the system of strict economy adopted by its Directors, (“which must be evident to every one who examines the Treasurer's Account annexed to the Report of the Society,") and which I feel confident they will continue to pursue; the Society would require, annually, as many thousands of pounds as it has hitherto had hundreds, to enable it to meet the increasing calls upon its exertions, both at home and abroad; and I believe such a sum could be raised without any difficulty, if proper exertions were made. I know no plan that could be devised for this purpose, so efficient as the formation of an auxiliary society and penny-a-week association in each congregation by this means each member of our congregations could be applied to for aid; those of them who had the means could give their annual subscription to the auxiliary, society; those who were unable to do so, could at least give their penny weekly to the collectors of the associations. Should any suppose that little benefit could accrue to the Society from penny-a-week associations, I would remind them of the large sums that have been raised by this means in our land for political purposes. Was this small sum contributed by only one person out of every hundred of our Presbyterian community, (computing its population at half a million, which I believe is not too much,) it would annually amount to nearly ELEVEN HUNDRED POUNDS. Neither do I think that applications should be restricted to Presbyterians; our brethren of other denominations (especially those of the Established Church,) are in the habit of contributing liberally to the erection of our houses of worship; and I am pursuaded they would willingly assist this Society, its object being to promote the glory of our common Lord and Redeemer. I trust, Sir, that at the ensuing meeting of Synod some means may be devised, whereby the limited funds that have paralyzed the exertions of this Society shall be much increased—that it may be enabled to put forth all its energies in the blessed work in which it is engaged. I believe, that the future welfare of our church and of our country, depends much, under God, on its proceedings, and its exertions should not be confined to our own country, when there are urgent calls from other lands for its assistance. We have lately heard a voice from Canada, -"Come over and help us ;" and our church will be deeply responsible to its Lord and Head for the manner in which it responds to it. In that interesting colony there are thousands of our Presbyterian brethren, our countrymen, and our kinsmen, who are thirsting for the waters of ordinances which they once partook of with us, and are mourning over the want of

the religious principles which we so long abundantly enjoy, but of which, alas! they are deplorably destitute; their children are growing up in ignorance of the blessed truths of the Gospel; and there Popery is using "its cunning craftiness to deceive" them, and lead them away from the pure faith of their fathers, to defile themselves with its abominations.

I am, Sir,

Yours truly,

A LAYMAN.

AUTHENTIC REPORT OF THE DISCUSSION ON THE UNITARIAN CONTROVERSY BETWEEN THE REV. JOHN SCOTT PORTER AND THE REV. DANIEL BAGOT, A. M. BELFAST. P. p. 208.

In our remarks upon this controversy, shortly after it had terminated, we announced it as our intention again to resume the subject, so soon as the authentic report should issue from the press. We do not take up the subject through any impression that it is necessary for us either to add to, or to heighten, the impression which this discussion has already produced ;Unitarianism has been forced to quail before the omnipotence of truth, even with one of its ablest advocates as its champion; and we feel that we might safely let the publication go forth to the world without one solitary remark of ours: but as we consider the doctrine of the true Deity of the Word to be one of paramount importance to the Christian system-one upon which all the other doctrines of grace are founded,-one which, if abstracted from the Bible, would leave it no better than a code of heathen ethics,-and one, upon the belief of which we rest our hopes of glory, and honour, and immortality, we deem it to be our duty, fearlessly to express our opinions upon it, and, with our brethren who entertain a like belief of its truth, to rally round its defenders at every hazard and at every risk. We may be regarded by Unitarians as their enemy for acting thus; but we will never sacrifice the interests of truth at the shrine of a spurious and bastard liberality, for the purpose of averting their anger, or of receiving their friendship and esteem we believe their system to be false, and we will denounce it as such; we believe them to be in error, and we I will tell them this. We may be denounced as bigots and hypocrites, the usual epithets by which we are designated by

them-our names may be rendered familiar in the private whisper of unmanly slander, our motives may be misrepresented, and even our characters assailed by those who, in their own narrow and dogmatic arrogance, style themselves the only liberals; but we care not for this: so long as we believe the doctrines which we profess to be true, we will stand by them despite of every danger, we will rejoice in their triumphs, and, should a reverse take place, we will cling with unflinching tenacity to their last shattered fragments. Our minds, however, are not so completely stultified, we are not so blinded by intolerant zeal, as to be unable to discriminate between the false and anti-scriptural doctrines of Arianism and Socinianism, and the men who profess them;-we at once avow our deeprooted hostility to the former, we will oppose them by every argument with which reason or revelation can furnish us, and we will strain every intellectual energy to annihilate their errors and to expose their absurdities;-but we can, in the honest sincerity of our hearts, aver, that in regard to the latter, we entertain no feelings but those of kindness; we cherish no enmity nor no malice towards them, and even when we may be compelled to fling back any unjust aspersions which they may attempt to cast upon our characters, we do it, we trust, without participating in any feeling similar to that with which they had originated. Unitarians in general assume to themselves a complete monopoly in the article of liberality, the avowal of Trinitarian or of Calvinistic principles is quite sufficient to exclude any individual from the enjoyment of even a trifling share of that precious commodity; but if a small portion of it should at any time be transferred out of their superabundant stock, it is handed over to some wretch without one iota of moral courage in his composition-some being of menial hypocrisy so great, that he will flatter them in their errors and scoff at his own admitted principles-such a creature as we must always regard with the most undisguised feelings of just contempt and disgust. Our liberality is not of such a kind, that any transferred portion of theirs would harmonize with it; we give to them that to which they lay claim, without the slightest disposition to court it in name or in reality: we claim to ourselves the right of forming our opinions on religious subjects, from a careful perusal of the Word of God. We give to every other man the same right; we withhold it from none; we blame no man for the conclusion to which he may arrive, no matter how erroneous it may appear to us; and beyond this our liberality does not extend, nor do we wish it to take a wider and more diversive

