reach, has devoted himself for some time to the laborious office of a foreign missionary, and chiefly to the Jews; and whatever we may think of his opinions or talents, or of the probability of his succeeding, we are compelled to pay our tribute of respect to his disinterested religious labours.* The pamphlet before us is the result of his observations, and in some respects, a less gratifying result than a soi-disant "Evangelical" believer would have expected; for though he finds the Jews every where on the eve of a change, he sees many symptoms of their conversion being in an opposite direction to Calvinistic Christianity, and he is constrained to admit the degeneracy of the foreign Christian churches, or in other words, their departure from the continental symbol of orthodoxy, the Confession of Augsburgh.

Mr. Way is shocked, as no doubt is his right reverend correspondent, at the state of "the episcopal chapels on the continent." That at Hamburgh is filled with military stores; that at Amsterdam has been without service for years; that of Memel is deserted; and that at Moscow is burnt (p. 11). But our traveller's principal object is the Jews: he says, that he has visited all the synagogues and conversed with most of the rabbies from Rotterdam to Moscow; and he declares (p. 13), that "there is, at this time, a general commotion among the descendants of Abraham, and perhaps as general an expectation after what is about to come upon them, as before the appearance of Christ." He learned at Amsterdam, (p. 20,) "that there are upwards of one hundred families predisposed to make a profession of Christianity, which they believe and teach secretly to their families, while some of them, at the same time, attend the synagogue." It is difficult to understand in what way he could be informed of the secret teachings of the Jews in their families. In Hanover, a number of Jews in the higher classes have lately been baptized (p. 22), but

chiefly with a view of obtaining civil privileges. The philosophical cha racter of the Prussian Jews, as described by Mr. Way (pp. 24-35), has been exhibited in Mr. Howe's letter. For the use of the "Reformed Jews" at Berlin, a splendid synagogue has been built by one of their wealthy brethren, where only parts of the law are read, and the singing and preaching are in German. The Goverument at first objected to this institution, as being neither Jewish nor Christian, but it is suffered to continue unmolested, and the old synagogue is deserted (p. 26). These "Reformed Jews," according to Mr. Way, are proselytists, which affords some evidence of their having a sense of truth, and being in earnest in their profession: since he wrote, we have read an account in the newspapers of a synagogue being established on their principles at Hamburgh. He laments over the condition of four Jews, whom he met at Berlin, in one day, of whom "not ONE had any knowledge of sin or its imputation: all conceived religion to lie within the compass of reason and human power, and justification to be by works of man alone."* (P.27.) One was a student of theology, who knew nothing of the fall or the atonement: we wish, in spite of our missionary's scorn, not very decently expressed, that he may long remain in this happy ignorance. The maxim of another, a merchant, was worth remembering, and Mr. Way, we think, might have learned something from it: Gardez ce qui est droit-faites ce qui est justeaimez les hommes, c'est la religion.

Lying vanities," exclaims Mr. Way, of opinions like these, which are borrowed almost in so many words from the Jewish prophets; and he prays in words as strange as his spirit is offensive, that the persons who expressed them may "look unto Christ, the true serpent, and live!" (P. 28.)

A great movement in favour of the Jews, as is well-known, is making in Russia, where their number is computed at two millions. Under the auspices of the "magnanimous Alexander" (we give him this title with sincerity) an asylum is established for

We copy both the italics and the ca pitals from Mr. Way.

where the Christian religion is predomiuant, those who profess another faith are hated, despised, persecuted and cruelly driven out. Even the Christian priests do not forcibly resist this evil, but, idle spectators, they permit it to grow up every where.

"Turn your eyes with impartiality to the history of ancient or modern Christians, and your benevolence will ask no farther proofs that what I urge is nothing but the strictest truth. Under such circumstances, cau the Christian religion be spread by conviction? Can those who misunderstand its mightiest principles hope for many proselytes? The unenlightened non-christian cannot be persuaded of the beneficence of a doctrine that makes him undergo so many persecutions.

He whose mind is enlarged by knowledge feels, it is true, a great veneration for the pure and exalted principles of Christ, but he can have no confidence in His followers.

"A man, Sir, so noble, so true-spirited as you, with such firmness of will, such force of mind, will surely exert all the mighty powers his excellence must give him over his brethren in the faith, to make them rightly understand the divine words of love pronounced by his great Master, that for the future their holy effects may grow visible in their life; and then the Christian religion will extend its branches without any farther efforts. In other terms, endeavour to make your holy law work more inten. sively, and its extensive effects shall follow by themselves. I am firmly persuaded that the greatest part of the Jews would long ago have embraced the Christian faith, if they had found a true Christian and brotherly love in the Christians; for the spark of the divine flame that lies slumbering in the human breast can only be awakened by love.

