The Orations are on the following subjects. I. The Preparation for consulting the Oracles of God.-II. The Manner of consulting them.-III. and IV. The Obeying of the Oracles of God. We take for our first extract, the conclusion to the second oration.

Why, in modern times, do we not take from the Word that sublimity of design and gigantic strength of purpose which made all things bend before the saints, whose praise is in the Word and the Church of God? Why have the written secrets of the Eternal become less moving than the fictions of fancy, or the periodical works of the day; and their impressiveness died away into the imbecility of a tale that hath been often told? Not because man's spirit hath become more weak. Was there ever an age in which it was more patient of research, or restless after improvement? Not because the Spirit of God hath become backward in his help, or the Word divested of its truth-but because we treat it not as the ail-accomplished wisdom of God; the righteous setting works of men alongside of it, or masters over it, the world altogether apostatizing from it unto folly. We come to meditate it, like armed men to consult of peace-our whole mind occupied with insurrectionary interests; we suffer no captivity of its truth. Faith, which should brood with expanded wings over the whole heavenly legend, imbibing its entire spirit-what hathi it become? A name to conjure up theories and hypotheses upon. Duty likewise hath fallen into a few formalities of abstaining from amusements, and keeping up severities, instead of denoting a soul girt with all its powers for its Maker's will. Religion also, a set of opinions and party distinctions separated from high endowments, and herding with cheap popular accomplishments-a mere serving maid of every-day life; instead of being the mistress of all earthly, and the preceptress of all heavenly sentiments, and the very queen of all high gifts and graces and perfections in every walk of life.

To be delivered from this dwarfish exhibition of that plant which our heavenly Father hath planted, take up this holy book. Let your devotions gather warmth from the various exhibitions of the nature and attributes of God. Let the displays of his power overawe you, and the goings forth of his majesty still you into reverend observance. Let his uplifted voice awake the slumber of your spirits, and every faculty burn in adoration of that image of the invisible God which his word reveals. If Nature is reverend before Him, how much more the spirit of man for whom he rideth forth in his state! Let his Holiness, before which the pure seraph veils his face, and his Justice, before which the heavens are rebuked, humble our frail spirits in the dust, and awaken all their conscious guilt. Then let the rich ness of his Mercy strike us dumb with amazement, and his offered grace revive our hopes anew; and let his Son, coming forth with the embraces of his love, fill our spirits with rapture. Let us hold him fast in sweet communion; exchange with him affection's kindest tokens; and be satisfied with the sufficiency of his grace; and let the

strength of his Spirit be our refuge, his all-sufficient strength our buckler and our trust!

Then, stirred up through all her powers, and awakened from the deep sleep of Nature and oblivion of God, (which among visible things she partaketh,) our soul shall come forth from the communion of the Word, full of divine energy and ardour, prepared to run upon this world's theatre the race of duty for the prize of life eternal. She shall erect herself beyond the measures and approbation of men, into the measures and approbation of God. She shall become like the saints of old, who, strengthened by such repasts of faith," subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, and turned to flight the armies of the aliens."' pp. 47-9.

In enforcing the awful alternative, Obey the Scriptures, or you perish,' after describing the hopeless doom of the sinner, in a passage of considerable force and vigour, and, we doubt not, extremely impressive in the delivery, though in a style somewhat too florid for the press, the Preacher exclaims:

'Tis written, 'tis written, 'tis sealed of heaven, and a few years shall reveal it all. Be assured it is even so to happen to the despisers of holy writ. With this in arrear, what boots liberty, pleasure, enjoyment-all within the hour-glass of time, or the round earth's continent, all the sensibilities of life, all the powers of man, all the attractions of woman!

