Happy but, I trust, not unattainable is the state of that man's mind, whose pious and well-regulated feelings enable him with sincerity to say,

In every joy that crowns my days,
In every pain I bear,

My heart shall find delight in praise,
Or seek relief in prayer.

And surely we cannot err in imitating the example of our blessed Lord. If he prayed for release from suffering and sorrow, it cannot be wrong for us, his imperfect followers, if we feel equal resignation to the Divine will, to pray also for the mercies of our heavenly

Father.

These remarks have extended much beyond what I intended: the subject, however, is an important one, and, I trust, I shall be excused. I wished to advert to some other points, but I must not trespass any longer upon your valuable pages, or on the patience of your readers.

SIR,

J. B. ESTLIN.

I WAS very glad to see in your last Number, [XIV. 744-750,] that the subject on which I had taken the liberty of addressing you, had called forth the able pen of Dr. Lant Carpenter. In the greater part of what he has advanced I most cordially agree with him but I beg leave to submit to his consideration, and that of the Western Societies, formed on the plan of the Society at London, a few remarks on the alteration which he proposes to be made in the articles of their societies. Previous, however, to this, let me call your attention to what I stated in my last letter; namely, that several Unitarians at Cambridge quitted the Society formed in London for the distribution of books, on other grounds besides those stated by Mr. Belsham in his letter to you on this subject. [XIV. 657-660.]

I have now before me the words of the Preamble, declaring the fundamental principle of the Society, in which it is stated we all agree. By which is evidently implied or intended to be implied, that all the subscribers to this Society should agree to its fundamental principle. I will not detain you with any remarks on the first part, relating to the Supreme Being, though its language, in my opinion, is reprehensible but I come to that relative

to the character of Christ, which did not agree, as I have stated in my former letter, with the views we then at Cambridge entertained of it; and on reviewing this article my opinion remains unshaken.

The words of the article imposed upon the subscribers are as follow:

Jesus Christ was the most eminent of those messengers, which he (God) employed to reveal his will to mankind; possessing extraordinary powers similar to those received by other prophets, but in a much higher degree." Hence the Messiah is ranked among the messengers, and distinguished from them only by superiority of powers; and these powers are similar to those enjoyed by the other prophets. Now superiority of similar power being thus declared to be the distinguishing character of our Saviour, it follows that he himself was inferior to some of his disciples for he has declared, that they should do even greater works than he did; and that this prophecy was accomplished is evident to any

:

one that reads attentively the Acts of the Apostles.

Among the messengers above referred to, no one was, according to the words of our Saviour, greater than John the Baptist, yet we do not find one miracle to have been recorded by him, and hence we are at a loss to determine what was meant by the extraordinary powers possessed by the prophets; and besides, the least in the kingdom of God is declared to be even superior to John the Baptist. Thus our Saviour is the most eminent of the messengers; but as the least in the kingdom of God is declared to be greater than the greatest of them, except him, it does not appear from the account given of our Saviour, in this article of the Society, that many of the disciples may not be greater than their Master.

Again, our Saviour in his beautiful parable speaks of messengers, sent by the master of the vineyard to the farmers of it, but without effect; and at last he sent his own son, saying, although they have not regarded my messengers, they will surely reverence my son. From which passage it appears to me evident, that a strong line of distinction is drawn between our Saviour and the messengers that appeared before him; and that his powers,

so far from being similar to theirs, were of a quite different nature. Indeed it appears so from the language used by them: the prophets in addressing the people say, thus saith the Lord;" but our Saviour speaks from himself, as a son invested with the authority of his father.

In the customary language of the world we perceive a distinction in terms, according to the dignity of character supported by persons in office. Thus he, who is charged with an important mission from one sovereign to another, is called an embassador; the ordinary people who carry dispatches to him are called messengers; and embassadors themselves differ in rank, and are sometimes designated by inferior titles, as envoys, &c. Now, it may be said, that all these, being in fact employed on a message from the sovereign, may be called messengers; yet surely there would be great impropriety of language in saying, the messenger from England made his entry into Paris on such a day, and had an audience from his most Christian Majesty, by whom he was very graciously received. The same impropriety appears to be in the test of the Unitarian Book Society. The term messenger is improperly chosen, and is derogatory to the character of our Saviour; and I cannot persuade myself, that it would have been used, but from the fears in the persons who framed the test, that, if they used the terms of dignity, so frequently applied by the apostles to our Saviour, they should countenance. the errors of those who have overstrained those terms, and given to him a character which he was the farthest in the world from assuming. Thus by avoiding one, they have fallen into the opposite extreme.

