to honours of Doorga as Christians have to engage in the public worship of the one Living and True God. But surely it is not too much to expect that the latter should abstain from giving countenance to the worship of the former, by a regular or frequent attendance at an annual festival, at which the grossest and most revolting obscenities are unblushingly practised, and which is held in express honour of what Christians must, in all consistency, consider as possessing no claim whatever to the attributes or worship of Deity. We have not room point out the various evils by which this practice is attended, or to refute the different excuses by which some will attempt to palliate it. We state the plain unvarnished fact that it operates to the encouragement of idolatry and vice, and that it is considered by the natives themselves as a virtual approval of their worship; and we think that this alone should induce every sincere Christian and every lover of his species henceforth to withdraw his presence from these midnight orgies. It is true that even if this were done the idolatrous worship would still be continued probably for a considerable time; but there would no longer be thrown around it that halo of splendour which dazzles the eyes of the vulgar, and by which even the more enlightened shelter themselves from their own contempt. The growing knowledge of this age and people is already making the fabric of superstition totter to its base. Leave it therefore to the operation of this cause and it will soon crumble to pieces; but the operation of this cause cannot fail to be materially impeded by the con tinued countenance of Christians to a system of religion and a mode of worship which they profess to consider hurtful as well as erroneous, not only as giving to dumb idols that worship which is due to the Divine Being alone, but injurious also to the best interests of human society. To corroborate the views given above we add that the members of a wealthy and respectable Hindoo family known to us, who, however urged by the convictions of their minds, are at present prevented by cir cumstances from discontinuing the usual routine of idolatrous worship, would long before now have entirely given up the Doorga Festival but for the hints and solicitations of their European friends who thus, unwittingly we doubt not, counteracted their laudable endeavours gradually to free themselves from the trammels of a debasing superstition. We have also been informed on good authority that a distinguished and intelligent native, on the occasion of the Festival of the present year, declared that as he is in the habit of expressing his contempt of the Hindoo gods and goddesses, in the presence of his European friends during three hundred and sixty-four days of the year, he would not be so inconsistent as to invite them to a festival in honour of one of them, on the three hundred and sixty-fifth day. We leave these facts, without any further comment, to make their due impression upon those who are Christians in name and profession, and especially upon all who are so from conviction and by practice. Calcutta :-Printed by P. CRICHTON, at the Mirror Press, No. 76, Doomtollah Street to whom those who may be desirous of mencising the Unitarian Renository are requested to forward John Howe, A. M. JOHN HOWE was born, 1630, at Loughborough; he was first sent to Cambridge, and afterwards to Oxford. He was settled at Great Torring. ton, Devonshire; but, being on a visit to London, Oliver Cromwell took a liking to him, and would have him preacher at Whitehall. On his death, and the withdrawment of Richard Cromwell, he returned to his flock at Torrington. He was persecuted after the Act of Uniformity was passed; but, in 1671, passed over as chaplain to Lord Mazarine into Ireland. He then came back to London, where he laboured for ten years with great usefulness. In 1685 he travelled on the continent with Lord Wharton; and on his return settled in Silver Street, with a select congre. gation, dying there 1705, in the seventy-fifth year of his age, with peace and serenity. His talents were of a high order. His works consist of two folio volumes: his chief pieces are, The Blessedness of the Righteous; Delighting in God; but, above all, his Liv. ING TEMPLE; this exceeds the rest. Some tracts were published after his decease. He is a great favourite with the Calvinists, who generally de nominate him The Great Howe. But it is justly said of him, and to his praise be it spoken, that he loved all good men, and loved them according to their goodness, without considering to what communion they belonged. This is the genuine spirit of Christianity. Evans's Sequel to the Sketch. ESSAYS, EXTRACTS, &c. Religious Contention. How little any of us know, or are capable of knowing, in this our present state. And they that think they know most, or are most conceited of their own knowledge, know nothing as they ought to know. They that are most apt to contend, do, most of all, fight in the dark. It is too possible there may be much knowledge without love. How little such knowledge is worth. It profits nothing. It hurts, puffs up, when love edifies. The devils know more than any of us; while their want of love, or their hellish malignity, makes them devils. As by pride comes contention, so humility would contribute more to peace (and to the discerning of truth too) than the most fervent disputation. But to close all, I pray, let us consider we are professedly going to heaven, that region of light and life, and purity and love. It well, indeed becomes them that are names dear to philosophy, upon the way thither, moder-science, and literature, as well ately to inquire after truth. Humble, serious, diligent endeavours to increase in divine knowledge are very suitable as to piety, virtue, and universal philanthropy. Such names, were they multiplied a thousand-fold, would form no ar theology; but they should at least save the advocates of U nitarianism from those imputations of a practical disregard to the authority and commands of the gospel which would include within their range, men ewinent not only for every intellectural attainment, but for every moral excellence that adorns, enriches, and diguifics the nature of man. to our present state of dark-gument against the popular ness and imperfection. The product of such inquiries we shall carry to heaven with us. We shall carry truth and the knowledge of God to heaven with us. We shall carry purity thither, devotedness of soul to God and our Redeemer; divine love and joy, if we have their beginnings here, with whatsoever else of real permanent excellency, that hath a settled fixed seat and place in our souls now, and shall there have them in perfection. But do we think we shall carry strife to heaven? Shall we carry anger to hea ven? Envyings, heart-burnings, animosities, enmities, hatred of our brethren and fellow-Christians, shall we carry these to heaven with us? Let us labour to divest ourselves, and strike off from our spirits every thing that shall not go with us to Heaven, or is equally unsuitable to our end and way that there may be nothing to obstruct and hinder our abundant entrance, at length, into the