and fertile fcenes giving offence to the chafte eye of state, by a wild and confufed luxuriance. In reply to Mr. Knight, Mr. R. thus expreffes himself:

"It would have been far more grateful to my feelings and inclination, to have pointed out thofe paffages in which I concur with the author of the Landscape; but I am compelled, by the duties of my profeffion, to notice thofe parts only which tend to viriate the taste of the nation, by introducing false principles; by recommending negligence for ease, and flovenly weeds for native beauty. Extremes are equally to be avoided, and I trust that the tafte of this country will neither infipidly flide into the trammels of that fmooth-fhaven, " genius of the bare and bald," which he fo juftly ridicules, nor enlift under the banners of that fhaggy and hard featured fpirit, which knows no delight but in the fcenes of Salvator Rofa, fcenes of horror well calculated for the refidence of banditti,

Breathing blood, calamity, and ftrife.

In fculpture we ought to admire the graces of the Venus de Medicis, as well as the majestic Apollo, the brawny Hercules, or the agonizing Laocoon. In architecture there is not lefs beauty in the Grecian - columns than the Gothic fpires, pinnacles, and turrets. In mufic it is not only the bravura, the march, or allegro furiofo, that ought to be permitted; we must fometimes be charmed by the foft plaintive movement of the ficiliano, or the tender graces of the amorofo. In like manner gardening muft include the two oppofite characters of native wildnefs and artificial comfort, each adapted to the genius and character of the place, yet ever mindful that near the refidence of man, convenience, and not picturefque effect, muft have the preference, wherever they are placed in competition with each other."

This is very fenfible, very pertinent, and very true, and the only answer that can be made to Mr. Repton's remarks, as they apply to fculpture, architecture, and mufic is, that their different perfections imprefs individuals very differently. Each mind, from habit, ftudy, and reflection, or, indeed, from natural conftitution, has its ftandard of decided excellence in every branch of the arts. Compared with this, every other degree of perfection, however good or admirable in itfelf, is confidered as inferior and fubordinate. Thus it happens, that with fome, Salvator Rofa ftands on a pre-eminence where he can admit of no competitor; and, from a fimilar fpirit, the eye, delighted with the wild and unfettered luxuriance of nature, repofes with languor and faftidioufnefs, where art, in the opinion of many, has been moft fuccefs fully exerted.

The appendix is by no means the least important divifion of the prefent performance, nor that in which least ingenuity, on the part of the author, is evinced. The letter to Mr. Price, which is printed in the form of a note, is conceived with a manly fpirit,

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and expreffed both with energy and elegance. We think this part of the work very highly honourable to Mr. Repton's feelings as a man, and his talents as a writer. Mr. R.'s idea of reprefenting to his employers the view of the prefent circumftances of their ground, and its intended improvements, is novel and ingenious, and we understand has given the most entire fatisfaction. The author, in the work before us, feems a little to have yielded to a temptation not very eafy to be refifted, namely, that of working up the improved condition of the landscape with more animated features, and greater allurements of scenery and colouring. If this be a fault, it is one which may easily be avoided, and as eafily forgiven. Be this as it may, the Hints on Landscape Gardening form undoubtedly an interefting as well as beautiful work, and will excite an eager curiofity to fee other fpecimens of a talent from which fo much elegant gratification has already been experienced.

ART. XIV. The Scholar armed against the Errors of the Time, &c.

(Concluded from our last, p. 646.)

IN our inveftigation of the various fubjects treated in this excellent collection, we are happy to find, that we have ftill to acknowledge the great inftruction imparted by Mr. Jones upon fubjects of the highest importance in theological refearch.

From a view of the true nature and conflitution of the Chriftian church, fo diftin&tly exhibited in his laft effay, the ftudent is, in an orderly courfe, led to difcern the genuine nature, motives, and grounds of a feparation froin it. The fe are confidered and ftated, by Mr. Jones, in a tract, entitled A fhort View of the prefent State of the Argument between the Church of England and the Diffenters."

We freely profefs, that feparation from a national church, temperate and charitable in its fpirit, orderly and primitive in fts conftitution, and feriptural, though decided, in its doctrines, has always appeared to us detrimental to the influence and effect of genuine Christianity. Without afferting the abfolute perfection of the Church of England, it clearly appears to approach nearer to it than any other Chriftian community, of which we hear or read, in thefe important inftances.

Το

To determine the nature and confequences of fchifm, we are almost tempted to bring it to the fame teft which the ancient philofopher applied to Democracy, when interrogated concerning its qualities and effects. "Try it at home-". We hardly ever knew a family where the master of the house was of one religion, his wife and children of another, and the fervants of a third, but that in time it degenerated into total irreligion. Now we know not how a nation, in this refpe&t, differs from a more extended family. We would gladly be informed how, without that unity which is by many fo contemptuously exploded, even a fingle infulated congregation could exift or if that communication between diftinct branches of the Chriftian church, practifed uniformly in the most apoftolical times, is to be preferved; how it can be done upon any other principle than that by which a fingle congregation is united and cemented? We fairly own, we cannot deny unity in religion to be a good. We cannot but remember this broad, diftinct, fcriptural, propofition-" There is one Faith, one Lord, one Baptifm." But here we with to be rightly understood. We too well know the nature of that which the Papists mifcall unity, to be the advocates of any opinions which difcriminate fo anti-christian a fyftem. It is from our entire and earnest conviction of the mifchief and mifery with which Popery has deluged the world (for to that we think may be traced all that Europe now feels and fears) that we acknowledge the beneficial tendency of any attempt to produce and extend a union and fubordination in the internal government of Proteftant national churches. This, we are perfuaded, can alone present a firm barrier against the revival of that relentlefs and fuperftitious fyftem, which, from the averfion it excited in the minds of men against all religion, has produced an atheistical, scornful, and licentious philofophy, that has equalled in atrocity, and far furpaffed in extent, the cruelty of the inquifition itself. Whatever hopes the circumftances of the times may hold forth to the Papifts, and whatever defigns that fanguine and active fect may form, we are affured, that the principles fupported in this fhort and excellent tract, are confidered as their most powerful obftacle. If a defection from the Church is widely extended, and a furrender of its orthodox principles called for, even by its own fons-we speak from knowledge when we fay,

