the Lord sitting upon his throne, and ruling all things well; while he observes the general providence of God co-extended with his whole creation, and surveys all the effects of it in the heavens and the earth, as a well pleased spectator; while he sees the wisdom and goodness of his general government descending to every particular; so presiding over the whole universe, as over a single person, so watching over every single person, as if he were the whole universe; how does he exult when he reviews the various traces of the Almighty goodness, in what has befallen himself in the several circumstances and changes of his own life! All which, he now sees have been allotted to him, and dealt out in number, weight, and measure. With what triumph of soul, in surveying either the general or particular providence of God, does he observe every line pointing out an hereafter, every scene opening into eternity.

ways with me,

14. He is peculiarly and inexpressibly happy, in the clearest and fullest conviction, "This all-powerful, all-wise, all-gracious Being, this Governor of all, loves me. This lover of my soul is alis never absent, no not for a moment. And I love Him; there is none in heaven but Thee, none on earth that I desire beside Thee! And He has given me to resemble himself, He has stamped his image on my heart. And I live unto him; I do only his will; I glorify him with my body and my spirit. And it will not be long before I shall die unto him; I shall die into the arms of God. And then farewell sin and pain; then it only remains, that I should live with Him for ever.'

15. This is the plain, naked portraiture of a Christian. But, be not prejudiced against him for his name. Forgive his peculiarities of opinion, and (what you think) superstitious modes of worship. These are circumstances but of small concern; and do not enter into the essence of his character. Cover them with a veil of love, and look at the substance; his temper, his holiness, his happiness.

Can calm reason conceive either a more amiable or a more desirable character? Is it your own? Away with names! Away with opinions! I care not what you are called. I ask not, (it does not deserve a thought) what opinion you are of; so you are conscious to yourself, that you are the man, whom I have been (however faintly) describing.

Do not you know, you ought to be such? Is the Governor of the world well pleased that you are not? Do you (at least) desire it? I would to God that desire may penetrate your inmost soul; and that you may have no rest in your spirit, till you are not only almost, but altogether a Christian!-Wesley's Works, Edition of 1812, vol, 13, page 246.

LECTURES ON ENGLISH HISTORY.

PART IX.

THE progress of events brings us to the present authorized version of the Scriptures. Few need to be told that this was made in the year 1611, and during the reign of James the First, the successor of Elizabeth. It forms an era in the history of English literature, not less from the intrinsic importance of the subject, than from the translation being one principal means of fixing a standard of the language, from which the deviations, up to the present time, have been remarkably few and unimportant. Subsequent versions of the whole Bible, and still more of detached parts, have been made, and the whole apparatus of critical investigation has been applied to the collation of manuscripts, and various other means for the gaining a purer text, and in most instances with no ordinary success. Yet none, however more technically correct, have been enabled to supersede in popular estimation King James' version, and in admiration of its great, in many respects unrivalled beauties, men of all creeds and parties have joined. The Jews, even, have not been wanting in testimonies of respect to its general fidelity as regards their sacred books. A few terms have become obsolete, and a few also have changed their signification; grammatical propriety is sometimes violated, and a heavier charge of carelessness, and even unfaithfulness, is made with respect to certain passages, marking the unskilfulness or the prejudices of the translators; but these are only occasional blemishes, and they have been sufficiently corrected in the published results of their better informed and more liberal-minded successors. The whole is a very magnificent production, there is a simplicity, a terseness, and a majesty in the diction, that no more recent version has reached. The language is that of Shakspeare, of Hooker, of Hall, full of energy, and not wanting in elegance, and comes, perhaps, as near to the strength and sublime brevity of the original, as anything rendered from it into a modern and more diffuse language can. The same remarks, to a considerable degree, may be applied to the book of Common Prayer.

The present version arose out of a conference between the episcopal and puritan divines, held at Hampton Court, in the early part of James' reign. The King expressed a wish that a translation should be made by the most learned persons in the two Universities, to be reviewed by the bishops,

submitted by them to the privy council, and then, having received his own royal authority, should be the only one read in churches. The wish became a law. Fifty-four persons, they the most celebrated of their day for learning, were engaged on the work, these were divided into six classes, and to each class a separate portion was assigned. "Each person in the class was to produce his own translation of the whole committed to them; these several translations were to be revised at a general meeting of the class. When the class had agreed upon their version, it was to be transmitted to each of the other classes, so that no part was to come out without the sanction of the whole body." In the explication of difficult passages, they were to call in the assistance of other learned men. Three years were employed on this great and truly national work, and the first impression was struck off by Robert Barker, the king's printer, in 1611. Endeavours have been made, almost ceaselessly, ever since, to supersede this translation by another, or others, under royal authority, but hitherto in vain; nor does there appear sufficient grounds for engaging in such a work, the many millions of copies of James' version now in existence, the general attachment to it, and the significant fact that dissenters of every denomination, as well as churchmen, use it in their public ministrations, and in private also, almost universally, together with the means in nearly every one's possession of correcting any mistranslation, and doing away with erroneous impressions, all sufficiently evince the needlessness of the attempt, and its inutility were it made. The Bible Society, with many glaring faults of management, has done incalculable good by its cheap and almost gratuitous circulation of the Scriptures.

