reason why these churches fell into decay? We will tell him. There sprung up in the early ages of Christianity certain black and damnable heresies, of which St. Peter prophecied in his second epistle,* and which ate like a canker into the vitals of the church. These heresies originated in the reasoning pride of false professors, their confidence in their own powers of discernment, their natural loathing of divine truth, their love of sin, and their disbelief of the word of God. They displayed themselves very commonly in false or unworthy views of those two distinguishing and essential doctrines of Christianity (which if any man deny, he is not a Christian) the atonement and the divinity of Christ. The persons maintaining these heresies had become so numerous, that many churches calling themselves Christian, when assailed by the powers of Mahomet, in fact were not Christian. Thus the cross soon drooped before the crescent. And thus rotten to the core, there was not one of these communities which the protection or patronage of any government could have secured, even if unassailed by outward enemies, from gradually declining from bad to worse; for instance, from Arianism to Unitarianism, from Unitarianism to Socinianism, from Socinianism to Apostasy. The cause of their decline was in their internal corruption, not in the powers Mahomet. Heresy and infidelity were their sin, their polluting and destroying sin. Mahomet was only the sword and the scourge. May no scourge, may no visitation of divine justice, be brought upon ourselves, by the many dangerous and criminal heresies of our own guilty and unbelieving land!

of

We have observed various attempts on the part of infidels to cast obloquy upon Christians, as having instigated the prosecution of the wretched Carlile, and we suspected this to be the design of the present essays. But, if so, the blow is too oblique to be effectual. This, however, we must say, that no part of the proceeding was the work of Christianity. It was, from beginning to end, the work of the laws. The State had made certain enactments to preserve Christianity from insult. These enactments were broken, and the laws punished the offender. Thus the laws avenged themselves. Christianity had nothing to do with the business. It matters not who promoted the prosecution. If all the real Christians in the country had expressed their disapprobation of the proceeding (though, probably, disapprobation is what many of them did not feel) the laws might still have had

their course.

Neither do we see, that the production before us is very

"There shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction." 2 Pet. ii. 1.

effective as an attack upon the laws. There are much more severe, and much more unjust laws than that which enacts a punishment against the wretched miscreant who disturbs the public peace by blasphemy. We have a law which forbids the sending of letters by any conveyance except by the post; and another, which makes it an offence to wear certain descriptions of covered buttons: both of them infinitely more unjust, more absurd, more burthensome, and more partial, than that upon which Carlile was prosecuted. And, as for Christianity, it stands about as much in need of one as of the other. But if Mr. Belsham must edify his Sunday audience by attacking the laws of his country, why not attack such laws as these? He might have produced something partaking quite as much of the character of sermons as the three disquisitions to which he has given that title. Whether Mr. Belsham aimed his stroke, then, at the religious or at the civil institutions of his country, we think that he has been equally unsuccessful.

It will be seen then that we regard both Mr. Belsham's propositions, if we rightly understand them, as false: the former as false in what it asserts, namely, that Christianity requires or needs the countenance and patronage of the civil power; and the latter as false in what it insinuates, namely, that Christianity, on the present occasion, has had recourse to pains and penalties. There is, indeed, a form of doctrine which calls itself Christian, and of which both these propositions might be true: a feeble and sickly plant, which requires to be nursed because it cannot stand alone, and which requires not to be too rudely befriended, because its sensitive foliage would shrink and wither beneath the indiscreet protection of the too eager vindicator. We refer to a sort of Christianity so trimmed and pruned of all peculiarities, that one would hardly know it for what it professes to be: a kind of faith which consists "not so much in believing, as in denying what is believed by others:" a species of religion which addresses itself almost entirely to the carnal understanding, or to the secular passions of the natural man, and neither awakens the conscience, purifies the soul, nor warms the heart; which contains nothing that can either alarm the sinner, or cheer the saint. Such a sort of Christianity, we allow it, does need an adventitious aid of some kind. Does it reject the aid of pains and penalties? True. Because few governments would be silly enough to grant it. But it must be seasoned with scraps of heresy to make it palatable, and must be tricked out with the political jargon of the day to give it interest even from the pulpit: that pulpit which never glows with the ardour of genuine feeling, except when it is excited by concealed and cherished rancour against establishments and existing authorities.

Is it the wish of those who profess this form of doctrine to form an estimate of its true value? Let them take the full gauge of their religion. Then let them subtract from it rancour against orthodoxy, controversial bitterness, reasoning pride, speculative unbelief, contempt for opponents, and zeal for catholic emancipation and the cause of civil and religious liberty all over the world, and say how much remains.

Indeed there are many things in the work before us, which tend to confirm us in our bad opinion of the creed professed by its author. He makes a display of considerable confidence in the external evidences of Christianity, yet we find him every now and then using expressions which would almost seem to imply that he regards the whole system as something disputable and problematical. According to his mode of speaking, it would seem as if it were not yet settled what is Christianity and what is not.

"With this provision for the decorum of public worship, for agreement in the profession of Christian faith, and for instruction in Christian morality, no evil would arise if the respective teachers should be allowed to exhibit and defend their own peculiar views of Christian doctrine, provided that such representations were conducted with calmness, with a Christian temper, in the spirit of charity, and with practical application. It is only by calm and temperate discussion that truth can be elicited, and can gradually attain its ultimate and universal triumph." (P. 18, 19.)

The point then is yet to be discussed. Truth is yet to be élicited.

