nation; who knows but that it is reserved for us to dispel the delusion which is still suffered to blind so many others? Let parliament be summoned to meet; let a bill be passed for accepting the gallant offers of our brave militia; let every nerve be strained to subdue the tyrant of the Continent: the greater the exertions now made, the shorter will be the duration of the contest. Let us convince the French, that however gigantic their efforts to subjugate the people of the Continent may be, our efforts to protect those people from the curse of French tyranny shall keep pace with them.

P. S. Since the preceding observations were written, we have been given to understand; that Sir Hew Dalrymple was indebted for his appointment to the Duke of York, to whom he was military secretary on the Continent; that his command was first limited to Gibraltar, as the Duke intended to go himself to Portugal; but when that design was abandoned, the limitation was removed; and the command in chief of the army in Portugal was given to Sir Hew. We deprecate, as pregnant with ruin to the service, and with disgrace to the country, a system of favouritism, in which merit, and knowledge, and experience, and skill, and talents, and whatever, in short, ought to constitute the exclusive ground of preference, are now but secondary considerations. This matter opens a field for reflection, into which we cannot enter at present; but on a subject so important to the country, and so inunediately connected with its honour, its prosperity, and its best interests, no genuine patriot can remain silent. We shall therefore take an early opportunity of returning to it. Sept. 24, 1808.

MISCELLANIES.

FOR THE ANTIJACOBIN REVIEW.

THE DISSENTERS' TRUE FRIEND;

OR, A SCRUTINY INTO THE RESPECTIVE CLAIMS, OF THE CHURCH AND OF DISSENTERS TO THE DIVINE FAVOur.

(In a Series of Letters to the Rev. Dr. L——.)

Dear L——,

LETTER 1.

OUR late conversations in your classical and delightful retreat, the abode at once of the Muses and of genuine theology, having princi

pally turned on the subject of the following Letters, I have resolved on thus publicly addressing to you my sentiments on a question of such infinite importance. I conceived that it might be highly useful, purposely and exclusively to consider the leading texts and passages in Scripture, which relate either to the Church or to the Dissenters from it. This is my topic; and though you agree with me in principles, you do not seem to be aware of the results which I flatter myself will arise from it. Your extreme candour towards our Dissenting brethren is an amiable trait in your character, but I think I discover some great truths which candour ought not to prevent us from bringing forwards, and which are perfectly in unison with charity, though not perhaps with complaisance.

On the general question of unanimity there can be but one opinion amongst all considerate persons. Religious dissentions are things in themselves unnatural and contradictory, and have been matter of the deepest regret to every serious and well disposed mind. They are in direct opposition to the strongest injunctions in Holy Writ. St. Peter and St. Paul repeatedly exhort us "to be of one mind.” "I beseech you, brethren," says St. Paul, "by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment," (1 Cor. i, 10). Yet in despite and in defiance of these mandates from above, and a number of others equally solemn, we cannot but perceive that the opposite principle of disunion is alarmingly on the increase.

To your opinion, my dear friend, that "it is impossible that men should ever be brought to be all of one mind," I must be allowed to demur. Though in the present state of things unanimity may not be attainable, yet as every approach or tendency towards it is beneficial, so every attempt to promote such tendency must be laudable; so that we ought by no means to weaken or repress the ardour of those who excite men to unity and concord. What cannot be fully effected, may still be effected to a certain degree; and if a blessedness be entailed on the very attempt, let no one be disheartened through a diffidence of complete success. But if we consider the subject prospectively, a time will come when men not only may be, but must be "all of one mind." Divisions, like the world that fosters them, must come to an end, while union remains immoveable as its native Heaven! "When the kingdoms of this world shall have become the kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ" (Rev. xi, 15), there cannot possibly exist any longer a diversity of faith or opinions. Some one faith must then finally prevail. Our grand enquiry, therefore, ought to be, WHAT FAITH THAT IS WHICH WILL THUS SURVIVE, for to that every wise man would be anxious to attach himself. The true and only way of ascertaining this is to try if we can by any means discover what sort of faith it is that appears at present to have "the fairest claim to the Divine favour," for that must be the faith which will prevail at the last. This is the scrutiny I propose to institute, the aim and object of which will be to enquire into the in

fallible “Mind of the Spirit"* in this respect, by a reference to the only possible authority in this case, the word of God.

