Let no ill dreams disturb my rest, Dull sleep! of sense me to deprive! But tho' sleep o'er my frailty reigns, The faster sleep the senses binds, O when shall I, in endless day, May my blest guardian, while I sleep, REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. A Treatise on Love to God, considered as the Perfection of Christian Morals. By the Rev. JAMES JOYCE, A.M., Curate of Hitcham, Bucks. London: Hatchard. 1822. Lectures on the Pleasures of Religion. By HENRY FORSTER BURDER, M. A. London: Westley. 1823. DIVINE love is a sacred flower, which, in its early bud, is happiness, and, in its full bloom, is heaven. To plant this hallowed grace in the bosom of sinful man, to cultivate its growth, and to ripen it to fruitfulness, is the great end of all religion and the determination of "faith unfeigned." Nothing can so much conduce to the attainment of the heavenly feelings implied in this statement as Scriptural views of the Divine nature and perfections. When Simonides was interrogated concerning the character of God, and when he required one day after another to prepare himself for his reply, we cannot doubt that, as the awful dignity and terrible majesty of the unsearchable and infinite Being "who inhabiteth eternity, and whose name is holy," rose dimly to his view through the cloudy mists of pagan theology, he acquired an increasing ve neration for the perfections of the Deity, united probably with some degree of apprehension and humility in reference to his own frailty and weakness. But he would feel little of that holy and chastised affection which it is the peculiar province of the revealed word of God to awaken; for it is that word alone which has brought to light the discovery that God is Love. The conviction of power will produce awe; the perception of wisdom will command reverence: but neither of these will inspire confidence, unless associated with the demonstrations of benignity. It is only the benevolence of God, which can enkindle affection in the heart of man. We love him because he first loved us. When this principle is awakened in the soul, it is the most powerful and influential of all the springs of religious obedience. It is so in other and inferior matters; and as religion furnishes larger materials for the support of this principle, it becomes correspondently visible and operative. Take the case of a man really having the "love of God shed abroad in his heart." What an annihilation, or at least subjugation, of low and sordid aims and motives must take place in that man! What noble, disinterested, ardent powers! What "strength to suffer, and what will to serve!" Arduous duties become easy; onerous burdens are rendered light, and acute sufferings are "reckoned not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall follow." Gifted with this heavenly principle, the Christian has in his possession, not only the best stimulant to duty and the strongest support in trial, but also, whatever ministers to the true enjoyment of life; and that Christian has the highest fruition of every subordinate blessing in whose bosom the heavenly flame burns the most brightly. It is, to our view, far from an extraordinary circumstance, that there should at times have prevailed among Christians very signal misconceptions on the subject of this principle. Its nature and operations, and the variations of its influence in different individuals, will readily ac count for this. Accordingly, we have seen at one time too close an analogy attempted between this holy feeling and the movements of earthly affection; and at another, the opposite extreme regarded as the most Christian state of the soul, and all the active energies of religious love made to subside into the calm quietude of what is called a contemplative piety. On each of these errors, we purpose to make a few remarks. The first is one which cannot be too severely reprobated. The great How energetically does the Apostle describe the influence of this principle! «Η αγάπη του Χριτου συνεχει ημας:” “συνεχει constringit; constrictos tenet; metaphorice, tenet desiderio: "an intensity of desire which bears us away as a torrent." The same word is employed by Herodotus, in describing the effect of the plague; the fever of which was accompanied by a thirst, at once so pernicious and craving, that, although the patient knew that to satisfy that thirst would be instant death, yet, if water was to be obtained, he escaped to the fountain, and swallowed it eagerly. It constrained him to drink, even to his destruction: realities of religion ought to be regarded as enveloped by a sacred atmosphere, and to remain unbroken and undisturbed by any thing foreign to their holy character. There has been too much in the incautious language employed by some good men, with hearts more glowing than judgment enlightened, or taste well regulated, to produce this injurious identification of Divine truth with exceptionable associations. Metaphors of the least dignified class, epithets of passion of the most inappropriate kind, and associations of thought iterated and amplified to satiety, and perhaps even to disgust, occasionally, though, we would hope, not often, force themselves on the attention even in the present age of good sense and good taste, and, wherever they occur, must awaken the regret of every judicious Christian. Those allusions and analogies by which the pleasures of religion are cursorily set forth in the Bible, have been by some writers extended with a painful minuteness; and with reference to the subject before us, such forms of expression have been occasionally applied to the great Object of religious love and obedience, as must greatly pain any man who feels that he cannot meet the same Being at once on terms of adoration and of familiarity. These irreverent allusions and unhappy illustrations are far from exalting in our conceptions the mysteries of our most holy faith; and it too often happens that the least eligible points of the the mind; and every violence offered resemblance remain the longest on to good taste adds further, as is so convincingly proved in Mr. Foster's well-known Essay on this subject, to the strength of the natural disaffection of the heart to the peculiar doctrines and duties of the Christian