In saying this, however, I may perhaps be supposed to countenance the opinions of those Unitarians who believe our Saviour to have existed in a superior state, or, in other words, to have been a pre-existing being. But when I left the sect established by law, which I did from an examination of the Holy Scriptures, and without any regard to the opinions or traditions of men, I left it on the conviction, that our Saviour was a man like to ourselves, sin only excepted, but distinguished from all who went before or will follow after him, in being the ap

pointed mean under God for the salvation of mankind; that through him God bestows eternal life on his disciples; that we are bound to reverence him as our Saviour; and that all the titles we bestow on the messengers or prophets who preceded him, fall far short of the dignity of his character, and of the glory justly assigned to him for his active obedience to the will of his and their heavenly Father and God, and his submission to the most disgraceful death for our benefit. The prophets came with a message from God, and from the earliest records they unite in foretelling the humiliation and glory of him who should bruise the serpent's head. In that glory none of the prophets or messengers can participate with him, and when we look to the writings of the Apostles, and observe the exalted terms in which they speak of our Saviour, I cannot but think, that they would entertain a very mean opinion of the Christianity of those persons who should speak of our Saviour only as a messenger, and keep out of sight the more appropriate parts of his character. In fact, the term so often applied to him in Scripture, Our Saviour, carries with it enough to shew the impropriety of the test laid down by the Unitarian Book Society. At any rate this was the opinion of us at Cambridge, and the experience I have since had serves only to convince me, that that opinion was well founded.

Indeed, it appears to me, that the language used by the Unitarian Book Society, is calculated to produce, and has produced very pernicious effects. It has a tendency to lead persons away from the spirituality of our holy religion. It has been my fate to hear sermons and prayers, in neither of which has been the least allusion to our Saviour; and they might have been addressed to, and received by a Deistical as well as a Christian audience. And this puts me in mind of the only sermon ever heard from a celebrated preacher, Mr. Rowland Hill, which, with very slight exceptions, might be termed a truly evangelical discourse. In it he made a remark, on which he laid a becoming stress, and which, whenever a fit opportunity occurs, I endeavour to enforce on the minds of all who get into the pulpit; namely, that a discourse without the

pagated," might nevertheless become the admiration of the wisest, the delight of the virtuous, the refuge of the afflicted, the source of knowledge, holiness, and joy to the world! This, indeed, he supposes, to be "barely possible;" but why make the supposition at all? A concession of this kind, the Deist, he may rest assured, will turn to no good account. And it is unavailingly counteracted by the author avowing his own belief on such evidence and by declaring that the rejection of such evidence incarcerates us in the dark dungeon of eternal scepticism."

Mr. Fox then proceeds in the same style of special pleading: "Christians, draw not too hastily the inference that, if the conclusiveness of these and other proofs be not seen, it can only be attributed to the mental perception being dimmed by the effluvia of a corrupted heart. He to whose sight alone the heart is open, who knoweth our frame and remembereth that we are dust, can alone be qualified to pronounce such a condemnation, and to him much may be visible which you cannot perceive, productive of an effect so undesirable, without inculpating the individual. Nay, you may imagine various pleas which in the judgment of charity ought to be admitted for the claims of an avowed and ACTIVE Deist, not to be ranked in sincerity and rectitude materially below an honest and active Christian"!

The preacher then institutes a kind of mathematical process to exculpate the individual in his predilection for Infidelity; but though we may grant that some minds are unhappily inclined to scepticism, yet, generally speaking, there is no reason to question the truth of our Saviour's solemn asseveration: "This is the condemnation that light is come into the world, but men love darkness rather than light-because their deeds are evil"! Jesus Christ makes no exception, and his ministers need not affect a greater delicacy on the subject. But I shall not enter any further into an analysis of this singular discourse, which has, we understand, drawn forth profusely the thanks of the Deist, whilst it has given offence to some of the best friends of Christianity. There was no need of handing over weapons to the

enemy, There was still less need of exposing and blazoning forth the differences subsisting betwixt the advocates of revealed religion. The enlightened and consistent Unitarian, who, at such a time, would wish to repel the charge that his creed has any alliance to Infidelity, ought to have avoided even the appearance of evil. The duties of Christians towards Deists are, most assuredly, not to seek out every possible excuse for their unbelief, but to expostulate with them on their unreasonableness in rejecting that plenitude of moral evidence of which alone religious subjects are susceptible; on their perverseness in identifying the corruptions and abuses of Christianity with the Christianity of the New Testament, in opposition to all that has been advanced to the contrary; and on the danger incurred by reviling a religion whose origin is divine. This is our bounden duty; and more than this ought not to have been done. We disclaim, as to Deists, the aid of the civil power, and leave them to the mercies of that God who alone has the disposal of the world to come.

