that the remainder will inevitably incur the punishment denounced against the disobedient. He will not allow, perhaps, that this distribution takes place in consequence of any arbitrary decree of the Almighty, but may contend that it arises from the necessary operation of moral causes and effects. And does not this, when traced to its source, amount to the same thing?

It was, doubtless, foreknown to the Divine mind, "from the foundation of the world," on which particular individuals among the human race these causes would produce their proper effect, and on which they would operate in vain. Nothing, according to the Necessarian scheme, could remain contingent upon future events, nothing could be left liable to alteration from unexpected occurrences. And is not this equivalent to saying that it was predetermined, in the councils of the Most High, who should persevere to the end, and who should ultimately fail,-who, in short, to adopt the phraseology of Calvinism, should be numbered with the elect or chosen few, and who with the reprobate or rejected majority? It will scarcely be denied by the Unitarian, I imagine, that those of the species who strictly conform to the conditions required in revelation, are placed in such favourable circumstances as to lead them inevitably to rectitude of conduct; and there cannot exist a doubt, that were the rest of mankind so situated as to come within the sphere of the same operative causes, their volitions would be influenced in the same manner, and we should find in the formation of their characters the same result. He then who ordains the circumstances by which rational and moral beings are invariably influenced, does in effect ordain their ultimate condition :-for what Necessarian will dispute that these preestablished antecedents and consequents follow each other with unerring certainty?

As far, therefore, as the destiny of mankind, which is to follow the termination of the present state of existence, is concerned in the argument, I acknowledge myself unable to discern any essential difference between avowed Calvinists and those Unitarians who comprehend in their creed the doctrine of Necessity. There are,

indeed, many who entertain no doubt respecting the final restitution of the whole human race to virtue and happiness, and with them the tenets of Calvin would lose much of their hideous deformity; but it is difficult to say, how those of the same party who rest their views in the ultimate annihilation of the iniquitous, (leaving the eternity of punishment out of the question,) can be said materially to differ from the Reformer of Geneva, in some of the more prominent points of his system of faith. To every effectual purpose, they appear to me virtually to admit, though they may ostensibly disavow, the doctrines of absolute decrees, of election and reprobation, of irresistible grace and final perseverance.

In the Calvinistic system, it is true that good works are not allowed to constitute either the means or the condition of salvation, as the whole is resolved into the free and irrespective grace of God and his sovereign power; but, at the same time, it must be remembered, that though the adherents of this sect utterly deny the saving efficacy of good works, they regard them as intimately connected with a genuine vital faith, and that without them, the latter cannot properly be evidenced. On the subject of personal merit, I conceive that these two classes of Christians nearly accord. And to what other cause, let me ask, can the Unitarians ascribe the different conditions and destinies of mankind, but to the free bounty and sovereign will of the Supreme Arbiter of the universe? It is his pleasure that a chosen few should so shape their conduct, and so conform their volitions to the precepts and model of the Saviour, as with certainty to obtain "the inheritance of the saints in light;" and to the same uncontroulable pleasure it is surely owing that the other, and far greater portion of his rational offspring, should fail in fulfilling the conditions required, and thus forfeit every hope of possessing the proffered prize.

It is impossible, in my opinion, to reconcile the harsh and revolting tenets of Calvinism with the benevolence, and much more with the infinite benevolence of the great Parent of Nature; but I am at a loss to discover in what manner those Unitarians, who reject

the belief of final restitution, can with any consistency condemn the very sentiments which they themselves really indulge, though clothed in a different garb, and coloured in a softer

tone.

CLERICUS CANTABRIGIENSIS.*

Letters from the late Rev. James Nicol to the Rev. B. Mardon.

LETTER III.

[For Letters I. and II. see Vol. XVII. pp. 591 and 735.]

