period, that a man of war was sent over from the United Provinces to Gravesend, expressly for the purpose of conveying these polemics, four in number, to Holland. It appears, however, that by some accident they missed the vessel, and proceeded without it in small boats to Middleburgh. So great respect was shown to the English divines, that when they arrived at the Hague, they were allowed by the States ten pounds sterling a-day, an entertainment," Fuller, "far larger than was appointed to any other foreign theologists." The solemn method of procedure which was adopted on this occasion, is thus detailed, and will not be uninteresting to our readers.

66

says

"Whereas you desire from me a just relation of the carriage of the business at the Synod of Dort, and the conditions required of our divines there, at or before their admission to the grave and learned assembly: I, Whom God was pleased to employ as an unworthy agent in that great work, and to reserve still upon earth, after all my reverend and worthy associates do, as in the presence of that God, to whom I am now daily expecting to yield up my account, testify to you, and (if you will) to the world, that I cannot, without just indignation, read that slanderous imputation, which Mr. Goodwin, in his Redemption Redeem'd, reports to have been raised, and cast upon those divines, eminent both for learning and piety, That they suffered themselves to be bound with an Oath, at, or before their admission into that Synod, to vote down the Remonstrants howsoever,' so as they came deeply pregnated to the decision of those unhappy differences.

"Truly, Sir, as I hope to be saved, all the oath that was required was this after that the Moderator, Assistants, and Scribes were chosen, and the Synod formed, and the several members allowed, there was a solemn oath required to be taken by every one of that assembly, which was publicly done in a grave manner, by every person in their order, standing up, and laying his hand upon his heart, calling the great God of heaven to witness, that he would impartially proceed in the judgment of these controversies, which should be laid before him, only out of, and according to the written word of God, and no otherwise, so determining of them, as he should and in his conscience most agreeable to

the Holy Scriptures, which oath was punctually agreed to be thus taken by the Articles of the States; concerning the indiction, and ordering of the Synod, as appears plainly in their tenth article; and this was all the oath that was either taken or required. And far was it from those

holy souls which are now glorious in heatime survive, to give this just witness of ven, or mine (who still for some short our sincere integrity) to entertain the least thought of any so foul corruption, as by any over-ruling power to be swayed to a prejudgment in the points controverted." -pp. 80-82,

This celebrated convention lasted from Nov. 1618 to May 1819, when the English divines agreed in approving the Heidelberg Čatechism, and the Belgic Confession. The whole controversy was decided in favour of the Calvinists; but in the bigoted spirit of the times, the remonstrant divines were for a limited period banished the Hall on the complexion of the country. The verdict of Bishop articles of the Church of England, is what we have always entertained, though so many of her sons are strenuous advocates of the tenets of Arminius, not to say Pelagius; and though Bishop Horsley, notwithstanding his prodigious talents and acuteness, contends, we believe, that in this respect they are ambiguous. "I will live and die," says Dr. Hall, on his return to Davenant, "in the suffrage of the Synod of Dort; and I do confidently avow, that those other opinions of Arminius cannot stand with the doctrine of the Church of England."

About the year 1622, Dr. Hall was raised to the bishopric of Exeter. He now, it appears, excited suspicion and jealousy in the minds of some of the dignitaries, from being regarded as too favourable to Puritanism.

"Some persons of note in the clergy, being guilty of their own negligence and disorderly courses, began to envy our success; and finding me ever ready to encourage those whom I found conscionably forward and painful in their places, and willingly giving way to orthodox and

peaceable lectures in several parts of my diocese, opened their mouths against me, both obliquely in the pulpit and directly at the court; complaining of my too much diligence to persons disaffected, and my too much liberty of frequent lecturing's within my charge. The billows went so high, that I was three several times upon my knee to his Majesty, to answer these great criminations: and what contestation I had with some great lords concerning these particulars, it would be too long to report; only this, under how dark a cloud I was hereupon I was so sensible, that I plainly told the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, that, rather that I would be obnoxious to

those slanderous tongues of his misin formers, I would cast up my rochet. knew I went right ways, and would not endure to live under undeserved suspicions." pp. 113, 114.

