Of the same book he writes :

"You follow with intense interest the movements of Bunyan's soul. You seem to see a lonely bark driving across the ocean in a hurricane. By the flashes of the lightning you can just discern her through the darkness, plunging and labouring fearfully in the midnight tempest, and you think that all is lost: but there again you behold her in the quiet sunshine; or the moon and the stars look down upon her, as the wind breathes softly; or in a fresh and favourable gale she flies across the flying waters. Now it is clouds, and rain, and hail, and rattling thunder; storms coming down as sudden, almost, as the lightning; and now again her white sails glitter in heaven's light, like an albatross in the spotless horizon. The last glimpse you catch of her she is gloriously entering the harbour, the haven of eternal rest; yea, you see her like a star, that in the morning of eternity dies into the light of heaven." Pp. 29, 30.

The beautiful images of the last part of this quotation may be applied to Cheever's own book. But Bunyan is followed with intense interest, because he is the representative of a true Christian, journeying to Mount Zion. It is on this account that the Pilgrim's Progress possesses such a charm for the reader. Bunyan exhibits the details of his own religious experience; and, as the experience of all Christians is mainly similar, the book attracts Christian hearts by the bond of sympathy, as well as by its poetic beauty and power. What Christian has not been in the Slough of Despond, or felt not the fiery darts of the wicked one at the entrance of the way? Who has not toiled in the ascent of the hill Difficulty, or slipped in going down to the Valley of Humiliation, or been immured in Doubting Castle, because of walking in by-paths? How beautifully does the scene at the Cross represent the joys of conversion? And the Delectable Mountains and the land Beulah,—are they not vivid pictures of the pleasures of piety? Now, in all this allegory there is nothing like sectarianism. No flood of water is interposed as a barrier, either at the Wicket Gate or the palace Beautiful. Though Bunyan was a Baptist, he had too much good sense, and too much real religion, to exclude his brethren of other denominations from the path of salvation, or from the visible Church of Christ. Cheever remarks, on this point:

“You cannot say, from a perusal of that work,"-the Pilgrim's Progress,"whether its author was a Presbyterian, or a Baptist, or a Congregationalist, or a Methodist, or an Episcopalian, or a Calvinist, or a Lutheran, only that he did not mean, in drawing his own portrait of a true Christian, that he should belong to any of these parties exclusively; or, if there were any one of these that approached nearest to the Bible, in its comprehensive, Christ-like, gentle, and forbearing spirit, it should be that. The portraiture was a compound of what was excellent in them all; for what was truly excellent they all drew from the Bible, and the Pilgrim's Progress was drawn from the Bible, and from no sect, from nothing at second-hand. There is no ite, nor ian, nor ist, that you dare put to Christian's name; no lisping, halting Shibboleth of a party; for he came from the mint of the Holy Scriptures, where no party names

disgrace the glory of Christianity; where men are neither of Paul, nor Apollos, nor Cephas, but of Christ; and so, blessed be God, under his guidance Bunyan made Christian no church-man, but Christ's-man." Pp. 197–8.

If the catholicity of Bunyan's work be a proof of its superior excellence, what a lesson it conveys to his commentators! When we read the foregoing passage from the "Lectures," we fondly hoped the whole work would be found in harmony with the spirit of the "Pilgrim's Progress;" but some of its subsequent passages greeted us as unexpectedly as snow in harvest. We were surprised to find them in a book otherwise so attractive; and grieved at their evident misrepresentation of the belief of a large number of professing Christians. We refer to those passages which speak of the doctrine of Christian perfection. The known reputation and ability of the author preclude the supposition that they were written through ignorance of the real doctrine itself; and the only alternative to our minds is, that they betray a lack of Christian charity,—a want of that catholicity of feeling which, in this age of progress and evangelical alliances, becomes every true minister of Christ.

