It is in vain that you tell the people the ceremony is nothing; if you insist upon its performance, they will think it something, and you cannot tell how much. As soon as you have succeeded in substituting form for principle, you have destroyed all communion between God and his creature; you have blotted out the Gospel; and the rapid growth of depravity in the heart will speedily announce that the hand of the cultivator is withdrawn for ever.' The church proposes its ceremonies as an incitement to devotion; the people take them as a substitute: take away the ceremonial, and they can no longer shelter their depravity and deceive themselves. But while you give them this cover for their iniquities, it is in vain that you talk to them about it, and shew them that it was not intended to be so applied; they will listen to you, they will admit the reasonableness of your representations, and they will then quietly return to their vicious habits and their vain observances. This is human nature. In Ireland, the servant who will rob you without compunction, will rather be without food than eat flesh meat on fast days. The poor female outcast of the street, lost in vice and abandonment, is a punctual observer of the numerous festivals of her church. There are many who, if they were without these means of self-delusion, would still cling to their vices in open defiance of conviction, but a great number would abandon them in horror of their deformity, when dragged from every cover, and exhibited in the light of truth.' Vol. I. pp. 142-6. He is no real friend of the Roman Catholics, who would attempt to rest their claims upon a lie, by palliating or disguising the evils of Popery as it now is, in every country which the light of the Gospel has not thoroughly penetrated. But what is it in its grossest forms? We can call it nothing worse than Paganism, of which it is, in fact, but a modification. And over what were the first triumphs of Christianity achieved, but Paganism itself? What means of evangelization had the first preachers of the Gospel, which we do not possess, except that which contributed but indirectly to their success, and nothing to their security, the power of working miracles? To set against which, we have the all but miraculous powers of the press, the printed Scriptures, and a protecting government. And yet, we have suffered Popery to run wild and propagate itself at our very doors, under the fostering influence of penal enactments, with scarcely an attempt to check its progress, unless by chartered schools and grants for building useless churches. With truth, and the civil power, and conscience, and the Almighty on our side, we are afraid of Popery! There are a number of important topics connected with the subject of these volumes yet untouched, but we must draw this article to a close. We cannot, however, altogether pass over the Author's account of the present state of the Presbyterian Church of Ireland. It should seem, that, in that ill-fated country, every thing has been doomed to stagnate. The Presbyterian Churches of Ireland are stated to have extensively lapsed into Socinianism. The synod of Antrim is said to be openly and professedly of this faith; and it is stated that there are few of its churches which are not so infected.** Into the causes of this apostacy, we are not at present called upon to enter. We have not before us a sufficiently specific and well authenticated statement of the fact. What has taken place in England, and at Geneva, would, however, lead us to receive such a representation with more regret than surprise. Not that there would seem to be any necessary or natural connexion between the discipline of Calvin and the creed of Servetus. There is, on the contrary, something portentous in the combination. But let endowments be substituted for the primitive mode of supporting and perpetuating the Christian ministry, and let the voice of the people, speaking their own moral wants, be disregarded in the appointment of Christian pastors, while the spirit of the world, generated by wealth and civil immunities, spreads like a leaven through the clergy; such a state of things cannot long precede the declension of the Church, whatever be its professed creed, from all that is vital in Christianity. We must transcribe the following remarks without comment. We do not object to Socinian congregations, or to congregations of Deists or Atheists, if there are such; we would allow to all the most perfect freedom. But we object to this confusion of names, to this juggle of profession. We object to Socinians concealed under the name of Presbyterians; and to Deists professing to be Socinians. The public are deceived; and congregations are led away into error, without intending to expose themselves to the danger of false doctrine. * The Author's remarks are, we presume, intended to apply only to the Irish Presbyterians in connexion with the Established Church of Scotland. To the Seceders from that Church, (as they are generally denominated,) the Presbyterians of the Associate Synod, who are a considerable and highly respectable body, the charge of apostacy does not, we believe, in any degree attach. Of this branch of the Presbyterian Church, there are no fewer than from 140 to 150 ministers in Ireland. They have, of late years, at the intervention of the late Marquis of Londonderry, been included in the distribution of the Regium Donum, although they have not been placed on a level, as to the amount of the exhibition, with the clergy of the Synod of Ulster. Probably, the public money could not be more beneficially applied. The public are deceived also in another way. Out of the public purse the Presbyterian congregations of Ireland receive considerable sums of money. We would ask, what for? Is not one "established" clergy enough to burden the people of Ireland with? Must the poor peasant pay his quota also to this wealthy church? The Presbyterians of the north are the wealthiest portion of the Irish people. They are in possession of the only flourishing manufacture of the country. And yet it is to the clergy of these rich manufacturers, that the impoverished peasant of the south is obliged to contribute; for the weight of taxation falls upon the poor, whom the general distress and impoverishment of the country deprive of employment. "The "Regium Donum" is given to all congregations in Ireland assuming the name of Presbyterian, who choose to take it. In this way there may be a great Socinian and Deistical establishment in that country paid in part out of the public purse. The disciples of Hume and Voltaire, and the followers of Socinus, might tax the country, that their philosophers may moralise in their pulpits, and argue at leisure upon cause and effect, and all the phenomena of the moral and physical world. It is no way creditable to these Churches, in all respects so competent to their own support, that they should dip their hands in the exhausted purse of the public. But