verty of our Lord and the Apostles, and some of them actually did so, or rather carried their poverty and privations to a length for which there was neither reason nor precept. Men of this spirit assumed a merit by such conduct, that was altogether preposterous, and opposed both to the examples and warnings of the Gospel. For while our Lord voluntarily submitted to poverty, he was no ascetic. He did not command fastings and mortifications of any kind; on the contrary, he shared in the comforts of life freely, when they came in his way. Upon the same principle, the Apostles were even expressly instructed by the Spirit to denounce a certain race of false teachers, who should arise, "forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, &c." Thus, neither had the clergy any excuse for their covetousness, nor the monks for their mortifications; but through these means, both of them assumed an authority and influence, even in temporal affairs, which was wholly foreign to the spirit of the Gospel. Let us now see to what extent such usurpations were carried, both over the consciences and property of men, by the 11th and 13th centuries. The power and privileges of the Christian clergy, founded at first as we have seen, on the fears and superstitions which existed generally even in the most cultivated period of the Roman literature; were vastly increased in those ages of barbarity and ignorance, which ensued on the fall of the Western empire. This ignorance was the root and spring of the clerical power; but it received a peculiar direction, and acquired an artificial unity, from the circumstance of being ultimately modelled into the form of a regular hierarchy. By this means, the clergy became a completely organized body, like an army under the command of a single chief, always ready to support every detached corps and member of the fraternity. It was a natural result of the position of the Pope and his emissaries, that they should cherish the principle on which their power was founded-that was the superstition and ignorance of the people. Thus the principle gave rise to the power, and the power added force to the principle. We do not mean to deny that the ecclesiastical power was not frequently employed for good purposes, and in the absence of all other government, was preferable to a state of anarchy; but still, as it was founded in superstition, and grew up into a despotism, it partly indicated, and partly produced a retrograde movement in society. And whatever sanative principles were during the same time fermenting in the mass of society, or by whatever good motives many of the Popes and Bishops were personally actuated in the exercise of this power; the thing itself was opposed to the progress of society, and to the design of Christianity. In this point of view, we shall select the character and actions of some of the Popes in the height of their power, as examples of our general remarks, and as pregnant evidences of the complete metamorphosis, which Christianity (or rather what was nominally esteemed such) had undergone after a lapse of ten centuries. (Chapter III. to be concluded in our next.) To the Editor of the Christian Pioneer. SIR,-Give me leave to inquire, whether any traditionary notices are to be found at Glasgow, of a student, who there publicly advocated the Unitarian doctrine more than a century ago. He is thus introduced by Whiston, in his Memoirs (1753), p. 265: "At the end of March, 1724, I wrote a pretty remarkable letter to a young man, a very honest, inquisitive, deserving friend of mine, Mr. William Paul, a student of Glasgow in Scotland, from whom I have received several very kind letters, which are still preserved. He was then labouring in that University for the restoration of Christian Liberty and Primitive Christianity, as I had done at Cambridge and elsewhere." Whiston proceeds to copy, verbatim, his letter to Mr. Paul. It is dated from "Great Russel-Street, Mar. 30, 1724." The following passages, you will deem, I am persuaded, not uninteresting: "The length of your address, and your over-great respect will be best spared hereafter. I shall be a plain hearty friend to yourself, or any other the like pious and sincere inquirers, and therefore I beg you will please to look upon me accordingly. I am very sorry that when you came into these southern parts, 1721, you did not meet with me. Mr. Emlyn is also very sorry you did not go to his bookseller and inquire him out. "As to your coming hither again, in order to our mutual conversation, and the clearing any difficulties you seem to be under, we should be very glad to see you, and with the greatest readiness should communicate our advice and assistance; but the journey is so long, and the charges so great, that unless your own private circumstances will admit of it, or you will venture by sea as your great mathematician Maclaurin of Aberdeen, I think, did, we know not how to expect you. "You seem to me to resolve openly and honestly, to bear the like testimony to some most sacred but long discarded truths of Christianity, in Scotland, which Mr. Emlyn did in Ireland, and I, here, in England. In which honest and open way, we have had some few, and but a very few followers here; while almost all those who are privately of our judgment, temporise, or prevaricate, or use political management to avoid persecution, or the loss of preferment. Dr. Clarke has long desisted from putting his name to any thing against the Church, but privately assists Mr. Jackson; yet does he hinder his speaking his mind so freely as he would otherwise be disposed to do. If the truly great and learned men, who are thoroughly masters of Christian