thus engaged, we should divest our selves, as far as possible, of all biasses which may lead us astray: and we should regard ourselves as in the presence of that Being who knows our hearts; and should pray to him for his assistance in this employment.

May we be permitted to subjoin a division more strictly textual of the passage on which Dr. Price has treated in this discourse?

From the words, "Search me, &c." we learn,

"i. That the state of men's religious characters, entirely depends on the nature

of the principles and motives by which they are actuated; and it is therefore of

the utmost consequence to know what these principles and motives are;

ii. That, while we are ardently engaged in the business or the pleasures of life, it is often a task of much difficulty to trace the motives of our actions;

in. That, when we attempt to examine them, we are subject, from various causes, to much error in the scrutiny: and it is possible that, while we imagine ourselves to be influenced by good motives, we really are actuated by some which are improper and criminal. There may be in us some wicked way; but

iv. That by the frequent submission of ourselves to the Divine investigation in our hours of retirement, we shall be well prepared to ascertain the purity of our views, to lay the foundation of righteousness of character, and to be led into the way everlasting."

The eighth discourse (from Gal. vi. 4." But let every man prove his own work, &c.") is "on having our rejoicing in ourselves." In considering what it is in ourselves which is the proper foundation of our happiness, it may be observed in general that it must be grounded on the good order of the mind, and of it's powers and affections: this happiness is "the result of a commanding reason and obedient passions, of an applauding conscience and an honest heart, of a mind satisfied with itself, and possessing health, order and independence; of a temper formed by the generous affections, of contentinent, resignation, trust in God, a sense of his love, the belief that all is well under his government, and the hope of surviving death, and of being raised up hereafter through the power of Christ to a life of unchangeable and ever-increasing happiness;" and the

advantages of this happiness are that it is firm and stable, pure and elevated.

In the concluding paragraphs of this sermon a fine contrast is drawn between the state of the good and that of the wicked man: we lament that our limits do not permit us to place it before our readers.

One of the most admirable dis courses in the volume, is the ninth,

on the ignorance of man, and the proper improvement of it." From the very pertinent text, Job viii. 9, « For we are but of yesterday and know nothing," Dr. Price lays before his hearers and readers a general repre sentation of the imperfection of our knowledge. We know, for instance, little of ourselves, of our bodies and our minds, of the reason why our wills instantaneously produce motion in our members, of the connection between certain impressions on our organs of sense, and the sensations which follow them, of the original springs of animal life within us, the laws of union between the soul and the body, the nature of death, and the particular state into which it puts

us.

Further; we know little of this earth and it's constitution and furni ture. Almost all that we see of things is their outsides. We cannot discern a millionth part of the art and workmanship in the lowest plant.

Still less do we know of the solar

system, and next to nothing of the universe. There are numberless systems besides this in which our lot is cast, many of them probably more take in the complete prospect of grand and beautiful. Even could we God's works, there would yet remain unknown, adds the preacher, "an bles." Again; though the course of infinity of abstract truths and possievents is under the best direction, conduct of Divine Providence in the we are very ignorant of the plan and ideas of the Deity himself it is nothing government of the universe. Of our to say that they are imperfect and inadequate they are doubtless in To us his nature and essence are abmany particulars highly erroneous. together, our knowledge bears just solutely unfathomable. the same proportion to our ignorance that an instant does to eternity, or a point, to immensity. And this imperfection of our knowledge is plainly

Taken all

spectable and saleable volume. We are happy on the whole to observe many things scattered amidst this multifarious collection, that may be useful, if duly considered, to the party (the Calvinists) with whom the writer is connected. The following extracts are of this description:

"It is a great mistake for persons to suppose that they are believers in Christjanity, because they have had no doubts; ignorance alone presumes on the truth of principles without inquiry."-P. 41.

"I cannot but censure the language too often used in the pulpit, when preachers recommend certain doctrines, with the assurance of their being true, without condescending to lay before their hearers the evidences on which they are founded. But for ministers to venture so far as to pledge, not only their word, but their soul, for the

truth of their assertions, is not only ridiculous, but profane.”—P. 43.

We think so, and believe such profanity is only to be found among those fanatical teachers, to whose efforts the present popularity of what is falsely called Evangelical preaching is chiefly owing. It is a promising symptom of improvement, when even their friends begin to see and rebuke their absurdities. Mr. W. is an advocate for free communion among different denominations of Christians, but he repeatedly alludes to a class of persons that he thinks ought to be excluded. We select one of these passages for the sake of correcting a very prevalent mistake among the Orthodox, and to point out an improper and injurious, though very usual, way of quoting the Scriptures among them.