Traquair Manse, Sept. 28, 1819.
MY DEAR SIR,

I DARE say you will now be con

cluding that my friendship is nothing but a pretence, and that the letters you receive from me, are nothing but words of course, designed to amuse you, and to while away an insipid hour. Were I called to refute this idea, I am not sure that I could bring any proof which would at all serve that purpose to any person, and yet, you may believe me, the idea would be totally unfounded. Various causes have had considerable influence, not only in effecting it, but even in excusing my silence to myself. From your last letter, I anticipated the pleasure of seeing you at Traquair Manse long before this, and of receiving more information from you in a single day, than a correspondence by writing could convey in a year; and I have always found, too, that what is thrown out in a moment of social intercourse, possesses a freshness and a raciness, if I may use these terms, which nothing that distils coldly from the pen can ever possess. I have, likewise, as I formerly told you, unhappily for myself, though, perhaps, very happily for my correspondents, plunged headlong into the gulf of polemical theology, without much prospect of ever getting out of that "bottomless pit," which the orthodox, in the restless blindness of their understanding, if the understanding had any hand in it, have dug for their opponents. Need I mention, too, that this is actually my birth-day, when I enter upon my fiftieth year, with a constitution never robust; but now, worn out with every

thing but grief and dissipation; and though I have already forced my way through many an intricate labyrinth, yet a weary distance still awaits me, and my growing infirmities, while they render me less able for exertion, are continually calling upon me to quicken my pace. I do not know if I mentioned it before, but the truth is, that owing to these circumstances, and the love which I have to the cause, which I believe a good one, my conscience constantly upbraids me, whenever I am employed in any thing but that which I mention; and though this may not vindicate, it will account

for

my silence, without an impeach

ment of the affection of my heart.

I formerly told you that I had entered upon a consideration of the doctrine of the Trinity, and that I was led to that consideration by the publication of Wardlaw's performance against Yates. From the cursory manner in which I must have mentioned this circumstance, I see from your last that you have formed an inaccurate idea of my design. My design is not to revise, and to refute in that revisal, the statements and reasonings of Wardlaw, but to accomplish a still more important and arduous work, by investigating the subject in all its different aspects and bearings; and thus to refute the doctrine, rather than any particular defender of it. In the accomplishment of this design, however, you will easily see, that the assertions of Wardlaw will not be forgotten, especially as he has attempted to furbish anew the blunted weapons of his predecessors. I have endeavoured to pay particular attention, with what success it does not belong to me to say, to what may be called the metaphysical discussion of the question, whether it be possible that the orthodox doctrine can be true? My reason for doing this, is, that if it can be shewn, and I flatter myself that I have shewn, that the orthodox doctrine is by no means a mystery, as its abettors would have us to believe, and as many of its opponents seem to admit, but a plain and palpable contradiction, and which, therefore, cannot possibly be true; all attempts to prove it from Scripture must be in vain; for should Scripture be brought

with whom I am acquainted, who, to to any extent, have attempted the same thing, are Clarke and Priestley, men whose minds were of the very first order. Though Clarke's hypothesis appears to me altogether untenable, yet I cannot but admire his clear and forcible and discriminating reasonings respecting the proper unity of the Supreme Being, and wish that men of similar abilities had pursued the path of which he had fairly taken possession. Priestley, with powers which have seldom been equalled, wanted the coolness and the patience of Clarke; and the nature of his controversy with Horsley, as well as numberless other pursuits, precluded him from doing what he otherwise would have done, upon the primary question. Had I not imagined it possible to push the inquiry still further than they have done, and to give a broader basis to the grand conclusion, that it is impossible that there can be any thing but one God in one person, I would not have entered the field on which the power of their sagacious and argumentative understandings was so conspicuously displayed. From this, 'you are by no means to suppose that I neglect, or even treat lightly, the arguments which both parties draw from Scripture in support of their respective doctrines. I have considered every text that deserves notice, and if I do not deceive myself, I have brought forward something new upon most if not upon all. I cannot but add, that I have just now finished a section upon Eternal Generation, some part of which I once thought of sending to you with this, in which I have come to a conclusion, which you may think perhaps a paradox, if not a contradiction, that though God must of necessity have possessed the power of acting from eternity, yet still it is absolutely impossible, that any act or exertion of that power, whether necessary or contingent, can be eternal-a conclusion which is not only contrary to what all the orthodox must admit, but to what inany of their opponents positively assert. Price, whom on account of his amiable disposition and superior ‹ abilities, notwithstanding his opinions are different from mine, I can admire and love, says in one of his sermons, "It is self-evident, that the Almighty Being, who existed from eternity,

might have exerted his power from eternity." Now, though this is the decision of no mean mind, yet I think that I could legitimately prove, that it is absolutely impossible that any of the Almighty's acts or exertions can be eternal in the proper sense of that term. In short, upon Price's principle, I do not see how it would be possible to disprove the eternal generation of the Son. But enough of Metaphysics.

