dice and power: and this remark leads us to the Discourse, the title of which stands at the head of this article, and which, from the reputation of its author, the correctness of its statements, the felicity of its illustrations, the chasteness of its style, and the spirit of conscious truth and piety which breathes in every sentence, is deserving of more attention from us and from the public than can be usually claimed for publications of this local and ephemeral kind.

Mr. Kenrick's text, 2 Thess. ii. 7, He who now hindereth will hinder, until he be taken out of the way,-is usually interpreted by Protestant Commentators as a prophecy of the corruptions of the Church of Rome, though some few amongst them, following Grotius, find a satisfactory meaning of the somewhat obscure passage in events much nearer to apostolic times than even the rise of the papacy: he uses the words, however, "only as implying this general truth respecting the counsels of God, that their developement is retarded by obstacles, which for wise purposes, he permits to exist," and proceeds "to apply this truth to the purpose for which" his audience were assembled, "by pointing out some of those circumstances which retard the progress of Unitarianism, along with the grounds of hope for their removal." (P. 4.)

Speaking to men who are desirous that their teachers should prophesy right, rather than smooth, things, the preacher says, in relation to the discouraging aspect of his subject,—

"Had we met together, only to produce the temporary excitement of a factitious enthusiasm, to give ourselves a confidence which sober judgment does not warrant, and to impose on others by the expression of that confidence, I should abstain altogether from the mention of difficulties to be encountered; but such I am convinced is not the purpose of our assembling. It is true we hope for that excitement of our zeal, which is kindled by the sympathy of men united for the attainment of an object which they agree to think just and great; we look for that increase of confidence which is the natural result of perceiving, that many hearts are interested in the same cause with our own, many minds intent on its promotion, many and various endowments devoted to its attainment. And by cherishing these sentiments in connexion with a solemn act of religious worship, we desire to remind ourselves, that the glory of God is the great object which we ought to seek, his power and blessing that on which we should rely; and to breathe the spirit of Christian love and charity over the avowal of those sentiments which necessarily place us in opposition to so many of our Christian brethren. These are our purposes, and they will best be promoted by considering the relation in which our religious tenets place us to the opinions, feelings, and interests, of the rest of the world, in all its bearings, whether favourable or unfavourable, both that we may fully understand what is demanded of us, and may form that rational estimate of the probability of success, which is the best preservative against fickleness and desertion."-Pp. 4, 5.

To illustrate the prudence of not closing the eyes against difficulties, and of comparing the value of a religious object with the exertions necessary for its attainment, Mr. Kenrick remarks,

"The zeal which is fed from some superficial source, is like the brook of the desert, irregular and useless; at one time foaming in idle fury beyond its bounds, and at another dried up and consumed out of its place; bringing little honour or benefit to our cause while it lasts, and yet when it decays or ceases, used as an argument against us, as though there were nothing in our principles which could inspire a more permanent attachment."-P. 6.

The first obstacle to the spread of Unitarianism brought forward by the

preacher is, "the reluctance of mankind to undergo any extensive change in their opinions, and most of all in their religious opinions." (P. 7.) This reluctance is justly traced up to pride and self-love.

"Of all dominion, that which is exercised over the mind of others, seems most to flatter the pride of power, which is inherent in the breast of man. To possess empire over the spiritual realms of thought, to bind the subtle powers of the understanding in the chains of implicit belief, seems to place him on an almost super-human elevation above his fellows. The exercise of this dominion begets the belief of a right, and resistance of course is regarded as rebellion. Truths of science, as well as of religion, truths the most remote from action, as well as those which are most immediately connected with the conduct and the interests of men, have experienced the most violent hostility as long as they were innovations: this temper has shewn itself under all forms of government, (for the popular mind is not at all more patient of contradiction than that of a single tyrant,) and has tinctured almost every dispute respecting opinions, with an infusion of needless and unbecoming bitterness. Under the influence of this temper, men close their eyes to the light, because it is new and they love the ancient darkness better; and thus generations may pass away between the time when truth is exhibited with the evidence of demonstration and that at which it takes its undisputed place in the great system of human knowledge."-Pp. 8, 9.

