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as in that case it would be, a work of mere superfluous curiosity. But, unhappily, the number of persons so circumstanced is extremely limited ; when compared with the countless multitudes whose circumstances are directly opposite, it is as nothing. Matured judgment and habitually settled views on the subject of religion are to be found but in rare instances, few and far between; while the generality, rash, ignorant, roaming negligently from one opinion to another, are ready victims of the first sophist who comes in contact with them: and even among minds of a higher cast, really intent on discovering truth, we see boldness of enquiry carried to such excess as to make it evident that no conclusion, however contrary to received and established doctrines, would act as an antidote to arguments brought forward clearly in support of it. Certain it is, then, that such persons, unless supplied with some defence less fragile than what their own habits can furnish them with, must, on the perusal of books like Mr. Blanco White's, fall at once into the train of fallacies from which subtler minds have been unable to extricate themselves. It may be said, indeed, that their error will in that case be their own fault, for that they would have escaped but for the irreverent habits which they had indulged; yet this seems hardly a reason for refusing them our sympathy and assistance, even should it prove necessary in affording these, occasionally to abandon, for argument's sake, the high ground on which established orthodoxy has en

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trenched itself, and to adopt methods of reasoning, as far as ourselves are concerned, simply hypothetical, and addressed to the mistaken hypothesis of those we would instruct.

To proceed, then, with Mr. Blanco White's argument. In the first place, it must be observed that this is not intended to be, any more than it is, a regular defence of Unitarianism. It is an exposition of the process of thought which eventually led the writer to become a Unitarian, and which probably, if adopted by any other equally clear and independent mind, would terminate in the same conclusion but its bearings on the Unitarian question are only indirect; it is occupied entirely with preliminary discussions, directed against certain views and feelings, which tend (as we should say) happily, but as Mr. Blanco White contends, most injuriously, to repress freedom of inquiry on religious subjects. His primary object is to advocate what he considers a just liberty of thought, and to encourage a spirit of investigation in the department of religious truth similar to that which has led to so many discoveries in physical science. In this point of view, creeds. articles, confessions of faith, occupy a prominent place in his disapprobation. These are, as it were an advanced guard arrayed in opposition to his views, and accordingly he selects them for the firs point of his attack. Romanist confessions, which claim to be based on infallible authority, he argue against in the common way, urging the dispute existing among the Romanists themselves as to th

seat of infallibility, the contradictory decisions which must be ascribed to it wherever it is supposed to reside, and the total absence of any evidence for its existence any where. But that such formulæ should have been adopted by Protestant communities, he seems to look on as an error of a far more aggravated character, and this for the following reasons.

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In the first place, he argues that a confession of faith drawn up on an authority short of infallible, and yet claiming to be obligatory on the consciences of those to whom it is offered, is a self-evident absurdity,—an insult to common sense, so gross, that in comparison with it even the Romish figment of infallibility seems tolerable. He insists largely on the contradiction involved in the assumption of a right to controul the judgments of other men on the part of persons who admit the fallibility of their own, the wild unreasonableness of undertaking on the one hand to silence doubt, while deying on the other the only rational and consistent ground for certainty; and then, as if not contented with this general ground of attack, he proceeds to charge the framers of the existing confessions with urther inconsistency, in having, by the very act of lrawing them up, asserted in their own persons a ight which they were at the same time attempting o withhold from all the rest of mankind,—the right of private judgment in opposition to received stanlards of belief. The following passage he quotes

from M. Guizot, in the Appendix to the "Travels of an Irish Gentleman."

“The Reformers, while employed in the abolition of an absolute power over things spiritual, were far from understanding the true principles of human liberty. They enfranchised the human mind, and yet wished to govern it by law: they were, in fact, establishing the supreme independence of private judgment, and believed all the while that they had succeeded in establishing a legitimate authority in matters of faith instead of an illegitimate one. The Reformers had neither risen to the first principles on this subject, nor did they follow their own work to its ultimate consequences......They either did not know or did not respect the rights of the human mind to their full extent. Claiming those rights for themselves, they violated them in others......... Hence the air of inconsistency, the narrow basis which give such undue advantages to the enemies of the Reformation."

And again, in the "Observations on Heresy and Orthodoxy," he supposes a Roman Catholic to argue thus with a Protestant, respecting the authority of the Thirty-nine Articles.

"If a judge of controversies (competent to im pose confessions of faith) is (after all) to be acknow ledged, what prudent man will hesitate between one so distinguished and eminent as ours, and those which the Reformation set up? You blame us for grounding our Christian certainty on the questionable fact of the divine appointment of Rome to be

the head of the Christian world; but can this uncertainty be compared with that which lies at the very foundation of your Churches? A few divines meet and draw up a list of theological propositions ; the secular power takes them under its protection, ejects the clergy who will not submit to them, fences the Articles for a long period with penalties and civil disabilities, and makes them the rule of Christian faith for ever. This is what you call the judgment of the Church, which to oppose is heresy. It is heresy now to dissent from the Thirty-nine Articles; but there was, it seems, a happy moment, when the notions of a few individuals could be set up without heresy, against the judgment of a well defined and well constituted Church, to which all Christians, except heretics, had for ages submitted their private views of Christianity."

Such are Mr. Blanco White's views as to the absurdity of Protestant confessions of faith generally, and in particular of the self-condemnation involved in the conduct of those who imposed our own':

1 [He has in fact taken it from the infidel Gibbon:]-"The pious or personal animosity of Calvin proscribed in Servetus the guilt of his own rebellion; and the flames of Smithfield, in which he was afterwards consumed, had been kindled for the Anabaptists by the zeal of Cranmer. The nature of the tiger was the same, but he was gradually deprived of his teeth and fangs. A spiritual and temporal kingdom was possessed by the Roman Pontiff: the Protestant doctors were subjects of a humble rank, without revenue or jurisdiction. His decrees were consecrated by the antiquity of the Catholic Church; their arguments and disputes were submitted to the people; and their

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