on the part of "Christian parents, who abstain from all appearance of enthusiasm with far more trembling solicitude than they abstain from all appearance of evil," as Mr. Jebb strongly observes in a series of very appropriate and beautiful remarks on this subject, has (we are confident) gone very far in establishing the argument, that such grace must be practically separated from the real grace of effectual and saving regeneration, the definition of which has of late so much agitated our church. But perhaps, likewise, too many affecting failures on the part of pious and zealous Christian parents, after their utmost efforts; too many lamentable contradictions to the promising, not to say flattering, hopes, held out by Mr. Jebb, of the possible and insensible union of religious feeling with every natural and heart-felt sentiment of youth, and with all the refinements, elegancies, and commanding attractions of "sweet domestic bliss;" in short, too many disappointments of the worst kind, notwithstanding the use of the best means, have perhaps helped forward the conclusion, that some of the ancient fathers may have spoken too highly of the necessary efficacy of baptism; and that scores of their later posterity have spoken far too meanly of the regenerating change itself, as deeming it no more than they could find in practice universally to result from the administra tion of the outward rite. We are not rash enough to enter further upon the point in the present exhausted state of our time and space: only we shall take leave to say, that if every advocate for that view of baptism which Mr. Jebb seems to have taken, had felt as he feels, written as he writes, and delineated as he delineates the true nature of the regenerating change, and the deep spirituality of heart and conduct which alone can testify its existence or make it available to salvation, we unfeignedly believe that the advocates of a different opinion' would have withheld their protests, and the blood and treasure spent in the late controversy might all have been spared. It is the secret opposition of human nature to the purity of conduct and spirituality of heart recommended by Mr. Jebb, that would alone induce us to close every loop-hole in doctrine by which conviction might be evaded, and the benefit of such remonstrances and exhortations lost on a self-deceiving world. We feel ourselves unwillingly constrained here to close our particular remarks on the sermons before us; and must be content with informing our readers that the three last are of a local nature, upon the three several occasions of an address in behalf of a Magdalen Asylum, from John viii. 11; "Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more;"--an ordination sermon, from 1 Tim. iv. 16; “ Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them; for in doing this, thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee;" and a visitation sermon, from 2 Tim. ii. 15; "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” It must suffice to say, that the same characteristic features meet us in these as in the former more general and doctrinal discourses. We think the graces of a pure and refined eloquence, on the most touching of all subjects, preponderate in the first; plainness of speech, with much gravity and solemnity of admonition, in the second; and in the third, a fulness and loftiness of diction, corresponding to the delineation of the sublimest of all professions, drawn out into all its noblest parts and proportions, requirements and capacities. The latter, both sermon and notes, those particularly on the use and worth of the fathers, we can with confidence recommend, as worthy the perusal even of the most advanced practitioner in "the schools of the prophets." The preceding one reminds us much of the invaluable Discours Synodaux of Massillon, which it may be said closely to rival, in every thing perhaps but that admirable distinctness with which the Gallican bishop descends to minute particulars in conduct;-an exception which we have always had to notice, more or less, in our preacher, and which would be peculiarly inappropriate in an address to those just about to take upon themselves the sacred office. There are, however, some good distinguishing observations on preaching in p. 295. In the former sermon, on the Magdalen Asylum, it is next to a prodigy, in adverting to the Great Example of goodness to penitent sinners, that Mr. Jebb should have so managed his subject, such a subject, as even here to have omitted that great and master act of Divine benevolence, the pouring out on the cross the blood of the Son of God for the sins of men. Can any thing be more forcible than the appeal of our blessed Saviour himself to his own example in this respect? "Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many." Whence is it, we earnestly ask, when "our Lord's whole conduct upon earth, and the gracious movements of his mediatorial kingdom in nature, providence, and grace," are all delineated by the preacher for our obedient imitation, that our Lord's own most touch. ing appeal, the most frequent appeal of his Apostles, and that act assuredly most dear and most important in all its consequences to Christians, should have no proportion or pre-eminence in the appeals of Mr. Jebb? * Had it not been for this omission • We cannot say we have amused, but we have certainly employed, ourselves in marking, with what the grammarians call a caret, certain passages of the presentand other discourses in this volume, one, in our minds, very difficult. to be accounted for-we should have been disposed to consider the Tenth, and we might add several