"But what then becomes of uniformity of doctrine? That boasted uniformity, that stern idol, that savage divinity, at whose unhallowed shrine so many costly and even bloody sacrifices have been offered? I answer, that nothing can be more foreign to the character of the human mind, and to the moral and intellectual progress of mankind, than that dull, monotonous uniformity of opinion, which has been the object of so much eager contention, upon which so much absurd stress has been laid, and which, wherever it exists, can only be the result of the grossest ignorance," (would it not exist everywhere, if the truth were known by all?) " and of a total torpor and stagnation of the human faculties. Nothing surely can be more reasonable in itself, more acceptable to God, or more conducive to intellectual and moral improvement, than a liberal indulgence to that diversity of opinion which is the inevitable result of the limited views, the different education, and the inveterate prejudices, of human beings: and so far from being a disgrace, that the public pulpits, agreeing in all the essentials of the Christian faith, in the rule of life, and in purity of worship, should express different sentiments upon controverted doctrines, this very circumstance would redound greatly to the credit of the civil power; as it would exhibit the singular and beautiful phenomenon of a

national establishment of religion, founded upon the most just and enlarged principles, and providing the best means of moral and religious instruction, without imposing unnecessary shackles upon the human mind." (P. 19, 20.)

Our sentiments are, in so many points, at variance with all this, that we shall state them at length. We maintain, then, 1. That there is only one form of Christian doctrine which is

true.

2. That this true form of doctrine was revealed when Jesus Christ came into the world.

3. That, being revealed, it was intended by the Almighty to be known.

4. That as such was the intention of the Almighty, it may be known; that is, it admits of being discovered, and ascertained, and understood; and is not problematical or disputable.

5. That, therefore, all men ought to discover this true form of doctrine, and to agree in it; and that if all men searched the Scriptures in a proper spirit, they would discover it, and they would agree in it.

6. That they who thus agree, and they alone, constitute the true church of Christ; and that no others (though they be called so by courtesy or by custom) are, in the full sense of the word, Christians.'

7. That, more or less, all those are to blame, we mean, all those are guilty in the sight of God, who search the Scriptures, but whose search does not end in their agreeing in this true form of doctrine; to blame, we say, either as they have searched with a proud, or a hard, or a perverse heart, or with a prejudiced judgment, or with a criticizing and contesting, and not a teachable spirit, or with a soul polluted and darkened by the love of sin; and to blame, inasmuch as if they had searched with a right frame of mind, their search would have led them, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, into truth:* and,

8. That this true form of doctrine, is the doctrine which is contained in the articles and homilies of the church of England.

There is a passage in the First Epistle of St. John, which our translators have rendered thus: "Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law" (iii. 4.) The words in the original stand thus: σε Πᾶς δὲ ποιῶν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν, καὶ τὴν ἀνομίαν ποιεῖ, Καὶ ἡ ἁμαρτία ἐστιν ἡ ἀνομία.” And we would render them thus: "Every one who errs, transgresseth also the law. For error is transgression of the law." That is, the man who runs into doctrinal error is also the man who trangresses the law of God. For doctrinal error is itself a transgression of his law. (as John vi. 28, 29.) Both go together. The man who errs from the truth is also the man who will break the commandments. Heretics make bad practical Christians. All doctrinal error is criminal in itself. The man who denies the truth has already, in that act, violated the law of God. And other violations of his law will follow of course. (Conf. 1 John v. 17. Hãσa àdınía àμapría isi. All unrighteousness has its origin in doctrinal error; aud, 2 John 9, where transgression, and doctrinal error, seem to stand for the same thing.`

From these our propositions it follows as a corollary, that those who hold the true form of doctrine will always be positive in maintaining it: and that when men are not positive, but speak of points of doctrine as disputable and problematical, there is in this very circumstance an evidence that their religious creed is false or insincere. To us it appears that so to speak of essential points of Christianity is in itself a great and dangerous error; and that those persons who are guilty of this error bear the mark of antichrist branded in legible characters upon their foreheads. If they were rooted and grounded in the faith, as they ought to be, they would be decided and positive (we are not afraid of the word). And that very decidedness, by some called dogmatism, which is so much exclaimed against in those who profess the catholic and orthodox faith, so far from being a blemish, is a token that they are of the truth.

Nothing can be more revolting to the Christian than that nauseous liberality, that morbid candour, that corrupt and latitudinarian indulgence, which coquettes with the sceptic, the infidel, and the apostate; which whines over the “unfortunate bias" of those who "unhappily disbelieve," and reserves all its invective, and all its rancour for the consistent and confirmed believer. But to say that it is revolting is not to say enough: it is something worse than revolting: it is a manifest token of an "evil heart of unbelief:" it treats that as problematical and disputable, which is not problematical and disputable: it parleys with the enemy at the gate; and acts the traitor to the cause which it falsely professes to befriend. In the obtrusive attachment of those who feign a zeal for the cause of Christianity while they impugn its doctrines, we can find no counterpart except in the kiss of Judas, who saluted his master and betrayed him.

When believers talk of uniformity of doctrine as characteristic of the true church of Christ, and of decisive views upon doctrinal points as characteristic of the true Christian, they are triumphantly reminded of the various and varying religious denominations, that now exist in the world; and they are pressed with this argument:-that each of these denominations maintains its own views to be the only views that are correct, and that each of them is as likely to be right as the others. But we deny that this argument has a tenth part of the weight that is usually attached to it. For, first, we are told, there must be heresies." And the actual existence of heresies, up to the present day, in conformity with this declaration, is no objection to that which we assert: namely, that there is one form of doctrine which is true, and that all others are not only false but

66