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stances no longer mixed and conflicting, including, as at present, inducements at once to disobedience and duty, and sources alike of agony and rapture-but circumstances, every influence of which shall be consistent with all-shall convey nothing but happiness, and prompt to nothing but virtue ;-in that world, the perfection of our whole nature shall be attained; emancipated from whatever darkens the understanding, depresses activity, or injures enjoyment, we shall enter on a sublime career of eternal, obedient, and beatific existence.' pp. 37, 38.

The next idea which suggests itself is, the necessity of a Revelation to secure this object.

The complete perfection of our whole nature in the future renovation of body and mind, as it is the peculiar assurance of the Gospel, so was it beyond the conjecture of unaided intelligence. And the means preparatory to this-the atoning sacrifice and the sanc tifying Spirit; the medium of pardon and the source of virtue; the reconciliation, the transforming and the purifying element; these are the exclusive discoveries, the strength and essence of the Evangelical Economy. The moral and permanent perfection of a being like man, depraved, ignorant, and mortal, depends on the knowledge and benefit of these, yet these by independent ability he never could have supplied. Hence the necessity of Revelation, to open the prospect and provide the means of that very state for which he is made. Independently of this, he keeps struggling with the mysteries of his own nature; perplexed by appearances, sensibilities, and suggestions, which he can but imperfectly comprehend. Longings after indefinite good; transient glimpses of abstract excellence; combined with the detection of the inanity of pleasure, the vanity of life, the presence and the pressure of evil; all afford, at once, symptoms of a nature invaded and injured, and create a state of feeling for which there is no lasting alleviation, but in a religion which shall be revealed; whose discoveries shall come with authority, and be adapted both to the intellectual demands, and the physical and moral condition of the species; whose provisions shall remove guilt and peril; whose laws shall constitute an unalterable standard, and stimulate an invincible ambition, of excellence; whose opulent arrangements shall supply the requisite resources to afflicted and tempted humanity; and above all, whose hope shall realize the whole of this terminating in a degree and kind of attainment, necessary to our happiness, but incompatible with the present limits, the existing laws, and the palpable prostration of our nature. All this is wanted, and all this we have in the Gospel; man can thus alone be perfect-and thus he may be perfect" in Christ Jesus." pp. 45, 46.

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We cordially concur in the hope expressed by the ministers who solicited the publication of this Discourse, that the view given in it of the Christian ministry may be useful to students and those who are entering on the duties and responsibilities of the sacred office.

ART. XI. SELECT LITERARY INFORMATION.

In the press, The Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, and the Doctrine of Spiritual Influence, considered in several Discourses. With Notes and Illustrations. By W. Orme, Author of "Memoirs of Urquhart." 12mo.

In the press, The Life and Opinions of John de Wycliffe, D.D.; illustrated principally from his unpublished Manuscripts; with a Preliminary View of the Papal System, and of the State of the Protestant Doctrine ia Europe to the commencement of the Fourteenth Century. By Robert Vaughan. With a Portrait, by E. H. Finden, from the original Picture, by Sir Antonio More, now an Heir-loom to the Rectory of Wycliffe, Richmondshire.

This work has been composed after a careful examination of the numerous Wycliffe MSS. in the libraries of Oxford and Cambridge, in the British Museum, Lambeth Palace, and Trinity College, Dublin. It is designed to present a complete View of the Life and Times of our Patriarch Reformer, and will include analytical Notices of nearly the whole of his writings.

In the press, in 1 vol. 8vo. Elements of Mental and Moral Science. By George Payne, M. A. This work will state the

opinions of our most distinguished philosophers in reference to the subjects upon which it treats; and exhibit the connexion which subsists between sound philosophy and revealed truth.

A new edition of Calmet's Dictionary of the Bible, with the Fragments, by the late Mr. Charles Taylor, carefully revised and much improved, is now in the course of publication. Eight parts are now ready.

The Rev. C. Moase has in the press, a Tract on Religious Liberty, in reply to Bishop Burgess's Catechism.

In the press, The Missionary Cabinet: comprising a Gazetteer of all the Places occupied by Christian Missionaries; Notices of the Natural History, Manners and Customs of the Natives, &c. ; with an introductory Essay. By the Rev. C. Williams.

In the press, Memoirs, Correspondence, and Sermons of the late Rev. Samuel Gilfillan, of Currie, Author of an Essay on the Sanctification of the Lord's Day, and of Discourses on the Holy Spirit.

A second volume of the Rev. C. W. Le Bas' Sermons will be published in January. Also, a second edition of the first volume.