others, of the discourses in the volume, as perfect specimens of pulpit addresses for an elevated and enlightened congregation. With an occasional hardness of expression, with some instances of an undue verbosity, with an accidental instance or two of obscurity > in thought or expression, with few repetitions, arising from not the most studied arrangement of his subject, and a few redundancies, from the mass of varied thought and expression evidently accumulated in a most extensive and diversified course of reading and study, we think our author admirably formed both by nature and art to give to statements their utmost importance, to doctrines (when he pleases) all their value, to exhortations all their force, and if not to threatenings all their terror, yet to the ineffably attractive promises of the Gospel all their native loveliness. It is, perhaps, to some little excess of feeling on the amiable where an enumeration being expressly lume, or of the fundamental principles of given of the contents of the Divine voChristianity, the first article of all, in our humble estimation, has been omitted. Take, for instance, in p. 197, the offices of "God our Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier;" "who loves us," "who sustains us," "who surrounds us with his "who guides us everlasting arms" by the inspiration of his Spirit." Again, P. 206: "We shall have recourse to the blessed Author of restoration and comfort that we may be raised above every wrong propensity, and freed from every base desire," &c. And again, in p. 252, "That the Eternal Son"." should take our nature upon him, should bear with our infirmities—heal our diseases, raise us from the degradation of sin," &c. The blank in each passage will, we are persuaded, be filled up by our readers in nearly the same words in which the inspired Psalmist has himself filled up the last," who FORGIVETH ALL THINE INIQUITIES, and healeth all thy diseases.” side, that we may ascribe his evident backwardness at all times to say the truth of human nature as it is; and his willingness to magnify its instinctive tendency, and even its actual proximity, to what it ought to be. The effect of this, as of most other amiable weakDesses, is in a measure to weaken its own end, by awakening less alarm in the hearer, and therefore less urgency to sue for a remedy for his guilt and danger. If this weakness should have had the further effect, also, of diminishing in our preacher's eyes the value of that vicarious righteousness intended as a covering for our own unrighteous, our "naked, and shivering nature," how great indeed were the risque of indulging it, and how sure a proof that no one sound doctrine of Scripture and our Church (and their doctrines are the same) can be either neglected or compromised without manifest danger to all the rest! * In final conclusion of our very long, and we fear prolix, observations on this interesting volume: we should be most sorry to retire from a task from which we trust we have derived profit, as well as much pleasure, with any other feeling but that of thankfulness for the opportunity of discharging it, and a full and due appreciation of the great worth and excellence of the author on whom we have commented. We have found in him a vigorous and fruitful imagination, employed upon the most worthy and most ennobling of all subjects; and, what is still better, a warm and feeling heart, affectionately devoted to all that is pure in morals and spiritual in piety. "Whatsoever things are honest, or just, or pure, or lovely, or of good report, whatever there is of virtue or praise," he has well and often thought on these things. His doctrines, though in the detail somewhat diversely mo delled according to certain peculiar impressions, never in the slightest degree conduct him to the cold abstract moralities of the Socinian. school, nor to the high-sounding boasts or exclusive claims of a still more extensive Pharisaic formality. Bordering, perhaps, a little nearer: upon some of the more innocent abstractions of a well-known Quiet sect, who inherit rather the garb than the spirit of ancient Puritanism, he yet forgets not in his dispensation of the Spirit the outward signs and pledges of its gifts, nor would, we are persuaded, incur any of the suspicions in respect of doctrine that have sometimes attached, whether justly or not, to the adherents of Barelay. Uniting in himself much of the strictness in precept, with all the fervour and sanctity in principle, of William Law, we trust we shall ever see Mr. Jebb as clear as his pages now. evince him to be, of the unintelligible and extravagant flights into which a busy and ungoverned fancy at last conducted that once useful writer. Perhaps he ap-. proaches more closely the standard of the amiable and pious Fenelou, whose deeply spiritual sentiments we could sometimes fancy him to have enunciated with the superior energy of a Massillon or a Bourda-. loue. But Fenelon had recourse to the feeble dogmas and lamentable conceits, the Ave-Marias and transubstantiating process, of an irrational superstition, to support the fabric of his high and towering spirituality; and his towers and his foundation, his religion and his church, have alike given way in the daring conflict of human opinion. We have a church against whose solid foundations we feel more than a mortal persuasion that the gates of hell shall not be able to prevail. We confidently believe its basis to be the Rock of Ages, and its superstructure the temple of Truth. Let us only tread the courts of this church in peaceful unanimity; wor-, ship at her shrine with an enlight ened and undissembled devotion; and draw from every chamber of her hallowed recesses, with the same undistinguishing confidence, all her treasures of wisdom and knowledge, of doctrine, precept, and example; and we shall find, amidst all the vicissitudes of this lower scene, that "God will be known within her walls as a sure refuge ;" and, no less beautiful for situation than calculated to become the joy of the whole earth, she shall be acknowledged by all as a worthy portal to that heavenly temple, where her true members shall for ever shine as durable pillars, and shall no more go out.