Terror hath sitten enthroned on the brows of tyrants, and made the heart of a nation quake; but upon this peaceful volume there sits a terror to make the mute world stand aghast, Yet not the terror of tyranny neither, but the terror of justice which abides the scorners of the Most High God, and the revilers of his most gracious Son. And is it not just, though terrible, that he who brooked not in heaven one moment's disaffection, but lanched the rebel host to hell, and bound them evermore in chains of darkness, should also do his sovereign will upon the disaffected of this earth, whom he hath long endured and pleaded with in vain. We are fallen, 'tis true-we found the world fallen into ungodly customs, 'tis true-here are we full grown and mature in disaffection, most true. And what can we do to repair a ruined world, and regain a lost purity? Nothing-nothing can we do to such a task. But God hath provided for this pass of perplexity; he hath opened a door of reconciliation, and laid forth a store of help, and asks at our hand no impossibilities, only what our condition is equal to in concert with his freely offered grace.

These topics of terror, it is very much the fashion of the time to turn the ear from, as if it were unmanly to fear pain. Call it manly or unmanly, it is Nature's strongest instinct-the strongest instinct of all animated nature: and to avoid it is the chief impulse of all our actions. Punishment is that which law founds upon, and parental authority in the first instance, and every human institution from which

it is painful to be dismembered. Not only is pain not to be inflicted without high cause, or endured without trouble, but not to be looked on without a pang: as ye may judge, when ye see the cold knife of the surgeon enter the patient's flesh, or the heavy wain grind onward to the neck of a fallen child. Despise pain-I wot not what it means. Bodily pain you may despise in a good cause; but let there be no motive, let it be God's simple visitation, spasms of the body for example, then how many give it license, how many send for the physician to stay it? Truly, there is not a man in being, whom bodily pain, however slight, if incessant, will not turn to fury or to insensibility-embittering peace, eating out kindliness, contracting sympathy, and altogether deforming the inner man. Fits of acute suffering which are soon to be over, any disease with death in the distance, may be borne; but take away hope, and let there be no visible escape, and he is more than mortal that can endure. A drop of water incessantly falling upon the head, is found to be the most excruciating of all torture, which proveth experimentally the truth of what is said.

Hell, therefore, is not to be despised, like a sick bed, if any of you be so hardy as to despise a sick bed. There are no comforting kindred, no physician's aid, no hope of recovery, no melancholy relief of death, no sustenance of grace. It is no work of earthly torture or execution, with a good cause to suffer in, and a beholding world or posterity to look on, a good conscience to approve, perhaps scornful words to revenge cruel actions, and the constant play of resolution or study of revenge. It is no struggle of mind against its material envelopments and worldly ills, like stoicism, which was the sentiment of virtue nobly down-bearing the sense of pain. I cannot render it to fancy, but I can render it to fear. Why may it not be the agony of all diseases the body is susceptible of, with the anguish of all deranged conceptions and disordered feelings, stinging recollections, present remorses, bursting indignations, with nothing but ourselves to burst on, dismal prospects, fearful certainties, fury, folly, and despair.

I know it is not only the fashion of the world, but of Christians, to despise the preaching of future woe; but the methods of modern schools, which are content with one idea for their gospel, and one motive for their activity; we willingly renounce for the broad methods of the Scripture, which bring out ever and anon the recesses of the future, to up-bear duty and down bear wickedness, and assail men by their hopes and fears as often as by their affections, by the authority of God as often as by the constraining love of Christ, by arguments of reason, and of interest no less. Therefore, sustained by the frequent example of our Saviour, the most tender-hearted of all beings, and who to man hath shewn the most excessive love; we return, and give men to wit, that the despisers of God's law and of Christ's gospel, shall by no means escape the most rigorous fate. Pain, pain inexorable, tribulation and anguish shall be their everlasting doom. The smoke of their torments ascendeth for ever and ever. One frail thread snapped, and they are down to the bottomless pit. Think of him who had a sword suspended by a hair over his naked neck while

he lay and feasted, think of yourselves suspended over the pit o perdition by the flimsy thread of life-a thread near worn, weak in a thousand places, ever threatened by the fatal shears which soon shall clip it. You believe the Scriptures; then this you believe, which is true as that Christ died to save you from the same.

If you call for a truce to such terrific pictures, then call for mercy against the more terrific realities. But if you be too callous or too careless to call for mercy and ensure repentance, your pastors may give you truce to the pictures, but God will give no abeyance to the realities into which they are dropping evermore, and you shall likewise presently drop, if you repent not.' pp. 64-8.