Respecting the character of the Flatterer, in the Allegory, our author remarks:

"There is also in our day a flattering delusion, by which this black man in white may be represented, which is the doctrine of perfection attained by saints in this world, which doctrine, by its fostering of pride and self-righteousness, has set many a man with his face from instead of towards the Celestial City. A man eager after spiritual attainments does certainly seem to be in the high road to heaven; but if he makes those attainments, instead of Christ, his Saviour, then certainly his face is turned, and his feet are tending the other way. So we need to be upon our watch against anything, and everything, though it should come to us in the shape of an angel of light, which would turn us from a sole reliance upon Christ, or tempt us to a high opinion of ourselves. A broken heart and a contrite spirit are, in the sight of God, of great price; but if any man thinks himself to have attained perfection, he is not very likely to be in the exercise of a broken heart, or of a contrite spirit, nor, indeed, in the exercise of true faith in Christ for justification.” Pp. 433-4.

Again, in treating of the Enchanted Ground, he says :—

"Can anything be more plainly indicated by this than that pretence to sinless perfection, by which so many have been flattered and allured, and which, in so many cases, has led directly, in the end, to the deepest pollution? What seems the cleanest path leads to the pit; it leads pilgrims thither by pride, self-righteousness, and the pretence of a holiness superior to God's law, and releasing them from its obligations. It is not the way of Christ's righteousness, nor of reliance upon him; and so, though it may seem, at first, to be a morality and sanctification of the highest tone, it ends in licentiousness. The men that devised this path, and that lead unwary souls in it, are described by Peter: For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them, who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption; for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought into bondage." Pp. 499, 500.

Now there happens to be "in our day" a large denomination of Christian believers, (and there are many in other denominations,) who hold fast to the doctrine of Christian perfection,-who teach, in other words, that believers may and ought to live without sin. They believe that the beloved disciple meant what he said, was inspired by the Holy Ghost, and was consistent with the whole tenor of Scripture teaching, when he wrote, "Little children, let no man deceive you; he that doeth righteousness is righteous even as he is righteous. He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil; whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother." 1 John iii, 7-10. It is even thought that Bunyan knew something of this state of grace,—or, if our author pleases, of "sinless perfection;" a term, however, which is not used by those who believe this doctrine, for fear of being misunderstood, or suspected of teaching a perfection which is independent of Christ or the atonement, or from which they cannot fall. In the land Beulah, which the pilgrims reached before they crossed the river, we are told "all the inhabitants of the country called them 'the holy people, the redeemed of the Lord, sought out,'" &c.

But the remarks of Dr. Cheever are based upon a most evident perversion of the doctrine. We believe in "the doctrine of perfection attained by saints in this world;" but it is the perfection of "saints,” and of saintly principles, emphatically so. Not a state which makes "attainments, instead of Christ," a man's "Saviour;" which fills him with "pride and self-righteousness;" but a state of child-like, humble love, and of perfect dependence upon Christ. The evils alluded to in the passages above quoted are more frequently found to spring from the doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints, than from that which teaches "holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.”

But our author, we think, condemns himself. In the chapter on the land Beulah and the river of Death, he uses and quotes language descriptive of bliss, which seems inconsistent with any other than a state of Christian perfection:

"Nothing in the English language can be compared with this whole closing part of the Pilgrim's Progress, for its entrancing splendour, yet serene and simple loveliness. The colouring is that of heaven in the soul, and Bunyan has poured his own heaven-entranced soul into it. With all its depth and power, there is nothing exaggerated, and it is made up of the simplest and

most Scriptural materials and images. We seem to stand in a flood of light, poured on us from the open gates of paradise. It falls on every leaf and shrub by the way-side; it is reflected from the crystal streams that between grassy banks wind amidst groves of fruit-trees into vineyards and flower-gardens. These fields of Beulah are just below the gate of heaven; and with the light of heaven there come floating down the melodies of heaven, so that here there is almost an open revelation of the things which God hath prepared for them that love him."

