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societies, their missionary societies, their associations, their funds, when they raise any, are all Unitarian; but this is only during a state of repose, Presbyterian is their nom de guerre. When the important subject of trusts and trust deeds is agitated, all at once they are Presbyterians, and Presbyterians only. The founders,' say they, were Presbyterians, and so are we." Are they so indeed? Where then are their classes, their synods, their presbyteries? In what hole or corner do they hold those regularly constituted courts of ecclesiastical discipline, without which, as a system of church government, Presbyterianism is less than the shadow of a shade? Where are the ruling elders, joining with the Presbyters, or pastors of their churches, in judging of the qualifications of communicants, or bringing such of them as offend under the censure of their synods? In Lancashire, where this controversy originated in London, where we are reviewing it-recent discussions, as to the conduct of Messrs. Fletcher and Thom, have given sufficient proofs of what Presbyterianism, as system of discipline, is. Both of these gentlemen have been compelled to leave the chapels in which they ministered, not because the majority of their congregation wished-not even because the trustees resolved that they should do so-but because the conduct of the one, and the doctrine of the other minister, was held not to accord with the doctrines and tenets of the Presbyterian church; and these judgments were pronounced, it will be remembered, by deputations from a synod in a foreign country (for such, as to ecclesiastical affairs, Scotland must be considered) to presbyteries in which the churches those ministers presided over were attached. Whilst Mr. Roberts and Mr. Grundy were co-pastors of the same church,

a

they were, doubtless, subject to the same control; but what would these gentlemen say, were the distinct congregations, over which they now separately preside, though situated in the same county, and within a few hours' ride of each other, to hold the minister or people of the one accountable for their doctrines or conduct to the other? Were Mr. Harris, who lives and preaches but eleven miles from Manchester, and about thirty from Liverpool, to be cited to answer for those inflammatory expressions towards his orthodox neighbours, which the members of his own communion, in his own county and immediate neighbourhood, are anxious to disclaim,-would the pretext that the citation issued from the synod, to which, as a Presbyterian minister, he was attached, and accountable for his ministerial conduct, save those who cited him from a vituperation on their presumption, their insolence, and egregious folly, almost as anathematizing as that which he pronounced in his celebrated philippic against orthodoxy? Yet were the Unitarians Presbyterians, as, when prudence and convenience dictate, they profess to be, the suppositious cases we have put would have been in the ordinary course of the discipline of the church, to which they tell us that they belong. Instead, therefore, of the fuming, and fretting, and denouncing of such a procedure, as a presumptuous, intolerant, and unjustifiable interference with the right of private judgment, of which, in such a case, we should hear enough,-the parties cited to answer for their conduct, according to the rules of their church, would only have to appeal from the judgment of a presbytery to that of a synod, and from a synod to a general assembly, from whose decision their form of church government admits not of redress. But it must be obvious to every

one acquainted with the Unitarians of the present day, that, so far from being Presbyterians in discipline, they are, to all intents and purposes, as completely inde pendent in their form of church government, as far as they have any, as are the most orthodox of the Congregational churches amongst us. They are men of sense and prudence, and must, therefore, be fully aware, that were they to rest their claims upon this ground, they would not be able to support, by evidence, a single point of their pretended title by descent. Unitarians Presbyterians !—let them try to prove themselves such in any court of law or equity in the kingdom, and they will find, to their cost, the wisdom of adopting the candour of Mr. Grundy, the innocent cause of all this disturbance of their repose, who, in a sermon preached at the opening of the Unitarian Chapel in Liverpool, over which Mr. Harris once presided as its pastor, when speaking of the term given to the sect to which he belongs, very truly said, "The term Presbyterian is now commonly used; but, I confess, some difficulty appears to me to attend the use of it; because it has either no definite meaning as to opinions or discipline, or if it have any meaning, it signifies something which we are NOT."

