pecu

a

intervention for his Recovery, comprising all the subjects of Calvin's second and third books. Here Mr. Gurney stops ; and it is precisely at this point that the differences between pious Christians of the various Protestant communions begin, their religious peculiarities relating almost entirely to the external means of salvation. . Thus it is, that while those liarities destroy the uniformity, they do not affect the unity of the Catholic Church.

To these topics, we say, the religious differences which separate real Christians almost entirely relate; for it would not, we apprehend, be going too far to assert, that every sectarian division of the Protestant Church has been founded on peculiarity of sentiment relating either to the nature of the visible church, the sacraments, or some point of discipline. Putting the modern Unitarians out of consideration, the rise of Independency, the great Nonconformist secession, the origin of the Baptists, the Quakers, the Methodists, and the subdivisions of Presbyterianism, may all be traced to a dissent from the corruptions and usurpations of the Secular Church with regard to the nature or administration of the outward means of grace. Whatever theological peculiarities may attach to these several denominations, they will neither be found to have originated the separation, nor to be essential to the sect.

The Arminianism of the Wesleyan, the Calvinism of the Baptist, are found, the one in the articles, the other in the received theology of the National Church. And even the characteristic tenets of Quakerism respecting the cardinal doctrine of Divine Influence, do not so essentially differ from the opinions of many learned and pious men of other communions, as the views of Friends on this subject vary among themselves. Differences respecting the extent of redemption, the nature of faith, predestination, and the rest of the five points, have been the fruitful source of controversy in every age and in every church. The indivisible Church of Rome has not been less divided and subdivided against herself by contending schools, doctors, and orders, than the Protestant Church has been can the smallest existing sect pretend to an entire uniformity of opinion among its members on these points. But then it is consoling to reflect, that nine parts out of ten of the various controversies which have been maintained by theologians on the subjects alluded to have consisted of metaphysical reasonings and opinions; and of the remaining tenth, one half has been made up of disagreements chiefly verbal. There cannot be a more striking proof of this, than the fact, that the practical and devotional writings of some eminent persons of every communion, not excluding even the corrupt Church of Rome, have

become the common property of the Church Catholic, and the palpable evidences of its unity. The writings of Bernard and a Kempis, Pascal and Fenelon, Leighton and Beveridge, Baxter and Owen, Watts and Doddridge, Scott and Fuller, are now, found side by side in the same library, and circulating among all classes of religious readers. And the work before us: affords another testimony to the essential unity of the faith, by shewing how immeasurably more important are the points on which real Christians agree, than those on which they differ., We are not insensible of the objections which lie against Quakerism as a system, but we rejoice to find that its errors, will all come under the fourth book of Theology; and we, are not at liberty, therefore, to class Mr. Gurney and his friends, the evangelical part of his society, among either. heretics or schismatics,-according even to the definition of a learned Romanist: For there is to be considered, as to the Church, the head and the body. From the head, there is no departure but by doctrine disagreeable to Christ the head. From the body, there is no departure by diversity of rites and. opinions, but only by the defect of charity.'* Words worthy of something more than a golden inscription: they claim to be engraved on every heart.

If ever the various denominations of Protestantism are to be brought into closer union, it must be, we apprehend, not by means of a greater harmony of opinion on minor points, at least in the first instance, but by having their attention more, fixed on the grand points on which they agree. The pious bishops Ridley and Hooper,' says Howe, had differed somewhat angrily about ceremonies, but were well agreed upon a martyrdom at the stake.' In proportion as the attention is concentrated upon the substantial and prominent parts of religion, we feel to have more in common with those from whom we dissent. This is the true antidote to sectarian feeling. And in proportion as we give their due prominence to these common grounds of faith, we disarm the hostility of prejudice. Such a work as the present is admirably adapted to answer this most desirable purpose,-to fix the attention of Friends, and of readers of every denomination, on the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith, divested of every thing technical or sectarian in either sentiment or phraseology. The instances are exceedingly few and unimportant in which the Author's religious peculiarities have given the slightest colour to his statements;

⚫ Cassander de Officio Pii, &c. quoted by Howe. Works, Vol. IV.

p. 146.

but throughout the volume, we meet with abundant marks of a catholic spirit, as well as a fervent and enlightened piety.

In the introductory Essays on the Evidences of Christianity, originality was not to be looked for. Mr. Gurney has contented himself with a very brief outline of the argument pursued by Lardner, Paley, and Michaelis, with regard to the credibility and external evidence of Revelation; considering that, to the sincere inquirer, those evidences which are the matter of observation and experience, are not only the most accessible and intelligible, but the most satisfactory. This is true ; but if it was necessary, in such a work, to advert to the lower species of evidence, it was advisable to exhibit it in all its force. Mr. Gurney commences his work with some remarks on the strong ante•cedent probability of a Divine Revelation.' In exposing the un

а reasonableness of infidelity, this consideration may have its use; for, in fact, the bare possibility of a Revelation lays every man under the most sacred obligations to examine the truth of the Christian religion. All presumptive reasoning, it might be shewn, is in favour of a Divine interposition of this nature. But to Mr. Gurney's readers in general, the fact that a Revelation has been given, will probably appear more nearly approaching to self-evident, than the hypothetical probability adduced in support of the fact; and it strikes us as a great defect, though a very common one, in theological reasonings, to attempt to strengthen indisputable propositions by proofs less certain, or at least less obvious, than the corollary they are employed to establish. The entire force of the à priori argument in favour of the credibility of Revelation, which Mr. Gurney has glanced at, few of his readers will be qualified to appreciate With regard to the believer, it is superfluous. To bring it to bear on the sceptical inquirer, a much wider view of the subject and a more extended induction would be requisite.

