privileges of the laity; and others, such as grants of the public money for the support of the papacy,-which are a wretched and a spurious compromise between all that our fathers contended for and contended against. All the bills of the present ministry which affect the Church may be classed under these three heads, viz. those which trench upon the property of the clergy, those which injure the laity in their spiritual privileges, and those which employ the purse and the influence of the government in supporting systems subversive of the established faith.

We now ask our friends, What will be the consequence of such practical fallacies? Although we seldom fancy ourselves endued with the prophetic spirit, yet we may safely predict the course of events yet hidden in the womb of the future. Every day will produce some fresh struggle which will involve the existence of the welfare of the Church: the fallacious reasonings of the party in power will grow less and less deceptive; their measures will be defended by arguments the very opposite to those which they themselves use; the papist and the destructive will throw off the disguise, and professedly glory in anticipating results the very opposite to those which our ministers predict; and thus this weak and shuttlecock party will be literally crushed in the mighty contention between the effrontery of our antagonists and the bold bravery of our friends. Such contests within the four walls of Parliament have extended without-aye, even beyond Westminster-aye, even as far as Ross and Cromarty. The protestant lion of Great Britain will be roused. He has not yet roared forth in his might and his majesty; but when sufficiently provoked and goaded on by those who have never yet seen the shaking of his mane, one blow of his paw, and one whirl of his tail, shall crush and annihilate a whole host of his scorners. There is yet in our land an eagle-winged multitude, of many voices and of many tongues, who, when called upon to exercise that important trust-the elective franchise, will recognise in protestantism the palladium of our existence, and the safeguard of our liberties. When the combined forces of popery and infidelity rush blindly on against any section of our established churches, they will throw away the banners on which "Whig" and "Tory" have been so long and often so idly inscribed: they will snatch up "the sword of the Spirit," and stand around the altar in its sacredness, and the throne with the magna charta of its stability, and defy the onslaught of canting liberalism and perjured faction. If this sword be wielded by the constituency of our country,--by hearts which never grow faint, and by hands which know not fatigue,-popery will be turned out of fashion, out of countenance, out of power, out of place. The protestant lion will rise up and retaliate, and, in return for "appropriation clauses," and "church-rate bills," and "Irish tithe bills," will treat them with a REPEAL OF THE

ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIEF ACT. This must-aye, and if we see aught of the signs of the times, this will-be attempted. Movements are taking place in the large cities of the empire. This kind of "repeal" is popular at conservative meetings; it was suddenly broached by a speaker at Liverpool, and the effect was like that of electricity; the meeting, to a man, responded to the call. The struggle is but just commencing. It may happen that the enemies of the Church will triumph for a while; a sifting process is needed; "the slumber of the people," and "the slumber of the pulpit," are manifest evils; all is not pure gold among either her members or her ministers. Temporary triumph may be permitted for wise purposes by an all-seeing Protector. The constituency of the country may not yet perceive the positive evils which must arise from supporting these liberalized statesmen. In a few more years they will feel it to their cost; and then it may be that the nation will free itself, by one mighty throe, from that incubus on its prosperity-the popish domination. Late events, however, have proved that this staunch conservative feeling has been successfully aroused. The ministerial church-rate bill, that monstrous compound of fallacious principle and erroneous calculation, has been hurried to the tomb of all the Capulets by its magnanimous majority of five. We point the reader especially to the speeches of Sir J. Graham, Sir Robert Peel, and Mr. Shiel. Does not the latter speak out? "Content-no, never content, till the overgrown Establishment be laid in ruins ;" and yet "he was a friend to the Church." Well might honourable members cryOh! oh!" he meant the repair and preservation of the edifices for public worship." Yea verily, he does, for he hopes that the lukewarmness of British heretics will consign these to the keeping of Romish vassals. Thus the word "church" is used in all its senses, on this very debate, while the arguments vary and wind about according to the sense in which it is used by the speaker at the moment. The arguments of Mr. S. Wortley against the bill, are strangely inconsistent. He advocates numbers against truth, and softens away the differences between all forms of religion. "If the Establishment were the church of a sect only, he would consent to its demolition." "The dissenters did not differ from churchmen in religion. Parliamentary returns show that a salary of 500l. per annum has been paid by government to a Roman Catholic bishop in Australia, and 2007. per annum to an Independent minister,"-and therefore, argues the honourable member, dissenters ought not to object to pay church-rates. Another instance this, in which the well-meaning speakers in favour of a measure know nothing of the true principles on which it is founded. For one reason we should have rejoiced in seeing this or some such bill brought up to the House of Peers. How would these talented, well-practised and powerful statesmen

