is as strange, coming from him, as it is in itself grossly improper, for, to speak of inferring the possibility of a fact from the Scripture doctrine which reveals the fact, is very much like saying, As it is revealed, it may be true. This is not, we apprehend, our Author's meaning, but it is what his words imply. Then, if by one omnipotence and one omniscience, he means one kind of power and one kind of knowledge, it is obvious that absolute perfection can be but of one kind. But, if he admits a distinction of personalities possessing one Essence, there must be, to use his own words, an omnipotence and an omniscience thrice repeated in reference to the three persons in the Godhead. But, in fact, the whole of Section 3. makes as strongly against the doctrine of Three distinct Persons, which he seems to admit, as against that of a plurality of Essences. The last paragraph in particular is a quibble at variance equally with the dignity and sacredness of the infinite subject and with sound reasoning, and the passage cited from Locke might justify suspicions respecting the Author's religious sentiments, which we do not wish to entertain. Dr. Clarke himself is far more guarded on this point, and even more orthodox. The unity of God,' he says, and says justly, is an unity of nature or essence; for of this it is that we must be understood, if if we would argue intelligibly, when we speak of necessity or 'self-existence. He then adds: As to the diversity of Per⚫ sons in the ever-blessed Trinity: that is, whether, notwithstanding the unity of the Divine Nature, there may not co'exist with the First Supreme Cause, such excellent Emana⚫tions from it, as may themselves be really Eternal, Infinite, and Perfect, by a complete communication of Divine Attri butes in an incomprehensible manner; always excepting self. origination, self-existence, or absolute independency of this, I say, as there is nothing in bare reason by which it can be ⚫ demonstrated that there is actually any such thing, so, neither is there any argument by which it can be proved impossible or unreasonable to be supposed; and therefore, so far as de 'clared and made known to us by clear revelation, it ought to 'be believed. This passage supplies an emphatic rebuke of the rash and flippant philosophizing which has been vented by 'the rational' on this transcendent subject. It intimates the Author's known dissent from the Athanasian, and bis adoption of the Nicene Creed; but it shews how very far he was from going the length that even Locke went in reference to the doctrine of the Trinity.

"Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God." p. 51.

It is peculiarly difficult, in treating such a subject in the language of the schools, to steer clear of the appearance of impiety; and we are constrained to say that Mr. Drew, has not escaped from this danger. No part of his work is chargeable with so much crudeness and offensive impropriety; and we are utterly at a loss to conceive how he could pen some of the paragraphs. It affords a strong presumption against the boasted proof of the unity of God from bare reason, that unassisted reason failed to conduct the acutest of reasoners to the discovery of the doctrine; and, but for Revelation, it appears to us, that our utter ignorance of the mode of the Divine Existence would for ever have prevented our attaining certainty on this inscrutable subject. The Unity of Jehovah is, it seems to us, as purely a doctrine of Revelation, as the Distinction which is revealed as existing in the Divine Nature. We wish to speak with submission and modesty on this point, aware that some of the wisest and best of men have thought differently*, deriving, as they have judged, a sufficient demonstration of the Divine Unity from the nature of a self-subsisting, necessarilyexisting Being. There can be, it has been said, but one All." One absolutely perfect Being will necessarily comprehend all perfection, and leave nothing to the rest. One immense and omnipresent Being must necessarily exclude, or else contain, every other Omnipresent Being. And Mr. Drew argues that, if there be more than one universality of existence, these Beings or Essences must mutually penetrate one another, so that all always are, wherever one is.' Now, so entirely are we ignorant of the nature of Spirit, that it seems to us impossible to pronounce on what is compatible or incompatible with the Divine Nature. These positions, so far from being selfevident, convey to our minds a very indistinct meaning. We know not how the omnipresence of God consists with the existence of finite spirits, nor how the Divine Essence penetrates other essences without their being confounded. We may borrow an analogical illustration from the mutual penetration of the three distinct substances of air, light, and heat; but, after all, between matter and spirit there can exist but a faint analogy. We can have no conceptions whatever relative to the mode of the Divine Existence; nor can we, it seems to us, ascertain the unity of God in any other way than by Revelation, nor in any other sense than that which Revelation reveals, nor proceed a step further in our reasonings, than the data contained in the sacred volume warrant by way of legitimate in

i

See in particular Howe's Living Temple. Part I. c. 4.

ference. He who alone knoweth the Father, has commanded us to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, the Undivided Godhead whom we adore ; and yet, we believe, on the same certain and indisputable authority, that " there is but One God, the Father, of whom are all things, " and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things," " in “ whomn dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.”