dispensation. This error has not escaped the observation of Mr. Joyce*, who notices likewise • Mr. Joyce has attributed a failing of this kind to that justly eminent philosopher and Christian, the Honourable Robert Boyle, in his Treatise on Se the difficulty of wholly avoiding it; since, in attempting to describe the operations of love to God, we find few or no terms provided but such as have been employed in expressing the workings of earthly affection. The phraseology must therefore almost necessarily present in a similar aspect, at some points, two subjects, which are essentially different from each other. But still a prudent selection would prevent far the greater part of this inconvenience, and the expressions, instead of degrading the subject, may be themselves ennobled by being brought into a more sacred employment. The other error to which we have alluded is that of regarding the perfection of the Christian character as consisting in complete abstraction, and consequently allowing all the active energies of the soul to sink into a sort of passive enjoyment of the Divine goodness-often perhaps without any reference to the intervention of a Redeemer, or, indeed, to any specific Christian doctrine. The soul is invited to an absorbing sense of the mercies of the Deity, and in that it rests. This was a conspicuous part of the delusive doctrines of the Mystics*; and it cannot be denied that it does present certain attractive features with which some estimable characters of the Christian church have been deeply smitten; though we are surprised that the enlightened minds of raphic Love. There is another justly celebrated writer who is at times open to this charge; we mean the excellent and generally judicious Dr. Watts. There are reprehensibly familiar allusions to be found occasionally in some of his writings; but they occur chiefly in his poetry, where greater freedom (but not cence) may be tolerated. He, however, in his more mature years, greatly regretted such improprieties of language. The Mystics were not, however, all of them of this more philosophical class ; for many of them were open to the charge of indecorous familiarity, and of humanizing religious conceptions. the men of whom we speak did not detect the fallacy of their notions, however specious their appearance. These errors mayappear amiable; but neither the state of the church nor of the world has ever been such as to allow a single minister or private individual thus to sit down in quietness, absorbed in seraphic speculations, and to make no effort for the extension of heavenly knowledge around him. Least of all will the pressing wants and golden occasions of modern times tolerate that listless inactivity, that indifference to the spiritual necessities of others, which invariably, sooner or later, creeps over the habits of such as bury themselves in a religious seclusion, and, to avoid the perils, great we allow, of intercourse and contact with the world, place themselves in equal peril from the guilt of sins of omission, while they conceal those graces which were imparted for a light as well to "shine before men" as to illumine and cheer their own minds. A candle will not long burn under a bushel; but even if it could, its appropriate place is where it may "give light to all that are in the house;" and it is not the praise of the city in the valley, but of " the city set on a hill," that it "cannot be hid." These are not our own illustrations; they are the familiar, but expressive declarations of that Saviour, who, while he demands from us the most ardent feelings, of love and gratitude, points out the most accurate mode for the demonstration of our affection; and who, when he terms his people "the salt of the earth," cannot intend, if they are to be the appointed means of preserving any from corruption, that they remain undiffused through the mass of immortal beings by whom they are surrounded. An attentive observation of the exhortations to active duty, which are so abundantly distributed in the sacred volume, will clearly expose the unscriptural character of that absorption of saul, which would go far towards disqualifying the Chris tian for a fulfilment of any of their obligations. Before we pass from the consideration of these preliminary matters, to the volumes before us, we may observe, that out of this last error, which, when divested of its plausibilities, we cannot help regarding as indicative of a very morbid state of the spiritual understanding, and even of the affections themselves, has sprung not unnaturally a third mistake, the most extravagant of all-we mean the supposition that it is possible for the soul of the Christian to attain such an overwhelming desire for the promotion of the Divine glory, as even to acquiesce in its own condemnation and extinction from happiness, if such were the will of God. But even to picture such a monstrous supposition as that the attributes and perfections of the Godhead can receive no obscuration, but rather an increase of glory, from the eternal punishment of one of his faithful and devoted worshippers-for this the individual is necessarily admitted to be is to put a case, as impossible in fact as it is absurd in theory, as derogatory to the Divine benevolence as it is destructive of Christian confidence*. There are certainly two very remarkable instances in holy Scripture, which, if not carefully examined, may seem to lend indirectly a support to this error-the cases of Moses and of St. Paul, the one praying "to be blotted out of the book of life;" the other "wishing to be accursed from Christ," if the salvation of the objects of their solicitude could be advanced by that exclusion. But a little careful examination will convincingly shew, that such an interpretation of these desires as would amount to a final abandonment of everlasting bliss, is altogether inadmissible. It is not necessary to dwell now on the critical meaning of the terms employed in the original: our readers will probably recollect several papers which appeared in our last year's volume (see pp. 134, 264, and 336) on this subject: but we will only remark, that one of the constituents of the bliss of heaven is the presence and Our readers will now be anxious to learn something of the