* The reader will perceive that we have omitted all reference to Mr. Jebb's Appendix, as it would have led into an interminable length of discussion, especially as we are not disposed to agree with the author in his general positions. LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL INTELLIGENCE, &c. &c. GREAT BRITAIN, PREPARING for publication: - Annals of Scottish Episcopacy, by the Rev. J. Skinner;-Abridgment of Bishop Taylor's Great Exemplar, by Rev. W. N. Darnell;-Travels in Egypt, Nubia, the Holy Land, &c., by Capt. Light;Practical Sermons, by Dr. W. Barrow; -A Manuscript, lately discovered, of Dr. King, of St. Mary's, Oxford;--Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, by M. GaçonDufour; and a Biographical Sketch of B. Haydon, Esq. by W. Carey. In the press:-Poems, by Mrs. Darke; -and A Treatise on the Commercial Law of England, by Barron Field. or one hundred and thirty parts. Twelve parts will be printed in the year. The work cannot be sold in separate parts. Philosophical Lamp.-A lamp without flame has been recently invented upon a very simple and elegant principle. A coil of thin platina wire is placed round the wick of a spirit lamp, the flame of which makes the platina red hot. The lamp is then blown out, and the platina, throughout all the coils above the cotton, acquires a white heat, aud continues in that state, as long as any spirits remain in the lamp, diffusing a brilliant light, sufficient to illuminate any object placed in its neighbourhood. The platina wire ought not to exceed the one-hundredth part of an inch in diameter; twelve coils of which, spirally twisted, are to be placed so as half to surround the wick and half to remain elevated above it. The diameter of the coils should be three-twentieths of an inch,and approach as near to each other as possible without touching. Camphor may be substituted for alcohol; a cylinder of which, placed instead of a wick, will cause the platina to give out an intensely vivid light, without the unpleasant effluvia that attends the burning of alcohol. Mr. Valpy has issued proposals for publishing a new edition of the Delphin Classics, with the Variorum Notes, to be entitled "The Regent's Edition." The maps will be beautifully executed, and the wood-cuts will also be inserted. The notes will be printed at the end of each author, and the various readings will be placed under the text. The indices will be carefully collated, the references being to book and chapter. The Delphin Interpretatio will be placed under the text. The Literaria Notitia from the Bipont edition will be added to each author. The whole will be printed uniformly in 8vo. each part six hundred and seventy-two pages. 18s. bds. to subscribers; and 11. Is. to non-subscribers. Copies on very fine thick royal paper, to subscribers, 11. 168. to non-subscribers, 21. 2s. The whole will make about one hundred and twenty the returns. New Churches.-The official documents upon which the measures now in contemplation for building new churches are founded, are very voluminous. The following is an abstract of come to our readers. They are taken from the Tables of the Philosophical Transactions: and by them it appears, that for the last fifty years the average difference in the heat, for the whole year, does not vary three degrees; it having fluctuated between 51° and 49° of Fahrenheit. But upon comparing the heat of the five summer months, for the years mentioned below, it will be seen that there is a very material difference. We have taken, as far as the Journals are complete, every fifth year. The numbers are the maxima of the heat of the respective months. May. June. July. Augt. Sept. 20 .... 30 .... 40 .... 248 1775 74.5 81.5 82 75.5 75 Kaleidoscope-Dr. Brewster has just taken out a patent for an ingenious optical instrument, denominated a Kaleidoscope. The construction is as simple as the illusion is complete. In its most simple form, two mirrors are inclined to each other at such an angle that an object placed between them will be reflected from mirror to mirror, so as to form a complete circle of radii, of which the line of intersection of the single gem thus placed will form a circle mirrors passes through the centre. A of gems; and, consequently, any num ber of gems or other objects, however irregular their forms or various their combinations, will form a circle of such objects, in perfect correspondence and symmetry, collected round a common centre. The objects most proper for the purpose are pieces of coloured glass, gems, &c. which are placed, for the sake of convenience, between two parallel object-glasses, in a tube with the mirrors. Nothing can exceed the beauty of the combinations produced by this simple contrivance. The small est change in the position of the objects gives rise to the most rapid and surprising succession of forms. The in strument is intended to assist jewellers, glass and paper stainers, carpet manu facturers, cotton printers, &c. &c. in discovering more beautiful patterns than would otherwise occur to the eye. It is likely, therefore, to prove of con |