ous distinction, moreover, in the use of the epithet 12, (Mighty God,) with and without the emphatic 7. In Deut. x. 17, Jer. xxxii. 18, and Nehem. ix. 32, they are used with peculiar emphasis, and are properly rendered "the Mighty God" but in the present instance either the indefinite article should be used, or none. Had the emphatic been prefixed to the word, indeed, as in the instances just enumerated, no doubt could have been entertained that the word was used in the highest sense; but, as this mark of distinction is not prefixed, and the epithet is clearly applied to a human being,-a child to be born, and a son to be given, the words cannot be fairly understood to mean any thing further than a mighty leader or hero, as Luther has translated it in his German Bible, interpreting the word in the inferior sense in which it must always be interpreted when applied to any being except the Supreme God.

The words translated "Everlasting Father," although in their present English dress they assume a very imposing appearance, are in fact attended with no difficulty whatever. Some copies of the Septuagint, with which Jerome agrees, have Harp Ta peMortos aires, (Father of the future ege,) Symmachus and Theodotion simply Пarn alwvos, (Father of the age,) which is no doubt the literal meaning of the words; but, as these words must necessarily relate to future time, inasmuch as the sense of the whole passage is prospective, the age alluded to must mean some future age, and that age the age of him to whom the prophecy relates.

The remaining epithet, "Prince of Peace," is correctly translated, and will be found peculiarly descriptive of King Hezekiah. During his reign, Jerusalem enjoyed a state of repose to which it had been an entire stranger during the reigns of his predecessors, and more particularly during that of his father Ahaz. This repose was threatened, indeed, but not materially interrupted by the ambitious designs of Sennacherib, King of Assyria; for,

words than between 'power' and power."" (Sequel to a Vindication Unitarianism, p. 125.)

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when the Assyrian army invaded ́ Judea, the prophet Isaiah assured Hezekiah that the peace of Jerusalem should not be destroyed by its hostile movements. "He shall not come into the city, nor shoot an there, nor come before it with a shield, nor cast a bank against it; but shall return by the way that he came." (2 Kings xix. 32, 33.) Accordingly, on the first night of the siege, upwards of a hundred and eighty-five thousand of the Assyrian troops were cut off by a pestilential disease; and Sennacherib fled, with the remainder of his army, to Nineveh, leaving Judea to enjoy a state of uninterrupted repose during the remainder of Hezekiah's reign. But here I find that I am anticipating the subject of my next communication, in which I shall endeavour to shew that the terms of the prophecy were strictly fulfilled in the person of Hezekiah, and not at all in that of Jesus Christ.

SIR,

R. WALLACE.

Bristol,
February 14, 1824.

TTACHED as I am to Unitari

Aanism as the "doctrine of the gospel," and looking, as I confidently do, to the spread of what Unitarians hold to be genuine Christianity, for the reformation of a misled and sinful world, I was more hurt than I can describe, to see in the Monthly Repository-a work to which our good cause owes so much-an article, signed Philadelphus, (pp. 15—18,) which, for the utter indifference which it appears to express with respect to Scripture authority, though the writer calls himself a 66 philosophical Christian," might have fallen from the pen of Carlile, or any one of his followers.

The insignificance and absurdity of this paper must so soon have consigned it to the oblivion into which such productions naturally fall, that it would have drawn forth no animadversions from me, had I not feared that, considering the work into which it has been admitted, those who are already prejudiced against our doctrines, might be led to suppose that the wild conjectures and suppositions it contains, are floating in the minds of many who conscientiously, and, as they believe, from overpowering scrip

ture evidence, hold as sacred truth the strict unity of God. This, it appears to me, will probably be the case and this leads me to hope that more than one protest will be entered against the adoption of so erroneous an idea.