Indolence, also, when roused by an attack on opinions that have become by familiarity a part of men's intellectual and moral being, turns into an angry feeling towards innovators.

"But the reformer in religion must expect that the storm of ill-will will fall with double fury on his head. It should seem as if religious faith, being conversant with things not sensible but unseen, not possessed but hoped for, required that its vividness should be cherished by the sympathetic feeling and accordant faith of other men, and hence has arisen, in part, that peculiar asperity which has given a disgraceful pre-eminence to the rancour of theolo gical controversy. It is doubtless for wise purposes, that a quick sensibility to any attack on our religious principles has been implanted in our frame; as they are the issues of our spiritual life, it was fit that, like the organs which perform the most essential of our vital functions, they should be guarded from destruction by a quick perception of any threatening injury. The salutary operation of this law is designed to prevent us from making a light and hasty change; in its excess it is one of the most powerful obstacles with which they have to contend, who endeavour to convince others of error in their religious creed."-Pp. 9, 10.

Further, the preacher takes notice of the reluctance to engage in efforts for the improvement of the public mind arising from spurious liberality and the pretended love of peace.

"To the much extolled maxim, that if the wise man have his hand full of truth he will only open his little finger,' I will venture to oppose, as more worthy of being a Christian's rule, the declaration of the apostle who, though he began by teaching his converts only the first principles of the oracles of God, when bidding farewell to those who should see his face no more, could take them to record, that he had not shunned to declare unto them the whole counsel of God.' Acts xx. 27. The solitary truth allowed to escape from the hand would probably be more mischievous, than if it had gone forth in its natural union with other truths. Let us not be misled by false analogies, and change the exception into the rule. The stomach, enfeebled by disease or want of food, cannot safely receive what would not burthen the healthy organ; the eye, unaccustomed to the light, might be blinded by too sudden an irradiation; and the analogy is so far applicable to the mind, that

it may be wise partially to communicate the truth to those who are not prepared to receive the whole truth. But does this authorize any man to consider the whole generation of his contemporaries as a vast infirmary of sickly minds, to whom the food of knowledge and the light of truth are only to be dealt in the minutest portions? It is a part of the plan of Providence for the education of the human race, that their attainment of truth should be progressive; but what mortal is placed so high in intellect above his fellow-creatures, that he is to be the judge what the rate of that progress should be? The probability is, that wherever there is one mind capable of discovering the truth, there are many capable of receiving it; and if there should be many more to hinder than to aid its diffusion, still the sooner it is made known, the sooner it will triumph. Let then him that hath the word of the Lord declare his word faithfully.' Should, after all, the honest, humble, diligent seeker after truth be the involuntary means of diffusing error, let him not fear that a righteous judge will impute it to him as a crime, more than if, intending to bring an offering to the sanctuary, he had unwittingly cast a counterfeited shekel into the treasury of God.”—Pp. 11, 12.

The second obstacle, described by the preacher, is "the formidable array of opposition" from men's "interests;" arising "partly from circumstances which belong to all opinions deeply rooted in the general belief, but still more from the political and religious institutions of our country." (P. 12.) He remarks, with a deep feeling of regret, that "it has been the fate of religious opinions more than any other to be mixed with temporal interests." (P. 13.)

