, was within the competence of perhaps any divine, who would have had patience enough to read and abridge "Lardner's Credibility." The "Hora Paulina" has higher claims; it is original and ingenious, but it is the least popular, and therefore the least useful of his works. Let no man, then, with the education of an English clergyman, and with the leisure of a parish priest, venture to feel himself justified in inaction, by the difficulties of literary success. He has here the proof of what can be done by the simple means of choosing a judicious subject, and of treating it in a style of common sense and plain elucidation. If Paley had powers beyond this, we only honour him the more for his sacrifice of ambition.

The "Natural Theology" was the work of his later studies, and was intended to round that system of moral and religious wisdom, which he had begun in the "Evidences of Christianity." We are, of course, not about to detail a work so well known. The wide circulation of the volume is a sufficient mark of its public importance; but that circulation has rendered unnecessary all analysis of its contents. Its popularity is partly to be explained by the same causes, which have ren