insulted, besides working up his own wretched vanity to a pitch unworthy of his station. It would have kept him from public altercation with ambassadors at his court, or base traps laid for them at neighbouring ones. It would have inspired him with a respect for truth, nor allowed an emperor's bulletin to have become a word synonymous with a lie. In fine, it would have preserved him from the foul stain of having murdered a defenceless prince. The faults of Bonaparte form a striking proof of how vulgarity may lead to crime; and, perhaps, the best plea for the aristocratic organization of society is, that honour, the essence of that system, is the best substitute for moral principle, the seed of which is perishable, and difficult to rear.'

Of any substitutes for moral principle, the utmost that can be said is, that bad is the best.

Art. V. The Prospects of Britain. By James Douglas, Esq., of Cavers. 8vo. pp. 102. Edinburgh. 1831.

THE iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full',-the handwriting of God Himself on the oldest memorial in the world, disclosing the reason of a political revolution which, to a philosophical historian, presents nothing beyond the operation of the most obvious secondary causes,-this authoritative promulgation of the principle of the Divine government of the world, in reference to nations, furnishes, in fact, the true key to the cipher in which the book of Providence is written. But, though enforced by the events of four thousand years, the lesson is not received, nor the import of the declaration credited, by the rulers or the politicians of the world. In accounting for the rise, decline, and fall of nations, this is the last reason that is adverted to, as affording any explanation of events; or is noticed merely to be set aside as not coming within the range of such investigations,-a mere theological position having no real bearing on facts. And so long have we been accustomed to read history as consisting merely of the proceedings of men, instead of being mainly the proceedings of God towards man, that an infidel tone has overspread the feelings, and communicated itself to the language of the pious, and the true philosophy of history is mistaken for fanaticism.

Or if, now and then, a sermon or political pamphlet has contained a reference to the probationary and retributive character of the Providential administration of the world, it has too generally been coupled with some doubtful speculation, some essay at prophecy, or some fulmination of party spirit, that has been ill adapted to recommend the union of theology and politics. Some of those who might seem to possess the key to God's 'government in the world', have shewn such rashness and want of judgement in applying it to passing events, as to strengthen the delusions of infidelity. And not only have our

religious politicians too frequently betrayed a discreditable ignorance of history, and a most contracted view of the signs of the times, but they have grossly committed Christianity, by using her abused authority in defence of arbitrary power and decrepid tyranny; or in urging a political crusade, and cheering 'the dogs of war'; or have, at least, represented the interests of Christianity as endangered by the progress of knowledge and freedom, as if true religion could be at variance with the social interests of mankind. Not so the present Writer, whom we hail as an eloquent champion alike of the rights of man, and of those paramount interests which are connected, inseparably, with the claims and the commands of Him who made him.

Many professed friends, and many open enemies, of revealed religion', remarks Mr. Douglas, have represented it as unfriendly to liberty. The contrary is the fact. They have mistaken the duty inculcated upon individuals to submit to the existing laws, for the doctrine of passive obedience. Their tenets and those of the Scriptures are diametrically opposite. The Bible enjoins the few to submit to the many; (that is, Christian believers to yield obedience to the magistrates of heathen nations ;) those who contend for passive obedience, would have the interests of the many submitted to the caprices of the

few.

As God's word is favourable to liberty, so is His providence also. All the blessings that we enjoy all that we esteem in literature and in science and in art-are the result of determined resistance to oppression, and the offspring of the free states of ancient and modern times.' p. 26.

The primitive institutions of the Christian Church are so favourable to freedom, that wherever they have been maintained in their simplicity, a spirit of liberty has animated the professors of the faith of Christ; and the corruption of those institutions, and the enslavement of the human mind, have kept pace with each other. Had it been the primary design of Christianity, to give political freedom to the nations, instead of this being but the natural effect of the moral dignity to which it raises the believer, it could not have been better adapted for that purpose. The religion of the Gospel is composed of faith and obedience; but a faith founded upon evidence, an obedience regulated by a defined, written law; a faith, the reverse of the implicit credulity of Superstition, and an obedience the opposite of passive, servile subjection to authority. Christianity not only made its appeal to evidence and to law, as the test of its claims, but it taught and accustomed every individual Christian to refer to evidence as the ground of his belief, and to the law and the testimony as the standard and rule of life. Christianity is emphatically the law of liberty', for law and liberty are correlatives: a man who is governed only by the laws, is and feels

himself to be a free man; for it is arbitrary rule, rule without law, that oppresses and degrades. It is very much the habit of appealing to the decision and protection of the law, as the real sovereign, that has formed the character of the English people, and rendered them conspicuous at once for their independency and their loyalty and subordination. And it is very much, we are disposed to think, that habit of deferring to evidence, which is fostered both by the forms of our jurisprudence and by the spirit of Protestantism, that has produced that general character for good sense and practical judgement, which may be fairly claimed for the nation. Thus, Christianity is not only favourable to civil liberty, but it has a direct tendency to produce it, and requires it as a means of effecting its higher ends, the moral renovation of our nature. Christianity,' remarks Bishop Warburton, naturally inspires the love both of civil and ' religious liberty; it raises the desire of being governed by laws of our own making, and by the conscience which is of 'God's own giving. Men practised in the exertion, and ha'bituated to the enjoyment, of religious rights, can never long 'continue ignorant of, or bear with patience, the invasion of their 'civil. The human faculties can never long remain in so violent and unnatural a state, as to have these operations perpe'tually checking and defeating one another, by the contrary 'actions of two such opposite principles as love of freedom and 'acquiescence in slavery. The one or the other must, in a ' little time, prevail. Either the foul spirit of tyranny will defile the purity of religion, and introduce that blind submission of 'the understanding, and slavish compliance of the will, into the Church; or else the Spirit of the Lord will overturn the usurpation of an unjust despotic power, and bring into the 'State, as well as the Church, a "free and reasonable service." That grandeur and elevation of mind, that sublimity of senti'ment, that conscious dignity of our nature, redeemed at so high a price, which true religion keeps alive; which Holy 'Scripture dictates; and which the Spirit of the Lord inspires; 'will be ever pushing us on to the attainment and preservation of those Civil Rights, which we have been taught by reason 'to know are ours; and which we have been made to feel by ' experience, are, of all ours, the most indispensable to human 'happiness.'

