Art, IV. I. The Unitarian Christian's Apology for seceding from the Communion and Worship of Trinitarian Churches, a Discourse of which the substance was delivered in Lewin's Mead Chapel, Bristol. By S. C. Fripp, B. A. late of Queen's College, Cambridge. 8vo. London. 1822.

2. Reflections upon the History of the Creation in the Book of Genesis, A Discourse, &c. By Thomas Belsham, Minister of the Chapel in Essex street. 8vo. London. 1821.

3. The Character of Jesus Christ, an Evidence of his Divine Mission, A Sermon. By Robert Aspland. Pastor of the Unitarian Church, Hackney. 12mo. London. 1821.

4. An Attempt to ascertain the Import of the Title," Son of Man," commonly assumed by our Lord. A Sermon. By Robert Aspland. 12mo. London. 1821.

THE

HE first of these publications is the only one which possesses much interest. It contains a statement of the grounds on which the Author has been led conscientiously to secede from the National Church, in whose bosom he has been fostered, and in whose schools he has been trained and disciplined. Such a secession, under all the circumstances of the case, we cannot view without regret. We attach no other importance to it, however, than such as belongs to the subject involved in Mr. Fripp's Apology, and to the causes which appear to have occasioned his taking this honourable step. For our own'parts, we participate not in that sensitive alarm which the boldness and bustle of a few Unitarian writers have sufficed to spread, chiefly by means of desultory pamphlet attacks, among some of our orthodox brethren. We know that Unitarianism is not spreading among the Dissenters, whatever may be the case in the Establishment. We believe that it is not likely to spread, since its tenets possess neither the moral force of truth, nor the captivation of popular error. We are, therefore, perfectly free from disquietude as to the result of its utmost efforts, except as they bear on the character and happiness of individuals. Nothing could make Unitarianism thrive, but persecution.

To that species of persecution which consists in vituperation and calumny, the small conquests of Unitarianism in the present and similar instances are, in fact, mainly attributable. The employment of such unhallowed weapons is enough to justify distrust of the best of causes, and to bring truth itself into suspicion. The "reproach of Christ" was wont to be considered as the distinctive glory of the true Church, and as one evidence or sign by which she might be known. But when her doctors are found taking part in the persecution of the tongue,--applying the branding iron to the characters of men

on account of their religious errors, it must not be wondered at if some perplexity is produced in the minds of individuals not sufficiently informed, as to which party is on the side of truth-the calumniator or the alleged heretic. Heresy is, indeed, too honourable a term to be angrily bestowed on those whose tenets a Christian wishes to reprobate. In ecclesiastical history, it is a designation for the most part synonymous with saint and martyr, using those words in their genuine import. The Apostles were heretics; so were the first Christians; so were the Lollards; so were the Waldenses and Albigenses; so were the Reformers. So, if we believe the Church of Rome, are all Protestants: so, if we believe the Church of England, are all Dissenters and Methodists. Let us not then cast away this honourable symbol of the world's hatred, by applying it to men whose errors we believe to have too fearful a bearing on their eternal interests, to claim a punitive visitation, had we any right or power to inflict it, in this.

We have already protested, in noticing Dr. Carpenter's recent volume, against the unwarrantable language ignorantly (as we would hope) employed by certain modern advocates of orthodox theology. The impolicy and pernicious tendency of such language could not receive a more striking illustration than they do from the share which they have evidently had in driving Mr. Fripp from the Establishment. In giving an account of the origin and progress of the change in his religious sentiments, he states, that a considerable impression was made on his mind four years ago, by a letter from Dr. Carpenter, which appeared in the " Bristol Mirror." This first awaked in his mind the persuasion, that a Socinian might be a good man, though his doctrines were decidedly erroneous; and this persuasion, he adds, was considerably strengthened, and his first doubts' as to the purity of the orthodox system, produced, upon comparing the general spirit' of the Rev. E. Vaughan's Defence of Calvinism with the spirit of Dr. C's letter. The Baptismal Regeneration controversy appears to have increased his dissatisfaction with the Established formularies. But it is evident from the whole tenor of the pamphlet, that the incautious or injurious statements of orthodox. writers, were the chief means of fortifying his incipient doubts and prejudices into a confirmed disbelief of the doctrines which they were employed to support.

