against itself? Should not the civil power have a check upon its own religious establishment? The union of the church with the state without the right of state patronage runs into ecclesiasticaltyranny; and this union with state patronage ruins the purity of the church. The root of the evil then is, the union of Church and State. We abhor patronage as cordially as Mr. Hetherington can, but we would apply the only effective remedy-that of an utter severance of the church from the state.

Our author urges, in common with all advocates for a national establishment, that it is the duty of civil governments, as such, to support religion by legal provisions. Now this we wholly deny. Civil governments are institutions of God, but they have their particular province and work. This is the protection of the community, and of the individuals of which it is composed, in their natural and civil rights. They have nothing to do with religion but to revere its high and holy principles in their civil arrangements and administration, and to protect every man and every society in the exercise of the rights of conscience in matters of religion, so long as that exercise contravenes no social or individual right. Churches are voluntary associations for the purpose of carrying out the great general and public ends of religion. Upon them devolves the duty of sustaining discipline and of propagating the gospel. The true doctrine of the independence of the church, or rather its withdrawing from all state connections, and retiring to its own proper province, is well understood in this country, and scarcely anywhere else. "The voluntary system" has here been fully tested; and, thank Heaven, the success of the experiment has proved that religion only wants fair play. If she cannot support herself now, under the protection of a free government and the administration of wholesome laws-laws which protect her from violence and recognize her high moral claims-she has become another thing from what she was when she lived and flourished in spite of laws inconceivably unjust and cruelly oppressive, administered by bloodthirsty tyrants, shouted on by a licentious heathen multitude. It is not so. Christianity is, as it ever has been, the fair daughter of Heaven, higher and mightier than the kings and potentates of the earth. Christ her great Author will protect her, and lead her to final triumph and universal empire. Amen.

ART. II.-The Works of the Rev. Robert Hall, A. M. With a Memoir of his Life. By DR. GREGORY. Reminiscences. By JOHN GREENE, Esq.; and his Character as a Preacher, by the Rev. JOHN FOSTER. Published under the Superintendence of OLINTHUS GREGORY, LL. D., F. R. A. S., Professor of Mathematics in the Royal Military Academy; and JOSEPH BELCHER, D. D. 4 volumes, 8vo., pp. 2400. New-York: Harper and Brothers. 1844.

THE fourth volume of these works is just published in this country, and at present may be had separately from the rest, so that purchasers of the previous volumes may complete their sets. It consists of one hundred pages of interesting reminiscences by Hall's intimate friend, John Greene, Esq., with notes by the editor of the volume, Dr. Belcher; ninety-two sermons of a miscellaneous character, taken in short-hand by several eminent clergymen and other professional gentlemen; a series of twelve expository discourses on the Epistle to the Philippians, with a few letters and gleanings. As its general character entirely accords with the other volumes, excepting indeed that it affords a greater variety of subjects discussed, we shall say nothing more about it than to express our gratification that the publishers in New-York have published, what it seems is yet a desideratum in England, a complete uniform edition of this English classic;-that the editor's duties have been discharged with evident care, and with a warm devotedness to his task;-and that the whole works are here published for about one-third the sum for which the first three of these volumes could be obtained in Great Britain.

We now feel ourselves at liberty to indulge our readers with a few pages of pleasant writing about Hall and his works; intended to afford them present interest, and to induce them to become better acquainted with a man who, though he especially belonged to one section of the religious community, was really, as he wished to be, the property of the whole Christian church. No man can read his works without seeing that Hall was a Baptist; but he resolutely set himself to show that differences of opinion as to the ordinance which distinguishes his denomination from all others ought not for one moment, or in any instance, to debar Christians from approaching the same table of the Lord, or in any other way to restrict the fullest Christian fellowship. Dr. Gregory tells us that on being asked whether he was an Arminian or a Calvinist, he replied,

"Neither, sir; but I believe that I recede further from Arminianism than from Calvinism. If a man profess himself a decided Arminian, I infer from it that he is not a good logician; but, sir, it does not interfere with his personal piety; look at good Mr. Benson, for example. I regard the question more as metaphysical than religious." Even this view of his feelings was scarcely consistent with his well-known intimacy with the excellent Theophilus Lessey, and the admirable Richard Watson; nor with his opinion of Mr. Wesley, given in a letter to a correspondent at Plymouth, which we find in the third volume of the works before us: "I have just been reading Dr. Whitehead's Life of Mr. Wesley: it has given me a much more enlarged idea of the virtues and labors of that extraordinary man than I ever had before. I would not incur the guilt of that virulent abuse which Toplady cast upon him for ten thousand worlds. When will the Christian world cease disputing about religion, and begin to enter into its spirit, and practice its precepts?" The whole of Mr. Hall's intercourse with the church of Christ was in harmony with this extract; men of every evangelical denomination enjoyed his friendship, and each in return felt the most delightful union of soul with him.