We can only give the heads of the remaining contents of these volumes. Part II. consists of Mixed Arguments, and • Arguments a posteriori.' The existence of an active and primary Cause is deduced from the nature of matter of motion

the animal phenomena--the intellectual and moral powers of man--and the general laws of creation ;-and it is inferred, that this First Cause must be spiritual, possessed of absolute liberty, omniscient, and immutable. A chapter follows, which has for its object to prove, that ' moral distinctions are not • arbitrary, introductory to a view of the moral perfections of God, and their harmony as displayed in human redemption. Part III. contains a Vindication of Divine Providence. It discusses the objection arising from the existence of Moral Evil. and adverts to other miscellaneous subjects connected with the general argument. Part IV. consists of Proofs from Revelation. An Appendix is subjoined, containing notes, on the words right and wrong; on the restitution of animals; on the perpetuity of future punishments ; on two passages of Scripture; and on two letters received from sceptical objectors, which are deserving of attention merely as shewing the absurdity of atheistic speculations, and the spirit of doginatism by which doubters and objectors, who, of all people, ought not to be dogmatical, are universally characterized. In reply to the assertion, that that which is infinite may be constituted by an accumu• lation of finites,' Mr. Drew acutely remarks, that it owes all its plausibility to confounding what is merely interminable, as number is, with infinity. He might have remarked, that the very opposite of this assertion has been made the ground of an infidel objection. There cannot, it has been said, be any such thing as infinite Time or Space, because an addition of finite parts cannot compose or exhaust an infinite. This, Dr. Clarke replies, is supposing infinites to be made up

of numbers of finites; that is, 'tis supposing finite quantities to be aliquot or constituent parts of infinite, when indeed they are not so, but do all equally, whether great or small, · whether many or few, bear the very same proportion to an infinite, as mathematical points do to a line, or lines VOL. XXI. N.S.

2 A

singularly few. Its soldiers have been known chiefly as mercenaries, and its peasantry as the poorest, perhaps, in Europe. But our poets have taught us to think of Switzerland as the mountain home of liberty. Certainly it is not, nor ever has been, the land of popular liberty. Like all the republics of antiquity, it has always been essentially aristocratical both in its institutions and its social character. The distinction of aristocratic and democratic cantons was comparative only, for a pure democracy never existed, in fact, in any of them. In all, the descendants of the first founders of Swiss independence, the burghers from descent or by admission, alone enjoyed political rights, and were sovereign. These formed scarcely one half, and, in some of the cantons, only a fourth of the male population. The aggregate population of Uri, Underwalden, Schwytz, Zug, and Glaris, five of those which were distinguished as democratic cantons, amounted, in 1796, to 83,000 souls, out of which there were scarcely 20,000 burghers or freemen. The latter governed besides, various subject districts, forming a population of 337,000 souls, making altogether twenty subjects to one democratic king.' In one of the most aristocratic cantons, that of Fribourg, seventy-one families, with their collateral branches, governed a population of 73,000 inhabitants.

'Men,' remarks M. Simond, are always more tenacious of their authority over those nearly their equals, than over those decidedly their inferiors. Our republicans have accordingly shewed themselves very ready to repress any attempt at resistance, not only on the part of their own subjects, but those of other cantons. When, in 1653, the peasants of the aristocratic cantons revolted, the democratic cantons were the first to take up arms against them. A great degree of corruption prevailed in the administration of justice." It is undoubted," said Stanyan, "that in the subject districts, especially those held jointly by several of the democratic cantons, justice is in a 'great degree venal, and that it forms the main source of emolument to the baillies. All those crimes which are not capital, are punished by fines, which are their perquisites! In civil causes, he who pays best, carries it." Thus it was to the time of the Revolution; but there are now no subject districts; and we hope the Revolution, which made them independent, operated a reform in their administration of justice.' Vol. II. p. 443.

This, it must be confessed, is a state of things ill corresponding to an Englishman's notion of liberty and popular rights. But, in fact, the existence of democratic freedom presupposes a diffusion of intelligence and of wealth among the common people, which we should in vain look for among the peasantry of Helvetia. In thinly peopled agricultural districts, where the people consist but of two classes, the proprietors and

berty is, to a gentleman, only a nuisance. Chacun selon son gré. This wayward and adventurous spirit in our modern travellers is of infinite service to the general interests of society. But we at home feel, in the mean time, a wish to know a little more about those countries of Christendom, which are now almost less familiar to us than Egypt, Palestine, or India. If the proper study of mankind be man, the countries which called forth the philosophical reflections of Goldsmith's "Traveller," are those which have the first claim on our attention; for, out of civilized, out of Christian society, what is man but the least interesting production of the country, the animal which it is the least desirable, and often the least safe to encounter? There,

every prospect pleases,

And only man is vile.'

Mr. Bakewell resided two winters in Geneva; and though much has been written respecting it, the state of society there, he says he is convinced, is but imperfectly known in England, and has been much misrepresented. The greater part of the work, however, is devoted to the description of various parts of Savoy and of the Valais, rarely explored by our travellers. The Author's chief object was the prosecution of geological researches, but the volumes are by no means of a drily scientific character; they abound with miscellaneous information.

M. Simond's work, which we ought not to have left so long unnoticed, is of a higher character. The first volume only is topographical, the second being occupied with historical memoirs of the Swiss, from the earliest period to the present time. It is a very spirited and, upon the whole, impartial and competent sketch of the history of Switzerland; though, of course, only a sketch, and, with regard to those events which come more especially within the province of the ecclesiastical historian, necessarily brief and scanty. The Author writes' decidedly the best and purest English that we ever met with from the pen of a foreigner. The traces of his natiye idiom are exceedingly few, And it seems that, with the language, he has caught no small portion of English sentiment and feeling. The work is altogether of an order very superior to the general run of travels, and is not undeserving of being naturalized in our literature,

It is not easy to account for the romantic associations attaching to the name of Switzerland. With the solitary exception of the story of William Tell and the successful insurrection of the Waldstetten patriots in 1298, its annals contain scarcely an event of much interest. Its great men have been