Hall, and especially from the Dean of Carlisle. These animadversions were followed by a pamphlet from Dr. Marsh, entitled an Inquiry into the consequences of neglecting to give the prayer book with the Bible; interspersed with remarks on some late speeches at Cambridge;' and to these Dr. Milner replied in a very masterly and able work, entitled Strictures on some of the publications of the Rev. Herbert, Marsh, D. D, intended as a reply to his objections against the British and Foreign Bible Society.' This called forth a rejoinder from Dr. Marsh, which terminated the controversy as far as the Dean of Carlisle was concerned. The Strictures of Dr. Milner are now rarely to be met with; but they display an amazing power of argument, and very materially affected the reputation of the Margaret Professor. The fact is, that Dr. Marsh had unfortunately taken the wrong side of the question. Common sense demonstrates, that the circulation of the Holy Scriptures must promote the interests of a Scriptural Church; and a very little inquiry was quite sufficient to shew that no Society existed at that period which was either able or willing to furnish any thing like an adequate supply of Bibles and Testaments, and that therefore new agencies were indispensable. The misfortune is that so many of the higher order of churchmen were induced to oppose a cause which, on every motive, whether of religion or policy, they ought to have supported. Their opposition unquestionably very materially increased the influence of dissenters; though, after all, it may safely be asserted, that the British and Foreign Bible Society has really been one of the most powerful instruments in reviving attachment to our church, and checking the progress of dissent which has yet been devised. How much more powerful would it have been had

In 1972, Dr. Milner was appointed to the Deanery of Carlisle. While his brother lived he spent the principal part of his vacations at Hull; but after that melancholy event he usually resided during the summer months in the Deanery at Carlisle. Here he preached regularly to crowded audiences, who hung upon his lips with great delight, and regarded him as a workman that needed not to be ashamed. Two volumes of his sermons were published after his decease, and though they labour under those defects to which posthumous discourses are always liable, they are yet highly valuable and well deserve a careful perusal.

The late Dean of Carlisle was unquestionably one of the first men of his day in respect of his intellectual powers and endowments. He possessed what might be termed a gigantic understanding: he had a comprehension and vigour of mind, which could embrace the most extensive and difficult subjects; and his clearness of comprehension was such as enabled him to contemplate a long series of arguments with distinctness. His knowledge was not confined to one or two branches of science, but spread itself over almost the whole field of human enquiry. He was gifted with a very extraordinary memory, which enabled him to retain the large stores he had amassed: and it was remarked by a friend, who had enjoyed opportunities of seeing him in all circumstances, that Dr. Milner was, perhaps, less than any one he had ever known, a man of

times and seasons: for that he was always able to bring his powers into full action. As a mathematician he ranked among the most eminent in Europe. In experimental philosophy, chemistry, and the various useful arts, he had pushed his researches to an extent which would have raised other men to distinction, but which in him, seemed only the accompaniments and attendants of still higher gifts.

With these powers he united a felicitous talent of conversation which is seldom met with in persons addicted to the severer studies: the flow of his familiar talk, his cheerfulness of disposition, and his easy communicativeness were as attractive as his other faculties were commanding. There was a sort of dignified simplicity about him, which, without abating the respect, won the affections of those who were in his company. Part of this might rise perhaps from his unaffected frankness of manner. There was in all his statements a force and plainness, which were quite abhorrent from that indecision of sentiment and those affected involutions of style natural to inferior minds. He expressed what he thought, fully, with a clearness of conception, an authority of intellect, and a vigour of language which at once instructed and convinced. He seemed to have an almost instinctive dislike to the outsides of questions; and indeed would hardly suffer the person with whom he conversed to proceed, if he wandered after secondary and unessential points, or if he hesitated and lingered in making a fair and perspicuous exposition of what he really meant. On the other hand, no one was more ready to grapple with a great question, and so meet a worthy opponent on fair grounds of argument.

The Dean's health had been for upwards of 40 years in a precarious state. Excessive applica