I received your kind present with pleasure, and return you my sincere thanks. The extracts from Dr. [Southwood] Sinith were not new to me, as I am in possession of his masterly performance. The pamphlet of your friend is excellent ;* and I am sorry that such a person should leave the country, as he must have done much good had he remained among you. The argument which he chiefly employs, and which he presses home upon old orthodox, with equal force and skill, has not often been alluded to. Indeed, that Christianity should be so much corrupted, as the Scriptures affirm it would be, in the dark ages, is a fact altogether unaccountable, upon the supposition of the truth of the common doctrines. Upon that supposition the corruption would be really nothing; for the Popish doctrines of Original Sin, the Trinity, the Atonement-all the primary doctrines, in short, are the same as those of the Protestant; and hence the primary doctrines of Christianity would have remained free from corruption, and all that ignorance and superstition would have done, would be only that of adding a few senseless articles to them, without blending them. The corruption of which the apostles speak was not of this kind-it was to enter into the very vitals of every article which Christ taught. Upon the receipt of your letter, I sent to Edinburgh for your Sermon, † which I perused with great pleasure; and must

confess, that the allusions which you make to the English Liturgy did not appear to me so foreign from our mode of worship as you suppose. The truth is, though we have no set forms of prayer, yet the expressions employed in the English forms, are so similar to the expressions employed by the Scottish clergy, that your argument seemed to me to suffer nothing, from your appeal to examples taken from the English Prayer-Book. I must tell you, however, that I was disappointed in your passing over so slightly, those passages of Scripture to which the orthodox appeal as instances of prayer addressed to Christ. But when I say so, I am convinced that you could not have elucidated these, without a good deal of verbal criticism, which would have been altogether inadmissible in a popular discourse. Hence you will see that my disappointment had its origin, not in your neglecting to do what you ought to have done, but in my wish that you had done what did not properly lie in your way. You merely state that the phrase calling upon the name of Christ," which the orthodox bring forward so obtrusively, upon every occasion, is a false translation, and that it is capable of another version. I am convinced that this is the case; but I am not sure that the Greek will bear the translation which the Unitarians generally give it. I think an intimate acquaintance with the use of the phrase in the New Testament, and with the circumstances in which the persons who are said to call on Christ were placed, and what is more, with the Greek of the Septuagint, might lead us to a translation, not only more just than either of the two generally adopted by the two parties, but perfectly free from giving the least handle to the orthodox doctrine. To explain the subject, however, is not the work of a letter. *** With kindest wishes for you, and the most ardent desire for the cause of truth, I remain, my dear Sir, Yours, most affectionately, JAMES NICOL.

The estimable and learned writer of this and the former letters, died on the 5th of the following November.

B. M.

SIR,

Manchester, Nov. 27, 1822. REQUEST the favour of a column or two of your valuable publication, for the purpose of explaining a passage of Scripture, hitherto, I believe, little understood, and certainly not expounded by any of the commentators whom I have consulted. The passage is Mark ii. 18-22: "Now the disciples of John and the Pharisees were often fasting. And some come and say to him, Why do the disciples of John and the Pharisees fast, but thy disciples do not fast?' And Jesus said to them, 'Can the children of the bride-chamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them?. As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. But the days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then, on that occasion, they will fast. No person sews a piece of new cloth on an old garment. For if he should do so, the piece of new cloth would separate from the old, and the rent become worse. And no person pours new wine into old skins; for the new wine would burst the skins, and both the wine and the skins would be lost. But new wine should be poured into new skins.'” *

The question in ver. 18, divested of its idiomatical turn in the original, is this-Why do thy disciples neglect the observance of fasts, contrary to the practice of the Pharisees and the disciples of John? It was very natural for Jews to ask this question; those whose law was full of ceremonial observances, and of minute regulations concerning feasts, purifications, fasts, &c., to which the Elders had added a cumbrous body of traditions, which descended to the notice of the merest punctilios. People whose minds and religious character had been formed under the influence of such a system of religious discipline, considered, the right decision of such a question a matter of the highest importance.