"With security and confidence I lay down these my open sentiments in your loyal and benevolent mind. I am sure that you will take them to heart. The All-bountiful, the All-gracions will give his benediction to your steps, and the time will soon come when we shall be all sheep of one and the same flock! Amen."

and of the encouragement of every friend of humanity." ED.]

ART. III.—The Present State of Religious Parties in England represented and improved, in a Discourse delivered in Essex-Street Chapel, May 17, and repeated October 18, 1818; also, in Renshaw-Street Chapel, Liverpool, September 20. By Thomas Belsham. 8vo. Pp. 42. Hunter. R. BELSHAM here presents Mus

us with a brief sketch of the principal religious denominations in England, and with some reflectionsupon the present state of religion amongst us. The outline of the sects is clear and distinct, and the reflections are worthy of an enlightened Christian minister.

The members of the Established Church are divided into political and religious churchmen: the latter, who assume the title of evangelical, are preferred by the preacher on the ground would cause us to hesitate in assigning of their liberality. Our experience them this Christian precedence. Mr. Belsham describes with great tenderness a third party in the Church, that is, Unitarians "who conform outwardly to its worship." Such persons, he says, he dares not condemn, having before him the example of Mr. Lindsey, who " was himself a decided Unitarian ten years before he saw it to be his duty to quit the church." This charity is certainly in the spirit of the New Testament; yet it should not be forgotten in what manner the late venerable confessor of Essex Street speaks in his Apology of what he is so ingenuous as to call his "blameable duplicity, and providential awakenings "It is related Archbishop Tillotson, that his friend (he says, pp. 218, 219) in the Life of Mr. Nelson having consulted him by letter from the Hague, in the year 1691, with regard to the practice of those nonjurors, who frequented the churches, and yet professed that they did not join in the prayers for their As to the case you put,' majesties; replied his Grace, I wonder men should be divided in opinion about it. I think it is plain, that no man can join in prayers in which there is any

* "Birch's Life of Archbishop Tillotson,

petition, which he is verily persuaded is sinful. I cannot endure a trick any where, much less in religion.' The archbishop (adds Mr. Lindsey) may be held by some to be too severe a casuist. But if it was his opinion, that a man who after the Revolution continued attached to the late King James, could not consistently or honestly frequent a communion of Christians where their Majesties King William and Queen Mary were prayed for; what would he have replied, thought I often with myself, in the case of one who was not barely present, but was the mouth of the congregation in of fering up prayers to God, which were believed to be derogatory, and injurious to his peerless majesty and incommunicable perfectious, and, in the mind of the offerer, a false and unworthy representation of him to others? This seemed a trick in religion, which the honest mind of that prelate would have still less endured.” The Three Denominations of Protestant Dissenters are very accurately described: the Baptists are divided into Particular and General, and a deserved tribute is paid to the latter, as "an inquisitive and enlightened body of Christians." Here Mr. Belsham says,

"Another party has lately appeared in the Christian world which has hitherto been embraced by comparatively a very small number, and is not likely ever to make many proselytes; because it contravenes the uniform practice of the Christian Church from the age of the apostles; I mean the party of those who deny the permanency of the institution of baptism,

and who conceive of it as a rite which was limited to proselytes from another religion. The advocates of this doctrine, though few in number, have commonly been persons of considerable respectability, and some of them of great learning. Their error, for such I conceive it to be, arises from the

unfounded assumption that Christauity is of a nature too spiritual and refined to admit of positive institutions, and from neglecting to inquire into, or duly to appreciate, the historical evidence of what Christ and his apostles actually thought fit to practise and to enjoin."-Pp. 17, 18. This description is not agreeable to Mr. Belsham's usual correctness. Such as deny the perpetuity of baptism can scarcely be denominated a 66 party:" they do not form a sect or division of the Christian world; their negation of one of the two Protestant

sacraments is not a ground of associa tion amongst themselves, or of separation from others; and they are found in almost all denominations. We suspect that Mr. Belsham underrates their number. As a "party" at least, they are only known as Quakers, and if this body be reckoned (as they, no doubt, must) amongst the Anti-baptists, the number of these latter will be not less considerable than that of the Unitarians. They are not generally proselytists; they ma、, perhaps, be charged with a lack of zeal: that they exist, however, in no mean number, not withstanding their indifference to their own increase, is far from being a sign that they will not hereafter "make proselytes." They cannot, we further remark, be said to have lately appeared in the Christian world," for, passing by the Quakers, who are not a modern sect, Mr. Emlyn, who is the first English writer that advanced their opinion, must be now regarded as a man of other times, and when he wrote, a century ago, the opinion had been a century in print. Faustus Socinus's treatise against baptism, which was published in 1813, was written in 1580; and he appears not to have been single in his profession the first edition of the Racovian Catechism represents the Lord's Supper as the only positive institution of the Christian Church.