We know nothing of Mr. Fripp, having never heard his name before the present discourse was put into our hands. But, taking the above as a veritable and ingenuous statement, which we have no doubt of its being, we cannot help remark ing on the extreme narrowness either of his previous informa

tion or his educational prejudices, as implied in the fact, that he felt surprise at the discovery to which he was led by Dr. Carpenter's letter. It excited, it seems, a perfectly new train of ideas, to find a Socinian writing like an amiable man. Who that had ever read a line of Dr. Carpenter's writing, or had ever heard his name, could have doubted that he was entitled, as a member of society, to that honourable appellation? Who would affect to dispute, that Lardner and Priestley were, as members of the community, good men,-men to whom society is under the highest obligations? Are such facts as these concealed or denied within the walls of Queen's College? If so, it is a most perilous artifice. But we should rather imagine that the blame of previous ignorance or prejudice must rest with the individual. Well, then; he next happened to take up an injudicious, and indeed highly exceptionable defence of Calvinism. Against the spirit of the volume to which we presume Mr. Fripp alludes, we entered, at the time of its appearance, our serious protest; and it would give us great pleasure to believe, that the present instance is the only one in which it had an effect the very reverse of what the reverend and facetious writer intended. We do not wonder at the disadvantageous comparison which Mr. Fripp was led to make: we marvel only at the conclusion he drew from it, which does more credit to his feelings than to his understanding. It seems to us, that he must have been, up to that time, strangely ignorant of the whole range of theological inquiry,-that he could never have given the subject a serious thought, if such a circumstance produced his first doubts' as to the purity of the doctrines he had so long held. Whatever were his attainments in mathematical science or classical erudition, we cannot conceive that he could have read or thought deeply on the subject of religion at all, never to have had a doubt before, or to have his first doubts awakened by the general spirit' of a rash polemic. We wonder much less that the intestine controversy in his own Church, as to the meaning of a formula which he would be required, not only to subscribe to, but to employ, as a minister of that Church, every time he was called upon to bap tize a child,-should make him seriously pause before he took on himself its vows and orders. And it is some small satisfaction to us, that the statements and representations which had so unhappy an influence in strengthening his determination to abandon, not merely the Establishment, but what we hold in common with the Established Church as Divine truth, proceeded, so far as appears, in every case, from the Church her self, or certain of her dignitaries and ministers, while they are such as by far the larger proportion of Dissenters would warmly disapprove. The exceptionable language of the Bishops of

St. David's and Raphoe, and of Dr. Hales, we adverted to on former occasion. But they are left far behind by a contemporary Reviewer, whose outrageous eagerness to elevate himself into the champion of the Church, has led him, like a rash recruit, to venture far beyond the lines of sound argument or sober truth, with no better result than the gratification of his own vanity, or the amusement of the enemy. As we do not see the Review in question, we must take Mr. Fripp's word for the correctness of the following citations, in which the sentiments of the Unitarians are professedly described.

"They reject all supernatural doctrines; nay, they even deny some of the doctrines of natural religion, such as the Omnipresence and universal agency of the Deity. They are conscious hypocrites: their writings are marked by contradictions and absurdities so palpable as to move our pity, and to humble us in our view of our common nature." Above all, they are brazen, avowed, truculent infidels-leagued together against the Majesty of Heaven. (Conjurati cœlum, rescindere fratres.) They worship a non-entity, a phantasm, an airy nothing.-THEY ARE ATHEISTS IN THE WORLD-MEN WHO WOULD CRUCIFY CHRIST AFRESH if he were to appear among them, and they were able. In fine, that it is hard to form a conception of any man more completely cut off from God:-men, in whose minds there must be an obstacle that blocks out all religious influence-a barrier to the entrance of saving truth, which nothing but Omnipotence can subdue."' pp. 12-13.