everlasting kingdom -Mr. Howe. History of the progress of Unitarian Christianity in the Church of England. The following translation of another extract from the Brevis Expositio exhibits the progress of Unitarianism within the pale of the Church of England, from the period of the Reformation to the present time. It brings to our notice and associates with the history of Unitarian Christianity The work of reformation in the church of England is not stationary. Besides the High Church and Evangelical parties there has been gradually formed a third party, consisting of men of sober and rational piety, who, with a sincere attachment to Episcopal government and discipline, earnestly desire in the language of Arch bishop Tillotson to see the church" well rid" of the Athanasian Creed and similar symbols of faith. Although many still continue members of the Established Church who thus disapprove of its doctrine and worship, yet several of them have given the most unequivocal proofs of their sincerity and disinterestedness by declining to renew their subscription to the Liturgy and Articles, thus relinquishing every pros pect of preferment in the dignities and emoluments of the State Religion. We trust that the time is not far distant when Church Clergymen will longer be required to sanction by an ex animo subscription at Once an unscriptural creed and AD nuchristian spirit.-ED, no names of many others are transmitted, who, persisting in offering divine honours to the Father only, perished at the stake. The fate of Joan Bocher is remarkable; the warrant of her death was extorted from Edward VI. by archbishop Cranmer, who, for his It is not easy to assign the origin, and trace the early history of Unitariauism in England. Its doctrines, how. ever, quickly engaged the attention of the human mind then newly awakened from its deep and protracted reverie. About the middle of the fif teenth century, Reginald Peazeal in promoting the Reforcock, Bishop of St. Asaph, mation, was afterwards sacri and afterwards of Chichester, ficed to the fury of the pa a zealous advocate for a purer pists. The amiable prince system of faith and morals, ap. moved to tears, is reported to pears to have conceived the have said to the prelate, "I objections, which have since resign myself wholly to your prevailed, not only to the divi- judgment in this matter; it is nity of Christ, but to the nar. for you to justify the deed in rative of his miraculous birth the sight of God:" This exrecorded in the beginning of cellent woman had been inMatthew's Gospel. He was duced to embrace the doctrine deprived of his episcopate; of the simple unity of God by nor did his constancy avail to reading the Scriptures, then save him from the ruin which lately translated into English. his love of truth had provoked. The new tenets were disseminated with such rapidity, that a system of persecution was set on foot to suppress them. From 1566 to 1688 the im Henry VIII. was the up Worthy instrument, and his li Centious amou:s the impure source of the reformation in the English Church. Its sep-portation of Socinian books aration from the papal see, the was prohibited; and Barthowork of violence, rather than lomew Legate, who suffered the result of investigation, was martyrdom in the reign of accordingly less complete and James I. (1611) has borne a effectual, than in other pro way the testimony of his im testant countries. New arti-placable adversary to the fault cles of faith were imposed, and Henry was constituted sopreme head of the charch; yet there were not a few, who had too proud a sense of their inherent dignity, and were too deeply skilled in sacred litera-panish the assertors of the ture and ecclesiastical history to embrace and abandon their opinions at the nod of a capricious tyrant. While the hierarchy, during the reigus of Henry VIII. Edward VI. and Elizabeth, was assuming its present form, many atoned with their lives for their rejec tion of the trinity; and the less purity of his life. The piety and fortitude of these holy men in their last moments sunk deeply into the minds of the beholders, so that it was judged expedient to divine unity by leaving them to perish in secret dungeons. The story of their virtues and their sufferings has perished, with them; but there is a hand which has consecrated their memory in immortal charac-. ters, and enrolled their names in the book of life. ter his retirement, the chapel in Essex-street, London, was, erected, and Clarke's impro ved liturgy, revised by Lindsey, was adopted in the reli gious services. This it is believed, was the first edifice in England, consecrated from its foundation to the worship of God the Father. It is, and ever has been, the resort of persons distinguished for wealth, office, rank, and eloquence in the senate and at the bar. Their present pasto is the Rev. Thomas Belsham, formerly professor of theolo gy in a college of calvinistic Dissenters; The writings of this gentleman, whether in defending the credibility of the Gospel and the truths of Unitarianism, or in repelling the wanton and insolent attacks made upon his brethren, or in vindicating the honours of the dead, against those who seek to tarnish them, equally prove him to be learned, temperate, and acute; while the integrity of his life, the suavi ty of his manners, and his diffusive benevolence, endear him to the wise and good. Unscriptural Language. In matters of revelation I think it not only safest, but our duty as far as any one delivers it for revelation, to keep close to the words of the scripture; unless he will as sume to himself the authority of one inspired, or make him. self wiser than the Holy Spiit himself.-Mr. Locke, "sense of it.As in the 66 present case, whether there "can be three persons in one "nature, or two natures and one person." My lord, my Bible is faulty again; for I do not remember that I ever read in it either of these propositions, in these precise words: "there are three persons in one nature" or, " there are two "natures and one person." When your lordship shall shew me a Bible wherein they are. so set down, I shall then think them a good instance of pro positions offered me out of scripture; till then, whoever shall say that they are propa positions in the scripture, when there are no such words So put together, to be found in holy writ, seems to me to make a new scripture in words and propositions that the Holy Ghost dictated not. I do not here question their truth, nor deny that they may be drawn from the scripture; but I deny that these very propo sitions are in express words in my Bible. For that is the only thing I deny here; if your lordship can shew them me in yours, I beg you to do it. Mr. Locke. The Three Witnesses: 1 John v. 5-9. Having given you the His. tory of the controversy, I shall now confirm all that I have said from the sense of the text itself. For, without the testimony of" the Three in But the instance your lord- "Heaven", the sense is good ship bere gives, is beyond my and easy, as you may see by comprehension. You say, the following paraphrase 66 a proposition is offered me inserted in the text in a dif out of scripture to be believ-ferent character. ed, and I doubt about the |