During the last days of that eminent man of God, Dr. Payson, he once said, “When I formerly read Bunyan's description of the land Beulah, where the sun shines and the birds sing day and night, I used to doubt whether there was such a place; but now my own experience has convinced me of it, and it infinitely transcends all my previous conceptions." The best possible commentary on the glowing descriptions in Bunyan is to be found in that very remarkable letter, dictated by Dr. Payson to his sister a few weeks before his death:

"Were I to adopt the figurative language of Bunyan, I might date this letter from the land Beulah, of which I have been for some weeks a happy inhabitant. The Celestial City is full in my view. Its glories have been upon me, its breezes fan me, its odours are wafted to me, its sounds strike upon my ears, and its spirit is breathed into my heart. Nothing separates me from it but the river of Death, which now appears but as an insignificant rill, that may be crossed at a single step, whenever God shall give permission. The Sun of Righteousness has been gradually drawing nearer and nearer, appearing larger and brighter as he approached, and now he fills the whole hemisphere, pouring forth a flood of glory, in which I seem to float like an insect in the beams of the sun, exulting, yet almost trembling, while I gaze on this excessive brightness, and wondering, with unutterable wonder, why God should deign thus to shine upon a sinful worm.”

What beauty is contained in the above extract! It is the "beauty of holiness!" Yet "there is nothing exaggerated." It is a true description of the humble rapture of a perfect Christian, waiting, in the improvement of all his talents and graces, until his change shall "Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace!" Dr. Payson was not the only person who "used to doubt whether there was such a place" as the land Beulah, but who could afterwards say, "Now my own experience has convinced me of it." Such may yet be the case with Dr. Cheever.*

come.

Apart from these exceptionable passages, Dr. Cheever's Lectures may be commended to our readers, without qualification. No commentator, or critic, to our knowledge, has more fully appreciated Bunyan, or written of him more in his own spirit.

* Does not the following passage, from Dr. Cheever's "Hill Difficulty," indicate some advance of religious experience, or at least some change in his views of the possibility of holiness upon earth? "The time of trial must be encountered. We

ART. X.—THE PHILOSOPHICAL STUDY OF LANGUAGE.

SECOND PAPER.

In political matters, it has been often said, the multitude are always in extremes. The imputation is no less applicable, in other subjects, to the learned, who are of the multitude in things they do not comprehend. It is an infirmity of our poor human nature, so aptly likened, by Luther, to a drunken man on horseback, who is lifted upright on the one side only to topple headlong on the other. We had, in our former article, a signal case of this principle, in the aversion of the English to the verbal philosophy of Aristotle. We have now to note another, directly the opposite-thus exhibiting (the party and subject still the same) the intellectual infirmity alluded to, in its utmost breadth of vagary. From denouncing as worse than futile all employment of words as a means to philosophy, these authorities of our literature seem to have passed without recantation, either by avowal or amendment, to the adoption of a system which seeks not merely the means, but the very matter, of philosophy, in absolutely nothing else than vocabularies and alphabets. The former has long since been disposed of by time; which would soon put a similar end to the latter, if it were not inconvenient to await its award. It is only to remove presumptions from authority in its support that we here allude to the inconsistencies, either of individuals or of nations. The question, then, to be considered, is twofold. 1st. Whether the mode of verbal investigation, now termed Comparative Philology,—but which we shall distinguish as the etymological method,—be an adequate means of arriving at the scientific principles of language? And, 2d. Whether it does not proceed upon an utter misconception of the proper object, as well as the method, of philology?

Etymology, as an instrument of philological inquiry, is sometimes distinguished into Grammatical and Comparative; with the view, apparently, of separating the latter from the equivocal reputation of

will not say whether it lasts the life long, or precisely at what point the habits become wings; whether the cars at the top of the Hill are those which receive the soul at death, and cause it to glide through the air to the abodes of the blessed, or whether the movement begins this side of the grave, by the top of the Hill being reached before death, and the airy flight of the soul beginning even in the body, through the great celestial power of peace with God, and a love and joy unspeakable and full of glory. We think Paul stepped into those winged cars before he put off his mortal tabernacle. And every Christian may do so, for God has made it possible."