but nothing more seems to remain to be done. There is nothing in this country to prevent free inquiry being carried on to any extent. Not only are publications denying the truth of the Christian religion sent into the world without any risk of persecution being incurred by their authors, but a few years ago a joint work professedly atheistical was published, and we have never heard that either of the individuals who wrote it have been in any way persecuted or molested on account of this publication. There appears, then, to be nothing in the existing state of things in this country to cause reasonable alarm for the cause of free inquiry. We cannot, however, help asking the question, Is this really an age of free inquiry? and truth compels us to say that if by free inquiry is to be understood a careful collection of facts and an impartial weighing of arguments, this is not an age of free inquiry. The character of most of the religious speculations of the times seems to us to be to select some favourite notion, sentiment or feeling, and to form opinions in accordance with the pre-conceived feeling or sentiment. We cannot doubt that the 18th century, much decried as it is by writers of a certain class, had far more of free inquiry in religion than the 19th.

The next exhortation which we have the benefit of receiving from the writers in question is not to be sectarian. Anti-sectarianism seems to be far more important than the adhering to any doctrine. Here the ambiguity of language must be considered. To be sectarian in one sense is always blameable; to be so in another is the necessary result of the position in which an honest man finds himself. If by sectarianism we are to understand laying an undue stress on those matters in which we differ with other classes of Christians, and, still worse, thinking uncharitably of others and behaving unjustly or unkindly to them on account of a difference of opinion, it deserves to be severely condemned; but if by sectarianism we are to understand adhering to the class of religionists with whom we are most nearly agreed, it is precisely what every conscientious man feels himself bound to do, and not to do which would render him liable to just reproach.

To have a creed, it seems, is severely to be blamed. Yet what is a creed but the summary of what a man believes? If any one should, from dislike to the word creed, rather call this summary belief, we have no objection; but by whatever name it may be called, no man who has any religion at all can be without it. No form of nonsense can be more free from any mixture of common sense than talking of a religion which has no belief. Creeds are in themselves innocent things, and only become noxious when we attempt to force them on others.

And now we come to the favourite words Development and Progress; both, like the word Sectarianism, may be explained in a good or an evil sense. By development, we presume is under

stood the unfolding of the powers of the human mind and of the revealed will of God; and by progress, the formation of opinions which is the result of this development. No man, we trust, will be found so absurd and so arrogant as to pretend to limit the operations of the human mind, and to say, "Thus far thou shalt go and no further." When we regard the wonderful discoveries and inventions of our own days, we may well think it probable that future ages will be benefited by inventions and discoveries of which we have not the faintest anticipation. That the Holy Scriptures contain stores of religious wisdom which have never yet been duly appreciated or fully understood, and that we cannot employ our time better than in endeavouring to attain a fuller knowledge of the Bible, particularly of the New Testament, and to realize more and more spiritually and fervently its divine spirit,—all must admit. We fear, however, that the prevailing sentiment of not a few among us is, that Christianity as taught by Christ and his apostles is incomplete; and that it is to be carried further, and enlarged by the powers of the human mind and conscience, or what we believe (for we are not skilled in the hazy language of the day applied to these subjects) is called moral consciousness. We may be mistaken in this matter; and, if so, shall be grateful to any one who will correct our error. If, however, any one should be found who thinks himself capable of giving us an improved Christianity, we cannot help regarding him as having fallen into a most dangerous error. Το us, Jesus Christ is "the same yesterday, to-day and for ever;" and we cannot forget the denunciation of St. Paul against those who should presume to add anything to the gospel which he taught.

The progress of which so much has been said is to our minds in some degree a misnomer, and the term regress is more properly applicable to certain recent speculations. These have tended not to strengthen, but to weaken, the cause of Christianity by taking away some of its important bulwarks. This remark particularly applies to what has been written on the subject of the miracles recorded in the New Testament. These have hitherto been regarded as most important evidences, indeed as the very substance of the historical evidence, of the truth of Christianity. Nobody appears to deny that He who constituted the laws of nature has the power to suspend them; nor does it seem now to be asserted by any Christian that the fact of miracles being worked cannot be proved by human testimony. No satisfactory argument has been adduced to shew that miracles can be wrought by any being but the Almighty. Whenever, then, we are satisfied that a miracle has been wrought, or rather declared, by a human being, we conclude that God wrought it and authorized man to declare it. From the moment that the question presented itself to the human mind, whether miracles had been wrought in attestation of a divine revelation, it seems

natural to expect that every serious and religious mind would direct its closest attention to the subject, and would not rest satisfied till it had come to a decided conviction as to the truth or falsehood of the assumed miraculous fact. It has been reserved to our own times to leave the question of miracles in doubt, and to form an opinion that the truth of the Christian religion may be established without the aid of the evidence of miracles, and therefore it was immaterial whether or not they were believed; and it is broadly asserted in a letter signed S. S. in the Christian Reformer for September, that "the miracles in the Bible are generally acknowledged to be a cause of difficulty rather than any help to our faith." Miracles no help to our faith! A reference to one single miracle will be a sufficient answer to this strange assertion. Let any reasonable man ask himself whether, if he had been living in Judea in the time of our Saviour, had heard his discourses and his prediction of his resurrection from the dead,—had afterwards seen him crucified, dead and buried,-and had on the third day seen him risen from the dead,—and had conversed with him, and touched and handled him, he would not have considered his resurrection as a sufficient and irresistible ground for faith in his divine mission? Such it has always been deemed till our own times; nor are we aware that even now any one has expressly denied it.

