civilization. Wise men we have since had, and good men; but this Galilean youth strode before the world whole thousands of years-so much of Divinity was in him. His words solve the questions of this present age. In him the Godlike and the Human met and embraced, and a divine life was born. Measure him by the world's greatest sons; how poor they are. Try him by the best of men-how little and low they appear. Exalt him as much as we may, we shall yet, perhaps, come short of the mark. But still was he not our brother? the son of man as we are; the son of God like ourselves? His excellence, was it not human excellence? His wisdom, love, piety-sweet and celestial as they were-are they not also what we may attain? In him, as in a mirror, we may see the image of God, and go on from glory to glory, till we are changed into the same image, led by the Spirit which enlightens the humble. Viewed in this way, how beautiful is the life of Jesus. Heaven has come down to earth, or rather earth has become heaven. The Son of God, come of age, has taken possession of his birthright. The brightest revelation is this—of what is possible for all men, if not now, at least hereafter."

He, of whom all this can be said, exercises an authority over our feelings, yea, and our faith too, and we have no choice but to bow before him as our Master.

C. W.

ART. VIII.-RELIGIOUS UNION, WITH INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM: A Letter addressed to the Congregation worshipping in the Unitarian Chapel, Union-Street, Glasgow. By JOHN TAYLOR. London: 1844.

WE are sorry that the real question involved in the discussions of this Letter, namely, the occupancy of the Pulpit by Antisupernaturalists in Congregations uniting for worship and instruction on the basis of Christianity, should be brought before the public in connection with the affairs of a particular religious Society. Mr. Taylor is not to blame for this, for the difficulties of his position had been made public without his knowledge or consent. We deprecate all external interference in cases of this kind,—all attempt to determine by the opinion of a Body what ought to be the relations between a particular Minister and his people, and we are sure that apart from a consideration of his Christian spirit, life, influence, and preaching, the bare question of his Anti-Supernaturalism, as unfitting him for the office of an awakener and sustainer of Christian affections and purposes, cannot properly be discussed. Only those in the most intimate union with him are qualified to determine what virtue proceeds from him, or how far his Anti-Supernaturalism, neutralises or destroys his Christian power. could not, on dogmatic grounds, reasonably ask a Congregation to part with a Minister who weekly stirred their hearts as with a trumpet, and made God, and Christian excellence, and the life eternal, more of realities to them than ever they had been before.

We

We think that Mr. Taylor has not made sufficiently prominent and distinct the question at issue between him and his Congregation, viz., whether a Minister holding the opinions which he professes can satisfactorily conduct the worship of a Congregation who acknowledge a peculiar virtue in the influences and facts of Christianity. This question Mr. Taylor has throughout confused with another, on which we apprehend he would find no Unitarian to disagree with him, namely, the accordance of equal privileges and equal respect to every member of a worshipping society, whatever may be his peculiar sentiments. If a Deist joins in religious communion with a Congregation of Unitarian Christians, let the spiritual fellowship be made as extensive as possible, and the sense of separation and difference be never painfully or disrespectfully obtruded upon him,—but he will no more expect that such Congregation shall cease from

the contemplation of views which they deem true, and the observance of forms which they feel to be significant, than he will be ready to have other men's truths and modes of worship forced upon his own conscience. If they are to be denied the contemplation of Christian facts, and the use of Christian ordinances, because a pure Theist joins them, they are abridged in their Christian liberties to the measure of his creed, and one man assumes to withhold the views and influences for which every other soul is hungering. If a Deist unites himself to a Christian Congregation, let him be as a brother, a participator in their every act and privilege, as far as he himself is willing, and let no invidious notice be drawn upon him when he separates from his fellow-worshippers, as for example at the celebration of the Lord's Supper (not that this would necessarily show Deism), but if from the pew he claims the Pulpit, and says, 'I will not only join in your worship and instruction on equal terms, but I will direct it, and I will withhold all allusions to what you deem Christian influences, and keep back the positive faith which you feel to be nourishing, and if you deny me this you are abridging my natural privileges,'—we cannot conceive a more preposterous claim to come from a clear-headed

man.

What natural privilege can any man have to be the Minister of a Society, to whose peculiar religious position, and spiritual wants, his Ministrations are no longer felt to be suitable? To deny him membership, if he wished to claim it, would be disgraceful intolerance; but to deny him the power of withholding from them the spiritual facts and contemplations which they experience to be most vital, is not only their Right but their Duty. Now Mr. Taylor states the case only as it relates to a member, and leaves the impression that his inference is, though he does not distinctly say so, that the right to be a member involves injustice on the part of a Congregation if, on account of their totally different methods of looking upon Christianity, they consider him an unsuitable person for the occupancy of their pulpit. Surely the faith of one man has no natural privilege to extinguish the desires and longings of a Congregation for such spiritual nourishment as suits them best. If, independently of all dogmatic grounds, a majority are satisfied with his ministrations, they will retain him as their Minister, -but if he does not meet their religious wants, whatever be the cause, they will remove him,-and no man can pretend that by this his liberty is violated.