"Where (God) has sent the Scriptures, and on points on which those Scriptures are express and full, and especially on such as concern the great essentials of the gospel, and affect the vitals of practical religion, error grows to heresy--and even to damnable heresy--in those that deny the Lord that bought them, and put him to an open shame. Indeed the worst consequences of heresy are its practical effects, degrading the Saviour, blaspheming the Holy Spirit, perverting the way of salvation, or debasing the moral purity of truth; in all which cases it becomes painfully necessary to make an excision of the member, &c."p. 64, 65,

Now it is well understood who are meant when the Orthodox use these terms; but as Mr. W. seems to be not destitute of candour (which we shall

shew in another quotation presently), we shall venture to make an observation or two, which may be useful to him and his readers. All the Orthodox consider the Trinity, the Deity of Christ, and a vicarious atonement for sin, as "great essentials of the gospel," and they think the Scriptures "express and full" on these subjects. A great number, however, of very diligent inquirers, cannot see any thing at all in the Scriptures which will prove the truth of any one of these doctrines; and so far from their being "great essentials," they conceive them to be mere human traditions, and quite incompatible with some of the plainest truths both in natural and revealed religion. On this account they are charged with "denying the Lord that bought them;" whereas in fact they do not deny Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of God, but glory in that faith, as the symbol of their high calling, owning no other Lord and Master in religious truths but him. However, they deny that he is the great God, the Creator of heaven and earth; and they have not the smallest thought of degrading him, when they speak of him in his own language, as "the sent of the Father," and in the language of the Apostle Peter, as "a man approved of God, by signs, wonders and miracles, which God did by him." They know that he has "a name given him which is above every name," excepting the name of him whom he himself has called, "my Father and your Father, my God and your God."

Whether their fellow Christians will commune with them or not, is a matter

of small importance to Unitarians; they only ask not to be misrepresented. Furthermore, we wish to admonish Mr. W. that there is no such a text in Scripture as that he has marked for a quotation, " deny the Lord that bought them, and put him to an open shame." We refer Mr. W. to his own rule, in his Appendix, p. 216:

in a corresponding passage is called "the only Lord God," Jude 4, who is there expressly distinguished from "our Lord Jesus Christ." Indeed DESTOTYY is not used in the New Testament in application to our Saviour, but always to the Father. The latter words above quoted, "put him to an open shame," are dislocated from another text, Heb. vi. 6.

In a similar strain Mr. W. afterwards, reprobating the error of some persons respecting, what he conceives, the true doctrine of Divine influence, says of them

"The Scriptures represent such as aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenant of promise'."

-P. 66.

But where do the Scriptures represent any who believe in the Divine mission of Jesus, in this language? No where. Mr. W. knows that they do not and that the Apostle has pointedly restricted this language, Eph. ii. 11, 12, to idolaters, before they heard the word of the truth of the gospel. Let the Scriptures be appealed to fairly, and suffered to speak their own language, and not the language of bigotry.

We proceed now to a quotation on which we ground our opinion of Mr. W.'s candour; and indeed we are so little accustomed to receive any thing like credit for sincerity and honesty in our profession as Unitarians, from our Calvinistic neighbours, that we hail the most transient gleam of liberality from that quarter as a symptom of improvement. Speaking of blasphemy, and the punishments denounced against it by the Jewish law, he says:

"However criminal the idolatry of Papists may be, in the sight of God, yet as they profess to direct all their worship ultimately to the Supreme Being (and we cannot search the heart), and to reverence the true God, I do not think the Mosaic law could be applied to them, were it even now in force. So as to the Socinians, however our feelings may be hurt by the irreverent manner in which they too often speak of our Saviour, I can by no means charge them with violating the Jewish law as blasphemy: I believe they act from conviction, and do not intentionally degrade Jesus Christ below what they consider to be his true character, though I cannot but strongly censure the manner in which they sometimes write and speak.”—Pp. 85, 86.

Mr. W. judges righteous judgment, when he admits that "we do not intentionally degrade Jesus Christ;" and we earnestly wish he had adduced some instances of what he thinks "the irreverent manner in which we speak of the Saviour." The Unitarians wish to exculpate themselves from this charge. We suspect that many of those who allege it, are not personally acquainted with their usual mode of speaking and writing on this subject. And if a few individuals should, under the name of Unitarians, have said or written foolish and irreverent things, let not this be charged upon the body, unless the Calvinists also are willing to be responsible for all the absurdities and impieties, which they cannot deny lower classes of that sect. are weekly poured forth among the

But to return to the quotation just made: Mr. W. could not have hit upon a more unlucky topic upon which tarians (or Socinians as he chuses to to shew his candour towards the Unicall them); for let the Mosaic law concerning blasphemy be enforced with all its rigour, and they of all Christians be administered by upright judges. have least to fear, while that law should