tion to study, in the early period of his residence at the University, with inattention to the first indications of disease, and a somewhat adventurous perseverance in dangerous chemical experiments, tended to fix in a constitution naturally robust, and even Herculean, some distressing complaints. His life was thus rendered a perpetual conflict with valitudinarian infirmities. Spasms in the stomach and bowels, severe and almost uninterrupted headaches, oppression of the breath, broken slumbers, disturbed by the most painful dreams, debilitated his frame, and at times assumed such alarming appearances as to threaten him every moment with dissolution. A great flow of animal spirits, indeed, sustained him during the presence of a friend, or when any sudden emergencies of duty demanded an unusual effort; but his sufferings were often very acute and it would have been surprising if they had not reduced him as he advanced in life, to a state of comparative incapacity for laborious effort. He writes to a friend in the year 1787: mind is totally enfeebled. sudden sight and conversation of a near friend or two, enliven me for some hours; but it is only to sink deeper. In short, I am a castaway, of no use to any one about me; but rather matter of patience to my intimates.' In one letter he says, 'I happen to-night to have one of those excruciating head-aches, and therefore must be as concise as possible. My head! my head! How fond should we be of this world if there were not these plagues!'-When it is considered therefore, that for the last thirty years of his life he had numerous duties to discharge, and yet during this time he could seldom leave his chamber without danger, to use his own words, to his 'poor fragments of health,' we cannot wonder, that he should have accomplished no more than he did in the way of great

• My

The

public undertakings. His Memoir of his brother, accompanied by some animadversions on the writings of Dr. Haweis: the publication of the 3rd vol. of the Church History, and part of the 4th from his brother's MSS. and of the remainder of the 4th, together with the whole of the 5th vol., entirely from his own resources; and his powerful work on the Bible Society, must have cost him great efforts in his infirm state of health. But besides this he struggled hard for a great many years to preach regularly in the Cathedral at Carlisle during his summer residence, and four or five times at the Chapel of Queen's College, with occasional sermons at the Chapel Royal, St. James' and elsewhere.

But for the last few years he was evidently declining fast in strength. The state of his mind under the pressure of sickness, may be collected from such expressions as the following, which occur in familiar letters, written in the greatest haste, and not in the course of any formal discussion on religion. I endeavour to make it my prayer, that these afflictions may not be removed till they have brought about and finished the work which our gracious and merciful High Priest intended them to do. How this sickness will end, seems very doubtful. Indeed, my dear friend, I assure you I am greatly inclined to believe, that I shall never be good for much any more. I hope, however, I have been with Jesus. It is impossible for me to forget what

said,

that with such a pulse as mine, a man's life was not worth one minute. How loudly all this says, "Prepare to meet thy God," and what an awful admonition, what a deal could my heart pour out to you on this subject ! These are the lights in which my case is to be viewed, first as putting an end to life in a moment: second, as having the effect of laying one on

the shelf. God's will be done! and may I submit without a murmur! is my constant prayer.

I consider myself as being in a very-very doubtful state, to say the least. Prepare! prepare! ought to be my motto; no doubt in large letters. What the divine mercy has yet in store for me, is not easy to predict. My hope is, "that sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

For this week past, my voice has been almost gone. I am better of it. To how little good purpose have I hitherto used the benefit of a good voice! There cannot be a bitterer reflection: it haunts me constantly, and overcame me the other day, on your asking me a certain question. But should God, in his mercy, grant me my voice and strength again, should I apply them to better purposes? I cannot honestly say: yet I believe I should; so sottish and hardened is my heart! Nothing less than God's immediate power, converting the soul, will do. Happy to have a God to go to, let other things be as they may.

I endeavour to make it my prayer, that as this load is certainly laid upon me for good, it may not be removed till it has done its work. To support this belief, and the prayer connected with it, is no easy task; but as I thank God, I cannot, I find, be easily driven from this belief, I trust I shall never suffer the buffetings of Satan to drive me from my prayer.

The rest must be left with a merciful God, who makes all work for good. The few prayers of Pascal, at the close of his little book, are most charming. I have experienced manifest consolation from

the eleventh particularly. The prayer alluded to is this: 'Confer on me the grace, O Lord, to join thy consolation with my sufferings, in order that I may suffer as a christian," &c. vol. 2. p. 126. Paris 1812.

The close of a life passed in this spirit, however it might terminate with regard to bodily suffering, must be blessed. A few weeks before his death, the Dean had come up to town on business, when he took up his abode as usual, in the house of his old and very dear friend, W. Wilberforce, Esq. and embraced the opportunity of having medical advice. His medical friends, however, had no idea of his disease being attended with any immediate danger to life; nor indeed did he himself appear to entertain more than his general and long-fixed conviction of the extreme uncertainty, arising from the very broken state of his health, of his continuance in this world. In conversing with a friend on the subject of awakening the attention. of a mixed audience to the concerns of religion, he expressed with the utmost energy his conviction of the importance of what he usually called, the doctrines of grace and that all religious reasonings, which did not proceed on that doctrine, were essentially erroneous; adding that the common ways of evading its force, got rid of one real difficulty, but only left greater difficulties in some other step of the argument.