We have no hesitation in saying that the rejection of the miraculous part of the gospel narratives ought to draw after it a rejection of the whole history contained in them and in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, and thus to destroy the whole body of historical evidence of the truth of our religion. No one has shewn the possibility of separating the miraculous from the ordinary facts of the gospel history; and there is no plausible ground for thinking that the accounts of the miracles were not written by the same persons who wrote the rest of these narratives. Now as to some at least of these miracles the beholders could not be deceived. Possibly in some instances the healing of diseases might be brought about by natural means, and possibly the widow's son at Nain might have been merely in a trance and not dead. These suppositions are indeed highly improbable. With respect, however, to many of the recorded miracles, such as the miraculous feeding of many thousands and the resurrection of Jesus, the apostles could not possibly have been deceived. Of this last event, the most important which has occurred in the annals of the human race, we are told by the apostles themselves that they were the appointed witnesses. All Christians—at least an enormous majority-are agreed that two of the Gospels were written by apostles, and the other two by friends of the apostles well acquainted with the facts of which they give an account. If, then, they have asserted that certain miracles, of such a nature as they could not be deceived as to their miraculous character,

had been wrought, when no such events had actually taken place, the inevitable consequence is that they wilfully promulgated falsehoods. But if they did so in some cases, can they possibly be trusted in others? If they stand before the world as liars (we tremble while we write the word) in some things, how can they be trusted in other parts of their narratives? Surely the conclusion of every rational mind must be, let no such men be trusted. The remarks just made apply equally to the book of the Acts of the Apostles, and thus the rejection of the NewTestament history deprives us of all historical evidence of the truth of the Christian religion, except the slight reference to it in the writings of the Latin historians.

But here some of the more advanced thinkers of the new school may turn round upon us and say, "We care not at all for external evidence; we are satisfied with the light within, which teaches us that Christianity is from God; and our desire and our delight is, in the language of the apostle Paul, to put on Christ, to live in his spirit, to regulate our lives by his precepts." Excellent resolutions, and fervently do we wish that God may prosper those who make them. On this part of our subject we feel ourselves on uncertain ground, and are by no means sure that we may not have misunderstood, and thus unintentionally misrepresented, the sentiments of those to whom we are opposed. Gladly should we find this to be the case. This paper will not be written in vain if it shall elicit a distinct statement from some of those who reject or doubt the truth of the Christian miracles, of their views of the historical details of the New Testament. If some (as it seems to us) ground their belief in the truth of the Christian religion solely on internal feeling, impressions, sentiments, consciousness, or by whatever name it may be called, independent of any external historical evidence, this seems in no respect to differ from the new light of the earlier Quakers, and is open to the following objections.

In the first place, how do we know that these internal feelings or impressions are infallibly true? Thousands of the professors of other religions, Mahometans, Hindoos, Buddhists, &c., have all impressions of their own different from ours, and hold them with equal confidence. How are we to satisfy ourselves that the spiritual light which was withheld from Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, has been given to us? But admitting that we have attained an infallible assurance of the truth of our own views of religion, we have still no possible means of giving proof to others of the soundness of our belief; and, for the great majority of Christians, the historical evidence afforded by the New Testament is the ground of belief. A man may be fully satisfied that he has in his own mind an infallible guide to religious truth, but he can have no means of making another believe that his views are more accurate than those of others who hold different

opinions. If, then, we are to discard the historical evidence, every man must be left to do the best he can for himself in forming his religious opinions without any external aid,—a state of things which the most intrepid thinker would scarcely think desirable. To come to the point to which these observations tend. Such opinions as we have referred to being current among Unitarians, although probably confined to a small number of them, cannot, we think, fail to add greatly to the unpopularity which attaches to their name, and to the misapprehension which very generally exists as to their opinions.

But there is another circumstance strongly tending to prevent the advancement of Unitarianism. Instead of a steady and undeviating profession of attachment to its principles, many of us seem to be ashamed of its name, and to be desirous of changing it, although no other designation has been suggested indicative of the most important differences between us and the so-called orthodox. It is to be feared that we are fast verging to a sort of generalized Christianity, which defines nothing, settles nothing, and appears to regard any one set of opinions to be as good as another. We seem afraid to call ourselves Unitarians, lest at some future period juster views of Christian doctrine should arise. What, then, is this Unitarianism which we fear may become obsolete? We refer here more particularly to the Object of religious worship, for a reason which will shortly appear. The Trinitarian addresses his prayers to God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, and the Trinity in Unity. The Unitarian prays to God alone and as the Father, as he is often called in the New Testament. He does not find that the Son of God is ever called God the Son in the New Testament, or that prayers are ever addressed to him as God; nor are there in that same book the words God the Holy Ghost or Trinity. Do the friends of Progress really look to the time when scriptural authority shall be found for these doctrines? and, if not, why are they afraid or ashamed to call themselves Unitarians? We are perfectly satisfied that it is not on account of its unpopularity that they shrink from the use of the name Unitarian.

Unitarianism being distinguished from all the other divisions of the Christian world, it seems in the highest degree desirable that it should stand forth as a distinct church, a section of the church of Christ, which embraces all Christians. Holding these sentiments, it was with great pain that we read the following passage from a letter of Mr. Martineau published in the Inquirer and re-published in the October number of the Christian Reformer: "To a Unitarian Society,-just as to a Reform Society, -I would willingly belong, but of a Unitarian Church' I could never be a member." Now if Mr. Martineau could not be a "member," it should seem that, a fortiori, he could not be a minister of a "Unitarian church." It is, however, well known