attention of every one of the Laity as well as of the Clergy, whose view has been directed from the splendid surface to the real source of national prosperity and grandeur-the state of religion in our native country: which has long employed both the minds and the pens of those who fancy themselves able to give an opinion upon so great and important a subject.

But among the various authors, who have thought themselves qualified to speak upon this momentous question, there are very few to be found who will not rather outrage the judgment than inform the understanding of their readers. Hasty and overwhelming assertions, false and unwarrantable conclusions, which neither convince the understanding, nor reform the heart, too commonly supply the place of sober deduction and rational inquiry and it is well if such reflections are not made the vehicle of sly cant and fanatical hypocrisy. It is therefore with incalculable satisfaction that we open upon that extended and masterly view of the state of religious feeling in this kingdom, which is the result of accurate observation and deep reflection, enlarged by an active yet discriminating experience, and matured by a calm yet profound deliberation. After tracing the desolating footsteps of that gigantic spirit of infidelity, which, in a neighbouring country, trampled into dust every institution human and divine; which dissolved the civil government into a chaos of unsocial and discordant barbarism, until after various gradations of blood it grew again into order, under the unrelenting sternness of a military despotism: which gave that death blow to Christianity, from which even, in the present happy revolution of events, it can scarcely be said to have recovered, the Bishop expresses his firm assurance that the contagion of professed infidelity will never infect the great mass of the English nation. We do not indeed, as yet, dread the iufluence of continental infidelity upon the minds even of the higher classes. As long as the memory of the past convulsions of Europe is fresh upon their minds, we shall not apprehend any danger to their faith from the spirit of that atheistical philosophy, which stands confessed the author of the evil.

"The cause of avowed infidelity has never prospered in this country: Attached by reflection and feeling to the interests of religion and virtue, we smile with contempt at the sophistries and sarcasms of the wretched literati, who, prostituting the powers of a dazzling wit and seductive eloquence to the gratification of public depravity, obtained a celebrity disgraceful and disastrous to themselves and their country, as the retailers of blasphemy, and the panegyrists and advocates of vice." P. 13.

The dangers however which threaten us, and in our mind, to so alarming an extent, are traced by bis Lordship through all their dark and intricate labyrinths of error, to the two grand

Sources

sources of the evil-the opposite extremes of defect or excess of religious belief and feeling.

"We are indeed exposed to dangers, and those of no ordinary magnitude. The opposite extremes of defect or excess of religious belief and feeling prevail among us, in a variety of modifications and degrees, to an alarming extent. The partizans of these several errors, disjoined in all other respects by discordancy of principle, sentiment, and ultimate views, are not the less disposed to unite in offensive alliance against the object of their common aversion, the Established Church." P. 13.

In discussing the dangers which may arise from the first of these sources, the Bishop gives a short but most satisfactory account of the gradual progress of the disaffection to religious truth, which, under different forms, has for so many years prevailed among a certain class in this country. He traces the origin of this infidelity among us to the middle of the seventeenth century, in which school Hobbs and Mandeville vented their blasphemous, yet subtle speculations, destructive of all the sanctions of morality, and the foundations of social order. This was the first æra of infidelity. The second form which it assumed, was that of Deism, in the philosophical garb of the school of Bolingbroke and Hume. A host of holy men was then raised in our English and Church, whose names stand recorded as the champions of the Christian faith. Such was the vigour and acuteness of intellect, and such the variety and the depth of the learning which they brought into the field, that all the fallacies and absurdities of freethinking philosophy fell before the artillery of their mighty minds, and the standard of Deism was no longer now the rallying point of infidelity under every shape, and of Atheism itself, in masquerade.

The third form under which the same spirit has embodied itself, is that of Unitarianisın.

"As all unbelievers in Revelation were formerly Deists, a cònsiderable portion of those who are styled Unitarians in the present day have no other title to the name, than their rejection of the principal doctrines which distinguish the Revelation of the Gospel from natural religion. In this statement it is not my intention to wound the feelings of the conscientious Unitarian, who, while he rejects its peculiar dogmas, admits the general truth of Christianity. The charge of infidelity indeed attaches in a certain degree to all who refuse their assent to any material doctrine deducible by the established laws of interpretation from Scripture; and great must be the force of that prejudice, which can overlook the inconsistency of arbitrarily imposing a meaning unwarranted by the usages of language, on a book to which all parties appeal as the standard and rule of faith. But I do not hesitate to aver my conviction, that the profession of Unitarian tencts affords a convenient shelter

to

to many, who would be more properly termed Deists, and who by the boldness of their interpolations, omissions, and perversions, by the indecency of their insinuations against the veracity of the inspired writers, by their familiar levity on the awful mysteries of religion, and their disrespectful reflections on the person and actions of their Saviour, are distinguished from real Unitarians, and betray the true secret of the flimsy disguise which they have assumed as a cover from the odium of avowed infidelity. Their position, it must be confessed, has been not unskilfully chosen: little ground has been lost in their retreat: the line of separation between the contiguous systems is often indiscernible, and at best faintly marked; and in return for the sacrifice of a name they have obtained a facility of diffusing their pernicious principles with less suspicion.

To those who are wholly unacquainted with the tendency of modern Unitarianism, this statement may, at first sight, appear rather harsh; but by those who have even the slightest acquaintance with all the frauds and perversions which distinguish the far larger part of the Unitarian body, it will be considered as founded in perfect justice and undoubted fact. Within these very few years indeed Socinianism has undergone a very considerable change. That low Arianism which maintains a sort of disputed title to the inheritance and name of Christianity is now vanished, and in its place a system has prevailed which can deserve no other appellation but that of Deism in disguise. The only point upon which the Unitarian could professedly have met the Christian, is, upon the authenticity and inspiration of the Holy Scriptures; but the mutilations, omissions, and interpolations, which they have of late introduced into the sacred text, have dissipated even the shadow of an agreement. The Christian and the Unitarian cannot now join issue upon a single point, excepting upon the natural existence of Christ, and to that circumstace, as an historical fact, we conceive that Shaftesbury and Bolingbroke would not have refused their assent; nor do we believe that these two high priests of Deism considered him in an inferior light, to that in which he is viewed by the modern Unitarian.