antiquity, would openly declare what they know to have been the ancient doctrines and worship of Christians, I believe the dispute with Dr. Waterland would be at an end. But they are, in general, too worldly wise for that. "This is the sad state of things among us. Nor is there any prospect of amendment till Providence open some new scene for the revival of primitive Christianity. However, my resolution is one, to do all I can in that glorious design, while God continues my life and health, with the liberty of the press; which, though prodigiously abused by others, yet affords great opportunities to good men to lay their sincere thoughts before the world. Seris factura nepotibus umbram. I heartily pray God to bless your and our honest endeavours, for the recovery of the pure and holy religion of our blessed Saviour; and to keep us so undefiled in this wicked generation, that we may not fail of our reward from him, at the great day of his appearing." I could not quote these unworldly resolutions, without recollecting, how lately I had seen the author of them brought into company not the most appropriate-even named among state-churchmen, who too plainly discovered that they could" temporise, or prevaricate, or use political management," rather than incur "the loss of preferment." I refer to an advertisement in the " Morning Chronicle, June 3, 1833," laudably designed to recommend the lately erected "Little Portland-Street Chapel," to the support of those Christians especially, who reject the distinguishing doctrines, while they generally prefer the forms of the Liturgy, "as by law established." Referring to its grossly unscriptural phraseology, the advertiser says: "How often have such theologians as Newton, and Milton, and Locke, and Lardner, and Whiston, and Samuel Clarke, and Law, and Watson, and Paley, deeply sighed over these its impurities and inconsistencies, and ardently longed for their extinction!" Not to dwell on the un De mortuis nil nisi verum. becoming and justly regretted reserve of Locke and Newton, and perhaps of Milton and Lardner, what are the claims of "Samuel Clarke, and Law, and Watson, and Paley," to be admitted as eminent Christian reformers, into the society of "honest William Whiston?" Clarke, indeed, would not for the sake of any preferment, so far "temporise" as to repeat his subscription; yet he could consent to live and die an amply beneficed clergyman, on the credit of a virtually professed adherence to his early engagement. Law has very fairly recorded, through successive editions of the justly valued Theory, his gradual deviations from the theology of his church. Yet though correct and even scrupulous as an author, he could exhibit as a Christian minister, for more than 18 years, and even usque ad mortem, the gross anomaly of a Unitarian bishop, presiding in the most solemn offices of a Trinitarian church; thus submitting to derive rank and riches as one of the royally appointed guardians of her faith and worship. If Bishop Law" deeply sighed," it was, I trust, sometimes "over the inconsistencies" into which a disposition" too worldly-wise" had betrayed him, as well as over the "impurities" in the worship of his church. That he " ardently longed for their extinction," I readily believe. That he also "longed" for the worldly advancement of his family, there can be little doubt; and mitres and coronets have distinguished them from the crowd. Watson had early possessed the invaluable blessing of independence, from the munificent bequest of a grateful pupil. Yet when raised to the bench, he deserted the episcopal duties of a See poorly portioned, to plant a forest in Westmoreland for the aggrandisement of his descendants. Thus, as Wakefield remarked, he was "beneficed in Dan, while he sojourned at Beersheba." There we know how he "deeply sighed" for a translation from Llandaff. Whether the bishop as "ardently longed" to extinguish the "impurities and inconsistencies" of his church, I am not aware that his justly valued writings have sufficiently discovered. Paley has been reported to have said, perhaps jocosely, that he could not afford to keep a conscience." Nor can it be easily ascertained, whether he always adhered to the doctrine of his "shuffling chapter on subscription" (as Wakefield correctly described it), in which too many clerical aspirants, who "dared to think one thing, and another tell," have discovered a specious though an insufficient apology. Thus unfounded are the pretensions of this quaternity, however otherwise illustrious, to rank as Christian reformers with "honest William Whiston;" though, by the free sentiments ably vindicated in their writings, they may kindle," as Johnson says on another occasion, "in thousands and tens of thousand, the flame that burned but dimly in themselves." Nor will their example encourage among Unitarian members of a Trinitarian church, that consistent public profession by which the new chapel ought to be promptly and largely supported. Give me leave, in conclusion, to contemplate Whiston in more suitable company, among Christians unworldly like himself, and supremely ambitious of their Master's plaudit; Robertson, Jebb, Lindsey, Evanson, Wakefield; who, finding themselves in spiritual Babylon, or at least in the suburbs of the denounced and devoted city, conferred not with flesh and blood," but responded to the warning voice, "Come out, and be ye separate." CIVIS RUSTICUS. The Press, Written by the Author of "Corn Law Rhymes," and printed in Sheffield during the progress of the Procession on the passing of the Reform Bill, June, 1832. GOD said, "Let there be light!" And fled away: Then startled seas, and mountains cold, |