A soul sheath'd in a crystal shrine, Through which all her bright features shine. A thin aerial veil, is drawn O'er beauty's face, seeming to hide, Would'st see a man whose well-warm'd blood A man, whose tuned humours be A set of rarest harmony? Would'st see blithe looks? fresh cheeks beguile Warm thoughts, free spirits, flattering In sum, would'st see a man, that can Soul and body part like friends; No quarrels, murmurs, no delay A kiss, a sigh, and so away. This rare-one, Reader, would'st thou see? CRASHAW. Leonardo Lessius, of whose "Rule of Health" so much is here said and so beautifully, was a Jesuit, a distinguished polemical writer in the 16th and 17th centuries, and a great admirer of the temperate principles of Lewis Cornaro, noticed by Addison, in No. 195 of the Spectator. The title of his Book is “Hygiasticon seu vera Ratio Valetudinis bonæ vitæ una cum sensuum, et Judicii, et memoriæ, integritate ad extremam senectutem conservandâ," REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. ter to his Primate professes to unfold, and the ingenuity with which his opinion is defended, are sufficient reasons for introducing our readers to the pamphlet before us. We shall commence by extracting A Letter to his Grace, the Lord Primate of Ireland, on the manner in which Christianity was taught by our Saviour, and his Apostles. By George Miller, D.D. M.R.I.A. Rector of Derryvoylan. 8vo. pp. 72. 2s. Ri-passages which develope the learnvingtons. 1822. THE character and station of Dr. ed doctor's hypothesis, and conclude with stating our opinion of its justice. He proposes to place the propagation of Christianity in a new light-and it is thus that he explains men whom he habitually guided, without his views: "If the original preachers of a Religion, disclaiming the aid of power, endeavour to propagate their doctrine only by persuasion, two ways lie open to them. They may choose either to address themselves separately to individuals, and thus gradually to collect a body of converts sufficiently considerable to possess political importance and security, or they may explain their tenets to assembled crowds, trusting that from these collective exhortations, some good result would spring, though without any anticipation of the particular instances in which this might occur. These two methods of propagating a Religion by persuasion, namely, the proselytism of individuals and collective preaching, I design now to compare together, and to enquire which of the two has been employed, or whether both have been conjointly employed, in the original communication of the Gospel. Such a view of the subject will I hope present a new reason for admiring the provident wisdom of that great Being, who planned the redemption of mankind, while it may strengthen our conviction, that the Religion which we profess, was the work, not of man, but of God. "If a politician, acting merely according to the principles of human wisdom, should design to form a party, he would naturally address himself to individuals, and in the representations separately employed for gaining the acquiescence of each person, he would endeavour to avail himself of the facility afforded by the peculiar sentiments, the personal views, the weaknesses, and the passions of the individual whom he solicited. It could never be the policy of such a man to propose his plans to a crowd, which had not been prepared for his purpose by much previous management. A number of individuals must be severally taught to consider the association as favouring their respective opinions or interests, before an attempt can be successfully made to produce that general and promiscuous conviction, which has been sarcastically defined to be the madness of many for the gain of a few.' Even when a new measure is to be proposed to a political assembly accustomed to the sway of an individual, he would be deemed a weak and improvident minister, who would hazard the success of his operation, and the general credit of his government, on the effect which might be produced by propounding his plan at once, to the collective wisdom, even of having separately ascertained their disposition to afford him in that instance their usual support. Human measures are accomplished by a compromise of the good and bad qualities of men; and to effect such a compromise, not only the honest prejudices, but also the vanity and the selfishness of individuals, must be treated with the most scrupulous tenderness. "If such be the mode, in which the measures of human policy are carried into operation, it must be evident that mischief is done in the process. If the prejudices of an individual are flattered for the purpose of conciliating his assent, those prejudices are strengthened; if his vanity is gratified by the deference apparently shewn for his opinion, he becomes vainer than before; if his selfishness is bribed by some advantage presented to him as the reward of his concurrence, he is rendered more corrupt. So far as any arts are employed in preparing the minds of individuals, distinct from the influence of fair and general reasoning, in the same proportion are those individuals perverted. "In politics, indeed, this inconvenience is not much regarded. The concern of the politician is with the exterior conduct of men, rather than with their inward sentiments and if he can at the present rely upon their outward co-operation, he trusts to time and circumstances for the continuance of their support. He may be sensible that he is rendering those men worse members of society, whose concurrence he is soliciting; but he sees no other method of managing the affairs of a government, and coutents himself, when most conscientious, with doing as little harm, as the necessity of his situation may permit. But however such expedients may be deemed admissible in political arrangements, they must be wholly incompatible with the character of genuine Religion. Genuine Religion belongs to the heart; and where that is perverted, Religion must be