I

"For me, I need not appeal to heaven: eyes enough can witness, how few free hours I have enjoyed, since I put on these robes of sacred honour. Insomuch as I could find in my heart, with holy Gregory, to complain of my change; were it not, that I see these public troubles are so many acceptable services to my God, whose glory is the end of my being. Certainly, my Lord, if none but earthly respects should sway me, I should heartily wish to change this palace, which the providence of God and the bounty of my gracious sovereign hath put me into, for my quiet cell at Waltham, where I had so sweet leisure to enjoy God, your lordship, and myself. But I have followed the calling of my God, to whose service I am willingly sacrificed; and must now, in a holy obedience to his Divine Majesty, with what cheerfulness I may ride out all the storms of envy, which unavoidably will alight upon the least appearance of a conceived greatness. In the mean time, whatever I may seem to others, I was never less in my own apprehensions; and,

were it not for this attendance of envy, could not yield myself any whit greater than I was."-pp. 120, 121.

(To be continued.)

The Manchester Socinian Controversy; with Introductory Remarks, and an Appendix.-Londoa: Westley.

WHETHER Unitarianism has of late years undergone any change or modification in its tenets we know not, but certainly a very marvellous one has been exhibited in the manner of promulgating it. The generation of its teachers of which the last has well nigh disNEW SERIES, No. 15.

appeared from the scenes of active life, were men of prudence equal to their learning, which unquestionably was great, and, in conduct at least, tempered a due proportion of the wisdom of the serpent with the gentleness of the dove. The faith they professed was, to a certain extent, proscribed, though it was beginning to become fashionable; and they had no wish to thrust into the fore-ground of their public ministrations those peculiar views of the person and character of the Godhead, the maintenance of which subjected them to no slight pains and penalties, by the letter of a law, the spirit of which is directly opposed to their infliction, and therefore they had long become a dead letter on the statute-book, where, however, they still attached a disagreeable opprobrium upon those whom they unceremoniously denounced as heretics and blasphemers. In those days, (and we ourselves are old enough to recollect a portion of them,) you might attend the chapels of the Unitarians for many a Sabbath in succession, without hearing any of their leading and distinguishing doctrines promulgated, commented upon, and enforced from the pulpit, as necessary points of belief. The pure morality and superior excellency of the Gospel, as a rule of life-the light it shed upon that future state of existence beyond the grave, on which all was to the ancients uncertain, shadowy, dim-these were the topics of discourse to which many a hearer had regularly listened year after year, and even to the close of a protracted life, without ever dreaming that the preacher who delivered them thought there was, at the worst, any great harm in holding that Jesus Christ might be somewhat more than a mere man, whilst, good easy souls, they would have been perfectly horrified at the insinuation that their U

lightened liberty. The spirit of orthodoxy is a mean spirit, for it bends before the dictation of a worm of the earth, and its essence consists, as its own advocates aver, in the prostration of the human understanding;' but the spirit of Unitarianism is open, generous, liberal. The one is partial and capricious, viewing the favourites of heaven only in a selected few, whilst Unitarianism sees in every man, a brother, training up for the glorious importance which awaits all the family of the eternal. The spirit of orthodoxy is a cruel and vindictive spirit; witness its excommunications and its inquisitions ;the spirit of Unitarianism is merciful and benevolent; anxious for man's rights, and detesting revenge. The spirit of orthodoxy is one of persecution :-look at the Athanasian Creeds, and Test and Corporation Acts: see the unbeliever-oh! shame and scandal --even in the nineteenth century, dragged before the tribunal of man, to answer for his supposed want of faith, and behold Judges acting under the abused name of that Christianity, which, they say, is part and parcel of the law of the land, inflicting sentences, which even the worst of crimes would scarcely sanction; but Unitarianism is free as the winds of heaven, and desires that every human creature may be so too. Orthodoxy says, it encourages inquiry: it may do so to a certain point; but when a human being

arrives at that, it is the language of its deeds, hitherto shalt thou go, but no further. Unitarianism, however, has no land-marks on the shores of knowledge-like the swelling waves of the ocean, it is spirit and it is life. Orthodoxy would strip a man of the name of Christian, and would shut him out from all the rewards of heaven, unless he can pronounce the shibboleth of an intolerant party; whilst Unitarianism affirms, that in every nation, aye, and in every sect, he who feareth God, and worketh righteousness, shall be accepted of him. Orthodoxy is bound up in creeds, and confessions, and articles of faith, with inky blots, and rotten parchment bon is ;-but Unitarianism, like the word of the ever-living Jehovah, is not, and cannot be bound. Orthodoxy is gloom, and darkness, and desolation. Unitarianism is light, and liberty, and joy. The influence of this system on human civilization, human liberty, and human happiness, has already been tried; it has been tried for ages; and its direful and demoralizing effects may be read in the history of every nation under the sun. It has been weighed, Sir, and has it not been found most miserably wanting? Let the state-craft, and the priest-craft, the war and the slavery, by which mankind have been cursed for ages, answer the question. What then remains; but that every friend of his species

