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are incapable of ascertaining this. The power which rulers have is a gift of God; and their right to exercise authority must be regulated by him to whom absolutely both the power and the right belong. The civil magistrate is the minister of God.

After a brief discussion of the tyrannous use of power, and the usurpation of it, and consequently the lawfulness of resistance, which we must pass without further notice, our author proceeds to the consideration of Institutions as the instruments of Government. The most general division of these is into the classes of civil and ecclesiastical. These have their distinct objects, and yet are mutually related, as well as mutually helpful. They are separate and distinct, as we perceive them embodied and acted upon in the Church and in the State respectively. Yet they are not antagonistic, but may, with advantage to both, be united in fellowship and alliance. Both of the Institutions are from God, and are not dependent the one upon the other. The State does not originate in the Church, and is not subject to it. Neither is the Church subject to the State, nor the creature of it. Under the Jewish polity there was such a union of Church and State, which, according to our author, has been recorded as a model for Christian nations. It will be seen from the brief abstract which we have given, that in this section, our author handles, and we must do him the justice to say, most ably, clearly, and successfully, the great topics of controversy which have agitated this country during the last twenty years; the Voluntary controversy, and the mutual independence of Church and State. We cannot afford to give even an outline of the mode in which he treats these exciting and momentous topics, but we will say, that had the volume contained no more than even this single section, it would have been well worthy the attention both of ecclesiastics and of statesmen.

The next section is occupied with a view of the different Institutions of the State, under the three heads of Legislative, Governmental, and Judicial. It contains much precious truth, which we reluctantly leave unnoticed. The following sentences will give our readers some idea of the spirit in which it is written :

"It is the duty of Government to see that justice be administered freely, easily, and impartially, and that all impediments be removed out of the way, whether in the arrangement of its courts, or in the number and character of the judges, or in the establishment of the confidence and reverence of the people, for nothing can make a Government more venerable than such a care of justice, as that the innocent may be sure of being protected and vindicated, and the guilty of being detected and punished according to righteous laws. It is as if the Holy God were himself sitting over the judgment-seats of a land, inspiring everywhere holy awe, veneration, and confidence."

In the remainder of the chapter, our author treats of ecclesiastical institutions, under the same general divisions of Legislative, Governmental, and Judicial. The sections in which this is done are exceedingly valuable. They contain a very conclusive exposition and defence of the general principles of Presbyterian government. The Church, he affirms, has no right to enact and enforce laws as from herself. The things on which God has not legislated for her, do not demand legislation, and are not to be erected into laws. Legislators are not lords of her faith. No such lordship exists on earth. General councils have claimed it unwarrantably; and it has been impiously asserted by the Pope. The legislators of the Church can do no more than bring out the Divine law into the view of all," and urge its claims on the reception and obedience of every man, in order that each individual member of Christ, and of his Church, may be led to sit at Christ's feet, and to learn the law at his mouth." Christ is the only Head of the Church, as he is the Head of every man who belongs to it. He is the sole governor of the Church. He has put the government of it into the hands of officers, as his stewards and ministers, whose titles and duties he has himself prescribed. These officers must be called and appointed by the Church herself; and the manner in which this is to be done, is to be learned from the Scriptures. The judicial courts of the Church, in like manner, must be such as have the warrant in the Word of God; and their functions must be exercised in subordination to that and to no other authority.

And now, having hurriedly travelled over three of the four chapters which compose the volume, we come to the concluding, and most questionable one, in which our author takes up specifically the polity of the Jews, and endeavours to show the obligation upon all Christian States to conform these laws and institutions to it. He holds, that the division and tenure of the land prescribed to the children of Israel, on their taking possession of their territory, must be regarded by us "as a specimen and model furnished by God himself of a perfect colonization, and of the manner in which a great nation should seek to begin its happy course." He holds, that their law of succession to property should regulate ours in the same department; that their laws for the support of the poor should be adopted by us; that their law of marriage, for the temporal support of religion, and for the punishment of offences, are all alike binding upon the consciences of Christian statesmen, and ought throughout to be adopted by them. The general argument on which he supports this view, is stated by him at the conclusion of the section, in which he treats of punishments, and it is but justice to him that we should give it in his own words.

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"A careful study of all the particular statutes of the Mosaic law in this department, together with a knowledge of those forms and circumstances of society in the Jewish nation, and among the people around it, which gave occasion to the development and application of the great principles of eternal justice, will not fail to satisfy the mind of a true inquirer as to their unchangeable rectitude, and their power of universal adaptation. It will also show it to be the will of God, that these principles should be recognised and applied by all nations. who would be loyal to Him, and who would at the same time willingly subserve the perfection and glory of his supreme government. For what purpose, will any one tell, does the record of these things stand fixed in his statute book, if not thus to teach and bind the nations of the world? Or otherwise, how should men be able either to interpret aright his moral government, or avoid the guilt of viewing his laws. as essentially arbitrary, temporary, and changing? How could they escape one of the sorest evils to every Government, namely, the opinion so apt to prevail, either that there is no fixed eternal rule of justice existing; or, which amounts to the same thing, that such a rule is nowhere to be found, and cannot be certainly known?".