debased. If then any arts are employed in gaining proselytes, which conciliate them by acting on their private weaknesses, the true purpose of proselytism is defeated, for the new converts are rendered worse, in their very accession to the Religion which should render them better. Exterior co-operation is not in this case sufficient, as in that of a political party; and if the heart is not reformed in the very act, by which it is gained to a religious association, that association is but a political party in disguise, If these principles be just, it may be assumed as a characteristic of a genuine Religion, that it is originally propagated in a public manner, as most effectually precluding those corrupting influences, which have been described; and, on the contrary, that a Religion of human contrivance will as naturally be primarily propagated by those applications made separately to individuals, which are the expedients of political party. The former would reject those expedients, by which it must be corrupted, and would trust to the providence of that God, from whom it had sprung; the latter having no other sup port than from human artifice, would accept it in the only manner, in which it could be obtained." P. 3. Dr. Miller, after having observed that the Mahometan faith was propagated by private applications; and all the arts of a worldly politician, before force was called in to the assistance of imposture; proceeds to shew, at considerable length, that neither Jesus nor his apostles had recourse to the system of individual proselytism. To do the doctor justice, this portion of his pamphlet should be carefully perused, as on the success or the failure of the proposition which it maintains, his hypothesis must rest or fall. But we presume that the majority of our readers, while they agree with us in admiring the acuteness which is repeatedly displayed, will not hesitate in refusing their assent to the conclusion at which Dr. Miller arrives. The following passage contains his own summary of the argument by which the doctor has been persuaded that private applications were seldom, if ever made for the purpose of proselytism. ap. "From all these observations, it pears, that the ministry of Jesus had been preceded by a harbinger, who employed no arts of conciliation, and acted in no concert with his Master; that it was it self commenced in the same uncompromising spirit, by a bold and public as sumption of the Divine character; that Jesus described the propagation of his Religion in parables, which implied, that bis doctrine should be preached generally to the world, and that its reception should be the work of the Divine Providence, not of human contrivance; that, when he was brought before the rulers of Judea to answer for his doctrine, he declared that the whole of his ministry had been public; that the very few instances, which seem at the first view to have been contradictory to such a system of conduct, are easily shown to furnish no argument against it; that the orders which Jesus gave to his Apostles, when he sent them on their original mission through the cities of Judea, seem, by limiting them to one fixed residence in each place, to have, in a considerable degree, precluded the solicitation of individuals; that in the remarkable attempt made to proselyte the Athenians, the enterprize was abandoned, as soon as the public exhortations of Paul proved unsuccessful, notwithstanding that some encouragement was afforded for endeavouring to gain over individuals to the faith; that in the not less remarkable case of the long residence of the Apostle in the capital of the empire, while stances had placed him in that interme an extraordinary combination of circumdiate situation between publicity and privacy, which might not alarm the jealousy of the government, and yet might permit only a free and general intercourse with the Apostle, his own religious prudence ing to form a party among his countryseems to have hindered him from attempt pose of procuring proselytes that deputed men, and from employing for the puragency of others, which the flourishing state of the Christian Church of Rome might have sufficiently supplied; and lastly, that in other places, among the these the Ephesians may be added)*, the Corinthians and Thessalonians, (and to drudgery for his subsistence, which must Apostle had submitted to a mechanical have occupied so large a portion of his time, as scarcely to leave any except that part which was employed in his public ministrations, and yet did not utter any interfering with the functions of his miniscomplaint of such an appropriation of it, as try, though he spoke of it as constituting a personal abasement." P. 44. this reasoning. Our Lord's introWe cannot admit the validity of duction and invitation to Peter and John, his intimacy with a few chosen disciples, his more especial confidence in a still smaller number, his friendship for the family of Lazarus, his conversations with Mary * Acts xx. 34. and Martha, with Nicodemus, and with the woman of Samaria, his miracles in private houses, and at the express request of individuals, are circumstances which we cannot reconcile with Dr. Miller's hypothesis. His explanations of some of them are alluded to in the preceding extract, and the inquisitive reader may find a fuller statement in other parts of the pamphlet. But in spite of these explanations we must still believe that our Saviour's conduct does not authorise the interpretation of it which is now suggested. After The distinction between proselyting and confirming is untenable. For it can hardly be said that a single individual was a confirmed believer in the Gospel, until the resurrection of its Author from the dead. The apostles and disciples might acknowledge the prophetical character, and even the Messiahship of Jesus, without being strictly or completely Christians. The task of proselyting them therefore might continue, and we have no doubt, that it did continue until their Master's death. The