ART. XII. LIST OF WORKS RECENTLY PUBLISHED.

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The Process of Historical Proof explained and exemplified; to which are subjoined, Observations on the peculiar Points of the Christian Evidence. By Isaac TayJor, jun. Author of "Elements of Thought,' and "Transmission of Ancient Books." 8vo. 6s.

Selections from the Works of John Howe, M.A. By the Rev. W. Wilson, D.D.

The Rev. John Morison's Exposition of Vol. II. (which completes this work.) 18mo. the Book of Psalms. Part I. 8vo, 5s.

3s. boards.

The Title-page, Contents and Index to Vol. XXVIII. will be given in the February Number.

THE

ECLECTIC REVIEW,

FOR FEBRUARY, 1828.

Art. I. The Present State of Hayti (St. Domingo); with Remarks on its Agriculture, Commerce, Laws, Religion, Finances, Population, &c. &c. By James Franklin. 8vo. pp. 412. London.

1828.

THIS is evidently the production of a disappointed indivi

dual. The elaborate statements of Mr. Franklin, in his correspondence with Mr. Canning when minister for foreign affairs, representing the extent to which social order, peaceful industry, and submission to the laws had effected individual and general prosperity in the republic of Hayti, are said to have produced a most favourable impression on the opinions and commercial views of Government, and to have induced the appointment of consuls. (p. 256.) Already the Haytian citizen was taught to consider our Author's name as enrolled among the benefactors of his country. But the failure of commercial schemes, the disappointments of speculation, the frustration of projects of individual aggrandisement, and the demolition of the fantastic dream of mines of gold and silver in the mountains of Hayti*,-all conspired suddenly to change the current of his opinions and the bias of his feelings. His correspondence with Mr. Canning became the fabric of a vision;' and Hayti, beheld so favourably in 1825, is, in 1827, without agriculture, without commerce,' and, worst of all for the fortunes of a ruined merchant, with an exhausted treasury and a • diminished revenue.' (p. 410.) Such is the pledge of impartiality with which Mr. Franklin presents himself to the public as the historian of St. Domingo.

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Hayti assumes importance in the eyes of the philanthropist, as experimentally shewing the effects of political emancipation on the population, the industry, and the moral habits of barbarian Africans. We propose to examine under these respec

* Mr. Franklin was projector of the Haytian Mining Company. VOL. XXIX, N.S.

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tive heads, how far the inhabitants of a vast island, who have suddenly passed from the condition of slaves to that of free citizens, have, under the disadvantages of liberty acquired by force, and maintained for a long period in the midst of war and internal dissention, established their political power' together with their personal liberty.'

In 1790, at the period when the colonial deputies embarked for France, as the legal representatives of a great and integral part of the French empire, (a revolutionary movement on the part of the white colonists, which originated the political calamities of St. Domingo,) the population of Hayti were stated in the National Assembly to amount to 500,000 black and coloured persons, and 40,000 whites. Adding this to the inhabitants of Hispaniola, the total population of the Island, at the commencement of the revolution, did not exceed 665,000 over a territory nearly as extensive as England. In 1802, during the administration of the Negro chieftain Toussaint, the population, in the ancient French part, is stated to have decreased to 375,000, and, in the Spanish, not to have exceeded 95,000; making a total of 470,000 persons. From this period till 1804, when the French troops were finally expelled, the country was laid waste by a succession of sanguinary wars, and thinned of its people by famine, disease, bloodshed, and exile. Yet, the population, in the census of 1824, is given at 933,335 inhabitants; presenting an increase so extraordinary as to call forth a rigid questioning on the part of Mr. Franklin, who is disposed to take it rather at 715,000, and from this assumed error, to demonstrate how little faith is to be placed in Haytian statistics of any kind whatsoever. There are other data, however, overlooked by this gentleman, which serve to corroborate the above statement, and upon which there can be no controversy; because the Haytian Government must first have deceived itself on a most vital fact, before it could effect the delusion of others. The armed force of the country exhibits the regular troops as amounting to 45,520, and the national guards to 113,328; making a body of 158,848 men trained to arms. Now if we suppose this to represent a levy in mass, which is one in five, we have the number 794,240 inhabitants. But if we calculate them as one in six, the rule by which Bryan Edwards estimated the armed coloured forces at the revolution, (the sang-mêlées,) we have nearly the surprising duplication of the census of Toussaint in twenty-two years, by natural increase, allowing in some degree for emigrations from America and the other islands. This increase, in defiance of the facts staring us in the face in the Report of the Emigration Committee of Ireland, is controverted

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