In the remarks which Mr. Fripp subjoins on these and similar calumnies, we cordially coincide.

How much were it to be wished that certain defenders of orthodoxy would be less sparing of their anathemas, and deal more in arguments ? Could my feeble voice be heard, I would earnestly solicit them to imitate -not this or that polemic of great fame, whose intention was to crush where he could not persuade, to defame where he found refutation impracticable-but the great Apostle of the Gentiles; who, when speaking of the "enemies of the cross of Christ," wielded the all-powerful eloquence of a bleeding heart; who disdained to employ threats and inveetive, or to call to his aid the thunders and lightnings of Mount Sinai, but rather used the mild and persuasive language of tears, and expostulations, and benevolent prayers. Besides, it might not be unuseful were they to reflect, that by bending the bow too far, it may break; that by representing a denomination of professed Christians as a hideous compound of all that is vile and base, as even worse than the very worst "anti-religious" sect, as men irreversibly sealed to everlasting perdition,-doubts as to the truth of such representations, may possibly be raised in the minds of some, who might otherwise have gone on contentedly, in an unwavering and implicit assent to whatever they hear from their spiritual guides. Surely, their conviction of the TRUTH of their own cause cannot be so tottering, as to lead them to suppose that the awful and magnificent edifice, reared by Prophets and Apostles, "Jesus Christ himself being the

"chief corner stone," can require the puny buttresses of human censures, of misrepresentation and calumny, of baughty disdain and bitter invective. Can the anathemas of councils, and the damnatory clauses of creeds, give stability to the foundation; or can the lightnings of excom munication reflect glory on the hallowed walls of the TEMPLE OF ETERNAL TRUTH? Vain thought!

It stands like the cerulian arch we see,

MAJESTIC IN ITS OWN SIMPLICITY.' pp. 15, 16.

2

We must now turn from the particular case of Mr. Fripp, tothe common subject of the pamphlets before us. But in so doing, we shall have less in view the refutation of our opponents, than the information of our readers. In the grounds on which Mr. Fripp rests his abjuration of orthodoxy, and in the assertions of Mr. Belsham and Mr. Aspland, there is little or nothing that is new, either in matter or in manner. The same palpable sophisms which have been a thousand times refuted, the same bold assertions which have been again and again replied to, are calmly reproduced. With much that Mr. Fripp has brought forward, we have no concern. We are of Jeremy Taylor's opinion as to the creed ascribed to Athanasius. We lay no stress on the word Trinity, it being of purely human invention; though we scruple not to use it, as firmly believing what it is meant to convey. We have no such affected horror of theological terms confessedly of no higher origin or authority than other conventional phrases; neither are we disposed to fight for them. Again, we are of Mr. Fripp's opinion on some important points; to wit, as to the Protestant use of Reason in religious inquiries, the right of private judgement, the sufficiency of Scripture, and the authority of Christ as the sole • monarch and head of his Church, the only spiritual Master of • Christians.' These are, with us, first principles, which we hope never to leave behind in our theological discussions or in quiries. But these admissions, which we make most cheerfully, must be considered as so much deducted from the reasons Mr. Fripp assigns for going over to our opponents; and those which are left him after these deductions, are not, in our view, better founded.

It appears to be Mr. Fripp's wish, and it has been the policy of some recent writers of the Unitarian school, to attempt to shew how much the Unitarians hold in common with Christians of every denomination,-how near they come to orthodoxy..t We are indebted to Dr. Priestley and to Mr. Belsham, for affording us the ready means of detecting and exposing this specious fallacy. In this respect, Mr. Belsham's present pam phlet supplies us with an antidote to all that is likely to prove deleterious in Mr. Fripp's. We consider the former gentleman, indeed, as one of the best friends to the cause of orthodox Chris Vol. XVII. N.S. 2 C