they can scan all the valley through, even to the bounds of the Everlasting Hills: but was it not better with them when they were content to follow the leadings of the Cloud by day, and of the Fire by night?

We must advert to one other point in which the Antinomian System exhibits the uniformity of its construction with the view of withdrawing the mind from the direct line of genuine sentiment, evading the sense of responsibility, and securing a state of selfish abstraction. We refer to the view which it gives of the condition of unregenerate men, and the conduct incumbent upon Christians as the lights of the world.

Even were the Christian altogether exempt from the inquietudes that spring out of his own evil heart, and were be able at all times to rejoice in an unclouded assurance, so long as he lives in an ungodly world, he must, like his Divine Master, be a man of sorrows. Can he look round with composure upon the sharers with himself in sin and immortality, who are living without hope, and without God in the world? Can he bless himself, and rest in his own security? No; apathy, selfishness, and unnatural abstraction, are not the foundations of that Peace which the Lord bequeathed to his followers. Besides, He who declares that" He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, "but that the wicked turn from his way, and live," has charged his servants, to the extent of their opportunities, with the immortal interests of those who care not for themselves. But independently of his responsibility, the Christian loves his fellow men. As Christ loved sinners, and died for them, so he, in his degree, loves sinners, and is ready to expend the mite of his personal ease, so that he might by any means save some. These, we are bold to say, are Scriptural sentiments. Thus Paul felt, thus he acted. That he might announce Redemption to as many as were afar off, he dragged a body enfeebled by toil, privation, and tortures, again and again, from boundary to boundary of the Roman world. If a systematized theology which checks the energies, mocks at means, neutralizes the sense of responsibility, and quenches the compassions of the soul, is a good thing, it is unquestionably one in which Paul was deficient; it must be reckoned among the number of those perfections to which he did not count himself to have attained. But Paul was a Man; he had a heart, and a tongue; he had hands, and feet. His knowledge in the mystery of Christ, his abundant revelations, taught him nothing that could abate the ardour with which he prosecuted the end through the means. How perfectly unlike was he to the ghastly apparition which affrights us at once by its likeness to humanity, and by its insubordination to the laws of this lower world!

It is a case, not, we believe, of very rare occurrence, for men VOL. IX. N. S. 2 L

whose hearts are warmed with a truly apostolic zeal for the salvation of their fellow men, to suffer much in their comfort, consistency, and usefulness, from the influence of ill-directed attempts to bring the free, frank, unsolicitous character of revealed truth, under the training of scientific forms. Such persons are in part to be pitied, in as much as they are perfectly well-intentioned: but they are also to be blamed. Why do they not commence with the principle, that there must be a fallacy, however it may elude the grasp of their understandings, in that reasoning which induces feelings, and tends to practices, which are in manifest contrariety to the feelings and practices of the Apostles? But neither this pity, nor this blame, belongs to the thorough Antinomian. While the unsophisticated Christian is ready to wish himself" accursed from Christ" for the sake of his brethren of mankind, and while the honest, but mistaken theorist, is distracted by meeting on every side some perplexing and preposterous consequence of his crude assumptions, rending his system if he moves, and rending his conscience if he rests, the Antinomian suffers under no embarrassment, he betrays no hesitation, he is disturbed by no compunctions. In having severed himself from all concernment with his own real interests, be is of course removed from all contact of causation with the well being of others. He is his own universe; and that universe is contained in the compass of a point, even in an invariable and indivisible perception of the mind.

Now let the reader observe, under its deterinined consistency of aim, the complete doctrinal incoherence of Antinomianism in this matter. That the believer may be effectually relieved from all burden, care, responsibility, endeavour, or regret, on the score of the unbelieving world, except just so much of either as it may please him freely to resume, he is taught to hold, that moral obligation is co-extensive with moral ability; in other words, that man is bound, just so far as he wills; that he alone is obliged to holiness, who is willing to be holy; and its companion maxim, The more wicked, the less guilty. If we overJook the absurdity and impiety of asserting condemnation without obligation, this doctrine so far answers completely its -end, in nullifying the reason of suasive means, and in destroying horror at siu, and active pity towards the persons of sinners. But the terms of this doctrine are susceptible of no imaginable explications; indeed, they mean really nothing, unless the converse proposition be true, namely, that where there is moral ability, there is obligation; at least, that there are such things somewhere as obligation, holiness, and a will to holiness. But admissions such as these are even less compatible with the design of the system, than the position to whose intelligibility they are essential. We are not, it seems, to concern ourselves with men in a state of unbelief, or urge them to be reconciled

Voyage round Great Britain. with their adversary while they are yet in the way, not only because we do not know that they are elect, but because, as they are not willing to believe and repent, they are not obliged to believe and repent; notwithstanding that God does command men every where to repent. But then, when men do believe, they are not obliged, because there is no such thing as obligation! While sinners, men are excused because they cannot will to be holy; when they become saints, they are excused because there is in reality neither law, nor rule, nor holiness!

In the case of persons wholly illiterate, and whose minds are altogether unaccustomed to the operation of thinking, we should certainly deem it right to descend to explanations, with the view of pointing out the absurdity of such positions; but were we face to face with men who have passed through a College, we think our feelings would hardly permit us to go so far towards flatly charging them with dishonesty, as to make a reference of any kind to these gross contradictions.

Are we guilty of an uncharitable surmise in supposing that the secret consciousness of this, and many such like bald so lecisms in their doctrine, is the real influence which maintains certain teachers in their resolution to avoid the fiery ordeal of the Press?

But to this topic we may have occasion again to advert, among the remarks which we have further to offer on the subject of Antinomianism,

(To be continued.)

