Thomas Macknight, and John Bruce, Clergymen of the Established Church in Edinburgh.

"REV. GENTLEMEN,

"Since you have thought fit to lay me in jail for refusing to pay an assessment for your support, I consider it due to myself, and to the cause of truth, that I should publicly vindicate my own conduct. It is possible that some good men, under the influence of prejudice and partial views, may consider that I have acted unjustifiably, and contrary to the dictates of religion. I wish to stand well with these men; and if I do not convince them, I hope at least to mitigate the severity of their censures, and to show, that, in this contest, I am not the only offending party.

"I do not pretend to discuss theology with you; but I know that many of the wisest and the best of men, have been of opinion that the religion of Jesus Christ can legitimately rest for its support only on the conviction of its professors; and that its great Founder has proscribed the use of all carnal weapons and worldly policy in the defence and propagation of the Gospel.

"I have looked through the whole of the New Testament, and cannot find the shadow of an authority for laying an assessment on any town, city, or country, for the support of its ministers.

"I read (John xviii. 36) that Jesus Christ, in answer to Pilate's inquiries, told him, My kingdom is not of this world; if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight.'

"I read that when the Apostle Paul was desirous that the Corinthians should contribute for Christian purposes, in 2d Cor. 9th chap. which you may turn to at your leisure, he used various and powerful arguments to induce them to contribute liberally; and in the beginning of the next chapter he says, Now, I Paul, myself beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ: the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God." But it is needless to multiply quotations. I only ask you, if you can conscientiously believe that it is the same religion that breathes in these passages, and which instigated you to send your sheriffofficers to drag me to jail, without permitting me to get to my own shop to make necessary arrangements.

"The true Christian religion is founded on the Apostles and Prophets; Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone; but what have you proved the religion of the Establishment to be founded on? The bars, and bolts, and stigma of a jail! Take away the powerful support of the jailors; and where is the Kirk of Scotland?

"Alas for Christianity, Reverend Sirs, if it had only the shining light of your conduct to manifest it.

"I do not deny that you have a legal enactment for what you are now perpetrating against the religion you profess; but I maintain that that law is not only essentially unjust, but surreptitiously obtained. It is essentially unjust, inasmuch as it compels men who do not approve of the principles of a sect, to contribute to its support-it was surreptitiously obtained, as it was passed through Parliament without giving the parties interested the legal

intimation; and the enactment was procured by the magistracy really for other purposes.

"But I am told, that however the law was obtained, it is law, and must be obeyed. I acknowledge that the laws, while in force, ought to be obeyed; but I likewise maintain, that bad laws ought to be repealed. Now, my object in refusing payment of the assessment for your stipends, it is to show to the country and to yourselves, the utter abomination of this law, and the necessity for some alteration; and, in short, that no compulsory assessment, for the support of the Gospel, can be resorted to, without depending on the aid of the jailor. I have been the more induced to take this step, from perceiving that your reverend body has petitioned Parliament against any alteration of this annuity tax. You cling to the filthy lucre, with whatever injustice and heart-burnings it might be attended. I see that nothing but decided steps on the part of the payers will procure an equitable adjustment on the part of the payers; and in the hope that may be in some small measure instrumental in bringing about a consummation so devoutly to be wished, I have submitted to no small inconvenience and odium.

"Those who resist payment of this unjust, unchristian, and obnoxious tax, have been branded as doing injury to religion; but I hope the public will perceive that there are two parties in this game, and that if you, Gentlemen, had been as anxious to promote the cause of Christianity, as to increase the income of your own order, you would have imitated the conduct of the Apostles, and of the Ministers of several denominations of Christians. Had you said, by law we are entitled to the six per cent. annuity, but rather than injure the cause of the religion we profess, and be charged with oppression and violence, we shall submit to be defrauded of part of our rights-in all probability, the deficiency would have been more than made up by your congregations; but even if the opposition had diminished your incomes by £400 or so, would you sell your Master for 100 pieces of gold?

By your violent and harsh assertion of your rights, you have not perhaps injured Christianity, but you have shaken the Kirk. It is not likely that the country will long submit to the burden of a jail-supported Church. The inhabitants of Edinburgh have already resolved that this annuity tax shall be abolished: and if I can be, in any humble degree, assistant in relieving them from its oppression, I shall consider myself fully rewarded for all I have suffered at your hands.—I am, Rev. Sirs, with profound respect, your humble and submissive prisoner, WILLIAM TAIT.

Our friends in various parts of England, are respectfully informed, that their communications for this Magazine, if sent to the care of MR. HUNTER, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD, LONDON, previously to the last day of every Month, will reach the Editor in a few days afterwards.

CHRISTIAN PIONEER.

No. 86.

OCTOBER, 1833. Vol. VII.

To the Editor of the Christian Pioneer.

SIR,-I beg leave to thank you for the notice you have taken of my pamphlet, addressed to the Wesleyan Methodist Conference, in your periodical for February last. Your review of that little work appears to be generally written in a candid and liberal spirit, although perhaps occasionally tinctured with a grain of party feeling. But we do not exactly agree in some points contained in the introductory portion thereof; nor can I, with my present views of the Scriptural account of the divine generation of the Son of GOD, Jesus the Christ, in conjunction with his true, proper, and essential humanity, by any means surrender the " phrases" you appear to impugn. Your words are,"Possibly, too, he will, on further examination and reflection, find such phrases as the Divine filiation of the LOGOS, as the MONOGENES of the Father,' and the generically spiritual identity of the Son of God with the offspring of Adam and Eve, as, under God, the true and proper Father of all human spirits,' are as mystified and as totally inapplicable to the promotion of sound morality, true piety, and spiritual devotion, as are those anti-scriptural dogmas which he so dexterously exposes and so justly condemns."

