pugned by an archdeacon. The Articles doubtless stand in the way of this mode of treating the church; and we were prepared by the preface to this strange production for what we were to expect in the body of the work itself.. By the 6th, the 20th, and the 21st Articles of our church, I conceive myself not only authorised but invited to study the sacred scriptures, to investigate the sense and meaning of every passage, and more particularly of every difficult and doubtful passage in them, and by them to examine every doctrine of every church. The thirty-nine Articles may be considered-to express myself in the language of the law-as constituting a deed consisting of a number of detached clauses. And as there is in every deed a particular and ruling object, and applying to that object a primary and principal clause, which involves the jet that pervades and governs the whole, and to which every doubtful clause is subordinate and referable-such I conceive to be the nature, force, and consequence of the three arti cles to which I have alluded, and particularly the sixth, in respect to the general code consisting of thirty-nine. Supported by that Article, and resting on the full and true intent and meaning of it, an honest and conscientious man may, I conceive, subscribe to the whole code, the valuable legacy of our great and good reformers; though, after a diligent investigation of the subject, he may not in every Article exactly agree in the sense and signification of the Scripture, on which the compilers framed it. And on that ground I have no doubt that bishop Burnet and Dr. Bennet, who both wrote on the thirty-nine Articles, and both agree that the compilers of them did not appear in the eleventh Article to have understood the true sense of St. Paul, subscribed their assent to it; for they must either have affixed their own sense to that Article, or have subscribed their assent to it in what they thought a false one.' P. XV. We request our readers to peruse again and again the above extract, and to compare it with the sophistry we have so frequently and so unfortunately had occasion of late to bring to their notice, as adopted by the Cambridge divines on subscription to the Articles. 'An honest and conscientious man may subscribe,' it seems, though he do not accede to every article: and of course our author himself, according to his own system, has not by his subscription resisted the dictates of his conscience; though the main article in which he differs from the compilers of the articles at large is that in which almost all the Christian churches in the world are united, and which forms a fundamental article of our own church. But' (continues our author) if there were in the whole code of Articles a single one that, on the ground of Scripture, would not bear a candid and impartial investigation, such as might be expected from the two respectable writers cited above, it would, with due submis sion I conceive, afford a powerful plea for the revisal of them; which, unless my ideas of truth and the power of it deceive me, would con. duce much to the interests of religion, and not less to the security and tranquillity of the established church. And such my fallible judgement I do with the more confidence advance; as two respectable characters, now deservedly promoted to very high stations in the church, some years ago not only expressed their wishes to see it effected, but were active in their exertions to promote it.' P. xvii. Doubtless there is a necessity for a revisal of the articles: for if, in one diocese, a bishop objects to a part of the liturgy, an archdeacon to an article on the divinity of Christ, and a parish priest of great eminence thinks lightly of the articles relative to discipline, it is incumbent on the heads of the church to inquire into the real state of the controversy, and either to alter the articles agreeably to the new modes of belief, or to enforce a full acquiescence in them, consistently with the terms of subscription as prescribed by the law of the land. From the Gospel according to St. John divines have presumed to deduce several strong arguments that Jesus Christ, touching his divine nature, was in no respect before nor after' the first and third persons of the Trinity; that he is equal to the Father as to his godhead, but inferior to the Father as to his manhood. All these arguments, however, have no weight with our author; the chief drift of his work being to show that they are without foundation, and that Jesus Christ, in both his divine and human nature, is inferior to the Father. • There is nothing,' says our author, which Jesus more repeatedly disclaims than equality with God. The Father and the Son cannot be the one same God supreme.? Christ is -a superior being, who should know no corruption; a prince, of whose kingdom there should be no end: whose generation none should be able to declare a God with us; and though a Being other than, and inferior to, the supreme, self-existent, indivisible God, even the Father, of origin very different from that of mere man, of nature supra-human and divine. P. 63. In a note on chap. xiii. 20, we find our author declaring that in this verse the superiority of Christ to his disciples is asserted, and by the same rule of judging is marked the superiority of the father to Christ.' The same sentiment is more strongly expressed in a note on chap. xx. 17. Our Lord had now put off mortality he was no longer a human being; though he was not perfected in glory. Yet existing in such superior state, he styles the supreme God, even the Father, whose delegate he had been on earth, his God, as well as the God of his disciples, the universal Father, the God of Gods and Lord of Lords. Hence then it is very clear, that God the Father was the God of our Saviour after his resurrection: and what authority have we for supposing he was not such after our Lord's ascension? Or rather, if he declare so expressly, so unequivocally, that he was going to his God, doth not the common import of language instruct us that his God to whom he was going was likewise his God when he arrived there the same God and Father who first sent him, from whom he issued, and to whom he returned? St. Paul seems to have thought so, as appears in his Epistle to the Ephesians, chap. i. ver. 3. