degree in Physic. His labours, with this view, were most Herculean; he ranged throughout the entire field of medical literature, both ancient and modern, besides attending the lectures of the first professors of his times. The auxiliary sciences, meanwhile, were not forgotten; in Anatomy, Chemistry, and Botany, he made himself a master. But amid all this multifarious toil, he never forgot that great subject to the teaching of which he intended to devote his future lifeDivinity.

In this course, Boerhaave is not to be imitated by common mortals. Only men conscious of extraordinary powers are authorised to adopt extraordinary measures. But that men's ambition is generally proportioned to their capacity, is a doctrine confirmed by the voice of universal history. Ambition is, by our greatest poet, well described as "the infirmity of noble minds." Seldom have men been sent into our world with the disposition to attempt great undertakings, without the ability necessary to perform them. A project like this of Boerhaave, however, even to superior men, would, as a rule, be madness, involving at once ruin and contempt. In this, therefore, let no man imitate him, unless consciously one of that small fraternity of mighty spirits, to whom, what the multitude deem toil, is but pastime-burdens, toys,-impossibilities, things of easy accomplishment.

Having finished his studies, he petitioned for a license to preach; but to his astonishment and grief, he found that the magnitude and diversity of his attainments had led some of the least of little men to call in question the soundness of his orthodoxy! Nay, he was charged with Spinosism, that is, with Atheism! His reputation was, for a season, irreparably injured; a fact which, as the Author of The Rambler has finely said, shows "that no merit, however exalted, is exempt from being not only attacked, but wounded, by the most contemptible whisper. Those who cannot strike with force can, however, poison their weapon, and, weak as they are, give mortal wounds, and bring a hero to the grave." Thus excluded from the ministry of the word, he betook himself to physic, and devoted the rest of his days to promoting the health and extending the life of man. Having from the outset to contend with deep poverty, which still oppressed him, he commenced practice under great disadvantages, and for a time he had but small success. But still, superior to discouragement, he perse

VOL. II.

vered till obscurity gave place to merited renown, and poverty to opulence; till kings and senates deemed it a privilege to do him homage; and till he became the glory of Leyden, and the boast of Europe. His piety advanced with his life, till, on September 23, 1738, in the seventieth year of his age, he closed his honourable career, in the hope of eternal life. Apart from his religious studies and social devotions, it was his custom on rising to devote the first hour of the morning to meditation and prayer, from which, he used to tell his friends, he derived spirit and vigour for the business of the day. His chief publications were twelve in number, and all on medical subjects.

What remains to be said of Abercrombie may best be stated in the affectionate words of his grateful pastor, appended to the funeral sermon in which he celebrates his worth, while he deplores his loss.

"Dr. Abercrombie's professional eminence will at once occur to all as having raised him to a position of very wide and conspicuous influence. So early as 1803 he began to practise in Edinburgh; and though it was long before either of those two valuable publications* appeared which form the main strength of his professional authorship, he very soon became so well known to his professional brethren through the medium of his contributions to the Medical and Surgical Journal, and by an extensive and successful practice, and had so gained the confidence both of the profession and the public, that immediately on the demise of Dr. Gregory, he took that place as a consulting physician which he has continued to hold with increasing celebrity. In 1830, and again in 1833, he appeared as an author on other subjects, which doubtless it had scarce been thought he could so investigate and adorn. For he had studied his own proper and peculiar science so devotedly and so well, and was necessarily so engrossed in practice with its most anxious and arduous labours, that surely marvellous it seemed how he found either taste or leisure for such a separate achievement. And yet to those who could appreciate that intellect, which was in him as remarkable for its comprehension as its clearness, and that height as well as depth of moral sensibility, which, being combined with the other, and sanctified, made him known unto all men as the eminently great and good-to those who could appreciate this,

* "On the Diseases of the Brain and Nervous System;" and "On the Diseases of the Abdominal Organs."

D

there seems no mystery in his taste or liking, however still they marvel at his finding leisure to gratify it. The truth plainly is, that both nature and grace had so impressed him with the tendency, and so endowed him with the power, for such investigations as form his treatises On the Intellectual Powers,' and 'On the Philosophy of the Moral Feelings,' that nothing had been to him so difficult as, unless under an imperious sense of duty, to have abstained from or abandoned them. Soon after the last-mentioned date he published also a treatise 'On the Moral Condition of the Lower Classes in Edinburgh; and between that time and the present now, when he had just issued what he intended should be the first of a series of essays On the Elements of Sacred Truth,' he produced, at irregular intervals, various others on kindred subjects, amounting in all to five, and which he recently comprised in one small volume, entitled his Essays and Tracts.' Of writings so well known and so very highly esteemed, as proved by a circulation extending, as it did in some, even to an eighteenth edition, it were useless to speak in praise either of their literary or far higher merits. But we cannot refrain from saying that the wisdom which pervades them is manifestly the wisdom of deepest Christian experience. The reader sees there one of the wisest, most observant, and sympathizing visitors of the poor, devising how best to ameliorate their moral condition.' And when the subject is the Harmony of Christian Faith and Character,' or 'The Messiah as an Example,' he knows that the author who could have written thus must himself have been long accustomed to 'look unto Jesus,' that his faith wrought with his works, and by his works his faith was made perfect.'