The whole body of Christians, at least in this kingdom, may be divided into two great parties--the Church and the Dissenters--for Popery need not, I think, be taken into the account. Our blessed Lord has built his church, according to his promise, upon the foundation of the faith and profession of St. Peter; and that our Protestant Church has been regularly deduced from this, with all necessary exactness, is not, I believe, denied. The Church of England, therefore, having ever been esteemed, by the wisest and best of our Reformers, to be the purest and the soundest branch of the Reformation, it may properly be styled "the Church." Dissenters, however, must necessarily be taken in the gross, since to discriminate them, or to weigh and appreciate their several pretensions, is foreign from the present purpose: what I mean is to notice in what manner, cr with what marks of approbation or disapprobation, the two parties are respectively spoken of in Holy Scripture.

With this view it will not be necessary to consult any volume but one. I would wish to avoid clogging my own judgment by searching for that of others, though the opinions of others may be incidentally quoted by way of illustration. I mean not to affect a total indifference between the above parties; the Apostles themselves do not appear to have possessed such an indifference, and I wish, if possible, to see with no eyes and to speak with no tongue but theirs. I shall strive, however, to hold the balance impartially, but should the Divine favour even be found to fall exclusively into one only of these scales, it should, I think, be regarded as an example and proof that God's ways are uniform, and that "with Him is no variableness, neither shadow of turning,” (Ja. i, 17.)

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I mean not to write controversy, though a person (Dr. Priestley) who lately made a considerable noise in the world, was perpetually calling out for controversy! controversy! discussion! discussion! that the truth, as he chose to alledge, might be found out at last. It seems then that all the saints and holy martyrs, those venerable Reformers, who were our fathers in faith, and all their followers, must have wandered about in darkness and error, till a person at the end of the 18th century pointed out a method of sometime or other discovering religious truth! This truth, indeed, is so divinely constituted, that, for the encouragement of sacred literature and investigation, it is capable of being confirmed aud illustrated more and more by fair and genuine criticism; but this cannot be effected by wrangling and contention. St. Paul seems to have been as much against this contentious spirit as the person here alluded to was for

* I had entitled these Letters "The Mind of the Spirit, or a Scrutiny," &c.; but to mark and express more strongly the principal design of them, which is to call the attention of my Dissenting brethren, for their own sakes, to various passages in Holy Scripture, I have substituted the present title.

it. The Apostle exhorts us to "avoid prophane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called, and questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railing, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the. truth; foolish and unlearned questions that gender strifes rather than godly edifying; that turn from the truth, and are unprofitable and vain." (See 1 Tim. i, 4, 6, 7; iv, 7; and vi, 4, 5, 20, 21; 2 Tim. ii, 16, 23; Tit. i, 14, and iii, 9.)

But the chief reason why I have alluded at all to the above "disputer of this world" (1 Cor. i, 20) is in order to notice that he always pretended to a greater freedom in thinking and writing than they could possess who had subscribed to articles. Here, however, I must so far controvert as to say, that if I was writing a laborious work instead of a slight sketch, I would undertake to prove that in nun berless cases this is the very reverse of the truth; of this, perhaps, I may have occasion to produce a few instances. When religious truths were brought to light at the Reformation, the Church, to prevent their loosely floating about, collected and consolidated them into certain Articles of Faith. Such articles are essential to the very being of a church, but since the subscribers of them are only bound to believe as necessary to salvation, "whatsoever is read in Holy Scripture, or may be proved thereby" (Art, 6), they can surely be restrained from nothing but error, nor is there a particle in the Scriptures that they cannot comment upon with the utmost freedom. That mind alone which is warped and biassed by errors and prejudices is enslaved; while the mind which is influenced only by the word of truth is free as air. "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John viii, 32,)--free, not only from Jewish ceremonies, but from delusive and erroneous opinions. The Apostles were "guided by a free spirit," and this spirit may be looked for wherever the apostolical doctrines and discipline are preserved : "where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty,” (2 Cor. iii, 17.)