The first commandment of all"Hear O Israel! the Lord our God is one Lord," and "Thou shalt have none other God before me," constitutes the makes them tremble at the thought of very basis of their whole system, and giving his glory to another. But what law say to one who should be arraigned would a strict interpreter of the Jewish before him on the charge of ascribing Divine attributes and rendering Divine worship to a person, who himself repeatedly and distinctly disclaimed them both, and had besides personified and even deified the energy of the Creator and Preserver of mankind, for the sake of making it appear, that it might be as three Gods," as it is to say that he is properly said, "The Lord our God is

one Lord." And be it remembered, that although when Jesus had said what the mistaken Jews interpreted to. mean equality with God, they were about to stone him as a blasphemer in all the persecutions of his fol lowers, recorded in the New Testament, it is never mentioned as one of their offences, that they worshipped Jesus as equal with the Father.

One more subject we have to notice

before we dismiss the present article. Mr. W. observes in his Appendix, p. 220,

"Much has been said by some of the duty of charity to the opinions of others; but I have no charity for opinions, nor do I know of such a duty in the Christian code. To the persons of all men, however they may differ from us, we owe Christian charity; but what is meant by charity to opinions? Am I to believe that to be true which I am convinced is false?

&c. &c."

To all this we have no objection: it expresses, ou the whole, our own views. The use we are going to make of it is to shew that on the very same leaf where these remarks occur, Mr. W. has given proof that he either does not understand, or will not steadily adhere to his own rules. In a note to p. 219, he says:

"The following is a specimen of language most intemperate and extravagant: the succeeding note will form its counterpart. The doctrine of the Trinity is the parent stock of all that system of error which has branched out into all the various

forms of reputed orthodoxy, darkening with its deadly shade the brightness of the Divine character, and shedding its poisonous influences upon the best charities of human nature.'-Madge's Sermon before the Unitarian Fund, 1815, p. 13."

What Mr. W. considers as the counterpart of this quotation, he adduces in a note to the next page (220):

"Much and often have I been shocked at the horrid cut of flames and devils prefxed to Macgowan's Arian's and Socinian's Monitor,' which, it must be confessed, however, is very appropriate to the tract itself. Take the following specimen. 'No sooner (says the damned heretic) was I within these frightful mansions, but Arius and Socinus were apprised, of my coming, by fresh bolts of divine indignation being thundered against their apostate heads." This language, also, is so far appropriate, that it must be confessed it is fit only for the infernal regions! And yet we are told at the beginning of the tract, this mode of writing was chosen with a view to make it the more entertaining! Most horrible! a picture of hell, and the damnation of a Christian teacher, for the entertainment of pious Christians. It is impossible to calculate the injury such

books render to religion."

We are perfectly of Mr. W.'s opinion in this, and heartily rejoice that the Calvinists themselves begin to be horror-stricken with their own system,

when it is stripped of every disguise, and set before them in all its naked deformity. But now let us ask, in the name of candour and good sense, what is there in the quotation from Mr. Madge's sermon that deserves to be placed in parallel with Macgowan's vulgar and malignant abuse? Mr. Madge has no charity for the Trinitarian opi nions: and Mr. W. himself avows that he knows of no Christian precept that requires charity for opinions. But when has Mr. Madge, or indeed any Unitarian, ever sentenced any one Trinitarian or Calvinist to the regions of the damned, on account of their creed? No, such usurpations of the Divine prerogative are only to be found among our opponents.

After all, we think this Book may be useful to many of the author's Orthodox friends, and on that account we consider it a seasonable and salutary publication. We are persuaded that few of the books they are most accustomed to read, contain so many liberal and useful observations.

ART. IV.-The Regards due to the Memory of Faithful Ministers. A Sermon preached at Stourbridge and Cradley, Dec. 8, 1816, on the Death of the Rev. Benjamin Carpenter: to which is added an Address delivered at the interment.

By James Scott. Stourbridge: Printed and sold by J. Heming: Sold also by Sherwood and Co. London, &c. 8vo. pp. 36.

N the concluding sentence of our

courses on Christian Peace and Unity, we expressed our persuasion that his "life and character" would promote the important objects for which he pleads." That valuable life, alas! was soon to be terminated: that exemplary character, such is the will of Providence, now lives only in our recollection. Amidst the pursuits of theological literature, and the collisions of controversy, we are feelingly reminded of the limits of human views, the precariousness of mortal life and the supreme moment of practical religion. It was impossible to regard Mr. Carpenter personally with any other emotions than those of affection and respect. Such were the virtues of the man that, in the

Vol. XI. p. 486.