"Before either of his philosophical works appeared, he had been appointed Physician to the King for Scotland. In 1834, the University of Oxford also, as an unusual token of respect, conferred on him the degree of Doctor in Medicine; and in the immediately following year he was elected Lord Rector of Marischal College, Aberdeen. Nor were there wanting other, and as emphatic testimonies to his far-spread reputation. But, distinguished as he was, both professionally and as a writer in the highest and holiest departments of philosophy, it was not exclusively to his great fame in either respect, or in both, that he owed his wide and sanctifying influence through

out the community in which he lived. These raised him, as we have already said, to a position of notoriety which gave far greater weight and interest, no doubt, to all his sayings and example. But it was these sayings and that example, among professional men and pursuits, so consistently and completely manifesting exalted piety and benevolence, sustaining incessant labours in doing, as well as devising good, and that, too, among men of all classes, and by means of all various channels and expedients-it was this, at least very mainly, which made his life so very precious to us, and his death so very deeply and universally deplored. We need not tell how long and how conspicuously his name stood associated with the guidance of every important enterprise, whether religious or benevolent how somehow he provided leisure to bestow the patronage of his attendance and his deliberative wisdom on many of our associations, and, with a munificence which has been rarely equalled, and never, we believe, surpassed, ministered of his substance to the upholding of them all. And we must not speak of those private alms which he was ever anxious to hide. Nor could we estimate, in this way, the strength and intensity of his generous compassion. For he valued money so little, that, times without number, he declined receiving it, even when the offerer urged it as most justly his own. But time, which, as we have shown, he turned in other ways to so great account, was indeed in his view very precious; and yet never did he grudge to spend it in counselling the perplexed, or comforting the disconsolate, or seeking out friends or other help for the friendless, or healing or preventing differences among brethren; or, in one word, in doing whatsoever his hand found to do, in the humblest as well as highest walks of Christian philanthropy.

"Often as we have already noticed his assiduous and unceasing diligence, we must refer to it here again; for we certainly have known but few who, with anything like equal powers, have at all rivalled his application. Whoever entered his study found him intent at work. Did they see him travelling in his carriage? they could perceive he was busy there. Graces also might be mentioned, such as a meekness and an entire dispassionateness, which are rarely, indeed, conjoined with such conscious strength and sensibility. He was, perhaps, generally thought reserved; and

such, certainly, he was to strangerssufficiently so to prove that his professional eminence had been achieved by transcendent talent and worth alone. But among his familiar friends how affable!-how engaging! And while all that ever saw him must remember that look of power and placidness which was so prevailingly his that he carried it with him to the tomb, there was also another look very often seen, which was far more beautiful, because both elevated, serene, and bright, and of which we cannot but think now how surely it should have warned us, that to the heaven from whence he got it he would soon and suddenly be called.

"Amidst the universal distress and sadness of such a general and sore bereavement, we perhaps should not specify particular instances; and yet we cannot but refer to the surviving officebearers and the congregation of St. Andrew's Free Church, who can never enter the house of God without being reminded there both of the munificence and assiduity with which he ministered to the setting up and completest furnishing of that beauteous sanctuary, and of

his still deeper and more affecting interest as an overseer of their undying souls. With the minister of that church besides, both he and his household had been for many years accustomed to worship; and he had been to him both as a benefactor and a friend, even all that ever one man could be to another.

"He has left a numerous family, who were everything to him, and to whom he, too, was everything. The sympathy which is abroad they must feel to be alleviating; but infinitely more precious their assurance, from what they saw of their father's heaven on earth,' so long experienced, and so complete. 'The kingdom of God,' they must have seen, was 'within him;' and that each and all of those promises were peculiarly his which are fulfilled to the meek, and the merciful, and the peacemakers, and the pure in heart, of whom it is affirmed that they shall see God. And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours, and their works do follow them."