have demolished it! How would have they exposed its emptiness, and tossed it about in contemptuous mirth! Then again we should have listened to a prime minister warning his peers to comply with the demands of the foes of the Establishment, lest hereafter they should be forced to give way, we should have listened again to this assertion, that" the first object of a christian hierarchy ought to be peace and unity, as it should be of a christian legislature." The sentiment may be popular, but we are sure it is worthless. TRUTH, my noble lord, should be the first object; peace and union should, if possible, follow. If truth be a party, to whom is blame to be attached? Was not truth in a minority when the Ephesians cried out, Great is Diana? Has not truth been in the minority for ages? and has it not often been sacrificed to a false peace and to a deceptive union?

Such are our principles,-such the fallacies by which the pretended friends and the real enemies of the Church become popular with electors, and injurious as statesmen. Whatever be the temporary issue of the contest, either in parliament or throughout the country, of this we are assured, that the foundations of our Zion are enduring. The lessons of our fathers, the prayers of our martyrs, are not dead. These holy men lie buried beneath the pulpits and amid the parishes of our land; their spirits live in conscious blessedness, and their mantles have fallen upon a holy and united people, who will awaken their own dormant energies, fill men's hearts with enthusiasm, and the wide world with their thunder. Our Church shall prove more resplendent in the hour of fierce trial than if the draperies of India o'er-mantled her, or the embroideries of the universe adorned her. The power of parliaments never gave her birth,— the power of parliaments never shall crush her. Her fellowship is with the almighty One; her companionship with the tenantry of the kingdom of the heavens. Tempests, indeed, many and fierce, may howl around her; but she shall stand as the tall cedar of the forest, unscathed:-the hurricane may toss about her branches; but it shall not approach to pour its fury on THE ROOT, for she is grafted by the ever-watchful husbandman on the stock of THE TREE OF LIfe.

General Literature.

Reflections on Unitarianism, wherein it is shown to be subversive of Christianity. By the Rev. W. J. KIDD, Minister of St. Matthew's, Manchester. London: Whittaker, Treacher and Co. 1835. THIS is a modest and unassuming treatise, in which the fallacy of the Unitarian opinions is shown from different scriptural

passages. The examination is soberly conducted, and the inference is inoffensively drawn.

The subject of the Trinity is thus clearly introduced: "We do not assert the existence of three Gods; on the contrary, we insist as strenuously as you can do on the unity of the Divine Being. To every argument, therefore, which you adduce, in order to establish this fundamental doctrine of religion, whether drawn from philosophy or revelation, we cordially subscribe. But we assert that the christian Scriptures do not stop here. They not only confirm the doctrine of the existence of one God, but reveal also the mode of that existence; which mode, for the sake of conciseness, we call the Trinity, by which word we mean

a threefold development of the Divine essence. We go, there

fore, as far as you go, but do not stop where you stop." In this definition we recognise the words of Justin Martyr: Tò μiv ἀγέννητον καὶ γέννητον καὶ ἐκπόρευτον οὐκ οὐσίας ὀνόματα, ἀλλὰ τρόποι ὑπάρξεως.

