of sound words, which (says he) thou hast heard of me." It were much to be desired that we could know what this form was, that we might judge of the propriety of the application. Doubtless it was some proposition of primary importance, concisely express ed, frequendy repeated and easily remembered; and if any such can be met with in the other writings of this Apostle, we may be allowed, for want of more precise evidence, to adopt it as the form to which he referred. Suppose then we were to fix upon that which we find in his first Epistle to Timothy, chap. ii. verse 5,- To us there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." Or that in 1 Cor. viii. 6, To us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him." Or this, Eph. iv. 5, 6, “One Lord, one faith, one baptisin, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." These, or some thing to the same purpose, it is highly probable that Timothy had often heard from Paul; but the like cannot be said of one of the most prominent articles in the formularies of faith upon which I am commenting, namely, that in the unity of the Godhead there be three persons, of the same substance, power and eternity," and so forth; as I do not find that Paul has any where laid down such an axiom, or preached such a doctrine, or that he paid divine worship to any other than the God and

Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Every expedient of a restrictive nature having been found unavailing for the security of unanimity and concord among Christians, it was thought worth while, in the formation of this society, to try whether gospel truth and love and peace might not be best promoted and preserved in connexion with perfect liberty of judgment. All therefore that is required, as a test of opinion, to qualify for membership, is an assent to these two propositions, namely, that there is but one God, and, which necessarily follows, that he alone is the proper object of religious adoration. Without these we could not consistently have assumed the title of a church; but so far are they from being exclusive, that it is evident a conscientious Trinitarian might join in our religions services without offence

to his principles, as they are nothing more in terms than what he himself. professes and constantly practises. At the same time it is true, and we have no wish to dissemble it, that a strict and invariable adherence to this, which we conceive to be the truly primitive and scriptural form of faith and devo tional service, will have a direct ten dency to lead the mind to the adoption. of other sentiments, which naturally: flow from it; in other words, that when the spirit of truth has thus ob-. tained possession of the understanding, it will be led into all truth. Not the least idea of dictation is, however, entertained. May the time never come when those who assemble in this house, shall be authoritatively told what they are to believe, or referred to any other code than the Scriptures as the groundwork of their faith. Never may they fall into such a disgraceful state of indolence and supineness, as, in order to save themselves the trouble of thinking, to accept of a ready-prepared system of doctrine at the hands of any man or body of men whatever! Reason and understanding were given for far higher purposes; nor should that talent be laid up in a napkin to rust and canker, which ought to be kept bright and clear, and ready for employment according to the gracious design of him...... who bestowed it.

[To be concluded in the next Number.}

SIR, Jan. 28, 1817. How the following titleTHERE was published in 1745, a "The Conformity between Modern and Ancient Ceremonies, wherein is proved, by incontestable Authorities, that the Ceremonies of the Church of Rome are entirely derived from the Heathen." This is a translation from the French original, which was published in 1667, and I now refer to it for the sake of two passages in "the Translator's Preface," p. xx. Having mentioned the " retaining old customs when the reason of them is forgot or not attended to," he adds, "In many of the midland parts of England at this day, [1745] it is usual for the poor, upon All-Souls Day. to go from one village to another, a begging Soul-Cakes, which are freely dispersed by many good Protestants, who believe neither purgatory nor the efficacy of massa for the dead; as

well as by many others who know little of either, but only do it in compliance with popular practice." To this passage is annexed the following note:

Perhaps another instance of this nature subsisted not long ago, in the metropolis itself; where it was usual to bring up a fat buck to the altar of St. Paul's with hunters' horns blowing, &c. in the middle of divine service. For on this very spot, or near it, there formerly stood a temple of Diana."

Have any of your readers witnessed this custom respecting Soul-Cakes? But the procession with a stag to St. Paul's is the most surprising, especially to have been mentioned in 1745, as practised "not long ago." As to the period when this custom was observed there must surely be some mistake, for it could scarcely have survived the Reformation.

I

SIR,

OTIOSUS.

Feb. 2, 1817. WAS lately surprised to find that Calvin had been deemed heretical on the subject of the Trinity. This appears from "An Answer to the Marquis of Worcester's Paper to the King." Charles 1. by Hamon L'Estrange, 1651. The Marquis was a Roman Catholic, and in his endeavours to convert the King had been disparaging Luther with other reformers. My author replies, "What if he or Calvin erred concerning the Trinity, did not Liberius subscribe to the Arian Heresy? What if Calvin held with Nestorius two norius hold but one will in him?"