CONDITION AND PROSPECTS OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

THE aspect of the Church of England is becoming every day more interesting to the enlightened portion of the church of Christ. Every hour conflicts multiply, and confusion increases. Bishop is opposed to bishop, and priest to priest; and while the decisions of ecclesiastical judges are reprobated by some of the ablest and most active of the prelates, they are spurned by the bulk of the rising clergy, who seem daily preparing for resistance to the secular powers. One region of the ecclesiastical empire is filled with priestly pride and lordly ambition, and another with hopeless grief and desperate lamentation. The boldest man among the Evangelical Clergy now trembles to survey the future! A fearful darkness broods over it, and that darkness is full of portentous probabilities. The wisest of them sees no bank by which the tide of Popery, that now rolls over the nation, is likely soon to be

arrested. Its waters are daily deepening, and its current increasing in rapidity and force. It threatens, in the end, to cover the entire nation, and to engulf the whole evangelism of the Establishment. The feeble opposition made both from within and from without, seems to be lost upon Puseyism. It continues to pursue its prosperous course wholly unchecked, and even unmoved, by all that has hitherto been done to obstruct its way, or put an end to its further progress. Nor is this all its wide-spread and still extending conquests are attributable chiefly to the vigour of its own arm. It certainly owes very little to those who sit in high places,-to the Senate, to the Government, and to the Monarch. The settled policy, in those places, has been apparently to look quietly on, and let things take their course. Their motto has been that of ancient story, "Neither bless them at all, nor curse them at all." Well, if thus unaided, they have succeeded so thoroughly to establish themselves through the length and breadth of

the land, what may not be hoped or feared from the smile of royalty, the sympathy of power, and the favour of the legislature? In the event of certain contingencies, which a short space might suffice to reduce to sad certainties, the complete triumph of the principles of Popery might be accelerated in a manner and to an extent of which the most sagacious man among us has no conception. That triumph may be remote, or it may be near; but be this as it may, we think it is ultimately sure, and that no power on earth can hinder it. We have no fear of the final issue: that, we are fully satisfied, will be for the infinite and lasting good both of the church and of the world. Such triumph will probably be short, and will be the sure prelude to its destruction. As quiet spectators, these are some of the conclusions to which we have been led by observation, inquiry, and reflection; and in this, we believe, we are far from singular. Even truly pious, enlightened, and patriotic Churchmen, however reluctantly, and with whatever anguish, are constrained to confess that they have reached conclusions not very dissimilar. The Hon. and Rev. B. W. Noel, for example, in his "Protestant Thoughts in Rhyme," has given vent to his views and feelings in the following affecting lines:

Storms are gathering in the sky;
Vengeful thunders hover nigh;
Plague spots in the Church appear,
Filling every heart with fear.
She must drink the cup of woe,
Shame and sorrow she must know;
She is wandering from her God,
On her brow write Ichabod.
Mystic fingers on the wall
Trace her sin, and bode her fall;
Warning voices through the gloom
Tell us of our coming doom.
Priestcraft, with a giant stride,
Stalks the land in pomp and pride;
He who should preach only Christ,
Now a semi-papal priest,
Would the Church's lord appear,
Not its lowly minister;
Calling all men, great and small,
Down before the priest to fall.
Priests forgetting, in their pride,
He who as our ransom died,
Bid us on our works depend,
Not on Christ, the sinner's friend.
None the Bible now must read,
Till the priest has fix'd our creed;
None must rest on Christ alone,
Till the priest his work has done.

Sacraments the priest extols,
For 't is he each rite controls;
Thought to freedom is allied,
Therefore preaching set aside;
Fonts and altars now must teach;
Priests should sacrifice, not preach.
Priests, they say, can intercede
In our hour of guilt and need.
Priests, ambassadors of heaven,
Can pronounce our sins forgiven-
Since, whate'er their want of sense,
They the gifts of grace dispense;
And, ordained by Heaven, possess
Apostolic power to bless.

Priests the monarch's throne outshine,
By a dignity divine;

Mean, compared with these, are kings-
Dynasties but mushroom things:
Priests had won their rightful throne
Ere the crown of England shone;
They had risen to princely state,
Long ere England's senate sate;
And when empires pass away,
They shall hold their stedfast sway.
Devotees around them wait,
To exalt their lordly state.
See them sit in chancels proud,
High above the vulgar crowd;
See them, when the prayers they say,
From the people turn away,
Muttering hidden words of prayer,
That the vulgar may not share:
Then at altars, rich and high,
Bow and cross, we know not why.
What is wanting? Incense bring;
Morn by morn the matins sing;
Faldstool and sedilia place;
Hang upon the altar lace;
There the dying figure fix,
Knelt before by Catholics;
Then dispense the wafer bread;
Say due masses for the dead:
Chant the dirges slow and sad;
Sacred copes and banners add,
Candlesticks with glittering gloss,
Credence table, rich reredos;
Pictures round the table set,
Then the show will be complete.
Woe to thee, my country, woe!
Thou canst bear this Papal show;
Thou canst tamely sit and see
This advancing mummery:
Forms exalted to the skies,

While God's Word dishonoured lies;

Rome is fondled as a child,

Martyrs scorn'd, and saints reviled;
Truth is bound with priestly chain,
Charity and candour slain.
Pastors who their country warn,
From their grieving flocks are torn.
From the Church they loved at heart,
Crowds indignantly depart;
While triumphant errors stand
Lords of the bewilder'd land.
Oh for an hour of Luther now!
Oh for a frown of Calvin's brow!
Once they broke the Papal chain-
Who shall break it now again?
Lord, thou seest us weak and cold;
Rise, as in the days of old,
Bare thy own Almighty arm,
Save thy church from every harm;
And may truth the victory win
Over falsehood, fraud, and sin.