Mr. Kidd next considers the doctrine in a philosophical point of view, and compares with it soul, body, and operation in the human frame. "The first is, as it were, the source or fountain of man, and is invisible. The body is the visible proof of the existence of man, and may be considered as the reflector of the soul. The operation proceeds from the soul and the body: it is of or from the soul and through the body." But when he calls these co-equal and co-essential, we fear that he has strained his illustration too far.

Illustrations of this description have been carried to a very great extent, and Mr. Maurice may almost be said to have exhausted the subject. The pages of Plato, Proclus, and other philosophers, have largely furnished the materials, and they have been unsparingly used; and often with more fancy than judg

ment.

The most important part of Mr. Kidd's treatise, and that which will chiefly claim our attention, relates to the divinity of Christ. Although the arguments employed are principally those of preceding writers, they are so skilfully managed, and so well interwoven with apposite biblical quotations, that they place the doctrine far above the assaults of the sceptic-on the immovable foundation of revelation. The authoritative manner also in which our Saviour exercised his office, and performed his miracles, is ably contrasted with that different and dependent manner which the prophets and apostles displayed; whence arises an evidence, that his power was inherent in himself, but that theirs was derivative. The proofs of Omnipotence, and the achievement of acts peculiar to Deity, which we witness during his ministry, certainly impressed many of his contemporaries with the belief, that "THE WORD was God, and was in the beginning with God;" and it is certain, that he intended them to

be impressed with it. For, as we cannot "conceive how a man can disclaim all pretensions to kingly power, who in every discourse, and in every remarkable action of his life, openly assumes the prerogatives of royalty," so "as Jesus assumed to himself the prerogatives of the King of Heaven," as many of his declarations indicated his divine nature, and as he in other respects verified his claims to it, we shall virtually deny the truth of the evangelical narrative, if we call these his assumptions and this his right into question. Of his divinity, the resurrection, which occurred at the time foretold by himself, was one of the strongest vouchers; it therefore became the burden of the apostolic preaching, and is an argument to which Christians have always satisfactorily appealed: it is in itself so conclusive, that we must either admit it as an evidence of Christ's divinity, or we must lamely seek to evade the difficulty which will arise, by supposing the Almighty to have attested the words and to have sanctioned the acts of an impostor, by raising him from the dead; which is blasphemy.

Mr. Kidd's reasonings are equally lucid in the section on the death of Christ, as a real sacrifice; and his authorities are so convincing, that no possible outlet is left for another inference than that which he seeks to substantiate. But the Unitarians endeavour to annul the argument by attributing to Ovoía a merely figurative import; on which Mr. Kidd inquires, If the sacrifice be figurative, where are we to seek the reality, to which every figure must refer? Yet, even in this light, the objection will not avail them, because if this Ovoía be a figure, the reality must be in the Levitical ordinances, in which sacrifices were only so far figurative as they were typical of THE DEATH OF CHRIST; and as, in other respects, they had a literal acceptation, and were really performed, so must that of Christ have been a real sacrifice, and therefore AN ATONEMENT.

It was one of the oldest Jewish opinions, that all sacrifices had a reference to the Messiah, and that in his days they would cease, and give place to joy and thanksgiving. Now, as the Unitarians are agreed with us, that the Messiah of the Jewish Scriptures was Jesus Christ, we may advantageously show, that the Jews, in interpreting those Scriptures, were compelled by the force of truth to admit the very points which the Unitarians dispute with us. In the Sepher Ikkarim, the Midrash Tehillim, &c., they grant, that the incommunicable name Jehovah, Jehovah our righteousness, Jah Shiloh, El-Shadai, and others, were attributed to the Messiah-that his soul pre-exists, and is entrusted to Ahtariel, prefect of the throne of glory, till its union with his body that his birth will be extraordinary, — that Ruth and Zorobabel will be among his ancestors, &c. &c.; and if we examine even the Cabbala, and sift its materials from the idle fables with which they are mixed, we shall observe the same

NO. III.-VOL. II.