their flocks. Enough may be seen in the religious periodicals of America about the help women give to young ministers by the needle, by raising subscriptions, and by more toilsome labors than they should be allowed to undergo in such a cause.”—p. 363.

The influence of the isolated clergy, she tells us, is "confined to the weak members of society, women and superstitious men." And not only does she despise the weak women for their friendliness to ministers, but she ridicules them for reading the Bible as they do. "I saw women-laboring at their New Testament, reading superstitiously a daily portion of that which was already too familiar to the ear to leave any genuine and lasting impression, thus read."

Nor is it merely, nor perhaps chiefly, the orthodox clergy that she has in view, as the Unitarians were the men of whom she knew most.

"The fearful and disgraceful mistake about the true nature of the clerical office, the supposition that it consists in adapting the truth to the minds of the hearers,-is already producing its effect in thinning the churches, and impelling the people to find an administration of religion better suited to their need. The want of faith in other men and in principles, and the superabundant faith in themselves, shown in this notion of pastoral duty, (which has been actually preached, as well as pleaded in private,) are so conspicuous, as to need no further exposure. The history of priesthoods may be referred to as an exhibition of its consequences. I was struck at first with an advocacy of ordinances among some of the Unitarian clergy, which I was confident must go beyond their own belief. I was told that a great point was made of them, (not as observances but as ordinances,) because the public mind required them. I saw a minister using vehement and unaccustomed action, (of course wholly inappropriate,) in a pulpit not his own; and was told that that set of people required plenty of action to be assured the preacher was in earnest."-p. 357.

What will her Unitarian brethren say of these revelations of their hypocrisy? Again,

"My final impression is, that religion is best administered in America by the personal character of the most virtuous members of society, out of the theological profession: and next, by the acts and preachings of the members of that profession who are the most secular in their habits of mind and life. The exclusively clerical are the worst enemies of Christianity, except the vicious.”—p. 364.

Nor are we yet at the bottom. Beneath this lowest depth, there is still a lower deep.' All cannot be accomplished in a VOL. XII. No. 32.

58

day; and therefore she is at the trouble of telling how the clergy should be reformed and rendered more harmless, so long as clergy and churches are still to be borne as an incubus on society.

But when the regimen of women shall have fully come, (perhaps old John Knox himself would not now dare to call it "the abominable regiment of women,") when that illustrious era of liberty and equality, shall arrive, if not before, all churches are to be disbanded! And the gospel ministry is to be annihilated! "The worst enemies of Christianity" and of man, will cease from the face of the whole earth. For, she continues,

"The fault is not in the Voluntary System; for the case is equally bad on both sides the Atlantic and an Establishment like the English does little more than superadd the danger of a careless, ambitious, worldly clergy, in the richer priests of the church, and an overworked and ill-recompensed set of working clergy. The evil lies in a superstition which no establishment can ever obviate; in the superstition, to use the words of an American clergyman, “ of believing that religion is something else than goodness." From this it arises that an ecclesiastical profession still exists; not for the study of theological science, (which is quite reasonable,) but for the dispensing of goodness. From this it arises that ecclesiastical goodness is practically separated from active personal and social goodness. From this it arises that the yeomanry of America, those who are ever in the presence of God's high priest, Nature, and out of the worldly competitions of a society sophisticated with superstition, are perpetually in advance of the rest of the community on the great moral questions of the time, while the clergy are in the

rear.

"What must be done? The machinery of administration must be changed. The people have been brought up to suppose that they saw Christianity in their ministers. The first consequence of this mistake was, that Christianity was extensively misunderstood; as it still is. The trying moral conflicts of the time are acting as a test. The people are rapidly discovering that the supposed faithful mirror is a grossly refracting medium; and the blessed consequence will be, that they will look at the object for themselves, declining any medium at all. The clerical profession is too hard and too perilous a one, too little justifiable on the ground of principle, too much opposed to the spirit of the gospel, to outlive long the individual research into religion, to which the faults of the clergy are daily impelling the people.

"To what then must we meantime trust for religion?-To the administration of God, and the heart of man. Has not God his own

ways, unlike our ways, of teaching when man misteaches? It is worth travelling in the wild west, away from churches and priests, to see how religion springs up in the pleasant woods, and is nourished by the winds and the star-light. The child on the grass is not alone in listening for God's tramp on the floor of his creation. We are all children, ever so listening."-pp. 364, 366.

"The dignity of theological study arises from its being subservi ent to the administration of religion. The last was Christ's own office; the highest which can be discharged by man: so high as to indicate that when its dignity is fully understood, it will be confided to the hands of no class of men. Theologians there will probably always be; but no man will be a priest in those days to come when every man will be a worshipper."-p. 331.

Thus it is that she closes her first and chief work on America! The other work is a hasty after piece, designed to give Europeans some clearer views of the routes she took and the things she saw here; and is a much feebler performance. Her descriptions of scenery are poor, being confused and indis

tinct.