The succession of events in each reign is more the province of the historian to relate, than of the Lecturer to notice, even incidentally, we therefore pass over the many important transactions of this period, and we come to the reign of his unfortunate successor and son, Charles the First. Few kings have been more misrepresented by friends and enemies than the one under notice. With high churchmen and monarchists he is even now a saint, the best and most chivalrous of kings, the most pious of Christians, the all-accomplished gentleman; he is absurdly, almost blasphemously, styled a martyr, and some of his fanatical eulogists have attempted to exalt his character and sufferings above those of the Saviour. These bombastic flights can only produce

a smile. On the other hand, he is represented as the most hyprocritical and faithless of men, a black-hearted tyrant, a Nero or Caligula in disposition, and prevented only by difference of circumstances from following the same nefarious courses as theirs. The old adage, that the middle course is safest, applies here, as in most other instances. The faults, the crimes, and the fate of Charles, may be ascribed very much to his position. He succeeded to a throne which he sincerely believed to be his by divine right. This notion had been seduously instilled into his mind; and to a person of his grave saturnine temper, it must have been exceedingly acceptable. The leaven of opposition which had given so much uneasiness to his blustering but pusillanimous father, was yet working furiously, and was quickly penetrating the whole mass. The insane bigotry of Laud, in the High Commission Court and the Star Chamber, and the barefaced tyranny of Strafford in Ireland, were goading the people to madness, not at all allayed by the masks and follies of the Queen's Court, nor by the licentious proceedings of those who called themselves the King's friends. Never, perhaps, did England produce so many truly great men as at this period, Elliot, Pym, Hampden, Vane, Cromwell, and a host of others. Ship money was demanded by the royal prerogative, without consent of parliament, an irregularity which would have been little heeded under the sway of the Tudors. Now, first principles were appealed to. John Hampden, one of the purest of patriots, threw himself, Curtius like, into the gulph, and became the saviour of his country. To tax, without consent of the legislature, has since been morally impossible. Nor must the noble and intrepid conduct of Lenthall the Speaker be forgotten; at the king's most rash and ill-advised attempt to seize the six refractory members, in their places in the house, he fell on his knee and replied "I have, sir, neither the eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as the house is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am, and I humbly ask pardon that I cannot give any other answer to what your majesty is pleased to demand of me."

The fatal issue of this quarrel to Charles, is well known to the merest tyro in our history. I do not stand here as the apologist of either side, for on both, there was questionless very much to condemn. That the execution of Charles was murder, is a monstrous assertion. There can be no doubt that he deserved death, as much as any who have ever

by this means, satisfied the claims of public justice, as much even as Strafford or Laud, who had preceded him on the scaffold; how far it would have been magnanimous, prudent, or safe to have let him live, is quite another question, and which, perhaps we can better answer, judging after the fact, than they could who were the principal actors in his death. The execution was a solemn, and very deliberate act, it was done in the face of England, and of the whole world, and probably none who consented to the deed, saw occasion afterwards to regret it. The commonly received story of Cromwell's remorse at the sight of the king's picture, is in all likelihood, an impudent figment. Algernon Sydney,

who himself in the reign of the perjured, licentious Charles the Second, was beheaded, remarked of it, "that it was the best and bravest deed ever done in England;" we might demur to this conclusion, and might wish that the misguided monarch had been suffered to live. Still we are not entitled harshly and unqualifiedly to blame those who thought they saw a necessity, however cruel, to perform the part they did. Say what we will of the Commonwealth, and especially of its fanaticism, still it was a time when the name of Englishman was more honoured in the world than at any other preceding period, or for a very long time after. Cromwell's domestic and foreign policy was of the most vigorous kind. There were no half measures, the necessities of the times required action, an iron will, an indomitable resolution to carry that will into effect. Cromwell was in every sense of the word, an extraordinary man. The notion of his consummate hypocrisy, so sedulously circulated, and at one time so generally believed, is nearly exploded. Enthusiastic he was, no great character has ever been formed without being so, but he was not a vulgar blood-thirsty fanatic, he was a gentleman by birth, education, and feeling, his natural disposition was tender and humane, and he frequently displayed great magnanimity, as well as forbearance, towards his implacable enemies. He was the advocate and patron of toleration in the midst of gloomy and very powerful bigotry; and he knew how to make this country respected abroad, by his energetic remonstrances, put into as energetic language by his Latin Secretary, the immortal Milton; he put a stop to the inhuman persecution of the Waldenses, and the Portuguese Inquisitors heard his voice in the remotest of their dungeons, and found how unsafe it was to meddle with the liberty of an Englishman. A significant remark is recorded