hand, reviving the monstrous notions of the Manichæans, and esteeming good and evil to be alike of divine original. Not only the sameness of subject, but the whole turn of the debate, and tenor of the arguments, mark the substantial sameness in the controversy, successively carried on by Catholic Christianity, and orthodox Mahometanism, so called, against the impious hallucinations of the Manichæan or Magian theology.

The nature and attributes of the Deity became the next grand question of doctrine in the Christian church and here again, in due process of time, we find a corresponding controversy raised within the Mahometan superstition.* With this difference, that the Mahometan line of disputation was the converse of the Catholic; and that the religions here more nearly approach each other, through the medium of their respective heresies.

The Scriptural doctrine of the Godhead, which plainly affirms a trinity of persons, and unity of essence in the Divine nature, as the fundamental tenet of Christianity, found inveterate opponents in the successive schools of heresy, which have, in turns, pretended to the distinction of exclusively maintaining the doctrine of the Divine unity. On the other hand, the boasted Unitarian doctrine, ostentatiously displayed in the Koran,

as the charter principle of Mahometanism, has been formally controverted by Mahometan sects reputed heretical; who, partly deriving their notions from the speculative anticipations of the Greek philosophy, but principally following the remotely-surveyed lights of Gospel truth, have framed to themselves a doctrine, which, however imperfect in its character, presents a singular example of approximation to the Christian mystery. Thus the doctrine, that there exist two Creators of all created natures, the one eternal, namely, the Most High God, the other of more recent origin, namely, Christ, — or, as it has been otherwise expressed by Mahometan writers, that there are two Gods set over the universe, the Eternal, who is God exalted above all, and the new God, which is Christ, - this doctrine, maintained by a powerful Mussulman sect*, inclines at least as much from Unitarianism, towards the Catholic belief, as the tenets of Arius and his school receded from Catholicity.

In the doctrinal history of Christianity, the Arian controversy was succeeded by the Predestinarian; in which the Scriptural doctrine of predestination became blended and confounded with the philosophical disputations con

* See Pocock, Specim. p. 221.

cerning liberty and necessity; and the Catholic faith was placed in jeopardy, between the opposite errors of the irrespective fatalist, and of the advocates of human free-agency in its most unrestricted acceptation. Now, since the doctrine of absolute predestination stands in the Koran itself, as the fundamental principle of Mahometanism, there would seem the less room to anticipate, under this head, any considerable doctrinal analogy or correspondence. But facts are here at issue with antecedent probabilities. The Mahometan doctrine of fatalism, like the Scriptural doctrine of predestination, was leavened, in process of time, by tenets drawn from the schools of the old Greek philosophy; until Mahometanism, in the event, presented a full parallel with Christianity, in its many and diversified modifications of the primitive doctrine of predestination; from the most absolute control of fatalism, to the most unbounded exercise of freewill. The details of this parallel exhibit a variety of opinions among the chief Mahometan sects, remarkably corresponding with the diversity of doctrine which has prevailed, on this momentous subject, in the Christian church: a fact that may serve to correct the popular error, which assumes fatalism to be the universally-received dogma of the Mahometan superstition: but such details

will more properly be given in another division of this work.*

In our Lord's parable of the publican and the pharisee, who went up to pray in the temple, we recognize the disunion of sentiment which obtained in the ancient Jewish church, upon the grounds of acceptance with God: the disciples of one school confiding solely in the succours of divine grace; those of the other resting exclusively on the plea of human merit.

In the Christian church, from the Apostolic age inclusive, these opposed doctrines found their respective advocates; but were carried to their height in the progress of the predestinarian controversy; of which, in the time of Saint Augus tine, they formed a prominent part.

Now, among the adherents of the Mahometan superstition, the existence of a corresponding analogy of debate, on the doctrines of grace and merit, is shortly and clearly ascertained, from the history of the Turkish sects of the Dervises and the Tzofilar, who stand controversially op, posed to one another on this momentous subject.

The Dervises, like the followers of Saint Augustine, profess to hold, as their fundamental tenet, "that the law is of no avail, but that it is the grace of God by which alone every man must

* Section ix.

look to be saved; which grace, without the law or human merit, is sufficient to procure salvation." * They further, in imitation of the Catholic doctrine, refer all proficiency in things spiritual to the love of God, in which they place the only source of all perfection and felicity. †

The Tzofilar, on the contrary, after the model of the Pharisees, and of the disciples of Pelagius, maintain that every one must be saved by his own merits; and that human merit alone, without grace and the law, suffices for salvation. ‡

The correspondence of the Mahometan controversy with the Christian, so far as the terms of the debate are concerned, will be perceived by every reader in the least conversant with church history: more than a merely verbal agreement will be neither expected nor desired; for such agreement alone can be supposed suitably to subsist, between the true revelation and its spurious copy.

The doctrinal parallel of Mahometanism with Judaism and Christianity, has been traced, in the

*"Quòd lex nihil prodest, sed gratia Dei est, quâ oportet omnem hominem salvari; quæ, sine lege et merito, sufficiens est ad salutem.”— Hotting. Hist. Orient. p. 365.

+ "Referunt Dervisii omnia ad amorem Dei. In hoc, perfectionem esse, et summum bonum." Ib.

"Quòd unusquisque debet salvari per meritum; et hoc sufficit ad salutem, sine gratia et lege." Ib.