vigour and originality of understanding,-but embracing far too wide a field of argument for us to enter on the present occa

sion.

The nineteenth sermon is one of the ablest in the two volumes, or perhaps in the English language. It was preached in St Paul's Cathedral, on Good Friday 1775, and published in the same year, The subject (from St Matthew, xvi. 21.) is the providence of Cod and the free agency of man. The philosophical discussions on the subject of liberty and necessity, of course are not adapted to the capacity of every reader; but we would earnestly recommend them to the serious consideration of all young divines,-together with an excellent discourse on the same subject, preached by Archbishop King at Christ Church, Dublin, May 15, 1709, entitled, Divine predestination and foreknowledge consistent with the freedom of man's will.'

The twentieth sermon (from the famous text, 1st St Peter, iii. 18, 19, 20.) is on the descent into hell; in his interpretation of which, our author differs from Bishop Pearson, and several other great divines. But he supports his own opinion with his usual ability; and whether the reader agree with him in his conclusion or not, we are persuaded that he will think with us, that there is not, in the two volumes, a more striking, nor a more impressive sermon. It was first published along with the work on Hosea, and was attacked, at least in one pamphlet, as countenancing the absurd and groundless belief in purgatory, which has really no connexion with the doctrine of this sermon ;-a doctrine (of the middle state between death and the resurrection, however explained) undoubtedly scriptural, well understood, and generally acknowledged, in the primitive church, long before Popish purgatory (the dream of folly, or the game of avarice and the lust of power) was ever heard of. The three following sermons (from St Mark, ii. 27.) are on the Sabbath; in which the learned author discusses, with his usual force and acuteness, the nature and comparative importance of moral duties and of positive institutions. The former are essential to the nature of man; he was made for them; and they are never to be dispensed with. The latter are not essential; they are accidental and arbitrary; they were made for man. The practice of the first (says the Bishop, serm. 21. p. 213.) is the very end for which man was originally created, and, after the ruin of his fall, redeemed: the other are means appointed to facilitate and secure the attainment of that end. In themselves, they are of no value; insomuch, that a scrupulous attention to these secondary duties, when the great end of them is wilfully neglect • eftp

VOL. XVI, No. 34

ed, will but aggravate the guilt of an immoral life. Man was ⚫ not made for these.' The three next sermons (from St John, iv. 13.) are by no means easily characterized in the short space which we can now afford. They contain the elucidation of an important and singular fact in the scripture history; they trace the causes of it; and, in the course of the discussion, they elucidate several difficult or obscure texts of the Pentateuch in a manner which, we are persuaded, will appear new and striking to every reader. The Bishop clearly deduces, from his text, the important facts, that the Samaritans of our Saviour's day, no less than the more enlightened Jews, expected a Messiah,-that they knew, no less than the Jews, that the time was come for his appearance,-that, in the Messiah, they expected not, like ، the mistaking Jews, a Saviour of the Jewish nation only, or of Abraham's descendants, but of the world-a Saviour of the ⚫ world from moral, rather than from physical, evil.' (Serm. 24. p. 285.) After fully ascertaining the facts, he investigates the causes of this singular phenomenon, that men, under numerous disadvantages, (who worshipped in effect they knew not what), should have so much better discerned the signs of the times, and the important reality to which those signs pointed, than their more favoured brethren of Judea.

The twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth sermons (from Phil. iii. 15.) are on Christian perfection; in which, after expounding his text, and giving it a new translation, consists, the Right Reverend Preacher goes on to state and to obviate the objection made to the morality of the Christian system-that, as it teaches men to shun vice on account of impending punishments, and to cul⚫tivate virtuous habits in the hope of annexed rewards, that therefore the virtue which it affects to teach it teaches not, teaching it upon mean and selfish motives.'

The last of these discourses was preached in the cathedral church of St Asaph, on Thursday, Dec. 5. 1805, being the day of public thanksgiving for the victory obtained by Lord Nelson at Trafalgar. It was published at that time; and the editor of these volumes (the Bishop's son) was induced to reprint it, by the circumstance of its being the last ever composed by his revered father.' The Watchers and the Holy Ones mentioned in the text (Dan. iv. 17.) the author contends, by arguments of great ingenuity and force, to be the three persons of the everblessed Trinity; and he labours strenuously to confute the notion (supported though it be, from considerable antiquity, by some eminent names, as well in the Romish church, and among fo reign Protestants, as in the Church of England) of tutelar or

guardia

guardian angels. Confidently I deny (he says), that a single text is to be found in holy writ, which, rightly understood, gives the least countenance to the abominable doctrine of such a participation of the holy angels in God's government of the world.' (p. 416.)- The most that can be made of angels, he adds, is, that they are servants, occasionally employed by the Most High God to do his errands for the elect. Having settled these points, the application is admirable, by which he elucidates the superintending Providence of God,-to the intent that the living may know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men. This part of the text he particularly, and very strikingly, applies to the circumstances of the times, and yet in a manner which will interest readers in all future times as much as those for whom the discourse was specially written.

