refuse to honor Him even as they honor the Father, He is giving up to deny the authority of that Book in which He declares himself to be the way, the truth, and the life; and before long, it may be, He will take from them even his name.

"The fields of error have been fully reaped and gleaned; nor shall aught that is new spring up on that field, the whole botany of which is already known and classified. It is only of late that a fair, a competent, and an elaborate discussion of all the principal questions of theology has taken place, and the great result of this discussion waits now to be manifested by some new movement of the human mind. Great and happy revolutions usually stand ready and latent for a time, until accident brings them forward. Such a change and renovation we believe to be at the door of the Christian Church. The ground of controversy has contracted itself daily during the last half century;-the grotesque and many-colored forms of ancient heresy have disappeared, and the existing differences of opinion, some of which are indeed of vital consequence, all draw round a single controversy, the final decision of which it is hard to believe shall long be deferred; for the minds of men are pressing towards it with an unusual intentness. This great question relates to the authority of Holy Scripture; and the professedly Christian world is divided upon it into three parties, comprehending all smaller varieties of opinion.

"The first of these parties-constituted of the Romish Church and its disguised favorers, affirms the subordination of the authority of Scripture to that of the priest: this is a doctrine of slavery and of ignorance, which the mere progress of knowledge and of civil liberty must overthrow, if it be not first exploded by other means. The second party comprises the sceptical sects of the Protestant world, which agree in affirming the subordination of Scripture to the dogmas of natural theology; in other words, to every man's notion of what religion ought to be. These sects, having no barrier between themselves and pure deism, are continually dwindling by desertions to infidelity; nor will be able to hold their slippery footing on the edge of Christianity a day after a general revival of serious piety has taken place.

"The third party, comprehending the great majority of the Protestant body, bows reverently, and implicitly, and with intelligent conviction, to the absolute authority of the word of God, and knows of nothing in theology that is not affirmed or fairly implied therein. The differences existing within this party, how much soever they may be exaggerated by bigots, will vanish as the mists of the morning under the brightness of the sun, whenever a refreshment of pious feeling descends upon the Church."

We will make one more extract, and then close.

"The great principle of vicarious suffering, which forms the centre of Christianity, spreads itself through the subordinate parts of the system, and is the pervading, if not the invariable law of Christian beneficence.

"The spontaneous sympathies of human nature, when they are vigorous enough to produce the fruits of charity, rest on an expectation of an opposite kind; for we first seek to dispel the uneasy sensation of pity; then look for the gratitude of the wretch we have solaced, and for the approbation of spectators; and then take a sweet after-draught of self-complacency. But the Christian virtue of beneficence takes its stand altogether on another ground; and its doctrine is, that, whoever would remedy misery must himself suffer; and that the pains of the vicarious benefactor are generally to bear proportion to the extent or malignity of the evils he labors to remove. So that while the philanthropist who undertakes the cure only of the transient ills of the present life, may encounter no greater amount of toils or discouragements than are amply recompensed by the immediate gratifications of successful benevolence, he who, with a due sense of the greatness of the enterprise, devotes himself to the removal of the moral wretchedness in which human nature is involved, will find that the sad quality of these deeper woes is in a manner reflected back upon himself; and that to touch the substantial miseries of degenerate man is to come within the infection of infinite sorrow."

We wished to give some passages in connection with the above, for the strengthening of those whom the peculiar state of the times

has called to great endurance of contumely and injustice from high and low; but we have no room. They have this consolation, that a rest remaineth. And how is strength put into their hearts when they reflect, that though they may have much to bear, and may meet with particular disappointments in their course, the great cause in which they are engaged will move surely and steadily on. God has said that the wrath of man shall praise Him, and that the remainder of wrath He will restrain.

In furnishing these extracts, we have, perhaps, done as well as if we had gone into a particular analysis of the work. There are many books of good reputation, of which the substance might be given within a small compass. But beside the fact that this work treats upon several distinct subjects, an analysis of it would have run us out to a tedious length, so compact is it, and so made up of striking and intimately connected thoughts. There is no loose work in it-one scarcely sees where to drive in a wedge.