Can any one who believes in the authority of the Sacred Writings, doubt whether future punishment be necessary? If any doctrine is clearly revealed in them, it is plainly revealed that all shall be raised from the grave, and that "every one will be rewarded according to his works"-according to the deeds done during his mortal life, "whether they be good or evil." If any one who reads the New Testament doubts of this, upon what grounds does he believe that Jesus lived and died and rose again? For these truths cannot be inore plainly laid down than the other is; and if we question the most momentous, yet simple and rational doctrines of our holy religion, how can we conceal it even from our selves, that we have thrown away our anchor, and are without rudder or compass, tossed on the wide and comfortless ocean of heathen conjecture!

To justify what I have said, and, if it be necessary, to excuse the warmth with which I may be thought to have expressed myself, I will extract one short passage from the paper, and refer those who desire to examine farther, to page 17 in the January Repository, The dissolution of the body is,

probably, a much greater change than any which can be experienced in life and it may, therefore, be the means of changing the views and reforming the habits of individuals much more effectually than the preaching of the apostles" (why did he not add the life and death of their Master?) "proved in their days!"

The dissolution of the body" can mean nothing else but the act of dying; and if this can produce so vast and so happy a moral effect, a general at the head of an army may, after a day of carnage, boast of having made more converts than all the Christian ministers throughout the world, can hope to do in the course of months and years to come.

MARY HUGHES.

P. S. If any writer wishes to vilify and misrepresent Unitarians and their views, the paper upon which I have been commenting gives him au ample opportunity. He has only to select a passage or two from it, and add, "These are the edifying discussions carried on by Unitarians in one of their highly-approved monthly publications"! Had Philadelphus come forward as a Deist, he might, for me, have given what scope he pleased to his conjectures; it would not have concerned me; but I am most unwilling that his sentiments should be identified with those of Unitarian Christians.

WE

E should certainly be led to expect, previous to any observations of our own on the subject, that the poetical mind would be, generally speaking, a devotional mind; that a soul filled with the love of beauty would naturally cleave to things eternally beautiful. Taking up religion as the grand thing which gives dignity to man, because it places him in close connexion with his Maker, and because it carries on his existence beyond the grave, the poets have every possible inducement to make the most of so magnificent a subject, and it cannot be doubted that they have often keenly felt and powerfully depicted the influence of its sublime truths. Because they have done this-because they have thrown the light of their minds upon religious subjects, and in the fervency of their expressions outdone more sober believers, perhaps a greater value has been attached to their testimony both for and against religion than is just. It does not often hap. pen that imagination is the growth of a man's latter days. It is, on the contrary, in youth that it is most active, and it is in youth that poetry and religious fervour are generally united. And, beautiful as is this union while it lasts, there is much reason to regret, both as to the effect on society and on the individual, that it is so seldom grounded on evidence-that it is so much more frequently, like any other bright dream of the mind, cherished or discarded according to the changeable fancy of him who entertains it. The poets are rarely systematic people; and yet their love of what is great in sentiment and beautiful in theory, is too often mistaken by themselves and others for that knowledge of religion which is properly an exercise of the understanding. They drink willingly, in their early days, copious draughts from the fountain of religious inspiration. By and bye, comes the questioning period of life when beauty and grandeur have ceased to be new; when the restless mind finds something more attractive in analyzing its sensations than in submitting to them; and all we have

felt, or feared, or hoped, or wished for, must be subjected to the process of rigorous investigation. And will not religion bear investigation? We all know that it has borne the scrutiny of the subtlest minds-that some of the acutest of logicians, philosophers and mathematicians, the world has ever seen, have tried and proved it, and confessed themselves satisfied. But there are many reasons which might well lead us to expect that the imaginative mind would find many obstacles to belief, arising out of its own peculiarities. Have we not abundant testimony to the extreme tenacity with which the devout Catholic adheres to fanciful observances interwoven with his religion? And is it not so common an observation as almost to be trite, that when you have shaken his faith in these, you have given a shock to the whole fabric of his Christianity also? I think it is evident that a similar shock, and often with similar success, is given to the belief of the poet, when he begins to discard his juvenile imaginations. Yet he who has been early accustomed to dwell on the subject in his retirements, and has confounded his own notions of religion with the abstract idea of religion itself, is not always able, and still less frequently willing, to allow that, with regard to the proper foundation of belief, he may have every thing yet to learn. It is the hardest thing in the world to persuade men in this state, that the truths which they have heretofore received on trust-which they now despise themselves for so receiving-are, nevertheless, "worthy of all acceptation." There is much to be deplored, much deserving of our sincere sympathy in such a condition of mind as this. It should not hastily be concluded, and surely it is paying religion no compliment to conclude, that the sceptical mind is always insensible to the blessings it loses by scepticism-that it has no sufferings, no sacrifices. There may be an after pleasure, a pride in these things; in the consciousness of having risen above what is called prejudice; (and a great part of such a religion as we have described was prejudice;) but there is no mind, containing in itself the elements of any thing great and noble, but must, at first, find it a painful