it is a greater reproach that they should be permitted to do so. We do not mean to say, that all the Presbyterian Churches of Ireland are Socinian; nor that all the Socinian Congregations are Deistical; but we mean to state that this is asserted of a great portion of both. Neither do we charge these opinions, nor any opinions as criminal; but we have found in some of these congregations, both in the ministers and members, a degree of equivocation and disingenuousness, highly discreditable. A paltering between their half-ayowed faith and half-advanced pretension, which may be prudent, but is far from being righteous or just. Righteousness wears the guise of no unreal seeming, and justice demands that we should shew ourselves to all in our true shape and proportions. We would not dwell upon this falling off of the Presbyterian Church, if we did not think it an evil of great magnitude. If this creed were widely spread amongst the middle and lower classes of society, it would produce, we are persuaded, a very evil effect. It would lead, in a short time, to deism in both; and this, when it had reached the inferior strata of mankind, would unfold its real character. It is at this level only, that we can try the truth of religion. Its effect upon the vulgar is the test of its purity or spuriousness. For here, its natural working is not counteracted by those numerous ingredients which correct or neutralise its operation on the middle or higher orders, such as competence, rank, taste, ambition, fortune. Those who would ascertain the truth of religion, must watch it as it works upon the mass of mankind. 'Socinianism cannot be the religion of the poor and the wretched; and the strong spirits, and the exalted in rank, disdain this ambiguous profession: it belongs to the timid unbeliever, or the prudent manager VOL. XIX. N.S. Ꭱ of this world's interests. This Christianised Deism involves itself in more difficulties than it seeks to avoid; but it attains its object, perhaps, in keeping well with the populace, by the semblance of Christian worship, while it sacrifices none of the corruptions of heart. The scheme of Socinus calls for no sacrifice which a prudent consideration of self-interest would not demand. The religion of Socinus is the religion of the prudent calculator, and the enlightened worldling. If it were general, it would be abominable; it would open wide the flood-gates of human depravity. But, checked and restrained as it is, it is almost harmless. We object only to the establishment it has obtained in Ireland." Vol. I. pp. 168-175. The whole of this chapter is most admirable. With regard, however, to the withdrawment of the Regium Donum from these churches, it would be an invidious measure; if suddenly put in execution, a harsh, impolitic, and unjust measure; and it is not at this point, assuredly, that retrenchment and reform should begin. Let particular abuses be inquired into; but nothing would be more likely to excite a movement of the public mind in favour of Socinianism, and to infuse life into its paralytic members, than any immediate invasion of long standing immunities. Against Popery and Socinianism we have but one legitimate way of proceeding, to set up the Ark, and see if Dagon will fall. Art. II. The Loves of the Angels, a Poem. By Thomas Moore. 8vo. Third Edition. pp. 148. Price 9s. London, 1823. ex UR general opinion of Mr. Moore's talents, we pressed pretty freely in reviewing his Lalla Rookh. But if we had not done so, as it is a point on which our readers must long ago have made up their minds, it might be as well, in the present instance, to confine our remarks to his choice of a subject. At the first view, it seems a seductive one. It is of that mixed, semi-ethereal character which comports with the sentimental Magdalen muse of our Irish David. The Poet seems, as it were, to hover between Sacred Melodies and Anacreon; and his poetry reminds us of those solemn, languishing, pious airs which have of late become fashionable under the misnomer of sacred music, in which the opera and devotion seem to meet half-way. But, when we come to examine the subject chosen by Mr. Moore a little more closely, it appears by no means a happy one. He does right in stating, by way of defence, that, in point of fact, the subject is not Scriptural; the notion upon which it is founded (that of the love of Angels for women) having originated in an erroneous translation by the LXX. of that verse in the sixth chapter of • Genesis upon which the sole authority for the fable rests.' We can by no means concede, however, that the subject has nothing to do with Holy Writ. Whatever property the Rabbins or the Mahommedans may claim in Angels, they belong, in fact, exclusively to Biblical Theology. Had Mr. Moore chosen to adapt his fable to the loves of Peris or any other order of genii, we should have made no objection to his proceedings, But with the word angel are associated ideas of a more sacred character, which refuse to blend with the light dreams of voluptuous fiction. In representing angels otherwise than as Scripture teaches us to conceive of them, there is a violation even of poetical propriety. The moral incongruity is still more glaring and palpable. The Christian reader cannot forget that these imaginary loves of the angels are, according to the fable, the illicit amours of apostate spirits. The Poet, by making every angel' tell his tale,' has aggravated this impropriety to the utmost. Like the Rev. Mr. Macgowan of facetious memory, Mr. Moore has given us, in fact, under the disguise of a better title, Dialogues of Devils.' At least, if we have no authority for using that appellation in a plural form, these angels are, on the Poet's own shewing, fallen angels; and if fallen, they must be impure, evil, malignant intelligences. They are represented, however, in the poem as most amiable and interesting demons. The arch-tempter himself could not wish to have his portrait sketched by a more accommodating limner than Mr. Moore. The only offence of which one of these exiled angels appears to have been guilty, is that of having exceeded his furlough, and tarried too long upon the earth. The second is such a foolish spirit as to enact the part of Jove towards his Semele. Poor Rubi' did not know that his wings would scorch his earthly bride. The third spirit is, in truth, a devotional sentimentalist, a most religious demon. Nor knew he, when at last he fell, His soul in that sweet hour was lost.' These things, one might have thought, he would have had in higher perfection in his native regions; but he seems to have had a wayward sectarian taste, which led him to prefer, as it were, the tabernacle to the cathedral. His crime was that of nonconformity, and his fall is an allegorical lesson to all those who are in danger of being seduced by a pretty face, good singing, or devotion,' from their parish church. For these his irregular devotional propensities, Zaraph is excommunicated of course. |