It would not be difficult to select from this portion of the volume, other passages of equal force of thought and of expression; but Mr. Irving seems only to be trying his hand in the Orations he appears still more of the orator, as well as rises higher in the style of his thoughts, in the subsequent series of discourses. We subjoin the contents of the ' Argu

'ment.'

Part I. The plan of the Argument; with an inquiry into Responsibility in general, and God's right to place the world under Responsibility. II. and III. The Constitution under which it hath pleased God to place the World. IV. The good Effects of the above Constitution, both upon the individual and upon political society. V. Preliminaries of the solemn Judgement. VI. The Last Judgement. VII. The Issues of the Judgement. VIII. The only Way to escape Condemnation and Wrath to come. IX. Review and Application of the Argument.'

We shall not attempt an analysis of the Argument.' The Preacher takes so wide a range, and his digressions from the main business are so frequent and so excursive, that though his general plan is sufficiently apparent in the discourses, the subjects of which he treats are often but remotely connected with Judgment to come. Mr. Irving displays more of the powerful pleader, than of the severe reasoner, and he may fairly claim, in his pleadings, the licence of the orator. It strikes us, however, that the whole of the fourth discourse, though containing much wholesome truth and noble sentiment, which we should warmly approve in their place, forms an episode rather too foreign from the drift of the Argument. We wish that, instead of being, as we think, injudiciously interwoven in this series, it had been reserved for distinct publication. In illustrating the mixed constitution under which men are placed by the Christian Revelation, Mr. Irving thus vindicates the doctrine of gratuitous Forgiveness from anti-evangelical objec

tors.

If there had been any condition attached to this boon of forgiveness, we should have been in no better case than before. If it had been required that, anterior to any hope of pardon for past offences, we should be so far advanced in obedience as to be of a reputable character for honesty, or charity, or truth, or to be doing our best to attain it; then, verily, things would have been marred at the very commence. ment. For it would have been left to self to determine the measure of attainment upon which we could found a claim to the benefit; and the question would have been perplexed anew with that uncertain element of self-adjudication which we have already shewn is enough to shake the stability of any system. Besides, from the nature of man, which always founds a claim of right when a condition is present, it would soon have lost the character of a boon, and failed to make the impression of a free unmerited gift. But, above all, it would have opened the door to self-esteem and partiality, and every kind of palliation, to juggle us into the conceit of having reached the mark at which all was safe. And being persuaded that we were there arrived, all inducement to further efforts would have been taken away when there was no further advantage to be gained.

Fortunately, however, there is no such condition attached. Every one, however enormous his sins, is invited without money, and without price, to enter under this constitution of which the very title is redemption or salvation. Any man who has come to think upon his transgressions, and found no method of escaping from the threatenings of the Divine law, hath here a city of refuge to flee to. Memory is not hindered from mourning over the past, but hope is hindered from ever despairing of the future. The time which might have been consumed in repining over the past not to be reclaimed, the load of unatoned guilt, the fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, the strength of body and of mind which might have been exhausted in useless penance, are all annihilated at once, by >the revelation of forgiveness through Jesus Christ; and we are left free to follow the new course under the full force of the new motives which may be impressed on us, being delivered not only from the impediments arising out of our own heavy conscience, but also from the discouragements which that timorous eonscience conjures up in the nature of God. While yet we fear him, and see no common ground on which our sinfulness may meet with his purity and be at peace, there can be no heart in us to draw near. Nature shrinks and shudders at his inspection, while she sees no fair way to his favour. Even before a fellow mortal of great attainments, of severe justice, and of nice power to sift and scrutinize the heart, we shrink back abashed if we are conscious of crime, and fear to stand the penetration of his eye. What conscious criminal ever sought the judgment seat, or thought of the inflexible judge but with a shudder that they were to meet so soon? Did it ever happen that a man drowned in debt, could be but bowed down before the creditor to whom he owed it all? Nay, truly, the consciousness of obligation undischarged, of