"Wherever opinions are made the test and qualification for the enjoyment of worldly honours and emoluments, wherever there is a church (using the word in its secular, not its scriptural sense) which can reward conformity to its creed and punish dissent from it, it matters not whether by fire, by penalties, or by disabilities, there every other system must contend for acceptance at a manifest disadvantage. The possessors of the emoluments and honours which are thus exclusively bestowed, and all their expectants, whether in near and reasonable prospect or only in the airy visions of ambition, unite in firm phalanx against the innovator. Nor does the injury to the cause of truth rest here. He who by belonging to this favoured and exclusive community has been exalted in the eyes of the world and in his own estimation, can scarcely bring himself to think of those who differ from him, as deserving respect for the exercise of the most sacred privileges of rational beings and Christians; or to meet them, as man should meet his fellow-men, in the equal field of scripture and argument. Placed on the vantage-ground of an established creed, he considers every dissident as an arrogant and presumptuous man, too proud to submit his faith to lawful authority; for patient reasoning he is apt to substitute railing accusation, to upbraid him with the sin of schism and threaten him with the penalties of heresy.”—Pp. 13, 14.

From this state of things, many are led to profess what they do not believe, many more are inclined to admit arguments in support of the popular creed, the futility of which they would otherwise discern, and through a still wider circle there is diffused a spirit of hostility to all by whom the established opinion is opposed and endangered.

"In no other country is this result seen so strongly and extensively as in our own. In the Roman Catholic kingdoms of Europe, the predominant religion either kills the seed of all varieties of religious opinions, or allows them only a sickly existence beneath its wide-spreading and noxious shade. In other Protestant countries again, the established creed is either flexible enough to allow of great latitude of belief, or the advantages enjoyed by one religious party above another are so small, that men's passions are not vio

lently engaged in the struggle to appropriate them. The apple of discord is not of gold, and therefore excites no deadly animosities.”—Pp. 14, 15.

But in this country, the ample endowments of the church excite peculiarly strong apprehensions with respect to the danger threatened by hostility to

her creed.

"This cause, it may be said, operates equally against all Dissenters, and is no peculiar hindrance to the growth of Unitarian principles. But against what other body of Dissenters do the ministers of the Established Church express such unmitigated hostility, against what others do they exert so zealously every influence which they are allowed to use, in order, if possible, to blot our very name from the list of religious professors? Is it so long since we were forbidden by law to avow, much more to propagate, our opi nions? Nay, are we at this moment sure, that one edge of the sword of persecution, which we had hoped was for ever blunted and broken, does not remain as sharp as ever?* Can it be believed that those who avow their regret at the repeal of persecuting statutes, do not use every method which wealth, name, station, and influence, may give them, to check the growth of this which they deem, and with justice as regards themselves, the most dangerous of all varieties of heresy? Strong minds may not be impressed by the constant repetition of feeble arguments and groundless accusations; and ge nerous minds may feel that the violence of a numerous and powerful body is a motive for siding with the smaller and weaker party; but men in general are not so constituted. They catch the tone of the rich, the noble, and the learned, and readily believe all evil of those against whom so much is said. The prejudice thus excited against us, and which no arts are spared to keep alive, spreads far and wide through society, and makes it impossible for the advocates of Unitarianism to obtain, I will not say merely a fair hearing, but from large classes of their countrymen any hearing at all."-Pp. 15, 16.

Prejudice is, in fact, first artfully raised against Unitarians, and then appealed to in proof of the erroneousness of their system: such is the logical worth of the "orthodox" argument from number.

A third obstacle, insisted on by the preacher, is the "very general prevalence of the opinion, that the free exercise of the understanding upon religious subjects is dangerous" to the salvation of the soul. (P. 16.)

In this opinion the Romish Church led the way. Protestant Churches have followed in this narrow track, with marvellous inconsistency. If some of them have made a distinction in reference to the saving efficacy of belief between essential and non-essential articles of faith, Unitarians at least gain little by the relaxation; and if others profess that the sentence of damnation is pronounced only against those that reject certain doctrines from corrupt motives, this concession is of small avail to Unitarians, whose faith, or want of faith, is commonly imputed to some dishonest bias.