It is a consolation to us, that this work is likely to fall into the hands of certain readers who stand much in need of it—we mean numbers in the literary and professional orders, and in a class less literary, yet well informed, who are in various ways associated with them. We have opportunities of knowing that many of these are not quite at ease respecting the opinions of their teachers. They have misgivings that all may not be well, not quite so well, as it would fain be made outwardly to appear. When opinions which they know not how to reconcile with their own old-fashioned, yet half-forgotten notions of faith are somewhat boldly thrown out, they are startled into the question, Is this the Christianity which we used to read of in the Bible? and they are alarmed for the moment, to think how far they have been gradually and unconsciously drawn away from their old belief; and ask themselves, Where must all this end?

Their situation is a critical one; for they allow themselves to be quieted by some plausible excuse-such as, that the opinion was loosely expressed, or was intended to be understood with such and such qualifications, or that it came from one generally held to be adventurous and indiscreet; or their attention is called off and directed to some part which is of a more serious character. Thus what with a sprinkling of Scripture phrases, and a mixture of some truth with much error, they are gradually wonted to a system of unbelief. They begin with doubting; they next give up, and are finally in danger of ending in the disbelief of almost every thing but that they themselves are very exemplary believers.

If, instead of looking at the subject occasionally and detachedly, they could be brought to examine it in reference to first principles, the operation of these, and their necessary results, they would discover that loose opinions in point of belief no more come of accident, nor spring less from fixed causes, than do those of the most thorough and firm faith. Would they then go a little farther, they

would also find that if the same principles by which this qualified, half belief has been reached, were fairly carried through, they would infallibly bear men far out of the bounds of Christianity and the Bible.

When men are far gone in unbelief, this effort is hardly to be expected of them. Many a man who is finally lost in infidelity, might, by the grace of God, have been brought back to stand firm in the faith, could he, upon doubting one doctrine of the Gospel, have been prevailed upon at once to examine the principle upon which he called it in question, in reference to every other doctrine. Then he would immediately have seen the justice of the wise and learned Good's remark-that there was no intermediate ground upon which a sound reasoner could make a fair stand, between that of pure deism and that of moderate orthodoxy, as held by the evangelical classes both of churchmen and dissenters.' The fearful truth would have come upon him whole, and before the mind had formed the ruinous habit of half closing its vision, or of turning away from necessary conclusions.

There is much, however, to hope for from the men of the classes we are speaking of; for here and there may be seen one and another coming out of the by-paths of error into the open paths of truth. They may have to forego expectations of distinction and power; they may have hard things to encounter-coldness on the part of old acquaintances-sneers, which have a sting often out of proportion to the size of the insect, and, with these, and harder than these, they may have to endure false surmises as to their motives, cast on them by their friends, too, and made to stick the closer, by an adhesive varnish of smooth extenuation laid on in feigned charity and love. But all these things are easily borne after a time. And who would not bear them for the sake of that strengthening conviction of the sincerity of one's faith and love, which the endurance of evil for the truth's sake always gives a man?

Sacrifices such as these will be met more generally and quickly than they have ever yet been; for motives to this are pressingmore and more. The hues of truth and of error are fast separating; the doubtful twilight breaking; truth brightening, and error darkening. Soon there will not be a spot for the hesitating man to stand upon, nor a shred left out of which the timid man shall weave his cloak of charity to hide his own selfishness, while he is bringing odium on the open, hardy soldiers of the Faith. The two sides will soon be marked off plainly enough; the distance between them will become wider and wider-too wide for the voice of parley with error to be heard across it; the way of faith will be made more and more plain, and the sin of unbelief be stript bare of all excuse. The great question, as our author says, is speedily to be, Have we a revelation from God? And as each man decides this

for himself, so will he reject the word for once and all, or honor the Son even as he honors the Father.

May God grant us the spirit of self-sacrifice in this his cause; teach us to contend earnestly yet meekly for the truth, and pardon our infirmities when we forget his teachings.

We thank the publishers for giving us this valuable work in so convenient a form; and we shall feel our obligations increased, if the second edition-which must soon be called for-should be free from the occasional inaccuracies which we have met with in this.

We would say, in closing, that the Natural History of Enthusiasm is a work which every educated, religious man should, if possible, possess, and which every literary man should be loath to confess he had not read.

MISCELLANEOUS.

PRESENT STATE OF UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND.