hardest and most important docrine which he came to teach, namely, his atonement for the sins of mankind, was not received, or even understood before the fact had taken place. the resurrection the apostles still looked for the restoration of a temporal kingdom, and had much to unlearn, as well as learn before they could be denominated believers in the dispensation of the cross. The foundation of their faith was laid by Jesus both in public and private, before he was put to death. The confirmation of it he accomplished between his resurrection and ascension, and they then were ready to teach others, and as soon as the Holy Ghost enabled them, they proceeded to teach others in the same manner and to the same effect that they had been taught themselves. For St. Paul's general conduct is as much at variance with Dr. Miller's theory, as that of the conduct of our Lerd himself. The point on which the doctor mainly relies, is the apostle's departure from Athens upon the bad success of his speech on Mars' Hill. But the apostle only came to Athens by accident, and for security; and he was anxious before his speech, to be joined with speed by his companions, that they might proceed to Corinth. He only attempted the couversion of the Athenians, while he waited for Silas and Timotheus. With regard to St. Paul's conduct at Rome, we know little or nothing with certainty, except that he called unto him not all the Jews, but the chief of the Jews; and that being confined in his own hired house he received all that came unto him. In neither of which is there any proof of the exclusive publicity of his preaching. His mechanical employment is the only circumstance that remains; and against this, which is at best a very questionable argument, we may set off his numerous salutations to particular individuals, his declaration that he had taught publicly, and from house to house, the conversion of separate families, as that of the jailor and others at separate times; and even the celebrated speeches before Felix and Agrippa, which were particular addresses to the consciences of particular individuals. bining all these facts, we cannot doubt that St. Paul in imitation of his Master, taught publicly or privately as circumstances might direct, and only abstained from those political arts, which Dr. Miller rightly considers unworthy of the ministers of religion, and to which bis arguments ought to have been confined. Putting facts out of the question, the moral of his theory can extend to such private applications only as are addressed to passion, interest, or vanity, rather than reason, truth, or conscience. If it be said that all private applications have a tendency to degene Com rate into intrigue and artifice, it may be answered that all public applications have a similar inclination to produce a love of popularity and display, to encourage what may be called the captivating mode of instruction, and to deform the profession of the Gospel by the egotism of the teachers, and the violence of the taught. If Jesuitism degrades those whom it undertakes to purify, there is also a ranting fanaticism, which puffs up and inflames. Both descriptions of teach. ing are liable to abuse; by the intriguing and the violent both have been abused: and we are afraid that preachers may now be found who are intemperate without courage, and artful without discretion. But Dr. Miller will be the last to contend that public instruction should be laid aside on account of the excrescences by which it is too frequently disfigured. He will be the first to say, let those excrescences be removed, with as little injury as possible to the parent stock. And he ought to argue in the same way respecting private teaching. His opinion that such teaching becomes too often injurious, is lamentably but indisputably just. In protesting against appeals to interest, to vanity, to prejudice, he strikes at the most prominent, and destructive practice of those who claim the first rank among the friends of religion, while in reality they deserve the last. In exposing such misconduct the learned doctor cannot employ greater ingenuity or zeal than the urgency of the case requires; but he will meet with inore success by adhering to beaten paths, than by the discovery or propagation of the novelties from which we have been compelled to dissent. A List of Editions of the Bible and Parts thereof in English, from the Year MDV. to MDCCCXX, REMEMBRANCER, No. 48, THE modest title and appearance of Dr. Cotton's work afford sufficient indication of its real worth. Few publications of a similar character contain half the useful information which is comprised in this unassuming volume, and in few cases can the labour of collecting and arranging the materials have been more irksome or protracted. Such circumstances should recommend the List of the Editions of the Bible to very general attention, and we trust that our own bad example, in having left it for six months upon our table, will not have many imitators. Dr. Cotton represents his pamphlet to be an appendix to the latter part of Lewis's History of the English Translations of the Scriptures. But in fact it is something much better than this. The body of the work may properly enough be considered as an appendix to Lewis; but the introduction, the notes, and the various specimens of early versions entitle Dr. Cotton to a higher title than the continuator of an other man's labours. The Introduction commences by pointing out some of the difficulties with which Mr. Lewis had to contend, and they appear amply suffi. cient to excuse his occasional inaccuracy. Former attempts at publishing Lists of the English Editions of the Bible are then describedthey consist of no less than five, two of which were printed privately for the Archbishop of Canterbury in the years 1776 and 1778, from a manu. script in Lambeth Library-one, entitled The Lambeth List, enlarged and improved, &c. was prefixed to Crutwell's Bible, Bath, 1785; a reprint of the second Lambeth List 4 I |