Notwithstanding this heavy imputation, we must demur to most of the conclusions at which our author has arrived in this chapter. Let us connect for a moment the first and the concluding sections of it. In the first, he avers that the occupation and tenure of land among the Jews furnishes us with a model of perfect colonization; in the last, he would have us to adopt their penal code. Is it possible that he means, in the first section, to maintain the doctrine, that we in Great Britain are entitled to take possession of a land as a colony, and to exterminate all its existing inhabitants? It is easy to vindicate the fact in the case of the Jews, because they acted in it under the express direction of God, who has absolutely the right to dispose of the lives of his creatures as he pleases. But is the record of that fact designed as a model? Is it permitted to a Christian nation to exterminate a nation, or tribes of wicked idolaters, and take possession of their country? We presume no one will be extravagant enough to maintain this. But, again, if God had a right to put into the hands of his people this tremendous commission to root out the inhabitants of Canaan, doubtless we must also recognise his right to put into the hands of the rulers of his people the right and power to inflict the punishment of death for whatever offences he was pleased to indicate. Does it therefore follow, however, that he has given the same right and power to all Christian magistrates? Our author demands, for what purpose else are these things recorded? We are not careful to answer this. But doubtless there are many other purposes which such a record might serve apart from the one he has indicated. He might design by it, for example, to shew his abhorrence of the

special sins mentioned, and to impress men with a sense of terror against the commission of them. No doubt these judicial laws were conformable to the principles of eternal justice. These principles award the punishment of death for every sin. God has a right to inflict this punishment for all offences against his law, and does actually inflict it in his providential government. But the question is, whether a Christian government is bound, as it would be loyal to God, to inflict the punishments prescribed in the Jewish law? If so, then there can be no mitigation, no remission of punishment. Would it not be alike a mockery of God and man, a state of things fitted to undermine the authority of all law, to inscribe in our statute book, that the Sabbathbreaker, for example, should be punished with death, and to permit the law to remain dead, unexecuted? The very end of government would, in this way, be defeated, for its object is to bring law into operation. Our author seems to falter at his own reasoning. He contends that many of these offences which, according to the Jewish code, were punishable with death, were not in the actual administration of the law so visited; that an example of severity was made at the first, but that afterwards the administration of the law was relaxed. Does he mean, then, by asking our adoption of the Jewish judicial code, nothing more than this, that we should hold certain offences to be in their nature worthy of death, but that the actual infliction of the punishment should be regulated by other principles? If this be all, his conclusion may be harmless enough.

It is a question far from being easy of solution, how far, and in what respects the Jewish polity is binding upon modern states? We dare not repudiate the idea that, in some respects, it is so. We do not think our author has satisfactorily solved the question. It is one, however, eminently worthy of consideration; and as our author has entered upon this field of investigation, and so far successfully cultivated it, we would fain encourage him to persevere. With his gifts, and knowledge of the subject, we are not without the hope that he will ultimately reach a safer landing-place than he has yet gained, and enlighten the world with profounder views of the true polity of a Christian State. It will be, in such a case, especially worth his while to consider, whether any portions of the Jewish polity, and So, what portions of it, have a manifest or probable reference to the introduction of Christianity; and whether such provisions in their code of laws were not, in their nature, local and temporary.

if

ART. IX.-The Late Lord Jeffrey.

FRANCIS JEFFREY died on the afternoon of Saturday the 26th January 1850. Four days before, he occupied his accustomed place on the Bench, as vigorous, clear, and discursive under the weight of seventy-seven years, as in the most brilliant period of his manhood. Time had not pressed more heavily on the elasticity of his step, than on his cheerful and playful spirit ; and he trod the streets of our city, which his name has contributed to make famous, on that last fatal day, with a strength which seemed to promise a still prolonged evening to his bright, though declining sun. But the triumph of an insidious disease, with which he had wrestled at intervals for more than twenty years, was at last at hand. On the morning of the 26th, it was rumoured that he was sinking under an attack of bronchitis. In the evening, it was told that he was dead. Though those at a distance may only have reverberated the too accustomed and soon forgotten sound of a great man's death, no one that did not witness it can appreciate the sadness that spread over our metropolis on the event of that mournful evening. The sounds of festivity were subdued; a gloom settled on the countenances of those who knew him least; and the melancholy awe of a great calamity chilled even the stranger within our gates. Of the burst of sorrow that overwhelmed his friends, we need not speak. But even his antagonists, in his long and hardly fought career, the few whom the arm of death had spared so long, were overcome by the intensity of deep and absorbing grief. So loved, so honoured, so lamented, passed from this mortal scene a man whose name for many a year was the mark for all the rancour of party animosity, the bitter revilings of literary enmity, and the outpourings of personal spleen.

In the first number of this Journal, several years ago, we made the literary works and character of Jeffrey the subject of a somewhat elaborate criticism. Although at that time we were to a certain extent restrained in speaking of his personal merits and fame, by considerations which, sadly for us, have now ceased, we do not feel that this is a time or occasion fit for resuming in detail the analysis we then attempted. Still less can we undertake anything like a narrative of his long, arduous, and eminently useful career, to tell which truly would be to write the political and literary history of our country for the last half century. That task we have no doubt will be fulfilled by fitting hands;

VOL. XIII. NO. XXV.