"Even those who in their hearts renounce the doctrine that salvation depends upon the reception of peculiar opinions, yet, from habit or compulsion of their office, continue to hold the high-sounding and terrific language which has been framed upon this supposition; and the many, over whom words and phrases exercise a kind of magic power, shrink back within the circle by which their spirtual rulers have circumscribed them, lest, by stepping beyond it, they should bring on themselves the denunciations which are so often rung in their ears. Of this weapon, none, I think, make a more unsparing use, than those who, dissenting like ourselves from the discipline and ritual of Episcopacy, carry their doctrinal system still further than the established

"See the suggestion of Lord Chancellor Eldon respecting the common-law penalties for denying the Trinity, Mon. Repos. O. S. Vol. XII. 436-438."

church herself. There is something imposing in her voice when she tells us what we may or may not believe consistently with salvation: her antiquity, her outward splendour, her temporal power, the learning and station of her ministers, all dispose the mind to submission; and she speaks with the more calmness, because she feels that she speaks with authority. But the ministers of dissenting churches can give no such weight to their anathemas, and in order to guard their communities from the incursions of heresy, they are obliged to make up what they want in dignity and power by vigilant inquisition and acrimonious invective. They warn those over whom they have influence to flee from the contagion of Unitarian principles; to resist, as the undoubted suggestion of the great enemy of man, the first inclination to read or hear what we can offer in our defence, unless with the firmest resolution that it shall only strengthem them in their present faith. The consequence is, that a large proportion of our Christian brethren know nothing more definite of our creed, than that it is the sure perdition of every one who embraces it."-Pp. 18, 19.

This part of the subject enkindles the preacher's indignant zeal, but a zeal not beyond knowledge or without charity.

"Were I called upon to say which of all the corruptions of Christianity had been most injurious to mankind, I should not point to the long oblivion of the unity of God, nor to the mysterious hypotheses respecting the origin, being, and person of the Saviour; no-nor even to that doctrine which teaches, that the Father of all was induced to remit his wrath against his feeble children, by the suffering and satisfaction of another Infinite Being; not even this appears to me so baneful in its tendency, as the doctrine once held by every community of Christians, that there is no salvation but in believing what cach declares to be the doctrine of the Scriptures. From the Bishop of Rome, in the plenitude of infallibility, through the long gradation of spiritual power, to him who thinks heaven but a colony from his own little church on earth, this opinion has been the parent of every unholy disposition and evil work. The lawfulness and even duty of persecution, in order that the soul might be saved by the suffering of the body, was one of its simplest corollaries; the permanent existence of an authorized and infallible interpreter of Scripture is the only supposition by which it can be reconciled, even in appearance, with the benevolence and justice of God. It has poisoned the springs of the charities of life, by leading men to regard each other as condemned of heaven, for speculative and trifling differences of religious opinion; it has perverted and confounded their moral notions by setting up a fanciful and arbitrary standard of virtue, in orthodoxy of belief instead of the simple, practical and scriptural test of doing justice, and loving mercy, and walking humbly with God.' We, my brethren, renounce and abjure the doctrine, that man can forfeit his hope of everlasting happiness by any speculative opinion which he has honestly embraced, while he thus conforms to what the Lord his God requires of him. We know that we too might work on the terrors of mankind, by representing our tenets as essential to salvation; we know that we sacrifice some of the most necessary elements of a religious party, by representing the gospel as comprehensive rather than exclusive; but sooner shall our cause sink as low as its bitterest enemy could desire, than we will appeal to the bad passions of the human heart in its support, and bring dishonour on the gospel and its author. If our zeal cannot be kept alive by philanthropy and Christian love, let it be extinguished!"-Pp. 19—

21.

The fourth and last hindrance, with which Mr. Kenrick shews that Unitarianism has to contend, is "the prevalent opinion that it leads to infidelity" (p. 21); an opinion, by the way, that was quite as adverse to Christianity on its first publication, and also to the Reformation when it first arose in Germany, as it is now to Unitarianism. This cause is in part resolvable into