adequate to work a common pair of millstones, would give motion to twelve hundred such electrical cylinders, or plates of glass. If, therefore, one cylinder, in two seconds of time, will electrize so many cubic feet of air contained in a room twenty-four feet by eighteen, and thirteen feet high, it might be easy to calcolate what quantity of vapour for any given space and height, expanse 'being also attended to, in any given time; the number and power of such apparatus being previously ascer tained. A calculation might thus be formed, to decide what number of machines would be adequate to electrize the whole atmosphere of Great Britain one mile in height; for it does not appear that dense vapours ascend much higher than this in our climate; and the dry state of the transparent air would preserve the insulation: so that the electricity thus given to the atmosphere, would not diffuse its influence far above the va‐ porous regions. Might not one or two buildings, of the nature I have described, furnished with the requisite apparatus in each county, be adequate to effect all we want, so as to render the seasons more propitious to the health of our growing crops? If ever an experiment should be tried, the building ought to be erected on a heath, or at least in a situation devoid both of trees and buildings, as these would re-absorb the electric matter: elevated land, but not mountainous, would be the most eligible. Such powerful machines as I have described, might perhaps occasion local accumulation of electric matter, and thus excite frequent thunder storms; if so, a greater number of smaller exciting instruments might be applied in different parts of the country."

We confess this scheme reminds us of the two plans of Martinus Scriblerus; the first to penetrate the outward nucleus of the earth, for the purpose of finding the parallax of the fixed stars; and the other, to build two poles at the equator, with immense light-houses at the top, to supply the defect of Nature, and to make the longitude as easily calculated as the latitude. We would recommend to Mr. Williams a cursory perusal of a late publication entitled Flim Flams.

Mr. Williams, like all the agricultural sciolists of the present day, expatiates on the supposed grievance of tithes; though he does the clergy the justice to own, they are less burthensome in their hands than in those of the lay inpropriator.

Mr. Williams steps a little out of his way to level a sarcasm against the manly diversion of hunting, in page 214; but when he talks of the 'Squire Westerns of the hunt-a character which no longer exists he shews he has drawn his opinion of manners, as of climate, more from closet study than from actual observation.

What observations the author has made, seem almost entirely com fined to Worcestershire. He says:

"It has long been the practice in Worcestershire, to lop off all the lateral branches of elm-trees in hedge-rows, once in six or seven years this, I grant, entirely defaces their beauty; but is of great advantage to the country, by lessening the exhaling surface, and diminishing the shade. If the branches are cut off smooth and close to the trunk, the timber is not much injured, for the cicatrice is soon covered by the contiguous bark, and layer of new wood, which prevents a caries from forming."

Now

Now it is very certain this practice is not peculiar to Worcestershire; for we do not believe there are ten maiden elms in the hedges within ten miles of the turnpike-road between Hyde-park Corner and Gloucester; which is certainly as pernicious to the timber, as it is destructive of the beauty of the country. We find, also, this instance of the local knowledge of Worcestershire husbandry. Mr. Williams, speaking of the effect of unildew on wheat in the year 1805, says, “the variety called Lammas, suffered most; the cone wheat having a larger surface, and growing higher, and from the ear possessing a beard, was enabled to escape the inconvenience suffered by the other."- Who would not suppose here that the cone, or bearded wheat, was the general growth of the country, and the Lammas a variety occasionally introduced? whereas the contrary is the fact; and till the general dissemination of agricultural knowledge which has taken place within a few years, cone wheat was almost confined to the vales of Whitehorse and Evesham, and little known in other parts of the kingdom.

There are some peculiarities in the style. In page 2, we find chided for chidden. In page 186, "The genus pine, with (and) many other trees, succeed well in Scotland.” The following designation of so common a plant as the holly, which he recommends for fences, is surely no small degree of affectation. "None, perhaps, holds out so many advantages for forming a secure and truly valuable fence as Ilex aquifolium-common holly." But, however, he is as pompous in his definition of that beautiful ornament of the spring, which, like every thing beautiful in rural scenery, he devotes to destruction, the common whitethorn, which he calls the hawthorn shrub, or Crategus (read Cratagus) oxyacanthe.

We must also blame Mr. Williams for his frequent references to the works of that high priest of absurdity and impiety, Dr. Darwin, who can believe any thing but the existence of a Creator, and who lavishes his sensibility on the sufferings of cabbages and carrots, but had not a tear to bestow on his nearest relatives.