Before I conclude, it is only justice to the author to remark, that the Sermon is well written, and many of its passages in strict accordance with the spirit of Christianity.-But I would caution a minister of the gospel against saying any thing which may promote rather than check the prevalence of Infidelity. Unitarians owe nothing to Mr. Carlile; he has, in the eyes of thousands, done them an injury which will not be easily retrieved. The reputedly orthodox will, in this point, believe the Infidel, though they yield him credence in nothing else. CHRISTIANS have an awful task to sustain in not betraying, either by principle or by practice, the religion they profess to an inveterate and outrageous enemy. And, with the author of this discourse, I am most firmly persuaded, that, "when the reign of ANTICHRIST is over, all hostility will be disarmed, and the genuine gospel, rising from the ruins of corruption, like the fabled phoenix in renewed youth from the funeral pile, shall spread its wings for a glorious flight, and urge its resistless course around the globe."

AN UNITARIAN CHRISTIAN.

SIR,

TR

How your Correspondent could fall into so strange a mistake as to assert that, "during the last winter, no controversy was afloat amongst the medical professors and students at Bartholomew Hospital" upon the subject in dispute, is to me unaccountable, having a personal knowledge of the contrary. A word or two here as to dates. Mr. Abernethy's Lectures, to which I referred, were published in 1817, and it is the first in the series that furnished the principal ground of my animadversion, in the severity of which I do not feel inclined to make any abatement. The first course delivered by Mr. Lawrence, and upon which his colleague animadverted, were not, I believe, published; but his second course were so, and did not make their appearance until last winter. As these contained the obnoxious doctrines, the discussion was revived, and involved, at the same time, some theological inquiries. It was here the tenderness existed that occasioned the suppression of the book. The unwarrantable conduct of certain governors in attempting to put down metaphysical opinions by the infliction of civil pains and penalties, your Correspondent refers to another institution. My informant, whose authority I have no reason to question, speaks of it rela tively to Bartholomew Hospital. know not which is right; perhaps it may be true of both. Before I quit the subject of these lectures, I would just observe, that the enormous price at which they were published was a sufficient bar to their extensive circulation.

January 8, 1820. RUTH being of much more consequence to society than fame to an individual, I shall at all times feel grateful for a candid statement of any errors I may be led into, and I am willing to make due allowance for partiality in every case of personal feeling. With this sentiment I must express my thanks to your Correspondent for his detail (XIV. 750) of the Medical Dispute on the Origin of Vitality; at the same time, I trust it will appear in the sequel, that he has greatly magnified the inaccuracies of my statement, which, on his own shewing, are entirely local, and do not at all affect the subject in discussion. It is true, he has in part shifted the scene of the drama; but the performers in it remain the same, the plot is the same, and the dénouement, if I may so speak, continues the same also. Upon a close inspection, I find that the mistakes which are so greatly multiplied for the purpose of effect, and which, at first sight, have a very formidable appearance, really resolve themselves into a single one; and it is this: that the Lectures, which I stated to have been delivered at Bartholomew Hospital, were, in truth, pronounced at the Surgeons' College in Lincoln's Inn Fields; a circumstance that I certainly might have recollected, and for the inadvertency I here apologize. Your readers, then, will change the locality of the public performances, although not of the controversy, and read thus: That two medical professors, who are surgeons to Bartholomew Hospital, each having pupils and followers as ardently attached to their masters and to their dogmas as any in the schools of the ancient philosophers, in the course of their public lectures at Surgeons' College, have maintained what they consider opposite theories on the doctrine of life, and have brought to the discussion as large a portion of the spleen as can be reasonably desired. Now, I would ask, is it at all likely that the young men, who were audítors of the lectures, and in a measure idolize the professors, should not take a lively interest in the discussion of the jarring opinions? This, therefore, is a sufficient reason why the disputes should run higher at the Hospital I have mentioned than at any other.

I

Since I wrote my former article, I have taken up the Monthly Review for last September, and there find the view I have taken of the subject fully corroborated. In a review of Mr. Abernethy's "Physiological Lectures," the writer says, "It is naturally to be expected that a lecturer under (his) circumstances, should be disposed to look with peculiar respect on the character and acquirements of Mr. Hunter, and to regard them with the eye rather of an advocate than of an impartial spectator: but while we allow considerable latitude to these feelings, and should be much disinclined to question them, if restrained within moderate limits, it is impossible not to