Mr. Douglas remarks, that the only two forms of government modelled by the immediate hand of God himself, the Jewish Republic and the Christian Church, are, in the highest degree, favourable to liberty. The primitive polity of the Church must be acknowledged to be, in a sense, democratic. Yet, the Christian body might be more justly styled an aristocrasy, (γένος ἐκλεκτὸν -λads πegioÚσios,) every believer being taught to consider him

self as a noble in society, invested with the privileges of a heavenly birth and the reversion of a royal inheritance. The very slave who embraced the redeeming faith, was to look upon himself as the Lord's freedman *; and he who had the power of choice, was forbidden to become the voluntary slave of men. The titles common to all Christians, but distinguishing them from all others, were, ἀγαπητοὶ Θεοῦ, κλητοὶ, ἁγίοι, κληρονόμοι Θεοῦ -'the beloved of Deity, the chosen, the consecrated, the heirs of Heaven;' expressions which, as originally used, had a significance which they have now well-nigh lost in conventional usage, and which must then have had a powerful influence in counteracting the narrow nationality of the Jew, and in producing at once a loftier and wider feeling of social dignity. We are apt, in attributing to these and similar expressions what we term a spiritual sense, to attach to them a merely figurative or rhetorical, that is an unreal meaning. But the primitive Christians mixed in society under the full influence of the honours which their sacred citizenship entailed upon them; nor did the phrase 'I am a Christian,' bespeak less of inward glorying than the proud boast, 'I am a Roman.' There is surely nothing more real in the notion of hereditary dignity, of belonging to an order, or to an illustrious house, or to no mean city,' than in being entitled to the character and privileges of a member of the body of Christ. The former notion, in fact, is, in the eye of the philosopher, a mere illusion; yet is it one which proves how much more powerfully abstract ideas affect the mind, than sensible ones. The latter is a persuasion of which the philosopher may deem as he pleases: we know it to be no illusion. But, in whatever light it be viewed, its obvious tendency is, to elevate the character of the individual, to reinforce every native sentiment of personal right and dignity, and to unfit him for slavery or political servitude. How great a deterioration must have taken place in the general character of Christian communities, before these phrases, applied by the Apostles to the whole brotherhood, became appropriated exclusively to the clergy! The Church had lost its sanctity, before it was robbed of its freedom; but when once the people had suffered themselves to be reduced to ecclesiastical vassalage, the corruption of the Church rapidly ensued; the conservative principle was gone. Rome declined as Christianity decayed; and as the moral lights of the world one after another went out, the darkness grew more palpable and hopeless, till it enveloped the whole civilized world in utter night.

From this condition of penal enthralment and judicial blind

* 1 Cor. vii. 22.

ness, the natives of Europe are but now emerging. Ignorant that their moral emancipation must precede their political regeneration, they are struggling against their bonds, with little other effect hitherto, than that of rivetting them the faster. The Writer of this pamphlet concurs with the organ of the Radical party, in announcing a European Revolution,' as at hand. Arguing upon different data, they both come to the same conclusion.

The composite governments which resulted from the union of barbarian conquerors and Roman subjects, have lost the cement that bound them, and are crumbling into dust. The political convulsions of the present day may be considered as the revival of an ancient quarrel, long smothered, but never appeased. The governments established by the German tribes, when they took possession of the Western empire, were a mixture of freedom and servitude. The Gothic institutions were liberal even to licentiousness in the favour that was shewn by the conquerors to themselves; but iniquitous and oppressive to the original natives of the soil. The vanquished, however, are at last rallying against the victors, and reconquering those equal rights, which had long ago been wrested from them by the conquest of the barbarians. Other conquerors have sought to identify themselves with the nations they subdued; but the Gothic race, by the oppressive privileges with which they distinguished themselves from the mass of the people, perpetuated, through a length of ages, the remembrance of their foreign origin and their usurped authority. Thus, in France, the original Franks or the nobles, and the Gauls or the citizens and peasantry, never were fairly incorporated; and though their languages mingled and became one, the races were not blended, but the former remained the superior, the latter an inferior caste.

France, which had long ago been pointed out by Harrington as the country which would succeed England in the struggle for liberty, first began that contest upon the Continent, which, though it may seem to cease for a time, will never terminate till the ancient governments of Europe are overturned. We have seen the first flame break out, and threaten to involve Europe in one general conflagration,when at last, quenched in blood, it subsided into ashes, and all seemed quiet; till from these smouldering remains, new fires have been rekindled, as intense as ever, and likely to be still wider in their range and destruction.

A great and, it is to be feared, a long warfare is begun. The past is opposed to the present, institutions to opinions, and the interests of the few to the hopes of the many. The absolute monarchs of Europe and the press cannot exist together. If the tide of ages could be rolled back, and the discoveries of later times be annihilated, --if Divine justice would let the oppressions of many generations pass unpunished, kings might sit peaceful on their thrones, and false religions might retain the undisturbed possession of the earth. But the time is at hand, and the word of prophecy is sure.' pp. 1-8.

But when a European revolution is spoken of, what more can

VOL. VI.-N.S.

Y Y