Should any blame us for a want of delicacy in treating the performance of a woman in the way we have done, we would ask them just to run their eye over our pages again, and see if we have used any hard epithets, or have been guilty of any other indelicacy than that of suffering her to speak for herself through these pages. On this last point, we confess we have felt some misgivings; nor could we have suffered her thus to speak, had we not hoped, as we still do hope, that it may prove a timely warning to such, (if there be any,) as may need warning in respect to following in the train of measures which she commends for the attainment of equal rights and human felicity on earth. We wish them to look, as she does, at the system as one grand and connected whole, and then to judge of all its parts, and of its authors.

In closing, we must be allowed to remind our readers of what we intimated at the beginning, that we have not undertaken to review Miss Martineau's works as a whole. Our chief object has been, to present the moral and religious aspect of the works before us. It has been a painful task. But in the discharge of this delicate and rather perilous duty, it has been our constant aim, to render ample honor to the better half of creation; and not only so, but to do what lies in our power to rescue them from the opprobrium that must practically accrue to their general character from such examples as the one which has now

been glaring before the world. To show that this is not a fair sample to guard against its baleful effects-and to give timely warning against its initation, we hope will not prove a useless labor, however inglorious. Much more congenial would it have been to our feelings, to call the attention of our readers to some among the many bright pages in these books-pages deeply frought with interest, and often highly flattering to American feeling. But the moral bearing of the whole, has ruined the whole. A mind of uncommon power, hot with the fanaticism of infidel and visionary politics, and blindly hastening to precipitate society into the gulf of licentiousness, is among the saddest spectacles since the fall of mother Eve.

ARTICLE VII.

WHAT WERE THE VIEWS ENTERTAINED BY THE EARLY REFORMERS ON THE DOCTRINES OF JUSTIFICATION, Faith, AND THE ACTIVE OBEDIENCE OF CHRIST?

By Rer. R. W. Landis, Jeffersonville, Pa. [Concluded from page 197.]

III. Views of the Reformers on the Obedience of Christ.

On this topic our position is that even if those who have been complained of as unsound in the faith had denied the im

The following extracts will afford the reader a brief view of the controversy which now exists in relation to this subject, and of the importance which is attached to it by many. Dr. Junkin's ninth charge against Mr. Barnes is in these words: "Mr. Barnes denies that the righteousness, i. e. the active obedience of Christ to the law, is imputed to his people for their justification; so that they are righteous in the eye of the law, and therefore justified." This charge he eudeavors to establish by various quotations from Mr. Barnes's book; upon which, among other remarks, he speaks as follows:—“ The silence of this book of Notes on the subject of Christ's righteousness, (i. e. his active obedience,) being imputed to his people for their justification, gives ground to a strong presumption that the doctrine is rejected by its author. To this I know it will be objected, that it is hard to condemn a man for what he does not say. Mr. Barnes was

putation of Christ's active obedience, they might still hold the very same views of the doctrine of Justification, which were

bound, in expounding this Epistle, to make the doctrine of the imputed righteousness of Christ, and particularly his active obedience, the prominent feature of his work. In a thousand texts it is clearly stated that righteousness is the title to life: righteousness the actual and active obedience to law, and salvation, are united as antecedent and consequent.” —“Turn back to the quotation from p. 127. There is the whole comment on the phrase 'By the obedience of one.' On which a real Calvinistic Presbyterian would have given his heart full flow, and let his pen run rampant. But there you have it, text and comment, in five brief lines. Now I ask, Why this brevity? Why is that by which many are made righteous, dismissed so cavalierly? Why is this, which he admits stands opposed to the disobedience of Adam, hurried out of sight? If it stands opposed, is it not the opposite of Adam's disobedince? And what is the opposite of disobedience? is it not obedience? and what is disobedience but want of conformity with law? Must not then the obedience which is the opposite of this be conformity with law?-active compliance! Oh! how could my brother shut his eyes against this most glorious point of gospel truth?―a point on which all the bright rays of the Sun of righteousness converge to a focus, that might make the eyes of an archangel blench; and shrivel like a parched scroll, the entire legions of lost spirits who can never say through grace, 'The Lord is my righteousness.' But so it is. Admitting the truth that the obedience of the one is Christ's, and that it includes his entire work, he tries to turn it off, by quoting Phil. 2: 3, 'He-became obedient unto death'-italicising obedient to make the reader think that all Christ's work consisted in suffering. Ah! this Parthian arrow is not medicated with Presbyterian oil." See Vindication, pp. 122–130.

To this charge Mr. Barnes replies as follows: "My general plen is, that the charge is not sustained by the passages which are quoted from my book. The charge is that I have denied that 'the active obedience of Christ is imputed to his people for their justification ; and is followed by an inference of Dr. Junkin from this, that I also deny that they are righteous in the sight of the law.' In regard to this I observe, 1. That the charge is not that I denied that the benefits of the work of Christ are imputed to men, or that they were justified on account of what he had done. So explicit were my repeated declarations on this subjeet, that it was not possible to allege that I denied this. 2. I have not denied that the active obedience of Christ is imputed to his people. 3. I have not denied that his people are 'righteous in the sight of the law, and therefore justified.' This is another of the injurious and unfounded inferences which Dr. Junkin has felt himself at liberty to charge me with holding. In the very