What say your readers who are conversant with the theological works of Calvin. Was the orthodox zealot who burnt Servetus to do God service, at last himself no better than a He

tion at Stourbridge. In your publica tion for January, p. 5, it is thus stated:

at/

In 1807 (the Rev. Benjamin Carpeuter) resumed his ministerial office at Stourbridge, and continued to the close of his life to officiate at that place, and at Cradley alternately in connexion with the Rev. James Scott." Now, Sir, as it is a circumstance too notorious in this neighbourhood to be forgotten or misunderstood, that the Rev. Benjamin Carpenter resumed his ministerial office Stourbridge, (or in other words officiated as the minister of the con. gregation there) from the exact period of his predecessor's resignation (reentering the pulpit on the sabbath after it was vacated by him), and as it is important that information of this sort should be conveyed to you with all possible correctness, I beg to state as above that Mr. Carpenter's ministry at Stourbridge re-commenced in October, 1896.

It is possible he might not take upon himself what is sometimes called the pastoral charge till 1807; but if words have any meaning, surely the expression "his resuming his ministerial office at Stourbridge," mustimply his officiating as minister there, which he continued to do from the time here specified until his death on the 23rd of November, 1816. ·

rection, published in Vol. VIII. of the Repository in 1813, perhaps I should not have had occasion to intrude myself on your notice, as the writings of those gentlemen might possibly have so elucidated the subject as to have prevented the necessity for stating my reasons for considering life to be completely distinct in its nature from the corporeal form it animates, and that owing to this, it is capable of existing, and also of animating a new form after the death and total dissolution of this body.

Whatever this may be, which wa call life, whether animating vegetation, the animal nature, or man, he must be a superficial observer of cre-et ation who should conclude it to be.....

solely the effect of the organizing of matter. There are distinctions hetween life and organization which will for ever separate them. Organization alone has not ever assimilated matter in contact with itself so as to repair any injuries it may have sus tained: neither, alone, has it ever been capable of propagating its species; nor by rest, or sleep, has it ever restored its wasted energies to vigour. The faculties may have been imitated by organization, but never have such imitations been capable of hearing, seeing, smelling, feeling or tasting, inuch less has organization been ever capable of thought or reasons. Every animal can do some of these, if not all, and on strong grounds it may be queried if living vegetation is not capable of some conscious enjoyments. But, organization alone is a mere inachine wholly void of all sensation.

Organic causes alone never having produced life, but life being through the whole creation united with organic matter by a two-fold agency, it is but doing philosophic justice to the subject to state, that body and life being ab origine the union of two completely distinct principles, how ever closely united they may be, and however intimately blended so as to be apparently one, yet they are actually two, and therefore when decomposed must necessarily again become two. Whether life is not material as well as the organized body, is not the present inquiry, but the inquiry is whether life, be it what it may, is not wholly distinct from the body it

animates.

Notwithstanding the maxim of Linnæus has been combated, it does not appear to me to have been overturned, but that the very arguments brought against it have established the truth of "Omne vivum ex ovo," and therefore in reasoning upon this subjeet, it is of no importance whether our premises are taken from the animal or vegetable kingdom. My first evidence to prove the principle have laid down, that life and organic body was ab origine distinct, is the observation of De Graaf, the future plant formed in the seed prior to its having been touched by the pollen. Spalanzaní likewise discovered in the broom pod the seed twenty days be fore the flower was in full blossom: at that time the powder of the anthers

was visible, but glewed fast to their summits; the seeds were of a gelatinous substance and continued so for ten days after the blossom had fallen off: on the eleventh day the seed became heart-shaped and attached by the, basis to the pod, having at the apex, a white point whose hollow contained a drop of liquor in the cavity; this cavity on the twenty-fifth day was enlarged but still quite full of liquor, and a small semi-transparent yellowish body fixed by two ends to the sides of the cavity; in a month the seed was enlarged and changed from a heart to a kidney shape, and this small body. increased, gelatinous and less transparent, but without organization. On the fortieth day the cavity grown larger was filled with the body, and covered with a thin membrane, which when taken off was a bright green divided into two lobes, and the small

plantule which attached it to the lower part was visible. These facts prove the seeds to be formed prior to fecundation, and that the effects of the action of the pollen is to penetrate dissolve and stimulate every part, and" to give form and animation to the future plant.

