like most of the novelties of his nomenclature, and much of the mystification with which his pages abound, is transplanted from the philosophy of Kant. His views of a selfdetermining will are at least as old as the Arminian theory on that subject; and his doctrine of original sin, in its essential elements, of a far earlier date. His essays on truth, however just in sentiment, have neither the recommendation of novelty nor perspicuousness, and fall, in energy and impressiveness, far short of the higher class of discourses on that subject from the pulpit, to which the churches both in this and that country are accustomed. His distinction of prudence or expediency from morality or rectitude, though put forth with the air of a discovery, and perplexed with all the obscurity of an original thought, is essentially the just and important distinction with which the world has long been familiar, of the selfish from the benevolent, or the worldly-wise from the disinterestedly upright. That he has broached no novelties on these latter subjects, is indeed commendation, in place of reproach; and though he has failed to exhibit them with the clearness, and invest them with the splendor, which were to be expected from his genius and learning, it is yet matter of congratulation, that, while so many of the gifted and popular writers of the age are wasting their powers on subjects at best of the most transitory interest, he has chosen to quit those fields, and devote to these high themes so minute a discussion.

The style of these volumes is extremely unequal; rising at times to great beauty and energy, and descending at others to as distant an extreme of inelegance and carelessness. He exhibits, indeed, an extraordinary facility of abrupt transition from the sublime to the ridiculous, and

from the vigorous to the feeble-faults, the more reprehensible, that he is so easily able to adorn the subjects of which he treats with more than a common share of elegance. The imperfections of his style and methods of discussion, appear to result in some degree from the peculiarity of his genius. His pages exhibit, apparently, but very imperfect traces of the mental operations which they profess to represent. He gives us, often, only the distant and slightly-connected points of his excursions, in place of their continuous outline-the results, rather than the processes of his reasoning. Thoughts, images, relations, analogies, flashing in instant succession on his eye, bear him onward, with a lightning rush, from object to object, and scene to scene, and dazzled himself, and entranced by the rapidity and splendor of the vision, he forgets but that his reader has been a companion of his flight, and reached his conclusion by a similarly delightful process. Preferable as it may be to himself, however, thus to sport at will at a distance, or soar into the clouds, it may be well to recollect, that if the dwellers in the vales and on the rocks are to be spectators of his movements, he must present himself more frequently within the sphere of their vision; and if his footsteps are to be marked, and serve as guides to other adventurers, it would essentially contribute to the facility of tracing them, were he to touch the earth a little oftener.

THE

CHRISTIAN SPECTATOR'S

REVIEW OF DR. FISK.

It is a subject of congratulation, that the author of the article in the Christian Spectator, for December, 1831, on the doctrines of predestination and election, in which he has taken occasion to express his views on several of the contested topics that have so frequently been treated in that work by some of his associates, has been induced to engage in the discussion, and offer his sentiments, in respect to which many have hitherto been left in some uncertainty, to a free inspection by the public.

Those subjects have become themes of high interest, to the clergy particularly, almost throughout the country; and the conviction is very generally felt that the interests of truth and the welfare of the church require their discussion to be continued, until the principles of the adverse parties, with the conclusions which they involve, shall be fully developed, and the public put in possession of the means of an impartial and accurate judgment respecting them. And the discharge of this office, on the part of the institution with which this gentleman is connected, obviously cannot be so properly devolved, especially at the present stage of the controversy, on any one else, as on himself. His asso

ciate, who has heretofore taken the chief part in the discussion, is little less than universally regarded, it is believed, as hors de combat; having so thoroughly written himself down, that the reputation of the college, as well as the honor of religion, requires him to enact his labors hereafter on a less public theatre, where the spectators, if not so inexperienced as to allow his mistakes to pass undetected, may at least be less likely to reveal them to the general gaze. If such had not hitherto been the fact, the last stroke required for his prostration is given, one would imagine, in the article under consideration—in the open and unhesitating assertion of the theory, as the doctrine of "the venerable institution of Yale," that the sole reason that God permits the existence of sin in his empire, is an inadequacy of his power to exclude it from a moral system; an assertion in direct contradiction to Dr. Taylor's pretence, in his reply to Dr. Woods, that he had neither taught nor held that doctrine as an article of belief; uttered any intimation in his discussions respecting it, of his conviction of its truth; nor employed any reasonings or representations that could authorize its imputation to him. That doctrine, then so solemnly disclaimed by himself and the editor of the Spectator, and of the ascription of which to him he complained as an injury, the perpetration of which must inevitably overwhelm its author with selfreproach and public reprobation, is now openly avowed as an article of their common faith, not only held with the fullest confidence, and strenuously maintained, but believed by them to be the only theory that can solve the phenomena of God's administration, and vindicate his character; and regarded as so superlatively adapted to that, as to render it impossible that even the worst enemies of his government

infidels and universalists-should resist the light of its demonstration. If any of the friends of religion have hitherto found themselves unable to decide on that gentleman's merits as a controversialist, I commend this fact to their consideration.

The public, then, will probably be as willing as the friends of the college are anxious, to be spared the infliction of any further instruction from him on these themes; and if discussed therefore by either of the theological professors, at least with any probability of a useful influence, it must be by the gentleman who has now undertaken it. From him, however, whatever comes will doubtless merit and meet a respectful reception.

The review under notice, is marked accordingly by traits of mind, and in several instances of sentiment, of a far different cast from those which have characterized that gentleman's lucubrations. He makes no pretence like him, contradicted by professions and arguments on every page, that none of his views differ in any essential respect from the prevalent doctrines of New-England, but frankly admits his dissent from some of those doctrines, and regards his peculiarities as exempt from objections to which they are obnoxious. Nor does he, like him, after professing to reject the theory of physical depravity, immediately turn to its assertion, and without any other than a change of his terms, re-affirm every principle that is involved in that doctrine, and re-sanction all the arguments that are employed for its support. He has not made it the business of any of his pages to treat of a selfish principle that needs to be suspended, by a purely physical agency, before any of the motives that gain access to the mind can, without surmounting a natural impossibility, either prompt it to obedience