should unite, in trying the effects of the other system."--pp. 11, 12,

On this address, it will surely be no breach of Christian charity to remark, that both in its praise and censure, it is somewhat too highly spiced, and that it might more characteristically have been served up with peppered biscuits and anchovy toast, towards the close of a regular Bacchanalian revel, than at the sober feast of a Christian congregation, about to take their leave of a Christian pastor, both of them bound, in obedience to the commands of the Master they profess to serve, to keep "the unity of spirit in the bond of peace." Nor can any person of

candour consider it a violation of this precept, to repel so public, unprovoked, and virulent an attack upon the faith of the great mass of the community-to whom, on all the essential differences of Unitarians from Trinitarians, the former are but as the molehill to

the mountain-by a gentle admonition to more prudence and temperance, in which the following is the very strongest passage.

"These accusations come with a peculiar ill-grace from Unitarians. As a body they are of recent origin, in this country at least. During the period of the great struggles for liberty they were unknown; and they did not arise until the object was achieved--until the battle was fought, and the victory won. The orthodox laboured, and the Unitarians have entered into their labonrs. Let them, therefore, not stigmatise the very spirit which led to resist, and eventually to overcome ecclesiastical tyranny, as 'slavish and mean;' let them not call the spirit of confessors and martyrs, cruel and vindictive;' let them not injuriously asperse the memory of men, by whom so many of the chapels, which they now occupy, were built and endowed, and to whom, under God, they owe the very blessings by which they are surrounded."--p. 16.

The letter from which these observations are extracted, which bears the subscription of "An Orthodox Dissenter," and was written by the Rev. Mr. Birt, of Man

chester, for a time produced no other effect than an unsatisfactory and unimportant limitation of his charges against orthodoxy, to the system only, by Mr. Harris himself, and a somewhat indignant rejection of his philippic as conveying the sentiments of the Unitarians of Manchester, by one of that body, who, in characterizing him as of rather too fiery a spirit to be kept within the bounds of Christian charity, has done the reverend orator no very grievous wrong. In the guise of "another Orthodox Dissenter," a certain lawyer, (as we understand,) with that shrewdness and habitude of sticking to the point, and to those points only on which somewhat more than mere honour is to be gained, and mere declamation to be wasted, which characterizes his profession, directed the attention of the public to the diversion of the endowed chapels, and other pious foundations of orthodox Christians, to the promulgation of what they would have deemed the heterodox tenets of Unitarianism. This had been but very incidentally noticed in the letter, which Mr. Harris's vituperations called forth; but henceforth it became the prominent feature in a controversy, which would otherwise have been confined to the narrow circulation of a provincial newspaper, and would have excited but a short lived interest there. The question propounded by this gentleman, (Mr. George Hadfield, a solicitor of the first respectability in Manchester, to whom belongs the merit of originating the investigation) was "upon what principle, consistent with justice and sound morality, can Unitarian ministers consent to subsist upon property, which was designed for any one rather than for them, and trustees allow and encourage so corrupt a practice?" To this plain question, several

answers were given from different quarters, and from them, together with the rejoinder of the orthodox disputants, several of whom took up the pen on Mr. Hadfield's side. of the question, we shall endeavour to put our readers in possession of the merits of a controversy. of as great importance to the character of the Unitarians as a body, and to the interests of the Trinitarian Dissenters, (to Congregationalists in particular,) as any which has been agitated for many

years.

And first, as to the facts of the case:-to prove that the Unitarians are in possession of a great number of places of worship which were originally built, or occupied, by orthodox dissenters, returns were carefully procured from most of the counties of England, which are printed in the appendix to this volume. The " Summary of the chapels occupied by Unitarians in England, Wales, and Scotland," placed at the end of the preface to the work, and giving the substance of the information contained in the appendix, is, however, sufficient for the present purpose, striking out from it, as we have done, those counties in which the returns are blank.