The organic matter animated, and the animating principle which takes full possession of it, so as to adapt the organic formation to be its residence, are two distinct substances; and that all nature acts by a similar process, and is attended_with_similar results, is evident from the pollen of the pink causing the polyanthus seed to prodnce on the polyanthus stalk a cluster of beautiful pinks. It is by acting upon this secret of nature that our gardeners deck our parterre with lusus nature of flowers; by it the songs of the mules of the goldfinch and canary bird enliven our rooms; whilst by it our farmiers furnish our colonies with mutes adapted to the purposes for which they are wanted, sometimes with the vigour of the horse in the diminutive size of the ass, or at others fit him in the size of the hotse to labour with the patience of the ass. It is by attentively studying this principle that our breeders increase the flesh and diminish the bone of the cattle intended for our markets, and the time may come, in the progressiveness of the human mind, when beauty of mind and body come to be preferred to fortune,

strengthened by the loss of limbs, all proving the complete distinction between body and mind. If this vital principle can lay dormant for years, and as in blighted corn perhaps for ages without injury; if it is but a point which exerts its energy from its centre of action through the whole frame; if it is, as it may easily be proved to be always, by the cerebral and sympathetic nerves, at war with destruction, and by its energy through our temporal existence preserving the organized matter it is clothed with from that destruction to which all inert matter tends; if in addition to this it is seen annually to forsake the last year's bark that it may inhabit the new formed bark, and the same in the new formed bud; and if we find it equally active in the animal creation; have we not a right by deductions from nature, to conclude that the point called life, the only seat of personal identity, is capable of existing and animating a new form after the death and dissolution of the body?

N.

To S. T. COLERIDGE, Esq. On the Attack on the Unitarians contained in his Second Lay Sermon.

LETTER I.

"Thou com'st in such a questionable shape

That I will speak to thee."

THE

HAMLET.

SIR, Temple, April 3, 1817. HE Unitarians are happy that you have, at length, afforded them an opportunity of meeting you on even ground. The nature of the attack with which you honoured them in "the Statesman's Manual" precluded all intelligible reply. They felt that it was impossible to fight with sun beams or to contend against a cloud. But you have now thought fit to lay aside some part of the mystery with which your former charges were surrounded, and to bring forward something like a definite accusation against them. They think, at least, they can discern amidst the profusion of your imagery, the grounds on which you found your reprobation-grounds which they are most anxious to examine.

At the commencement of your

attack you favour us with an ingenious piece of verbal criticism on the term Unitarian as used by the sect you are opposing. This is a word," you observe," which in its proper sense can belong only to their antagonists: for unity or unition and indistinguished unity or oneness are incompatible terms; while in the exclusive sense in which they mean the term to be understood, it is a presumptuous boast, and an uncharitable calumny."* I have no objec tion to admit that, recurring to the original meaning of terms, unity implies rather the perfect combination of two or more substances than the oneness of an individual quality. And, in this sense, the term might be used by the believers in the existence of three persons in the Divine nature in opposition to those who maintained an absolute plurality of Deities. But it could have no meaning as opposed to the faith of those who assert the perfect oneness of Jehovah. It may imply the combination of several things in opposition to their existence in a state of separation from each other; but it presents no antithesis of sense to the idea of an original and unmingled essence. At the present day the term Unitarian is perfectly understood to describe a believer in one God in one person, and that of Trinitarian to designate one who maintains that there are three persons in the Divine Unity. In this view, the assumption of the term, though not etymologically correct, is neither "a presumptuous boast” nor an uncharitable culumny." Your objection is evidently a mere cavil on a word. For it is impossible you can imagine that those who call them." selves by the name, have assumed it in the sense that you say it properly bears-since that would be to claim a belief in all which they most strenuously deny-and assert in their very name, the great principle which they regard as the foundation of religious error. The term Anti-Trinitarian might, indeed, be less invi-" dious; but that which you suggest of Psilantrophists would be utterly improper. For if it was understood to assert the mere humanity of Christ, it would exclude all those who whilethey reverence the Father alone as

64

• Pi 55.