From this comprehensive view of the rise and progress of infidelity in this country, the Bishop now directs our attention to the dangers to be apprehended from an opposite quarter. Much as the increase of fanaticism has arrested the attention of those, who, in the unwearied exertions of the puritanical party, both within and without the Church, feel the most reasonable alarms for her very existence; numerous as these advocates are, who now rally round her towers, by their vigilance to proclaim, and by their exertions to avert the threatened danger, we do not yet remember, in all the splendid and judicious efforts which have been, and will, we trust, continue to be made in the holy cause, so clear and able a statement of the cause, so calm and so incontrovertible

controvertible a deduction of the effects to be apprehended from the increasing torrent of dissent and disorganization, as is contained in the following observations.

"The portentous excesses of crime and calamity, which followed the horrible experiment of adopting the principles of unbelief for the general rules of action, awakened the minds of men to serious reflection on their duties, And never was there a period in our history, in which so strong a disposition prevailed to study the truths of Revelation, and to appreciate their value in the direction of human conduct. But, since good is not to be found without an admixture of evil, the irregular action of this feeling has given birth to a multiplicity of errors, which are more extensively received, and more pertinaciously cherished, as the transports of passion and the dreams of enthusiasm have greater attractions for human corruption, than the dull uniformity of sober belief, and the strictness of reasonable obedience. To enumerate the eccentricities of undisciplined affection, to mark the gradations of heresy from simple mistake or absurdity to gross corruption of faith, or mischievous principles of action, would be an endless task. Suffice it to observe, that intemperate effervescence of zeal is hardly consistent with the dominion of charity, or the love of truth, in the heart; and that deeper wounds have been inflicted on the church by the madness or folly of enthusiasts and fanatics, than by the malice of her most inveterate enemies. I do not affect to dread a renewal of the excesses committed by the Donatists of old, or even of the troubles excited by the Puritans in later times. The evil tó be reasonably apprehended is a gradual diminution of attachment to the national Church, which in its immediate effects would abridge the sphere of her beneficial influence, and might lead in its possible consequences to the subversion of an Establishment, the firmest support, and the noblest ornament of Christianity. That. such is the ultimate object, I do not say, of rational and sober disşenters of any denomination; but of that promiscuous multitude of confederate sectaries who have imbibed the spirit of malignant dissent, which in the prosecution of hostility against the established faith forgets its attachment to a particular creed; there is the strongest reason to believe. The views of this dangerous faction are unintentionally seconded by a far more respectable description of men, who rightly conceiving that sound faith and sincere piety are the essentials of pure religion, entertain an indifference to ordinances and forms; overlooking the necessity of permanent fences for the protection of the flock, of regular channels for the distribution of the living waters; and forgetting that a well-constituted Establishment, though it, necessarily partakes of human imperfec tion, affords the best security, which can be devised by the wisdom of man, against the vicissitudes of events, the alternations of zeal, and the fluctuations of opinion.

If the preceding statements have any foundation in facts; if the joint machinations of infidels and sectaries, assisted by the indiscretion of short sighted piety, are calculated to excite alarm; the

means of resisting a torrent enlarged by the union of waters, which, issuing in opposite directions from different sources, have at length fallen into the same channel, deserve our most serious consideration." P. 17.

That these statements are founded in facts is a point which, unhappily for the Church, will admit of no dispute. The proof of these assertions will be found in the meetings of every Bible Association throughout the kingdom. When we see those who avowedly discredit the inspiration, and disown the obligations of the holy Scripture, uniting themselves with others, who in the wild vision of a disordered imagination, strain every doctrine, and caricature every article of the Christian faith; when we see the Unitarian lending his influence to the distribution of that book, which, if he is sincere in his own faith, he must acknowledge to be a mass of errors and impostures; and when we see the smooth-tongued fanatic courting the aid, and advocating the cause of this very Unitarian, what opinion can any calm and reasonable Churchman form of such an heterogeneous mixture? Censore opus est an haruspice? The minds of some may be reconciled to this strange coalition by the specious name of religious unity But when it is remembered, that in no one point of doctrine or faith is this unity preserved, but that every sect and description of men which compose this motley crew maintains its own interpretation, to the exclusion often of his nearest neighbour from the very hopes of salvation, we are at a loss to imagine how the cause of religious unity can be promoted. On one point alone can these discordant principles and contradictory professions concur in unity of design, namely, in the erection of an interest independant of the Established Church, and subversive of its influence. It is against the foundations of our British Zion that the alliance of all these various streams is directed. And should the Church fall under their united efforts, we leave it for abler politicians than ourselves to declare how long the civil part of the constitution will survive its destruction.

At no time, however, were the whole body of the clergy more seriously awakened to a sense of the impending danger, and at no time were their exertions animated with more uniform and judicious zeal. To them, under Providence, is entrusted the guardianship and protection of that holy fabric, which is the surest and most sacred bulwark of the Christian faith. Nor while the venerable author of this Charge shall, by the blessing of God, preside over the great and important diocese committed to his care, will the clergy either of the metropolis or of distant provinces ever want a rallying point for their high and holy exertions; to him they will look up for countenance in activity, for counsel in difficulty, and for command in the day of danger; his voice will give a tone and a vigour to all their efforts, and his approbation will