oracle of their own natural Common-Sense. Sanctas Scripturas frustant ut frustrent. Through the gracious dispensations of Provi dence a complexity of circumstances may

cide) they are divided among themselves. The one party teach, that such unhappy persons will be raised only to be re-annihilated: the other party contend, that there will be a final Restoration of all Men, with a purgatory or state of remedial discipline, the severity and duration of which will be proportioned to the kind, degree, and obstinacy of the Disease, and of which therefore every Man is left to his own conjectural Hopes and Fears: with this comfort however to the very worst, (i. e. most unfortunate and erroneous of Mankind) that it will be all well with them at last. In this article they differ from the Papists, in having no Hell, and in placing their Purgatory after, instead of before, the Day of Judgment.

6. Lastly, as they hold only an intellectual and physical, and not a moral difference in the actions and characters of Men, they not being free Agents, and therefore not more responsible Beings than the brute Beasts, although their greater powers of memory and comparison render them more susceptible of being acted on by prospective motives-(and in this sense they retain the term, responsibility, after having purified it by the ex-inanition of its old, and the transfusion of a new, meaning)—and as they, with strict consequence, merge all the attributes of Deity in Power, Intelligence, and Benevolence, (Mercy and Justice being modes, or rather perspective views, of the two latte; the Holiness of God meaning the same or nothing at all; and his Anger,

co-operate as antidotes to a noxious principle, and realize the paradox of a very good man under a very evil faith. It is not denied, that a Socinian may be as honest, useful and bene

Offence, and Hatred of Moral Evil, being mere metaphors and figures of speech addressed to a rude and barbarous People) they profess to hold a Redemption-not however by the Cross of Christ, except as his death was an evidence of his sincerity, and the necessary preliminary to his Resurrection; but-by the effects which this fact of his Resurrection, together with his example, and his re-publication of the moral precepts (taught indeed long before, but as they think, not so clearly, by Moses and the Prophets) were calculated to produce on the human mind. So that if it had so happened, that a man had been influenced to an innocent and useful life by the example, precepts, and martyrdom of Socrates, Socrates and not Christ, would have been his Redeemer.

These are all the Positives of the modern Socinian Creed, and even these it was not possible to extricate wholly from the points of Disbelief. But if it should be asked, why this resurrection, or re-creation is con fined to the human animal, the answer must be-that more than this has not been revealed. And so far all Christians will join assent. But some have added, and in my opinion much to their credit, that they hope, it may be the case with the Brutes likewise, as they see no sufficient reason to the contrary. And truly, upon their scheme, I agree with them. For if Man be no other or nobler Creature essentially, than he is represented in their system, the meanest reptile, that maps out its path on the earth by lines of slime, must be of equal worth

volent a character as any of his neighbours ; and if he thinks more and derives a larger portion of his pleasures from intellectual sources, he is likely to be more so. But in such

and respectability, not only in the sight of the Holy One, but by a strange contradiction even before Man's own reason. For remove all the sources of Esteem and the Love founded on esteem, and whatever else pre-supposes a Will and,' therein, a possible transcendence to the material world: Mankind, as far as my experience has extended, (and I am less than the least of many whom I could cite as having formed the very same Judgment) are on the whole distinguished from the other Beasts incomparably more to their disadvantage, by Lying, Treachery, Ingratitude, Massacre, Thirst of Blood, and by Sensualities which both in sort and degree it would be libelling their Brother-beasts to call bestial, than to their advantage by a greater extent of Intellect. And what indeed, abstracted, from the Free-will, could this intellect be but a more shewy instinct? of more various application indeed, but far less secure, useful, or adapted to its purposes, than the instinct of Birds, Insects, and the like. In short, as I have elsewhere observed, compared with the wiles and factories of the Spider, or with the cunning of the Fox, it would be but a more efflorescent, and for that very cause less efficient, Salt to preserve the Hog from putrifying before its destined hour.

Well may the words of Isaiah be applied and addressed to the Teachers and Followers of this Sect, or rather, I would say, to their Tenets as personified→ "The word of the Lord was unto them, precept upon

instances, and I am most willing to bear witness from my own experience, that they are not infrequent, the fruit is from the grafts not from the tree. The native produce is, or would be, an intriguing, overbearing, scornful and worldly disposition; and in point of fact, it is the only scheme of Religion that inspires in its adherents a contempt for the understandings of all who differ from them. But be this as it may, and whatever be its effects, it is not probable that Christianity will have any direct influence on men who pay it no other compliment than that of calling by its name the previous dictates and decisions of their own mother-wit.

But the more numerous class is of those who do not trouble themselves at all with religious matters, which they resign to the clergyman of the parish. But while not a

precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little, that they might go and fall backward, and be broken and spared. Wherefore, hear the word of the Lord, ye Scornful Men that rule this people! Because ye haye said, We have made a covenant with Death, and with Hell are we at agreement! Your Covenant with Death shall be annulled, and your agreement with Hell shall not stand. For your Bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself upon it, and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it."-Isaiah xxviii.

few among these men consent to pray and hear by proxy; and while others, more attentive to the prudential advantages of a decorous character, yield the customary evidence of their church-membership; but, this performed, are at peace with themselves, and

think their Sunday's task

As much as God or Man can fairly ask;

there exists amongst the most respectable Laity of our cities and great towns, an active, powerful, and enlarging minority, whose industry, while it enriches their families, is at the same time a support to the revenue, and not seldom enlivens their whole neighbourhood: men whose lives are free from all disreputable infirmities, and of whose activity in the origination, patronage, and management both of charitable and of religious associations, who must not have read or heard? and who that has, will dare deny to be most exemplary? After the custom of our forefathers, and their pure household religion,* these, in so many respects estimable persons, are for the greater part in

*And pure Religion breathing household laws.

WORDSWORTH.