O Tommy, think upon thy state! And brings forth clusters sour and wild! Joy gushing from the throne eternal; Each spirit's raptures ever swelling; The Lamb their centre, theme, and union, O sweet, beatified communion; All sin excluded, not a care But canst thou not, my fallen friend, (For the Imperial Magazine.) THE FAREWELL. O THIS is an accent that goes to the heart Who is there would dash the wet tear from the eye, Which a moment his anguish might quell, O who would disdain the relief of a sigh, When distress'd with the parting farewell? In vain may philosophy boast of its powers, In vain may philosophers preach, Though pure, sound, and just, in less sorrowful hours, Then in vain are the maxims they teach. For wisdom, and knowledge, and science refin'd, Avail nought in the tenderest part, These may strengthen the soul, and ennoble the mind, But, Oh! what can they do for the heart? The mariner sails from his dear native land, Saying, Albion, my country, adieu! It smiled at the glittering star on his breast, Imagine the lover about to depart From the maid of his earliest choice, The look of the fair one appeals to his heart, And forbids him again to rejoice. And when a dear friend is to leave us alone, Call'd by Providence far, far away, How dreary the hour that shall witness him gone, O how hard is that call to obey! But yet there is joy intermingled with grief, And hope too will whisper the flattering tale, And the lovers may happily meet. Nor remembered the gloomy "farewell." What peace to the Christian-what transport is given, When he leaves this dark world and its care, Bids farewell to earth-hears the welcomes of heaven, As he enters triumphantly there! E. B. WINTER. (A FRAGMENT.). OLD Winter comes with stern and haggard brow, And muffles Nature with his snowy robe. Now winds no more; but hard congeal'd, its course Beneath the chill king's reign, all torpid lies. The fields, that late, e'er they had doff'd the dress The livery Spring had given, all verdant With a grassy carpet were beclad;-dull, Disrobed of all their freshness, now present A barren, brown and dreary to the sight. Trees stript of all their foliage naked stand With branches trembling to the riving blast That o'er them sweeps. And as stern Winter o'er The face of Nature desolation works, At ev'ry flow'r that beautified his way;- SIN. L. W. W. THERE is a grief, which, when it wounds the heart, Bears with it its own balm :--and there's a wo That brings no balm at all, and wbose sad smart, For ever causes misery's stream to flow.Who courteth crime, doth always court afoe. And if thou plunge thyself into the flood, Tell me, how dost thou know, how deep to go! And if it drown not, with thy neighbour's blood, "Twill drown thee with thine own, and thou must feel the rod. The sting of death is sin, and 'tis a sting That spreads its poison all throughout the frame, Debasing and polluting every thing That dwelleth in the heart.-The very name Of piety it takes away, and shame Flies with it-when men call it drivelling cant, But if thou hast been wounded, and the flame Barns in thy breast, nought can supply thy want, Unless for heavenly water-brooks, e'en as the hart thou pant. Cast thou a stone into the water. See! It falls, and then is cover'd by the wave; And nothing marks the spot where it might be, But circles stretching wide above its grave, And more, and more allotted space they pave. Then ask thyself,-thus shall it be with me? When the first shock, which sin's swift THE RANSOMED HEBREW. No more I'll raise my pensive strain, Nor utter forth my wo, Nor e'er again will I complain, Or speak the grief I know; No longer dormant shall the lyre Nor more I'll sing my sire's lament, And with his parting breath, And there express the blessed theme, Then if my persecutors hear My humble accents rise; ON AN EOLIAN HARP. I THOUGHT a heavenly host descended, Till all my soul was captiv'd in its notes; Till borne on bright imagination's wing, 9 I harbour'd only the far-soaring thoughts Which its all-varied strains inspire. Now, melting in soft sorrow's soothing mood; Till in my eye, the falling tear-drop stood:Aud then, exalted, rais'd, uplifted high, By fancy led, where she alone can fly,Upborne from off the earth, and wing'd with flaming fire! The Works of James Arminius, D.D. formerly Professor of Divinity in the University of Leyden. Translated from the Latin. To which are added, Brandt's Life of the Author, &e. With a copious and authentic Account of the Synod of Dort. By James Nichols, Author of "Calvinism and Arminianism Compared in their Principles and Tendency." Vol. I. pp. 806. London. Longman and Co. 1825, THIS Volume, formidable though it is in appearance to a timid student, must be viewed as a production of considerable importance. The "testimonies" of forty respectable authors of different religious denominations,which are appended to the Translator's Preface, prove the estimation in which Arminius was held, “as a man of unaffected piety and upright conduct, of principles and of character derstanding was at once solid and that were truly Christian; whose unacute; whose discourses from the pulpit were impressive, eloquent, and useful; whose labours as a minister, and as a Professor of Divinity, were faithful and productive; whose lectures were attended by a numerous auditory, that admired the strength of his arguments, and were astonished at the great learning which he displayed; whose private life was animated by the spirit, and adorned with the graces, of the religion which he taught; and cellent than numerous, are distinwhose writings, which are more exguished by a great deal of accurate thinking, by distinct views of the subjects which he discusses, and by a simple and perspicuous style."