But even were the Unitarians of the present day what they certainly are not, Presbyterians in discipline, the concession of this point could avail them nothing in the present controversy, even in their own view of the case, unless they could shew that the endowments and trust deeds of the chapels to which they assert their right, contain no other description of the parties for whose use those chapels were erected, and for whose benefit those endowments were made, than that they should be of the Presbyterian denomina

tion. But we go much farther, and, supported alike by the law of the land, and by every principle of justice and equity, assert, without fear of successful contradiction, that even were the deeds thus bare of every other indication of the doctrines to be preached in these places of worship, the word Presbyterian is alone sufficient to indicate that those doctrines must be orthodox, and could never have been, in reality or in contemplation, Unitarian. At the date of all the trusts and endowments in dispute, Presbyterians, unorthodox in their sentiments, especially as to the Trinity, were unheard-of anomalies. In the language and understanding of the times, a Presbyterian was essentially a Trinitarian; essentially, we might also add, but that it is altogether foreign to the present discussion, a Calvinist; essentially, at all events, a supporter of those leading doctrines of the Gospel which Unitarians disavow, and denounce as ridiculous, irrational, and antichristian; essentially so decided opponents of those which they preach as the genuine Gospel, as never to have admitted the men who held them as members of the church of Christ on earth, or without a total change in their views and sentiments, to have considered it possible for them to become fellow-heirs of the kingdom of heaven. Upon every principle, therefore, of sound interpretation of terms, which directs them to be taken in the ordinary sense and acceptation of the times in which, and the parties by whom they are used, not only must courts of law and equity, but every man of plain common sense, hold it impossible that a Presbyterian could, in these deeds, mean or contemplate an Unitarian. That it could not, is, however, further proved, beyond the possibility of doubt or disputation, by the fact of the Toleration Act, 1st William and Mary (soon after which most

of the foundations and trusts in dispute had their origin), having expressly exempted from all the ease, benefit, and advantages which it gave to Protestant Dissenters, every person "that should deny, in his preaching or writing, the doctrine of the blessed Trinity, as it is declared in the Articles" [of the Church of England]. Coupling with this very clear and decisive exception, the unequivocal, though, we readily admit, the unjust and most intolerant provision of another Act, of the 9th and 10th of the reign of the same king, subjecting all persons who "shall, by writing, printing, teaching, or advised speaking, deny any one of the persons in the Holy Trinity to be God," to severe disabilities for the first offence, and to three years imprisonment for the second, it becomes a self-evident proposition, that whilst these legal enactments were on the statute book—and they were so until within a very few years-every endowment, every trust for preaching, or otherwise promulgating the Unitarian notions of the Trinity, was mere waste paper, utterly void in law, because destined to the publishing of tenets which that law (properly or improperly is not the question here, provided it was, as it is, most clearly and unequivocally) denounced and proscribed as blasphemous, heretical, anti-christian, and illegal. Aware of these laws, as the founders of those chapels and endowments must have been, they could not have framed any deeds for the purpose here supposed-if they did frame and execute them, they are invalid, illegal, and inoperative.

But this view of the question is, we are assured, not new to the Unitarians, who are therefore mightily and most prudently cautious in referring to the trust deeds of the chapels which they possess. They know, and, generally speaking, do not attempt to deny, that

those chapels are of orthodox foundation; but then they would have it believed, that the deeds putting them in trust, or creating the endowments, contain nothing which can or ought to prevent persons, holding doctrinal sentiments diametrically opposite to those of the founders, from enjoying the benefits of their pious labours or bequests. Fortunately, however, for the cause of truth and justice, evidence does exist in the hands of their opponents, that this suggestion, rather than open and direct assertion of theirs, is unfounded in fact, as it is contrary to all probability, at least in several instances of chapels, which they hold in direct and barefaced violation of the express provisions of their trust deeds. Thus, to confine ourselves to the county in which these disputes originated, at Cockey Moor, on which place there is an endowment of £120. per annum, the ministers are required to be "sound in the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, and such as hold and profess the doctrinal articles of the Church of England," and those articles they are required to sign. At Knowsley, near Prescot, in a chapel which, as they cannot keep it open themselves, they have let to others, of the minister officiating it is required, that he shall “ preach according to the doctrinal articles of the Church of England, and shall teach the Assembly's Catechism." Similar provisions are made in the trust deeds of the chapels at Platt and Toxteth Park, in both of which places the broadest Socinianism is openly and unblushingly proclaimed, under the direction of trustees, whose duty is thus clearly pointed out to them. Another, and if possible a more atrocious case of malversation, we give in the words of the appendix to this controversy.

"Rawtonstall, in Rossendale.--The trust deed of this chapel bears date