"Ab

range. The bigotry of liberality is, of all other kinds of bigotry, the most contemptible, intolerant, and disgusting. If, therefore, we express ourselves with unreserved freedom in our review of this Discussion, we do it in reference to the opinions of Unitarians, whilst we cherish no other feelings than those of good will toward themselves; we believe them to be in error, and we will not fear to express our conviction of the truth of this fact. We have nothing more to do with Mr. Porter as a man, than we have to do with Mr. Bagot as such; but with his arguments we have to do; we will endeavour to expose their flimsiness; and we trust that, so far as we examine them, we will be able to show their utter inadequacy to prove the positions which he brought them forward to substantiate. We conceive it to be unnecessary to trouble our readers with a detailed enumeration of the particular circumstances which led to this discussion; but as the Unitarian party have made it a point to assert, and re-assert, that Mr. Porter was challenged to meet Mr. Bagot in a viva voce discussion, we deem one or two observations upon this subject to be in some mea, sure demanded. The Rev. Daniel Bagot published an stract" of some sermons which he preached in Belfast, upon the doctrine of the "True Deity of the Word;" and in the editorial remarks of the Northern Whig, in which this "Abstract" was advertised, the writer observed-"He" (the Rev. D. Bagot) "requested us to suggest to the Unitarians that they should publish a similar tract, in the same form, containing, concisely, their arguments in reply to his Abstract." This announcement Mr. Porter considered himself called upon to notice; but instead of meeting Mr. Bagot on the terms of his challenge, if such, with any propriety of language, it can be called, he proposed to let him publish a series of essays in the "Bible Christian," the organ of the Arians and Humanitarians of the north, of which he is editor, but upon such disadvan. tageous conditions as no man of common sense would have accepted; or if Mr. Bagot should prefer it, to meet him in Belfast to discuss the subject. To this latter proposal Mr. Bagot acceded, and every individual must at once perceive, from this brief statement, that the challenge for a public discussion originated with Mr. Porter alone. Indeed he appeared himself to be aware of this fact, and accordingly we find him occupying nearly one half of his first speech in endeavouring, vainly it must appear to all, to impress a different belief upon the minds of his audience. But, in reality, the mere circumstance of who was the challenger or the challenged, is a matter

of no importance; and we would not have noticed it, had it not apparently been made such by the Unitarian party, as it furnished to more than one of his friends, the materials for a flippant and frothy harangue at the meeting which was got up by them after the discussion had terminated.

In page 2d, Mr. Porter observes-" You must all be perfectly aware, that while persons of Unitarian sentiments feel, in general, little or no objection to read productions in which their tenets are impugned, there exists in the minds of a considerable portion of the opposite persuasion a very great reluctance to peruse tracts in opposition to their own views." Now we do at once say that we are aware of no such circumstance -nay, the very reverse is the fact; of all bigots to their system the Unitarians are the greatest; their ignorance of the opinions of others is the most deplorable; and so far from having a desire, or even manifesting a willingness to know what the opinions of Trinitarians are, they lift up their hands in holy abhorrence at the bare idea, and continue to entertain views respecting their doctrines, the most absurd and the most distant to the truth which the human imagination could possibly furnish. We do not bring this charge against the uneducated Unitarians of this country alone,-of the Trinitarian system they are almost to a man totally ignorant,—they just know as much about it as they do about Chinese characters; -but we bring it against the educated, we bring it against the clergy of that persuasion whose works we have read; and had we any desire to enter upon the subject, we could show that Mr. Porter himself was ignorant of it to a culpable extreme, when he came forward to oppose and to impugn its principles: had he read the works of Trinitarians, he could not have been So. To this he may, in part at least, attribute his total overthrow; he had a bad, an indefensible cause, we admit, and one which, were he possessed of double the talents and erudition to which he can lay clain, he would be unable to sustain; but as he knew almost nothing of the doctrine which he attempted to oppose, the consequence was, that he was as frequently lending his assistance to establish it, as arguing for its overthrow. How frequently does a man. perceive the mote which is in another's eye, whilst he beholds not the beam that is in his own.

In

page 13, he asserts that "the two sets of attributes" (which we predicate of the Word made flesh) " are perfectly incompatible." Can he prove that they are so in the sense and relation in which we predicate them? No, verily; nor has he