I have presumed to offer a new the illustration of the passage, (except intranslation, not because it is necessary to deed in regard to the word skins,) but because I am desirous of giving my suffråge for discontinuing the use of the common version,

Our Saviour's answer to this inquiry consists of two parts. The first is contained in the nineteenth and twentieth verses. But it is evident, that here it was our Saviour's intention to avoid the question-not to answer it. He indeed stated a fact that was true in itself that his disciples would mourn after his departure-but it had no particular bearing upon the question just proposed to him. Our Saviour in this and other instances avoided giving a direct answer to various queries, not because he was unwilling to declare and avow the truth, but because he knew that their minds were wholly unprepared to receive an answer to the inquiry both full and explicit, and accordant with the tenor of truly Christian principles. They were too powerfully under the influence of prepossessions and former habits of thinking to understand the spirituality of the Christian worship and discipline; so that if an answer had been made to them on this occasion in explicit and direct terms, no good and useful effect could have been possibly produced, but the contrary.

A

In the 21st and 22nd verses a direct answer is given to the question concerning fasting; but it is expressed in such symbolical terms, that however ready the inquirers might be to admit the truth of the literal meaning, (for who does not?) they were unable to understand the application to the subject under consideration. The obscurity of the passage has indeed remained to the present day; as most readers understand what is said about the garment and the wine as a kind of proverbial truism; and the commentators themselves think they explain it sufficiently, when they inform the unlearned reader, that it was customary in Judea to keep wine in certain animal skins prepared for that pur pose. Even the disciples of our Lord could not understand the true application and import of this symbolical and studiously obscure language, until they became acquainted with the essential difference between the old and new dispensation, the former being a system of external observances and bodily exercises, the latter a dispensation of spiritual worship and moral discipline. A correct view, however, of the nature of the two dis pensations, the one carnal, consisting

of outward rites and observances, the other spiritual and moral, will give us an insight into the import of the symbolical language used here by our Saviour: and it amounts to this-" If I, (we may suppose our Saviour to say,) I who have been sent into the world on purpose to abolish the whole ceremonial constitution of the Mosaic Law, to redeem the Jews from under the curse of the law, to do away entirely every thing of a carnal and formal nature; and was sent into the world, on the contrary, on purpose to teach the spirituality of divine worship, the essential obligations of the divine law of morality equally on Jews and Gentiles, and thus to abolish the old, and introduce a new order of divine worship and religious discipline If I, under such circumstances, were to impose the necessity of fasting on my disciples, (and, pari ratione, of any other ceremonial outward observance,) I should be acting the foolish and inconsistent part of him, who should put new wine into old skins, or sew a piece of new cloth upon an old garment."

The above interpretation is easy and natural, and approves itself to the mind as soon as it is offered: and our surprise is (at least it was the case with myself) that it escaped our notice so long. The reason, perhaps, why it has been so little known or perceived, is the unhappy prejudices and misapprehensions of the generality of Christians in regard to the spiritual nature of the kingdom of Christ. The system of religion which is generally upheld in this quarter of the world is essentially a worldly policy-a temporal domination. The kingdom of Christ is not a kingdom of this world. That, therefore, institutions and ordinances should have been introduced into one, which the other not only virtually disclaims, but expressly rejects and disavows, is no wonder after the admission of an essential and radical mistake.

I hope it will give satisfaction to the rational and conscientious Christian to find, that his views and opinions in general are confirmed and illustrated by the investigation of scriptural truth and the language of the New Testament; by means of which discoveries are made from time to time, of greater or less importance, by those who pur