Art. 11. A Voyage round Great Britain, undertaken in the Summer of the Year 1813, and commencing from the Land's End, Cornwall: by Richard Ayton. With a Series of Views, illustrative of the Character and prominent Features of the Coast, drawn and engraved by William Daniell, A.R.A. Imperial 4to. Vols. I. and II. pp. 440. Price half-bound, £15. 1814, 15, 16. [Fifty-five Views, coloured, and a Vignette.]

(Concluded from page 330.) FROM Harlech, where the only object to detain attention, is that exceedingly commanding antiquity, its castle, the explorers went across, without seeing Mr. Madocks's grand embankment at the Traeth Mawr, to the peninsula of Llyn, which forms the great northern horn of Cardigan Bay. The plenty and luxury which at Pwllheli was sufficient for coarse excess and drunken riot, would seem to have been brought thither at the expense of the whole extensive tract below this town. travellers had been warned not to venture any further to the south, on pain of encountering all the inconveniences of a state of utter barbarism. The adventure, however, was to be made, and a very poor and ill-favoured' tract they had to traverse!

The

The south-western half of Llyn lies like an outcast district, not communicating with any of the frequented roads of the country, and containing very little within itself to tempt the intrusion of strangers. Its inhabitants are therefore left without disturbance in a little world of their own, where they quietly rest under the despotism of ignorance and prejudice, entirely shut out from all the common stimulants to exertion and improvement. They have no fear of being surprised in an undress by company, and sink into sloth and slovenliness, with the same comfortable apology transmitted from generation to generation there is nobody here but ourselves'

Such a state as our Author describes, may justly excite commiseration for the people; but as to himself, he must not have much licence to complain. His whole enterprise had for its final object the descriptive portion of a picturesque book; and it was worth while to undergo some privations and disgusts for the sake of having to relate how, at one village, a company of what looked like half-savages, rushed out of their wigwams', to gaze with wonder on the two foreigners, to examine, with inquisitive experiments, that to them utterly strange article, an umbrella; and at the departure of the tourists with their umbrellas over their heads, to follow them some distance with ' as much interest and curiosity as if they had been going off in a balloon.' And since he has no dislike to giving, in much breadth and detail, delineations in the style of Hogarth, he could not think himself in any great degree unfortunate in finding at Aberdaron no other inn than that which gave occasion for the following description of the dormitory.

As we entered by a dim light, we could just perceive that it was crowded with lumber, and had to grope our way to our bed through rows of wooden stools and spinning-wheels. After what I have said regarding the general state of the household, it is unnecessary to mention the style of the beds: sleep was necessary, and we were fortunately quite prepared by fatigue to sink into immediate unconsciousness of all external circumstances. I awoke in the night, and, with some surprise, found that the room was alive in every corner; on the return of light I discovered that the whole family had shared it with us,' [seven or eight persons apparently.] It may be expected, perhaps, that there was some little hesitation as to who should get up first, but there was no such thing: the landlord woke first, and with a prodigious yawn, which roused the whole room, jumped out of bed, followed in a moment by the women and children, who all bustled into their clothes in a few seconds, and then left us to ourselves.'

He complains loudly and justly that it should be the women always in this and other parts of Wales, that go without shoes and stockings, a habit in which they have not the men for an example.

From the extreme and elevated point of the peninsula, they had a near and commanding view of the island of Bardsey, the

asylum, in early ages, of many reputed, and possibly many real saints; though our Author has fair game enough for his sarcasms in the tradition that it contains in its soil the mouldering remains of twenty thousand persons that have at some time or other adorned it with an eminence of living sanctity. He judges it capable of accommodating at most, about a hundred inhabitants at a time.

Superstition is a bad thing, and barbarous ignorance is another, and dirtiness in the whole economy of life is still another; but it seems that a plague infinitely worse than all these in their worst form and degree, has found its way into even this so out-of-the world a tract; a plague on which, at this stage of the narrative, several tragical pages of imperial quarto are employed in fervent imprecation, and of which the indignant horror is revived on other later occasions of witnessing its ravages. This horror is naturally aggravated by the despair which we think we descry in our Author, that any availing expedient can be found against the evil. The portentous name of that evil is-Methodism ; but he does not tell us which of the divers modes of doctrine to which this comprehensive term has been applied, is beginning to operate the destruction of sense and morals in this outcast ** district of Llyn,' where he passed a recently erected Methodist meeting-house, with sensations, it would seem, much like those which a Christian philanthropist might have felt at sight of one of the Mexican temples in which human hearts were offered on chafing dishes. Perhaps it is meant as the chief characteristic of this formidable pest, that its propagators, instead of telling us,' he says, to be sober and honest, and to love one another' rave about inward grace, and other mysterious emotions;' but it is not quite clear that their leathern aprons' are not meant to be represented as an equally distinctive feature of their theology, and that it is not of the very essence of their heresy, that some of them perchance are coblers and tinkers.' There are, however, very many other counts in the indictment; as, for instance, that with daring impiety they declare that they have received a call, or a divine monition to become preachers;' that truth, honesty, and plain-dealing they talk very little about; straight hair, and a long, sneaking, condemned face, they think are surer passports to heaven;' that they rant, and jump, and groan, and sanctify their harlequinade by a few scraps from the Scriptures; that by frantic exhortations and furious gestures they move their audience to groans and tears;' and so forth. On second thoughts, we begin to perceive good policy in what ave at first attributed to blundering ignorance,--that is, the indefinite manner in which this complication of charges is thrown upon the criminals. It is good management on the part of the calumniator to make it nobody's business to answer him. At