-This is the character which two well-informed Calvinists have given of Arminius, and his method of teaching; and it is abundantly confirmed by the testimonies of other writers, whose connexion with this eminent Dutch Professor was of a still more intimate nature. That veritable church-historian, the accomplished Mosheim, has very justly 3 U tomed to regard JONES's translation and abridgment of LIMBORCH'S Body of Divinity, as an adequate delineation of Arminianism, will be delighted to find themselves mistaken in their esti observed, in his History of the Reformed Church, (Cent. 17. sec. 2. pt. 2.) "The doctrines of Christianity, which had been so sadly disfigured among the Lutherans by the obscure jargon and the intricate tenets of the Scholas-mate. For this system of doctrines, tic Philosophy, met with the same fate in the Reformed churches. The first successful effort that prevented these churches from falling entirely under the Aristotelian yoke, was made by the ARMINIANS, who were remarkable for expounding, with simplicity and perspicuity, the truths and precepts of religion, and who censured, with great plainness and severity, those ostentatious doctors who affected to render them obscure and unintelligible, by expressing them in the terms, and reducing them under the classes and divisions, used in the Schools." If the tenets of Arminius had produced no higher effects, these alone would have entitled his memory to the veneration of posterity. But Mosheim adduces several other very striking instances of their benignant operations. Yet, extensively influential as he has shewn the spirit of Arminianism to have been throughout Europe, among all religious persuasions, it has not had, till now, even the semblance of | justice done to it in England. It has been the policy of its enemies, to refer all inquirers for a knowledge of Arminianism, to the comparatively impure streams of Courcelles and Le Clerc; while its supine friends, content with their own better information about it, have never directed strangers to the clear and transparent fountain of Arminius himself. On other subjects, of minor importance, it has been a commendable trait in our countrymen, to elicit the most accurate intelligence. But, with the exception of old Tobias Conyers's translation of the Declaration of Arminius, we do not recollect any attempt that has been made to afford us a better acquaintance with this doctrinal system. We have generally remained satisfied with the assurances, which some learned men have given us, "that the doctrines of Arminius, and those of the church of England, may be properly represented as nearly corresponding together, both of them being the doctrines of the Augsburg Confession divested of its sacramental peculiarities." Those lovers of primitive Christianity, who have been accus as delivered by the pious and learned individual from whom it derives its distinguishing appellation, is eminently evangelical in its aspect: and were not mankind liable to be seduced by names alone, more than by the nature of things themselves, we may venture to assert, that, if it be lawful for us to form our judgment of the Calvinists of the present age, from their pastoral discourses, their private conversation, and their published writings,-few of them would hesitate to subscribe to the explicit statement which Arminius has given in "the Declaration of his Opinions," on Predestination, the Providence of God, the Free Will of Man, the Grace of God, the Perseverance of the Saints, the Assurance of Salvation, and the Perfection of Believers in this life. As the account of his sentiments on these points is but brief, we may, at some future opportunity, lay it before our readers; at present we content ourselves with a statement of his doctrines, as described by Mr. Nichols in page 84. "The truly evangelical system of religious belief which is known in modern days under the name of ARMINIANISM, has acquired that appellation, not because ARMINIUS was the sole author of it, but, (as I have shewn in the those scattered, and often incidental, observaPreface to this work,) because he collected tions of the Christian Fathers, and of the early Protestant divines, which have a collateral relation to the doctrines of General Redemption, and because he condensed and applied them in grand and harmonious scheme, in which all the such a manner as to make them combine in one attributes and perfections of the Deity are secured to him in a clearer and more obvious manner than by Calvinism, and in which man is alone places him in the condition of an accountstill left in possession of his free-will, which able being. The high rank which it is entitled to hold among the great pacificatory plans of the Reformers and more recent Divines, I have demonstrated in another place; and the judicious reader, after a careful perusal of the works there assigned it, to be, in strict justice, only of Arminius, will consider the pre-eminence that which its unobtrusive excellencies demand. It is not to be denied, that upon this scriptural foundation some individuals do not hesitate to declare, that they have reared a grand edifice to be only a flimsy structure of wood, hay, of their own; but this, on examination, proves stubble,'-doctrines which lose all that decidedly gracious aspect, which, in conformity with the scriptures, Arminius had