Mr. Taylor, then, does not state the case with a sufficient closeness of relation to his own position when he says that, "unless Unitarians are prepared to fashion the constitution of VOL. VI. No. 24.-New Series.

their religious Societies so as to admit the Theist to equal privileges, and to show that no member of such societies shall lose any rights which he once enjoyed, by the mere rejection of the miraculous element in Christian history, they will prove themselves to be virtually as narrow and intolerant as any other portion of the so-called religious world, and by far the most inconsistent of all the sects into which that world is divided." Except in the case of restrictive Trust Deeds, which we shall speak of presently, we never heard of a Unitarian Society abridging the rights of a member on any grounds whatever. The possession of the pulpit cannot be considered as one of those rights: that must be determined, in every case, simply by the wishes of a majority of the Congregation. If, indeed, a Congregation unite on a basis of positive faith, and, by restrictions, introduced into their Trust Deeds, attempt to confine their endowments to men holding their own opinions, and so bind down their successors by virtual pains and penalties, we do not see how such a case can be distinguished from common Creedmaking, nor how such a constitution of a religious society can proceed from men professing any reverence for freedom of inquiry. If by any change in their views, since the date of their foundation, such a society begins to feel the self-imposed trammels of their Constitution, by all means let them remodel it, so far as the law will permit, and let no Minority, for their own benefit, take advantage of restrictions, which ought never to have existed. The majority of a Congregation, for the time being, should controul the instructions of the Pulpit simply by the election of the Minister, handing down that privilege to their Successors as unrestricted as they found it. In this way a Congregation has a succession of members who become the natural inheritors and developers of their forefathers' faith, and frequent and violent changes are out of nature. Of course where Chapel property is held on trust, the Trustees are bound to enforce the conditions of the Trust, in whatever shortsighted violation of first principles it may have been devised. In what respect these general principles apply to the case of the Glasgow Congregation, we are not informed. In the following views of Mr. Taylor respecting the Constitution of worshipping societies, in so far as the rights of free inquiry, and the controul of the property (not the absolute cession of it as he, no doubt inadvertently, puts it) by the majority are concerned, we entirely concur.

"A consistent vindication of the wedded union of intellectual liberty and religious sentiment by the Unitarian body, involves such a constitution of worshipping societies as shall not deprive any of their

members of their right to property dedicated to religious worship, though they should pass from faith in supernatural revelations to a simple and ennobling Theism, and believe that the stars of heaven and the flowers of the earth, the natural intuitions of the intellect and the strong affections of the soul, the mechanism of the human frame and the experiences of human life, teach diviner lessons than all the miracles that ignorance, poetry, and false philosophy have ever invented.

"To such places of worship, therefore, as are held by Unitarians on the principle of respect to the rights of free inquiry, the anti-supernatural portion of any worshipping society have a right, equally with those who believe in miracles; and to them, if a majority, such property must be allowed to devolve, unless, indeed, Unitarians are prepared to stultify their own maxims, and contradict their own professions."-p. 32.

We may be doing Mr. Taylor an injustice in supposing it to be his view, (collected by us from his Letter,) that a Christian congregation would violate the rights of free inquiry by wishing to remove an Anti-Supernaturalist from the occupation of its pulpit, for we find him distinctly stating his own insuperable objections to minister to a Congregation whose doctrinal basis of union contained more propositions than are absolutely necessary for the existence of religious affections. He may only intend to condemn their constitution so far as membership is concerned, and to avow his own inability to be the religious teacher of a Society in which the facts of Christianity are regarded as important spiritual influences. If this be his meaning we agree with him, that the constitution should permit a controlling power to the majority; and we also agree with him that he cannot satisfactorily be the permanent minister of a Congregation which wishes for an administration of Christianity which he cannot conscientiously give, but in this latter case we attach no blame to either party. We do not blame a Calvinist Congregation for chosing a Calvinist Minister, but for using any external influences to keep themselves and their successors Calvinists for ever. And no blame can attach to Unitarians for requiring in their minister a positive faith in Christianity, provided their constitution is free, and they employ no outward means to trammel themselves or their posterity. If the following passage contains no allegation of the violation of freedom of inquiry by Unitarians, when they choose a minister suited to their existing wants, it seems to us entirely unexceptionable, -though indeed a doubt might be raised whether Mr. Taylor was justified in compelling a Congregation to act in rigid consistency with their defined basis, if they were willing, by retaining his ministrations, to overstep it :