In this dereliction of principle, which you have so kindly prescribed for me, I can by no means acquiesce, and that for very sound and cogent reasons; for, as I am in the habit of believing my Bible, and forming my theological principles upon its testimony, interpreted by reason, and illustrated by philosophy, I find the first set of phrases" which you condemn, so clearly and literally contained in the Scriptures, viz. in John i. 14, and v. 26. -viii. 42, and x. 30, 36—that I must be a barefaced infidel in my own estimation, if I did not fully and firmly believe them. And although the "mystification" of the fact there recorded, like the union of the human soul with the body, and the simultaneous and coincident propagation of both, may place the modus operandi of its accomplishment beyond the reach of my comprehension,

yet this is no argument against its truth, or its connection with " morality, piety, and devotion," so long as it is written, that "it is life eternal to know the only true God and" his Son "Jesus Christ, whom he hath sanctified and sent into the world to be the Saviour of men." (John x. 36, xvii. 3; 1 John iv. 14.) Surely, Sir, there is nothing irrational, immoral, impious, or anti-devotional, in believing God's own declaration, that he both possessed and has exerted a power similar to what he has given to man, viz. that of begetting a Son in his own likeness, who is "the bright effulgence of his glory, and the impressed image of his hypostasis." (Colos. i. 15; Heb. i. 3.) If to believe this be superstition and heresy, I glory in being such a superstitious heretic as to both believe and maintain the fact, upon the express testimony of God himself. With respect to the second class of " phrases," which here come under your censure, I am equally satisfied of their truth and consistency with the plan of human redemption, upon soundly Scriptural and rational grounds; nor am I aware of any other mode by which "the Son of God" could possess that Scriptural identity with the human family, which was necessary, not only to constitute him a true and proper man, seeing he had no immediate human Father, but also the federal representative of that family, and the sacrificial victim of their redemption. And this I find fully revealed and amply confirmed in the Scriptures of truth, which declare, first, that "both be that sanctifieth" (viz. Christ; see Heb. xiii. 12) "and they who are sanctified" (viz. his "purchased people;" see the true translation of Ephes. i. 14) " are all of one" (viz. all the offspring of one common Father, and partakers of one common nature, John xx. 17). And second: That notwithstanding this, and by virtue of his primogeniture (Colos. i. 15; Rom. viii. 28, 29; Rev. iii. 14), he must in all things have the pre-eminence (Colos. i. 18) above them all, as well as above the angelic powers (Heb. i. 4, 6). Now as man is the offspring of God (Acts xvii. 28), so Christ is declared to be the generative as well as the federative head of the human family (1 Cor. xi. 3); and, as such, the first link of the golden chain by which we sprang from God, and through whom we must also return to God, for "no man cometh to the Father but by the Son."

The propagation of human souls or spirits, I presume

to be a fact as certain and as clearly proved as that of bodies, for we have precisely the same evidence in support of the one as of the other; viz. that of our senses and of our reason, confirmed by the express testimony of Scripture, viz. Gen. v. 3, xlvi. 26. Moreover, the generation of mankind is, in the genealogy of the supposed human father of Christ, traced up by St. Luke to God (Chap. iii. 38). But God being a Spirit, this proves that He was the Father of the human soul, as indeed he is expressly said to be in Hebrews xii. 9. But in John i. 1, 3, and Heb. i. 2, we are informed that the LOGOS, i. e. Christ the Son of God, who was "" with God" at the creation of all things, was also the agent and medium by and through whom the universe and all things therein were produced. And he is specially and emphatically declared to be the head or fountain of the human race, even as God is his head and the fountain from which he sprang, in the passage above quoted, viz. 1 Cor. xi. 3, where St. Paul says" But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God." That this headship in each case is founded in generative paternity, is evident, because as God is the Father of Christ, so the man is the father of the woman; and as the same causes and effects constitute the basis of each link in the chain, so it is clear that the headship here ascribed to Christ above "every man," including, of course, all his own ancestors" according to the flesh" (See Matt. xxii. 45; Rom. i. 3; John x. 58; Rev. xxii. 16), is paternal; and if paternal, it must be generative; and if generative, it could only be spiritually so, for, xara oagna, David and the other Patriarchs were his ancestors; but in the spirit he is "David's Lord," and the root from which the soul of that Patriarch sprung. (See Matt. xxii. 42-45; Rev. xxii. 16.) And this, I apprehend, is the only legitimate ground of the federal and representative headship of Christ, in reference to the human family, upon which alone his sacrificial atonement for their sins, and his mediatorial office and sacerdotal character can repose; and I presume, these constitute the only foundation of a sinner's hopes of salvation from a just and holy God. (See Heb. vii. throughout, and ix. 11 to 28, and read them.)

In conclusion, you say "There seem to us many inconsistencies scattered up and down this pamphlet. The