volumes before us, the first of which has called from us these remarks. Mr. Joyce has afforded us great satisfaction: he writes with clearness and feeling: the heart and the understanding of the reader both accompany him with pleasure to his conclusions; though there is occasionally an iteration of his sentiments, which is wearisome, and dilutes instead of strengthening them. His style is pure and polished, and his sentiments always good and often great. His subject is "Love to God;" a principle which, however frequently the detail of its outward movements and operations has been made the subject of religious investigation, yet has appeared to our author not to have been, at least in some of its bearings, sufficiently explained and insisted upon, and, in others, to have been left nearly untouched. The principle of love to God, when properly understood, throws great light not only on the degree, but on the nature of our happiness in a better state of being, and, considered as a principle which, in the early ages of the world, was found in the Jewish writings, and in them alone, but which has never been equalled by favour of God; that therefore the state opposed to this involves in it, not only separation from God, but absolute enmity to Him; and how can this be made to form a just object of desire with any true servant of God? Besides, the law of God, spiritual as it is in its nature,and extensive as are its requirements, only exacts that we love our neighbour as ourselves, but this would be loving him infinitely more ; and it has been well observed that even Christ (of whom Moses is supposed to be a type, and St. Paul an imitator, in these instances) was not willing to suffer more than a temporal death for his people, and thus the limit to our obligation is, not to devote our souls to destruction, but to "lay down our lives for the brethren." Such expressions are clearly meant only as figurative optatives, plain enough in their spirit, but not intended to be construed to the letter. any discoveries in the schools of heathen philosophy, nor ever professed to be surpassed or superseded by subsequent revelations from Heaven, it furnishes an additional and powerful testimony in favour of the Divine authority of the sacred writings. Such a subject as this meets us with peculiar attractions. It is truly a delectable theme. But our author shall express our meaning; for he has felt the delightful exemption which the subject claims from the influence of any thing like hostile or bitter feeling. It is not of a "contentious jurisdiction." "In pursuing this discussion, it is some gratification to think that it is less likely than most others to occasion angry controversy. Unlike those doctrines which are admitted by some and denied by others, the principle of love to God is acknowledged to be essentially necessary by every denomination of Christians, how. ever they may differ in their exposition of the Scripture. Some varieties of opinion certainly may arise as to the degree and mode of its operation, and the best evidence of its existence in the heart; and even these points of inquiry have proved inflammatory to the irascible nature of man, fond of his own speculations and impatient of contradiction and rebuke; but it was in a church less tolerant than our own, and in times less favourable, to Christian mildness and philanthropy. It is to be presumed, that at this later period of the church, as we have acquired more experience of the futility and mischief of indulging anger in theological discussions of any kind; no one will forget the glaring impropriety of gratifying feelings of animosity, and employing bitterness of expression, when he is engaged in explaining and recommending the holy principle of love to God. The very nature of the subject should disarm all violence, and suggest the necessity of reasoning with moderation and temper. To talk or write of divine love, with emotions of rancour in the heart, is so gross and palpable an inconsistency, that one might expect the most fiery disputant to be ashamed of it. At any rate, if he fell into the error, his own work would reproach him most, and no adversary needs be at any pains to expose his folly." Joyce, pp. 10, 11. "Witness the persecutions of Fenelon, after his publication of Maximes des Saints." " CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 259. Mr. Joyce proceeds to exhibit this interesting subject to his readers under a three-fold aspect. He first develops the several dispositions included in the principle of love to God; such as an admiration of the Divine perfections; gratitude for the operation of those perfections for our personal benefit; a supreme regard for the glory of God; a constant desire of the Divine favour; a habit of communion and intercourse with God; a desire of similitude to Him; a delight in his service; and a love to our fellow-creatures; to each of which points a distinct chapter is devoted. He then describes the manner in which this principle improves our conceptions of future happiness. His chapters are entitled, The Pleasure derived from the Exercise of Affection; The power of Moral Excellence in awakening Affection; This Power increased in proportion to our own Improvement in Holiness; The Exercise of Affection in Heaven; and, The Happiness derived from this Exercise. From the general consideration of the subject, in these two parts, an argument is derived in the third, in support of the Divine inspiration of the Scriptures. There is something so elevating in the views of that heavenly occupation in which the affection of the glorified spirits shall find its full and final, but unending exercise, and Mr. Joyce has, with so much elevation and purity," thought on the heavenly vision," that it was with difficulty we persuaded ourselves to fall down on the third division of his work, and to leave that "animorum concilium cœtumque diviof pagan philosophy. We could to mingle with the schools have willingly closed the volume before we entered on this last investigation, which would have been placed more satisfactorily in any part of the work than in that which it occupies. Independently of the incongruity of going to the disciples of the Pythagorean or Platonic systems with inquiries for num 3 M |