The father of Robert Hall bore the same name as his son. He was the pastor of an ancient and respectable Baptist church in the small village of Arnsby, in Leicestershire. He was a man of great genius and mental power, and stood very high in the connection to which he belonged. Robert the younger was born, in the village already named, in 1764, and was the youngest of fourteen children. He was so feeble and delicate in infancy that it was scarcely expected he would reach maturity; his mental activity, however, was always remarkable; he had learned his letters from the stones in the graveyard before he could talk, and his constitutional ardor at once became apparent. "He was incessantly asking questions, and became a great and a rapid talker. One day, when he was about three years old, on his expressing disapprobation of some person who spoke quickly, his mother reminded him that he spoke very fast: No,' said he, 'I only keep at it." At six years of age he began his daily journeys to a school about four miles from his father's house; but the severe pain in his back, from which he suffered so much through life, had even then begun to distress him; so that he was often obliged to lie down upon the road, and sometimes his brother John and his other school-fellows carried him in turn, he repaying them during their labor by relating some amusing story, or detailing some of the interesting results of his reading. Before he was nine years old he had perused and VOL. IV.-33

reperused, with intense interest, the profound treatises of Jonathan Edwards on "the Affections" and "the Will." We would gladly trace, if our limits would allow us, the career of this extraordinary youth, but we cannot. Suffice it then to say, that, having given evidence of piety, he was baptized by his father, and was sent, in his fifteenth year, to the college of Bristol, attached to his own denomination, there to prepare for the ministry. His first attempt at preaching was an entire failure; after proceeding for a short time, much to the gratification of his auditory, he suddenly paused, covered his face with his hands, exclaimed, "O! I have lost all my ideas," and sat down, still hiding his face. A second time he made the attempt, and again failed. Soon after these things, however, we find him preaching to an auditory of ministers, many of whom he had been accustomed from his infancy to regard with the utmost reverence. He selected for his text 1 John i, 5: "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all;" and, it is affirmed, treated this mysterious and awful subject with such metaphysical acumen, and drew from it such an impressive application, as excited the deepest interest. We soon after seem to accompany him to the meeting of the church under the care of his father, where we read in the church book, "On the 13th of August, 1780, he was examined by his father before the church, respecting his inclination, motives, and end in reference to the ministry, and was likewise desired to make a declaration of his religious sentiments. All which being done to the entire satisfaction of the church, they therefore set him apart by lifting up their right hands and by solemn prayer. His father then delivered a discourse to him from 2 Tim. ii, 1: Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.' Being thus sent forth, he preached in the afternoon from 2 Thess. i, 7, 8: 'The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven, with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.' May the Lord bless him, and grant him great success."

6

Having completed his preparatory studies at Bristol, and graduated A. M. at Aberdeen, Mr. Hall was appointed classical tutor at Bristol, and afternoons preached for Dr. C. Evans. In about two years after this he removed to Cambridge, to succeed the ingenious but erratic Robert Robinson. Here his religion and his prudence were both tried. Robinson had cherished some heretical views, and it is highly probable that many of his congregation had gone much further in error than their minister. At this period Hall himself was then a materialist, and was by no means clear in his

views as to the personality of the Holy Spirit; but the distinguishing doctrine of Christianity-the atonement by the death of Christ -he clearly understood and cordially loved. This was the subject of his first sermon after he had accepted the pastorate. Immediately after the conclusion of the service, one of the congregation went into the vestry and said, "Mr. Hall, this preaching won't do for us: it will only suit a congregation of old women." "Do you mean my sermon, sir, or the doctrine?" "Your doctrine." "Why is it that the doctrine is only fit for old women?" "Because it may suit the musings of people tottering on the brink of the grave, and who are eagerly seeking comfort." "Thank you, sir, for your concession. The doctrine will not suit people of any age, unless it be true; and if it be true, it is not fitted for old women alone, but is equally important at every age." We will here furnish one or two short extracts from Mr. Greene's Reminiscences which relate to this period:

"Mr. Hall's sermons were principally upon subjects suited to the condition of his audience; and his appeals to the consciences and feelings of his hearers were equally pungent and faithful: What! will you shut out the Deity from his own dominions, till at length the great eternal Being becomes unknown and unacknowledged in his own world? Will you dare to venture on the thick bosses of the Almighty's buckler; or will you place briers and thorns before him? He would pass through them; He would burn them up together! To form any idea of the effect produced by these appeals, it would be necessary to witness the expression of his brilliant eye, the moving eloquence of his lifted brow, and the animated and impassioned manner in which his addresses were delivered."-Vol. iv, p. 13.

"His habits were very studious: I never knew any man that was so great a reader on all subjects. It is a mistaken notion that he was entirely indebted to genius; he possessed great industry and application, united to which was a thirst for knowledge, and an ambition to excel in everything which he undertook. Dissatisfied with present attainments, he frequently said, 'Let your aim and standard be high, for you will always be below your standard; and if your standard is high, your attainments will be high also.' He generally read from an early hour of the morning till eight o'clock in the evening, after which he visited either the sick or his friends. If one was engaged or from home, he went to another, and stayed till eleven o'clock-then returned to his rooms. It was pleasing, on such occasions, to witness this great man descend from the sublimest speculations, and mingle with the socialities of common life. There was no ostentatious display of learning; he endeared himself to all by the simplicity of his manners, the unaffected modesty and kindness of his disposition, and the interest which he took in their welfare. He was exceedingly fond of children, and frequently took the little ones in his arms, and ap