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." P. 226. In consistency with this mode of interpreting the Scriptures, the first epistle of John, chap. i. 3, affords another opportunity to our author of bringing forward his favorite doctrine. In this passage not only the Father is distinguished from Jesus Christ then ascended into heaven and seated on the right hand of the throne of glory, but God the Father is distinguished from the Lord Jesus Christ and such distinction of course destroys all ideas of identity. If the Father be emphatically styled God, and Jesus Christ in contradistinction be styled Lord, no rule of grammar, no construction of language, will authorise us to acknowledge that Jesus Christ be the same God that the Father is, who is emphatically and distinguishly so denominated.' P. 342. Even the strong passage in St. Paul, which is considered as one of the most potent arguments in Scripture in favour of the co-equal godhead of Christ, is said by our author to be a convincing proof to the contrary. One property of Almighty God is immutability. I am the Lord, I change not. This assertion therefore of the apostle, he emptied him self of his glory, affords a powerful argument that our blessed Saviour, though in the form or character of God, was not himself the God supreme. As sure as he could not change, he could not empty himself of his glory. And with the voice of Scripture reason concurs in assuring us of the unchangeableness of Almighty God. He cannot change for the better, because he is infinitely perfect; he cannot change for the worse, because he would then cease to be infmitely perfect, i. e. cease to be what he necessarily is.' P. 366. We might extract a great number of similar passages; for the writer is careful not to let slip any opportunity of introducing the inferiority of Christ to the Father, with respect even to his divine nature, or of attacking the Socinians on their disbelief of his pre-existence: in short, the author explains the whole of the Gospel upon Arian principles, and is, consequently, just as much out of the pale of the church as any disciple of Socinus whatever. He may indeed not be so widely distant; but there cannot be a doubt that the whole of this explanation is diametrically contrary to the spirit of the church Articles: and as long as these Articles are of any authority, as long as the doctrine of the Trinity is considered to be orthodox, as long as our liturgy remains unaltered, the man who maintains the doctrines we have extracted from this work withdraws himself from the au thority of the Articles, must be reputed heterodox, and cannot, without the utmost inconsistency, adopt the established prayers. But, though it be incumbent on us to point out the general tendency of the work, we must not deny to the writer the credit which is due to him for the attention he has paid, according to his own system, to the interpretation of the Scriptures; and both the Athanasian and Socinian may derive instruction from his pages. It is too customary with persons on all sides of the question to lay a stress on every text which seems to bear at all in their own favour; although by such means they do not in the least increase the confidence of their own abettors, while they alienate in a very high degree the minds of the opposite party. Thus an injudicious advocate for orthodoxy finds in the two first words of St. John's Gospel (vagy?) a proof of the doctrine of the Trinity, and exposes himself to deserved censure: for, if we may not subscribe to the Arian opinion maintained in this work, or to the interpretations of different Socinians, we must concede to both parties that these two words do not refer to the period commonly meant by the term eternity. The argument, from the application of the definite article to Os, God, in two parts of the first verse, and the absence of it when it becomes the predicate of a proposition to which Ayos is the subject, is reviewed with much precision; and the observations are sufficient to prevent any great stress from being laid on this verse, as to the mode of divinity predicated of the Ayos in the context. From the reasons given for the writer's interpretation of neuros pou, that by it nothing but priority of time could possibly be meant, we must beg leave to differ; for, as to mundane and temporal greatness,' says the author, the Baptist was Christ's superior: he was the son of a priest; whereas our Lord was the supposed son of a very inferior character.' Temporal greatness is here falsely estimated; and besides the supernatural birth of our Saviour, with which John could not be unacquainted, he knew him to be the son of David, which gave him higher pretensions than could belong to any priest whatever, much more to the son of a priest of inferior rank. A most extraordinary turn given to a plain passage in Scripture we find on the confession of Nathaniel; on which our author remarks, that -faith in the incarnation of God was then, we find, the great mystery of godliness-all the faith which Jesus himself required of his immediate disciples. But in that faith in the incarnation of the Son of God many articles of belief are included, which were afterwards gradually evolved; such as redemption from sin, the dispensing power of death and salvation, &c. And after he rose from the dead, belief in his resurrection was added, and particularly insisted on by his apostles as an article of faith necessary to salvation. And this acknowledgment of Nathaniel's faith accords very closely with the explanation of the doctrines of Christianity, which Justin Martyr, in the second century, delivered to Rusticus, prefect of Rome, on his requisition of them." P. 25. But the words of Nathaniel have surely in that passage no reference at all to the prior existence of Christ, whether, as a Jew, that doctrine were open to him or not; for his faith consisted in the confession that the person to whom he spoke was the Messiah, the king of Israel. Our limits will not permit us to expatiate farther on this extraordinary publication; nor could we well do it, without entering into a controversy in which the public at large seems to take little interest ;—and, indeed, the moment the trinity in the godhead is denied, it seems to be of little consequence whether we adopt the high or low Arian, or the Socinian opinion of the character of Christ. The latitude assumed by this writer in the interpretation of some texts cannot in justice be denied to the Socinian, who will be quite satisfied with the support he receives from his antagonist on the main question, in which they are equally at issue with the church and surely it was not the part of a churchman to put arms into the hands of an adver sary to that establishment from which he receives both dignity and emolument! We cannot believe that we are the only per sons who recommend to the writer to re-consider his opinions, in connexion with his office. : ART. IX.-Lectures on Painting, delivered at the Royal Academy, March 1801, by Henry Fuseli, P. P. With additional Observations and Notes. 4to. 125. Beards. Johnson. 1801. THESE lectures display a considerable degree of reading and knowledge of the subject; and our ingenious artist even affects to quote Greek. But the chief object in a work of this nature should be to present a just and pure taste; and we here observe with regret too many traces of that singularity which distinguishes the pencil of Mr. Fuseli. His paintings indeed have attracted more notice from this circumstance than from their pretensions to elegance or sublimity; and in his whole exhibition of devils we did not observe one piece of distin guished merit. Michael Angelo, comparing the vigour and spirit of the ancient representations with the tameness of his own times, not only recurred to them with superior force and effect, but, as usual in such cases, rather proceeded to the opposite extreme, and outstepped the modesty of nature. There are many positions of which the human form is capable, and |