On a subsequent occasion, he held a long conversation with a friend, on the importance of personal piety and submission to God. As his end drew on, his mind and body seemed to sink together, and he became incapable of conversation. He said, however, in his own powerful way, to a clergyman long known to him, who was about to return into the country, God bless you take care where you and I meet again-that is everything.' And not many days before he was confined to his room, in taking leave of a friend, who was setting out on a long voyage, the Dean, after bidding him farewell, with the rest of the company,

MARCH 1838.

called him back again, and shook hands with him again, saying, Farewell, God bless you, my heart will be with you, and with all I trust who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Time is short. Let us hope to meet on durable ground.'

A day or two before his death, he made an attempt to engage in prayer with his servant who attended him. He desired also the same servant to read to him a chapter of the New Testament which he pointed out. It was the 14th of St. John. When the reading was over, he put his hand to his forehead, and said, I cannot tell what is the matter with me, but I cannot think my mind is gone. The Dean pointed out to a friend the same chapter several years before, and dwelt especially on our Lord's expression. "In my

Father's house are many mansions : if it were not so, I would have told you." On which he observed, that it was as though our Lord had said, Did I ever deceive you? Have I not told you the real truth? Have I concealed any difficulties from you ? If there were not many abodes in my Father's house, do you think I would not have told you?

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It is pleasing to observe that in the extreme infirmities of approaching death, the good Dean reposed his faith in the same blessed promises of his Saviour, on which he had so often meditated in former years. The night before his death, his oldest and most affectionate friend came to his bedside, when he expressed with great weakness, a word or two which conveyed the idea that he was looking for a better world. On Saturday morning April 1st, about 11 o'Clock, he suddenly extended his limbs, and uttering three sighs, breathed out his soul into the hands of his Saviour, having attained the 70th year of his age.

MY DEAR FRIENDS-There never has been a period since the first day of my ministrations among you,

when the minister of God was more imperatively called upon by passing events, to cry aloud and spare not" to lift up his voice like a trumpet, that he "might shew the people their transgression" Isa. lviii. 1.—to “ reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine," 2 Tim. iv. 2.

-than at the present moment. The cry of destruction is heard throughout the empire; the establishments which have for ages opposed a barrier to the inroads of infidelity, idolatry, superstition, and fanaticism, are assaulted with a fury and a determination, perfectly satanic. Human wisdom, human policy, human plans, human motives, are put forward with all imaginable confidence, as if they could reform a demoralized people, or regenerate a country that had manifested a sad departure from all that the Holy Scriptures teach-or give a contented mind to those who are trained up in a course of systematic opposition to truth and holiness, and submission, to "the powers that be:"-or bring contentment into families where no voice of joy and gladness is heard, but where discontent, sullen or clamorous, takes possession of the mind. The atheistical opinion that the people, and not God, are the source of power, is hailed by multitudes with delight, is maintained with the greatest obstinacy, and is received as an axiom that cannot be controverted. Too many hesitate not to say, that the end sanctifies the means, and thus morality is set at open defiance. It is also melancholy to perceive, that men have risen up in the church, who, with a great apparent zeal for God,

are, "making void the law by their traditions," Mark vii. 15. who seem to hold that the glorious reformation was an evil instead of a blessing, and appear anxious to determine all doubtful questions by an appeal to the Fathers, instead of the Bible. Exposed to these evils, you have need of "the whole armour of God, that you may be able to wishstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.' Eph. vi. 13. While others are opposing the truth, do you bind it more closely to your hearts; while others are ruled by expediency, do you take care that you are in all things influenced by principle; while others put out of their creed, the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, do you regard it as the leading and distinguishing article in your's, and upon the following authority Acts xx. 28-Gal. iii. 13-1 Peter iii. 18-Rev. i. 5.— Heb. ix. 13, 14, 15, 28 and x. 10, 12, 14-while others live for time, do you live for eternity; while others see not the hand of God in the events which are taking place; do you regard them as signs indicative of the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ "in power and great glory." That event is certain-See Mark xiv. 62-Acts i. 11.-Phil. iii. 20.-1 Thess. iv. 16.-2 Thess. i. 7, 10.-1 Tim. vi. 14, 15.—Rev. 1. 7, xxii. 20.— and with it are bound up all the joys and hopes of the children of God, who are taught by the Holy Spirit to "love his appearing,' 2 Tim. iv. 8.-to "look out for, and haste unto the coming of the day of God." 2 Pet. iii. 12.-to "hope unto the end for the grace that is to be brought unto them at the revelation of Jesus Christ," 1 Peter i. 13. Then will it "be well with the righteous," and "ill