One word more on climate, and we have done. That the weather makes a considerable part of the conversation in England is proverbial, and yet how very few make any real observations on it. Let a week's dry weather succeed months of rain, and every other man you ineet will complain of the dust, say the country is burnt up, and there has been no rain to signify during the whole summer, and vice versa. During very sultry weather, for such we sometimes still have, degenerate as our climate is, how many people, who have been in hot countries, will say they never felt such oppressive heat in India, when a look at the thermometer would convince them, that the same precautions to avoid the heat that are necessary there, would drive them here to the kitchen fire in ten minutes. As before we have quoted an observation of Charles II. on the appearance of the face of the country in England in his time, we will conclude with what he said of the weather, and which is equally true now; viz. that a person can be out in the air without inconvenience more days in the year, and more hours in the day, in England, than in any other country in the world.

An

An Attempt to illustrate those Articles of the Church of England, which the Calvinists improperly consider as Calvinistical, &c.

(Continued from page 255.)

OF all our Articles of Faith, there is none which the Calvinists have more confidently claimed as their own than the 10th and the 13th. nor is there another which the faithful servants of the Church have found it so difficult to wrest from their gripe. To him who is not well acquainted with the controversies between the first Reformers and the Church of Rome, the language of these two Articles must be confessed to have, indeed, a singular sound; and they have accordingly been often employed as subjects of ridicule by the profane di ciples of Voltaire, and, if our memory does not deceive us, by that arch-sophist himself. The ridicule of the Infidel, however, as well as the claims of the Calvinist, Dr. Laurence has completely proved to be the offspring of ignorance; and he is, perhaps, the first writer that, for two hundred years past, has given of these Articles an explanation, which must be satisfactory to every candid mind. He enters on the subject in his fourth sermon, which is preached from Acts x. 4, a text of Scripture on which the Schoolmen were wont to found their impious doctrine of human merit.

"In allusion to the general question upon this subject, our Church asserts, that man is incapable of turning and preparing himself to true faith and invocation by his own unassisted efforts, of performing acceptabie works without preventing and co-operating grace; that such as precede justification are neither pleasing to the Almighty, nor meritorious of his favours, by what the Schooi Divines termed congruity; and that not being done as God has willed and commanded them to be done, they are to be considered as participating of the nature of sin. But what these works before justification properly are, what is signified by the expres sion congruity, and even the appellation sinful, by which they are charac terized, evident as its sense may be supposed to appear, or with what particular view the insufficiency of our natural powers is so repeatedly urged, we shall in vain seek to discover by consulting modern controver sies. In later times one object alone seems to have been contemplated, when the topic has been discussed respecting the efficacy or inefficacy of mere human ability in the production of goed; the application of such a principle to the doctrine of predestination."(P. 73.)

With this doctrine our author clearly shews that the controversy between the Church of Rome and the first Reformers respecting merit, has no connexion, and that it was at its height before the name of Calvin was heard of in the learned world. The controversy was purely scholastical; and the language of the Reformers on the subject is to be interpreted, not so much by what the Schoolmen taught respecting merit, as by what their opponents understood them to teach.— We make this remark as worthy of attention, because it appears to

us,

us, from the extracts given in the notes on this sermon, that Luther frequently mistook the sense of the Schoolmen; and that though the doctrine which he professed to oppose, was indeed absurd and impious, it was not the doctrine of every author to whom he attributes it. Thus the following doctrine of Lombard, though misunderstood and opposed by Luther, and apparently disliked by Dr. Laurence, appears to us, if not wholly unexceptionable, at least harmless, and for the most part in perfect unison with Scripture, as well as with the dictates of unbiassed reason.

"Nunc diligenter investigari oportet, quam gratiam vel potentiam habuerit homo ante casum; et utrum per eam potuerit stare, vel non. Sciendum est ergo, quod homini in creatione (sicut de angelis diximus) datum est per gratiam auxilium, et collata est potentia, per quam poterat stare, i. e. non declinare ab eo, quod acceperat; sed non poterat proficere in tantum, ut per gratiam creationis sine alia mereri salutem valeret. Poterat quidem per illud auxilium gratiæ creationis resistere malo, sed non perficere bonum. Poterat quidem per iilud bene vivere quodammodo, quia poterat vi were sine peccato, sed non poterat sine alio gratiæ adjutorio, spiritualiter vivere, quo vitam mereretur æternam.”—(P. 285.)