trial to give up the bright dreams of hope, and the undoubting assurance of faith. One of our strongest reasons for objecting to the language too often employed by Christians towards Unbelievers, is, that it has a tendency to harden the heart against such feelings. There is no guilt in a man's learning to doubt of that which he has never believed upon proper evidence. He must do so, before his faith can be established on reasonable grounds. We should help him on by our kindness, not beat him back by our illtimed reproaches. Our censures should be reserved for a far worse state of the mind than this: for levity, for heartless disregard of consequences; for habitual disrespect to the conscientious feelings of others; for cold indifference to the eternal distinctions of truth and error. When these or any of these, steal upon the mind, thenceforth the prospect is darkened indeed. The being we love has begun to extinguish his own light: the high tone of moral feeling is gone; and having, in this respect, ceased to "do the will of God," he will not, while this remains, "know of the doctrine whether it be" His.

There is a want of good sense, no doubt, in laying any great stress on the authority of the poets in matters which demand the coolest investigation. It is much to find them in general, as we do, friendly in their best days to devotion; and we ought gratefully to acknowledge the pleasure we derive from the exercise of their faculties upon devotional topics. But even the influence they thus acquire over the heart, should not be received without reserve. Correctness of sentiment is not to be looked for amid the revellings of the fancy, and it is possible that the weakness or warmth of poetic feeling may distort or modify much of what is substantially true in religion. I do not mean here to confine my remark merely to the practice of intermingling deliberate fiction with scriptural truth, as in the case of Milton's Paradise Lost, though it is worth observing how powerful an influence that one poem has long retained over the minds of religious readers-an influence, on the whole, both ennobling and salutary; but surely calculated to uphold the domi

nion of several considerable errors. For one poet, however, who has pursued this path, there are numbers who have erred less obviously, but quite as completely. "There is a religion which is poetical, theatrical, mystical; which may furnish themes for the expression of fine sentiment, and the indulgence of transient emotion; which delights to talk about sacrifices, but forgets duties, and has nothing to do with the unnoticed patience of obscure suffering, the unpraised self-denial of humble goodness, the strong and silent feelings of habitual piety; or, indeed, with any virtues, but what are splendid and popular, and fit for exhibition." "It is a religion not of the understanding, and not of the heart."* Yet this is, alas! too often the religion of the poets. They have loved their own thoughts too much and the word of God too little. They have too often misrepresented the character of the Deity and their own. Often, too, in their impatience of what is humble and common, they have refined upon the subject, until it has become too mystical and too delicate a thing to afford substantial comfort and joy. Often have they "darkened counsel by words without knowledge," and spoiled the simplicity of religion by fanciful additions, or fastidious suppressions.

There is one other mode also in which poets may have done religion some disservice in the eyes of the world. The melancholy and contemplative among them have laid hold on the subject, and imparted much of their own gloom to it. People will not discriminate here; and infirmities of the mind have been, most unjustly, charged upon religion. In a great proportion of instances, however, it will appear, upon the least examination, that the dejection and gloom complained of have been carried to, and not derived from, the subject, and that they are not more radically connected with that than with other subjects, pleasurable or painful. How often has poetical language imitated the dialect, if I may so express it, of genuine humility!-how often gone further in the use of terms implying the deepest penitence and self-abasement, than a

"Thoughts on True and False Religion.”—Andrews Norton,