But what is usually meant by religious liberty? It is generally used to signify a free liberty of chusing and embracing any sect or form of worship whatsoever. If so, this must surely be the liberty claimed and exercised by the followers of Ebion and Cerinthus, but disclaimed by those of St. Paul. Now the word heresy strictly and properly means an option, or election, and it was applied by the apostles to all those who chose for themselves any mode of faith differing from that which they had appointed and established. It may seem remarkable that the same thing should be now termed religious liberty, or liberty of conscience, and stickled for as the greatest of all possible human blessings, which was formerly spoken of by the

*Prophety, indeed, is purposely intended for discussion, and the world has recently been very much enlightened, and Christianity confirmed, by the truly laudable exertions of learned men on this astonishing subject! But what the Apostle condemns is the raising of doubts and disputations respecting the fundamental and essential points of Christianity,

apostles under the name of Heresy, being very different from any blessing at all! To those who can esteem this to be a blessing the church extends an almost unbounded toleration; yet we cannot forget that they who now claim this as a right, when they themselves were in power in the seventeenth century, refused the same toleration to others, alleging that "this would be establishing INIQUITY by law."

I have promised to confine inyself in my "scrutiny" to the word of God; yet it may not be amiss if reason be suffered previously to offer a few preparatory observations. Sects are extremely numerous-call them, for the sake of argument, one hundred. If then we enquire which party will finally prevail, it is presumable from reason that it will rather be the church, whose very essence is unity, than an assemblage of one hundred different sects whose essence must be diversity. The latter, if established, would surely constitute a kind of spiritual Babylon, rather than that of heavenly Jerusalem (Heb. xii, 22), which may be said, more truly than the earthly one, to be "at unity in itself, (Ps. cxxii, 3). We know that previously to the great consummation of all things, Jews, Turks, and Infidels must be converted to the Christian faith; and here again reason will suggest that they are inore likely to be converted to one, than to one hundred different faiths. But what is the Christian faith? On this, alas! Christians themselves are very far from agreeing; and is not this discordance and contrariety the very reason that there are still Jews, Turks, and Infidels upon the face of the earth? They may justly say to us, "you must first agree among yourselves as to what Christianity really is, before you can reasonably expect us to be converted to it." They must necessarily cease, as we have seen, at some future period. How much more then is it to be wished than expected that, in conformity to the Divine command, Christian divisions could be

* It is much to be feared, that heresy is looked upon by many as rather meritorious than criminal, merely because the Papists have perversely entitled all who differ from them heretics. As it was plainly prophecied of popery, that it should "wear out the saints of the Most High," (Dan. vii, 25.) and be "drunken with the blood of the saints," (Rev. xvii, 6.) it was natural that it should give an ill name to those whom it meant to sacrifice; and the ill name it found out was "heretic." How wonderfully different are these expressionsthose whom popery calls "heretics," the Holy Spirit calls "saints of the Most High!" If it cannot be denied that the church of Rome is that grand apostacy foretold by St. Paul, (2 Thess. ii, 3.) they will be much more like heretics who remain in it, than they who come out of it, according to the Divine command, (Rev. xviii, 4.) Though Protestantism, therefore, is the very reverse of heresy, yet it should be remembered that there is such a thing as heresy condemned by the apostles, and to settle what this is, must be a matter of high importance. It should be remembered also, that whatever is really heresy in the sight of God, can never be made otherwise by any " acts of toleration" that can be passed by man.