It seems to us that Mr. Gurney, in these introductory essays, has not bad very distinct ideas as to the class of readers to whom he was addressing himself. There are two very different objects which a writer may have in view in treating of the evidence of Christianity: the one is, to vindicate it against the attacks of infidels, to expose and confute their objections, and to satisfy the doubts of the sincere inquirer; the other is, to arm the believer against the assaults of infidelity, by putting him in possession of all the evidences of his faith. "In the one case, in which the Writer has to gain over a jealous enemy, he has the choice neither of his ground nor of his weapons ; he can argue only from what the other party admits, and this circumstance narrows the basis of his reasonings. He has to set out with a concession infinitely derogatory to the claims of Christianity,

a

yet subservient, like the humiliation of its Divine Author to, its final triumph, the concession, for argument's sake, that its truth is questionable, its authority capable of being resisted. In the works of Lardner, Paley, Watson, and other powerful Apologists, Christianity appears placed on its trial. We fully admit the obligations of the Christian world to such writers, and the invaluable nature of their labours. With the Horæ Paulinæ more especially, every one ought to be familiar. Still, it must be acknowledged, that a different style of treating the evidences of Christianity, a less subdued tone, a more prominent and explicit assertion of its authority, a more becoming exhibition of its Divine character, are desirable in works addressed to the young and the ingenuous, to religiously disposed persons, or to that large class who, having no doubts as to the truth of Christianity, are yet too slenderly provided with the means of repelling infidel cavils. In presenting before them a general view of the deistical controversy, it never ought to be implied, that the duty of believing is suspended on debateable points, on probabilities and rational presumptions. A feeling of uncertainty may otherwise be awakened by the very process of demonstration. We are inclined to think, indeed, that the place for most advantageously treating of the evidence of Christianity, is the close, rather than the commencement of a work like the present. The first inquiry that naturally presents itself, relates to what the religion is; and not till this has received its solution, are we prepared to enter into the inquiry, now become all-interesting, Is it true? The objections of the infidel against such a religion are then seen in their true character, and the historic and presumptive evidence by which those objections may be met, assumes its proper place as subordinate and auxiliary to the internal evidence by which Christianity commends itself to every man's conscience.

Mr. Gurney thus commences his fifth Essay: • Satisfied, as I trust we now are, of the Divine origin of that holy religion of which the Law was the introduction, and the Gospel the perfect revelation, it still remains for us to examine a very important question ; namely, whether the record of our religion contained in the Old and New Testaments, is also to be regarded as of Divine origin in other words, whether the Holy Scriptures were given by inspiration of God?'

Here it is supposed that the reader has been conducted by the chain of reasoning in the preceding essays, to the conclusion, that Christianity is the religion of God--that is, a Divine religion,-yet, without being precisely informed as to the nature of the religion, or being satisfied as to the inspiration

of the Scriptures, on which the fact of a Revelation hinges. Such a state of mind, it is obvious, cannot exist: the case, therefore, is purely a supposititious one. The subject of the fifth Essay ought to have come under consideration immediately after the genuineness and authenticity of the Scriptures had been established. But we object less to this defect in the arrangement, than to the way of stating the inquiry, and the manner of dealing with the fictitious reader who is escorted through the different branches of the subject, on the ground of the incorrect representation which it gives of the true source and nature of belief or unbelief in the human mind. The logical process which is supposed to terminate in satisfaction up to a given point, bears no analogy to the rise and progress of religious conviction in the mind of a sceptic; nor is it by piecemeal that the claims of Revelation are admitted or rejected. We must seriously object, also, to such a style of expression as the Author's candour has led him to employ at pages 102 and 103. On the whole,' he says, we may safely accede to the sentiments of Archbishop Newcome,' &c. And again:

Now if there be nothing trivial in the epistles of Paul, and nothing really erroneous in the Gospels, the objections made on the opposite supposition to the Divine origin of the whole Scriptures, will fall to the ground at once. Let us, however, take up that opposite sup position, and grant for a moment, that one or more of the evangelists have actually fallen into mistake in their statements of some minor circumstances, and that certain parts of Paul's epistles are so absolutely destitute of weight, that they could not have been given by inspiration. Such facts, if facts they were, could not be pleaded against the authority of the Bible in general. We are in possession of positive evidence of a highly satisfactory nature, that the writings of the Scriptures were inspired, and inspired for the purpose of promulgating religious truth; and this evidence is by no means counteracted by the supposed circumstance, that, in the composition of certain small parts of their works, considered to be non-essential in reference to that object, they were left to the unassisted exercise of their own natural powers.'

If we understand Mr. Gurney aright, he means to contend, that the inspiration of the sacred writers as teachers or promulgatore of religious truth, would not be invalidated by their having fallen into mistake as historians, or by their having introduced into their writings, some references of a private and personal kind,-as 1 Tim. iv. 13. With regard to the former case, we are happily under no necessity of arguing the point. Most of the apparent contradictions referred to in the objection,' Mr. Gurney justly remarks, have been satisfactorily reconciled on critical grounds; and the few which cannot be so readily explained,' he adds, in terms somewhat too timid