communicated to them. These men are, therefore, much mistaken in the : alliance which they have thus preposterously claimed for it is not the evangelical system of Arminius upon which they have ventured to build, but it is the legal and Pharisaic foundation of Pelagius, which, though extremely slight, is sufficiently stable to sustain the lamber of their inventions; and the fabric of their erection bas accordingly obtained the very appropriate appellation of Semi-Pelagianism.' The reflection, however, is a pleasant one, that the great majority of our English divines, and especially of our national clergy, have, as it became the most learned and enlightened body of Theologians in the world, built upon the noble foundation of Arminianism a goodly fabric of gold, silver, and precious stones,-doctrines which hold the golden mean' between the extremes of CALVINISM and PELAGIANISM, and between the two intermediate and milder contradictions of SEMI-PELAGIANISM and BAXTERIANISM. Those ministers of the truth as it is in Jesus' who allow to scriptural PRIVILEGES and to scriptural DUTIES their respective provinces, are the only men who can conscientiously delight to propagate Arminian doctrines in their native purity, as they came from the hands of points in our national history, at C.J. Fox, Esq. is of all others the most an æra, which, according to the late interesting to an Englishman. In one of these biographical digressions, Mr. Nichols produces the following remarks, the conclusion of which we should wish to see demonstrated:"The Remonstrants accommodated their Confession of Faith to the circumstances of such doubting mortals as Vorstius. This accommodation is rendered apparent in that very able production, the Apology for their Confession; and still more so in the Theological Institutes of Episcopius." Though Episcopius himself was accounted 'sound in the faith;' yet this unusual latitude of belief, which was granted as the ample terms of church-communion among the Remonliberal associates the suspicion of being themstrants, procured for that great man and his selves inclined to the Arian or Socinian heresy. Indeed, this is the character of them which is generally given by the most candid of our own the chair of Divinity in the University of Ley-instance, as well as in others, 'evil communicawriters. There can be no doubt, that, in this don."-pp. 84, 85. the most eminent Professor that ever adorned This very closely printed volume contains Bertius's celebrated Funeral Oration; and as this was the groundwork of Brandt's Life of our Author, Mr. Nichols has, in numerous Appendices, supplied from the latter the information which Bertius had omitted, and has added much of a highly interesting character, that had not been produced either by Brandt or Bertius. The biographical notices of various eminent individuals, with which the work abounds, are illustrative of the grand controversy between the Arminian assertors of civil and religious liberty, and their bigoted opponents. We have been particularly entertained and instructed by the original remarks (in Appendix F.) on the progress of truth "in an ingenuous spirit;" by the contents of Ap. G; by the letters of Junius and Arminius, concerning the early Independents; by "the abuse of Anagrams," and by the account of Gomarus, Uitenbogardt, and Vorstius, and of the apostasy of Bertius. On all these topics, and many others which are ably discussed in the Life of the Author, and which were extremely necessary to the proper elucidation of the early history of Arminianism, Mr. Nichols has produced, from various sources, a mass of original information which was never before presented to the British public, but which will serve to illustrate many tions corrupted good manners.' For though the first Remonstrants escaped the doctrinal contagion, yet the effects upon their successors were very lamentable. A regular declension trine of the Trinity may be traced, in those who from the orthodox Faith in the important docsuccessively filled the Professor's Chair at Amsterdam, after Episcopius; and if Courcelles, Poelenburgh, Limborch, Le Clerc, and Wetstein, be severally considered as the proper index which they presided, (and their own documents, of the Faith of the religious community over as well as the histories of those times, confirm this view,) then it must be allowed, that an excess of candour and liberality in the terms of communion, is as injurious to the special purposes of Christian edification, as too much strictness can be. This is a subject on which I have bestowed some attention; and the reader will find a copious dissertation upon it in my Calvinism and Arminianism Compared, in their Principles and Tendency, Appendix H. In that tice of the Dutch Remonstrants with that of the portion of my work I have compared the pracChurch of England; and have, I hope, satisfactorily demonstrated to every candid mind the truly liberal and mild constitution of the latter, and the obviously beneficial results of her combined moderation and firmness, in requiring against the strictness of which none were ever a rigid adherence to those terms of communion found to object, except the men whose laxity of principles disqualified them from becoming members of any Christian Community."-pp. 234, 235. This volume also contains five Orations by Arminius, on the Object of Theology; the Author and the End of Theology; the Certainty of Sacred Theology; the Priesthood of Christ; and the fifth, On Reconciling Religious Dissensions among Christians. After these follow, |