Difficult as many of the subjects are, which are discussed in the Discourses of which we have given this hasty sketch, if we are not greatly deceived, even ordinary readers (moderately conversant with the Bible, and with the theory and practice of their religion) may derive more advantage from them, than from any volumes of sermons which have issued from the press for the last fifty years. Even difficulties, and very serious difficulties, Bishop Horsley frequently renders plain and practical, by clear, patient, and ingenious criticism; and, having fixed his principle on a scripture ground, and made that ground comparatively clear and easy, he enforces the practical consequences on that direct authority of God, which, within the walls of a Christian church! at least, ought certainly to supersede every other. The great Dr Clarke, in his sermons, (which every reader knows to stand in the very first rank of excellence), often treats, and largely discusses, Christian subjects, the mysteries of redemption, and the various positive ordinances of the Gospel. But he does so with this remarkable difference from Bishop Horsley, that he is never satisfied with any scripture principle or precept, till he has laboured to render it conformable to what he calls eternal reason, and the fitness of things. Thus, even on subjects of which we should never have known any thing but from Scripture, and which de. rive all their importance and authority from revelation, we are frequently perplexed with thorny and uninteresting discussions, to accommodate them to this eternal reason and immutable relation of things. The evil of such discussions is, that they are apt to leave an impression on the mind, that the obligations of duty rest on something different from, and independent of, the

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will

will of God: whereas, to a Christian, the source of the obliga tion, both of moral and positive duties, is, beyond ail controversy, the will of the Supreme Being alone. And therefore, Babop Horsley, when he has distinctly traced a principle, doctrine or precept, to Scripture, justly thinks that he has done all that a Christian can require to enforce obedience. It may be interesting, and it may even be important, to trace the admirable conformity (which we can frequently trace but a very little way, however, and very inaccurately) which subsists between the revealed will of God, and the same will as it may be deduced from the nature of things and the condition of man; but it can never be absolutely necessary: for whether we trace, or can trace it or not, the Christian obligation is the same.

These sermons, valuable as they are, are not the only works, we are happy to learn, which the public may expect from the same learned pen. Mr Horsley informs us, that, among his fa ther's theological manuscripts, is a translation of the Book of Psalms, accompanied with notes critical and explanatory,-a treatise, accompanied with notes, on the Pentateuch, and on the historical books of the Old Testament, a treatise on the Prophets, containing notes on Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, (Hosea, already published), Joel, Amos, Obadiah. These are left, in a state perfectly ready for publication; and it is the editor's wish to print the work on the Psalms immediately.' We hope the success of the volumes before us will be such, as to enable him speedily to fulfil this wish; on which, he modestly states, that he cannot venture to act without public encourage

ment.

ART. XIII. On the Attractions of Homogeneous Ellipsoids. By JAMES IVORY A. M. (From the Transactions of the Royal So ciety, London, 1809, p. 345.)

THE method of treating the more complex questions of the mixed mathematics, has undergone a considerable change in the course of the last fifty years. Before that period, when very difficult problems occurred, the usual way was to attempt a simplification of the physical data on which the solution was to be founded; till, by omitting some conditions, and changing others, they were reduced to such a state, that geometrical or algebraical reasoning could more easily be applied to them. The conditions of a problem were thus brought down to suit the

powers

powers of calculation, instead of the latter being raised up to suit the extent or complication of the former. This might be called a physical rather than a mathematical approximation; and had this great fault, that the amount of its deviation from truth could hardly ever be ascertained with accuracy. It continued however to be used, long after some of the most successful applications of the mathematics had been made to the problems of Mechanics and Astronomy.

Thus, for example, TAYLOR, the first who resolved the problem concerning the vibrations of a musical string, laid it down as a principle, that the figure assumed by the string during its vibration, is the same, whatever be its initial figure, or that which it has when its vibration begins; and it was chiefly by help of this postulatum that he brought the problem within the compass of the geometry then known. Many years afterwards, when D'ALEMBERT refused to admit this hypothesis as contrary to fact, and rejected the simplification arising from it, he found that a new branch of the calculus must be invented before he was in a condition to resolve the problem in the form which it then assumed. The improvement made by the introduction of this new calculus was not only of essential service in the question immediately in view, but in a vast number of others, where it removed the necessity of having recourse to physical approxima tions.

Thus also, in the question concerning the figure of the earth, suppositions were introduced, not because they were founded in nature, but because they had a tendency to render the problem more simple. HUYGENS and HERMAN supposed the force of gravity to tend to the centre of the mass, and not to be the result of the mutual gravitation of all the particles toward one another; and they gave, on this hypothesis, a determination of the figure of the earth, simple indeed, but inaccurate, and not agreeing with observation. When NrWTON himself came to resolve the same problem, and admitted the force of gravity to arise from the attraction of all the particles of the earth, though he was prepared with that powerful instrument of investigation which his own discoveries had put him in possession of, he found it necessary to simplify the conditions of the problem by a supposition that was not shown to be essentially involved in it, viz. that the figure of the meridian must be an ellipsis.

Such however was the good fortune or the sagacity of NEWTON, that his conjectures seldom failed to be verified by more accurate discussion: and the ellipticity of the meridian was afterwards demonstrated to be a necessary consequence of the laws of hydro

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statics.