Hoc Ithacus velit, et magno mercentur Atridæ

We have not faid fo much on this head without very mature reflection, upon various events which have taken place, and are Iroducing the most awful and alarming confequences at the

moment

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moment in which we write and we therefore, upon the best grounds, recommend a tract, which recalls all ferious Proreftants to the true centre of union, the principles and communion of the established Church.

The different pleas of fchifm Mr. Jones examines, and combats, with his ufual mixture of fhrewdnefs and seriousness. He is most peculiarly fuccefsful in marking the coincidence of the arguments which are used by the Papifts and Diffenters, in representing the English Church merely as a civil and political establishment.

They plead next, that their fchifm, with refpect to the church of England, is no more than a feparation from an human establishment; for that the church of England has no foundation but upon the king and the parliament; whereas the church of Chrift is founded upon the doctrines taught by the Apoftles.

"If our church has no foundation but upon the king and parliament, then certainly it is not founded upon the authority of Chrift, and confequently it is no church of Chrift. But will any man fay, that a national church, being a member of the catholic church of Chrift, ceafes to be fuch, when adopted as a part of the conftitution, and established by the civil power? Suppofe it were perfecuted by the civil power, and its minifters and worship were profcribed; would it therefore cease to be a church of Chrift? Certainly not: for the church of the Hebrews in Egypt was ftill the church of God, though the people were under a cruel edict not to ferve him; and God owned it as fuch, and delivered it at laft. Do the powers of this world unmake the church by their reception of it, when they do not by their perfecution of it? Do its bishops and priests ceafe to be bishops and priests? Do its facraments cease to be facraments? Doth its difcipline ceafe to be Chriftian difcipline, and lofe its authority, because the flate admits of it, and establishes it? I fay, fuppofe they were to declare against all these things, as the Heathens and Jews did in the first ages of the Gefpel, their declaration would fignify nothing: because the church, in its priesthood and facraments, derives its authority only from Jefus Chrift, which the perfecution of the civil powers cannot reach; much lefs can their allowance turn it into an human authority, and render it of none effect." P657.

But however we may agree with Mr. Jones in the principles he has advanced, we cannot approve of the afperity with which mention is made of the great Calvin in the following terms:

Neither did any one, either at home or abroad, (the envy, ill-nature, and heterodoxy of Calvin only excepted) charge us with any remains of Popish leaven." (Vide page 75.) Little as we are inclined to Calvin's regimen in church government, and firmly as we are convinced, that the fpecific and appropri ate doctrines of his fect do not enter into the creed of the English church, any more than they accord with our own pri

ge

vate fentiments, yet we cannot but think that his character, labours, and writings, entitle his memory to the highest regard and veneration. When we confider the zeal, the intrepidity, the extended and laborious exertions with which he feconded the blow ftruck by Luther, at the root of that inveterate superftition and impotture, which had for fo many ages overfhadowed Europe; when we reflect upon the feverity and aufterity of his lite; and the honourable and apoftolical poverty in which he died, we are inclined to make some allowance for that impetuofity of temperament, without which fuch mighty obftacles, as were opposed to the reformation, could not have been overcome. We are inclined to regard with candour that refiduum of human infirmity, of which even an infpired apoitle, as the facred history informs us, was not entirely devoid. When, on the other hand, we reflect upon the acuteness of his argumentative powers, the exuberance of his eloquence, and, whenever occafion called for it, even the *cultivated elegance of his nius, we cannot but make honourable mention of fuch talents, enlifted and exerted in fuch a caufe. Nor are we prepared to go the length of charging even his theology itself, however we may diffent from its leading pofitions, with heterodoxy. The foundations upon which it refts, however faulty the fuperftructure, are right and fcriptural. The views it prefents are--the majelty of the creator, and the humiliation of the creature; the depth of the wifdom of God, and the vanity of the wisdom. of man; the impotence of the human will, and the energy of divine grace. All thefe grand principles are as diftinguishing features of the "Inftitutions of Calvin,' as of any of Mr. Jones's most excellent writings, or of the articles of the Englith church. Wherever the tenets of Calvin are erroneous, it is upon fubjects where the most orthodox have admitted a latitude, where a Bafil and an Augustine would probably have diffented from each other; where the weakness of the human intellect, and the finite nature of the human capacity, renders every conclufion concerning God's decrees unfafe and precarious, except this, "That clouds and darknefs are round about him; righteoufnefs and judgment are the habitation of his throne."

From the difcipline of the Chriftian church, the ftudent is naturally carried to an inveftigation of its doctrines. It is in the prefervation and diffufion of the latter we trace the final caufe of the former. If, therefore, in compliance with the depraved habits of thinking, the indolence, the foppery, and fuperficial

See Calvin's Letter to Sadolet, and his Addrefs to Francis the Firft.

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