WE extract the following from the (London) Christian Observer for November 1829. It exhibits the confessions of Unitarians themselves as to the low and declining state of their affairs in the mother country. Unitarians in America are frequently boasting of the strength of their cause in England; and Unitarians in England of the splendid triumphs which the truth (as they hold it) is achieving in America. We can assure our Unitarian friends in England that the Spirit of Unitarianism' is the same here as there. 'Cælum, non animum mutant, qui trans mare currunt.'

"The last Number of the Monthly Repository, the official organ of the Unitarian body in this country, gives a most hopeless account of the state of their cause. The running title of the article is, "Unitarians rich, yet inefficient;" and the statements in the text correspond to the title; for it is confessed that "the Unitarian Missionary Association during the last year is an almost total failure;" that "the spirit of Unitarianism is not a missionary spirit ;" that of their chapels" the tale is brief and mournful ;"* that their assemblies for public worship are ill attended; that they can, with difficulty, support a single periodical publication; that their institutions for religious purposes are "few and languishing;" that," although for their numbers, the Unitarians are the richest body of religionists in

"Many of the old chapels amongst us," says the writer in the Repository, "are in a pitiable state. Of our own knowledge, we can speak of some scores, that scarcely shew signs of life. The number of hearers in them will not average more than thirty; the salary of the minister not more than £70 per annum." "One half of the insignificant stipends paid to ministers proceeds from the charity of preceding ages"-(i. e. from the endowments of the old Orthodox Presbyterians, of which the Unitarians have obtained possession.) "In many instances," "the utmost that is done by voluntary contributions, is the raising enough to defray the expenses of opening and cleaning the chapel." The writer expresses the belief that when a few sexagenarians have been conducted in decency to the grave, the doors of these chapels will be closed. "If this is not," says he, "the probable end of no few of the old Presbyterian chapels, we have yet to learn what other fate they can in all human probability undergo." Thus testified a learned, well informed English Unitarian in November, 1829.

the kingdom, they contribute the least to religious objects ;" and, most painful of all, that in India itself, where they looked for most, they are without a missionary, and unable to keep up a single chapel. To say that, with our views of the Unitarian system, we quote these statements with pain, would be an untruth which no Unitarian would wish us to proffer; but we by no means bring them forward in an invidious spirit. The humbling confessions uttered by persons who wish well to a cause, with a view to stir up their brethren to promote it, are not a subject for insult, and we are far from urging them as such. But we would candidly press upon the announcers of these facts, their own dilemma, that Christianity is essentially "a proselyting religion;" so that if the tenets of Unitarianism (so called, for we by no means admit the fairness of this exclusive assumption of the term, tri-une not being trine) are not of a character to proselyte the world, they are confessed to be false. The writers escape from this suicidal conclusion by urging that their doctrines are fit for missionary purposes; but that the holders of them are not diligent stewards in dispensing them. But this comes to nearly the same thing; since it admits the spiritual inefficiency of the system, even as regards its converts."

REVIEW OF DR. CHANNING ON ASSOCIATIONS.

We find the Review of Dr. Channing on Associations, contained in our number for March, referred to and quoted with much approbation, in different and distant parts of the United States. We mention this as evidence of the interest which is felt in behalf of the benevolent operations of the day, and especially on the subject of the Sabbath. The time has not yet come in this land-God grant it never may-for the observance of the Sabbath to rest on the recommendation of a man, rather than on the law of God.

The Works of President Edwards, with a Memoir of his Life, in ten volumes. New-York: S. Converse.

1829.

We congratulate the religious public on the appearance of this enlarged, complete, and long expected edition of the works of President Edwards. The memoir of his life, with which the first] volume (766 8vo. pages) is filled, will be found exceedingly interesting. It details a great variety of incidents relating to the life of Edwards-the different branches of his family, his early history, the character of his mind, his trials and vicissitudes, his religious exercises, his studies, labors and writings, his correspondence, and the circumstances of his closing scene-with which readers, in general, were entirely unacquainted. Indeed, we have no hesitation in affirming, that the Life of President Edwards has never before been presented to the public.-The tenth volume contains the Memoirs of Brainerd, the same that was published, a few years since, in a volume by itself. The eight intervening volumes include what may be termed more appropriately the works of Edwards-some parts of which have never before been published.-We feel a pleasure in inviting the attention of our readers to this great and truly valuable work.