As we have not Lombard's work at hand, we cannot, by consulting it, ascertain in what particular sense this extract must be understood in connexion with the context; but, taken by itself, it teaches nothing, which Bishop Bull has not proved to have been the doctrine of the universal Church in her earliest and purest ages. If, indeed, it contain any thing erroneous, it is in the insinuation, that by grace man before the fall might have performed works meritorious of eternal life, a doctrine which, though taught by some modern Calvinists, is contrary at once to Scripture and to common sense. Eternal life now is, and always has been, the gift of God; and human reason re-echoes the words of our Blessed Saviour, when he said, that supposing us to have done all that is or can be required of us, we would even then be unprofitable servants to the High and Holy One who inhabiteth eternity; on whom the whole creation depends every moment for its existence; and who therefore can receive no benefit from our virtues, nor injury from our crimes.

Durandus A. S. Porciano, who wrote Commentaries on Lombard's four books of Sentences, is here quoted, however, as teaching a doctrine very different from that which is taught in the above extract"Quod homo possit se præparare ad gratiam sine novo dono habituali, sibi divinitus infuso, omnes concedunt," says he; and again," Hoc supposito, dicendum est, quod ad merendum solum de congruo non est necessarium ponere in nobis gratiam vel caritatem habitualem, quod pitet, quia, secundum omnes, peccato carens gratia, pænitendo méretur de congruo gratiam justificantem."-(P. 286, 287.)

This doctrine, as it seems to be expressed in these two sentences, is, indeed, very absurd, and equally impious; but, as we are unable to reconcile it with the doctrine of Lombard himself, we could wish that

that the quotations had been longer, that the precise meaning of the words might have been fixed by the context. For our purpose, however, and for the purpose of Dr. Laurence, it is sufficient that Luther, and even Melancthon, appear to have understood the Schoolmen to talk very extravagantly both of congruous merit, and of merit of condignity; and the well-known candour and moderation of the last. of these Reformers, leave no room for doubt, but that the Master of the Sentences deviated less from Scripture and primitive antiquity than many of his followers.

"According to the Scholastic system, (as it appeared to the two great Reformers), the favour of God in this life, and his beatific presence in the life to come, are both attainable by personal merit; the former by congruous, as it was termed, the latter by condign; the one without, the other with the assistance of grace. ... The blessing of eternal felicity is, indeed, beyond our reach, yet is the only requisite, which we want to secure that blessing, within it: although we cannot, they said, merit heaven itself without works of condignity, yet can we merit the means of obtaining it by works of congruity. Considering, therefore, the latter as introductory to the former, they stated, that we may so prepare our. selves for grace, as to become entitled to it congruously, not as to a debt, which, in strict justice, God is bound to pay, but as to a grant, which it is congruous in him to give, and which it would be inconsistent with his attributes to withhold."(P. 78, 79.)

To talk of meriting any thing from God, as a servant merits wages from his earthly master, is, as we have already observed, blasphemous nonsense, and therefore merit of condignity must be abandoned to all the opprobrious epithets which have been poured on it by Luther.With respect to congruous merit, the case seems to be somewhat different; for though the word merit was very ill chosen, there is a sense, in which great part of what is here said of congruity cannot, we think, be controverted. The Creator of the universe was indeed under no obligation whatever to call any being into existence; nor can he be conceived to be under any obligation to continue in existence any thing which he has created. The most exalted angel in heaven, as well as the lowest reptile on earth, exist merely by his good pleasure; and every moment of the existence of both is the continuance of a fayour, to which neither the one nor the other has any claim as to a debt or a right. It seems, however, to be congruous to the attributes of a benevolent God, so long as he may choose to continue sentient beings in existence, to make that existence a blessing, provided these beings answer the purpose for which they were created. It seems likewise to be congruous to the attributes of such a God, to afford to every rational and moral being which he has created, whatever is necessary to enable those beings to perform the duties of their respective stations, and to make those happiest, who most earnestly endeavour to discharge the duties which he has assigned to them. Our Blessed, Lord, speaking of the improvement of the talents with which we

are