Ecclesiastical History: in a Course of Lectures delivered at Founders' Hall, Lothbury, London. By WILLIAM JONES, M.A., Author of the "History

of the Waldenses," &c., &c. In three vols. pp. 556. London: G. Wightman.

THE fate of this great work seems to have

been determined by its character. For true principles and their correct application, our language presents no such publication on the subject to which it refers. We give this judgment very deliberately and with somewhat of indignation. It is not a little grievous to see a work of such merit so slenderly appreciated. The first edition, which, we believe, was not large, has hung upon the hands of the venerable Author till he has judged it expedient to dispose of the remainder to our Publisher, who is selling it for less than the half of its original price, a fact at which, but for its cause, we should heartily rejoice, on account of our students and less opulent pastors. But it will be sad indeed should the matter thus terminate. The day, we doubt not, will yet come when this work will pass through numerous editions. With the exception of the Author's views on Baptism and some other points of minor weight, it is, so far as it extends, incomparably the best book on ecclesiastical history in our language. No department of the historic enterprise, indeed, has been so imperfectly cultivated as the ecclesiastical. A real, full, complete, and accurate history of the church of Christ has still to be written. The immortal work of Dupin, in six volumes folio, is, doubtless, a stupendous monument of learning and labour, equally and remarkably distinguished by uniform candour and profound regard for truth; but Dupin, notwithstanding his powers and attainments, was a Catholic, and viewed every subject through the medium of the Catholic church, which he believed to be the church of Christ; and the consequence need not be stated. Mosheim, again, although a Protestant, being a Lutheran, was a church and state man, wholly ignorant of the true nature of the kingdom of Christ; in fact, his history is, to all intents, a history of the Romish church. His cue is always taken from the dominant party. Himself obviously a stranger to personal godliness, he malignantly opposes it wherever it comes in his way. His mendacious and calumnious treatment of Whitefield and Wesley, and English Methodism, alone suffices to brand him with lasting ignominy. Milner, who was a man of God, understood spiritual religion, and gave far more of the history of the true church than all his predecessors united; but he wanted judgment, and he, too, was ignorant of the nature and character of Christ's kingdom, which he identified with the Church of England, a circumstance which mars the whole of

his publication. His continuators were, in this respect, men of the same stamp. Haweis and our other minor historians are beneath notice. Dr. George Campbell, by his "Lectures on Ecclesiastical History," has rendered invaluable service to the cause of truth; but that celebrated work is less a history than a body of deductions from history. The work before us, on the contrary, forms real history. Mr. Jones commences his historic studies with the Acts of the Apostles, and with that book in his hand he traverses the whole of the mighty field, examining all subjects by its light, and testing all systems by its rules. This is the polar star by which he steers his adventurous course through a world of confusion and contradiction, clouds and darkness.

The Christian in Complete Armour; or, A Treatise on the Saints' War with the Devil. By WILLIAM GURNALL, A.M., formerly of Lavenham, Suffolk. Carefully revised and corrected by the Rev. J. CAMPBELL, D.D. 8vo, pp. 827. London: Tegg.

THE name of Gurnall has long been famous in the church of Christ; and multitudes have had reason to be grateful for the instruction and comfort derived from the extraordinary work before us. His theme is taken from the words of the apostle in his Epistle to the Ephesians, vi. 11-18, the most striking text of the class to which it belongs that is to be found in Scripture. The work is in perfect keeping with the passage on which it is founded, and stands at the head of our experimental Christian literature, especially of that department of it which appertains to temptation. No other work, indeed, admits of a moment's comparison with this singular performance. Notwithstanding the familiarity which we may be supposed to have acquired with it, we feel ourselves wholly incapable of delineating its true character or describing its multifarious contents. It comprises a world in itself; and to be at all appreciated, it must be studied. The quaint and erudite Author designated it, “A Treatise on the Saints' War with the Devil, wherein a discovery is made of the policy, power, wickedness, and stratagems made use of by that enemy of God and his people a magazine opened, from whence the Christian is furnished with spiritual arms for the battle, assisted in buckling on his armour, and taught the use of his weapons; together with the

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