66

It is worthy of remark, that though Mr. Belsham charges the deniers of

baptism with neglect of inquiry into the historical evidence relating to the point, Socinus in his preface to his tract puts in his claim to credit on the ground of his diligent investigation.* It is true that he refers here to the writings of the evangelists and apostles, but he proves afterwards that he was not unprepared for the argument from tradition and usage. He maintains that this argument is a begging of the question, and also

Nam omnia Evangelistarum et Apos tolorum scripta diligentissimè perquirens, nusquam nee apertis verbis baptismum aquæ externum omnibus in perpetuum, qui Christiani esse velint, peræquè preceptum esse invenio, nec aliquid dietum ex quo eam sententiam elici omnino debere, aut posse, apparent. De Bapt. Aque Disp. 8vo. Racov. p. 4.

+ Objicitur enim nobis perpetuus ab Apostolorum temporibus. Ecclesiæ usus,

that the practice of the early church is no authority, since it is notorious that immediately after the times of the apostles, and indeed during their lives, many wretched superstitious and corruptions crept into religious worship. There is the sanction of ages in unbroken succession up to the third or even second century for baptism, but then there is the same sanction for godfathers, the sign of the cross, exorcism, chrism and other usages, which most Protestants would regard as contemptible frivolities.† The historical argument for baptism and for Holy Orders appears to us parallel: the true question with regard to both is, what is the scriptural evidence of the design of the Great Author of our religion to make them permanent ?

Mr. Belsham next proceeds to describe the two sects of Methodists, the Arminian and the Calvinistic. In a note, the characters of Whitfield and Wesley are well sketched. Great

1st

in quam nemo unquam receptus fuerit, quin prius aquâ baptizatus esset. hæc ratio nullius ponderis idcircò censenda est, quia in ipsa id sumitur pro concesso, quod nunquam probabitur. Nam quomodo unquam de isto perpetuo Ecclesiæ usu docebimur? In historia certè à Luca de actis apostolicis conscripta, quæ ut ante omnes Ecclesiasticas historias perscripta fuit, sic omnium certissima est, imò sola inter omnes indubitata habetur, istius nsus initium non apparet. Quin potius ex ea, si aliquid buc pertinens colligi potest, contrarium colligitur. De Bapt Aque Disp. c. xv. p. 123.

Quod si morem istum de quo ambigimus, ab ipso Ecclesia initio receptum fuisse non constat, quid attinet consequentium annorum morem usumque ex historicis, quantumvis gravibus et veridicis afferre, maximè cum palàm sit, statim post apostolorum mortem, quinetiam ipsis apostolis adhuc viventibus, multas aniles superstitiones, multas divini cultûs corruptelas, multas denique hæreses in Ecclesiam irrepsisse, eamque perturbasse. Ib. p. 128:

The proofs of this statement may be seen in B. Joach. Hildebrandi Rituale Baptismi Veteris, published in 410. at Helmstad, by J. A. Schmidius. This author lays down a principle which may be necessary to sauction the use of baptism and especially infant baptism, but which would justify equally the worst superstitions of the Church of Rome: Ubi imprimis notandum, quod magna pars ri

merit is allowed to the Methodists, as moral reformers Then follow the Quakers, who are lightly censured for their occasional illiberality towards some of their members, and highly commended for their large contributions to the cause of general humanity. An animated picture of the Unitarians closes the descriptive part of the sermon. The reflections are, 1. on the attention paid to religion as creditable and advantageous, 2. on the absence of persecution from the abundant religion of the country, 3. on the happy consequences of religious liberty, and 4. on the duty of Christians to seek after truth, to avow it, to be charitable to such as err, and to vie with each other in love and good works.

ART. IV.-The Folly of Vice and the Wisdom of Virtue; represented in Two Discourses by the late Rev. Thomas Biggin Broadbent, A. M. The first of which was delivered at the Unitarian Chapel in Warrington, on Sunday November 2, 1817: the latter, which was finished on Saturday the 8th, having been prevented from being delivered the day following, by the sudden death of the Author on the morning of that day, in the twenty-fifth year of his age. To which is annexed an Address delivered at his Interment, by the Rev. J. G. Robberds, of Manchester. 8vo. pp. 64. Hunter.

tuum Ecclesiæ Judæis et Ethnicis fuerit desumpta. Cum enim hi infideles ad fidem Christi ægrè ducerentur, ideo quod religio Christiana nova, adeoque falsa videretur, primi Dd. Ecclesiæ, Apostoli virique Apostolici pio stratagemate usi, ex profanis sacris infidelium multos ritus et instituta retinuerunt, eaque ad sua sacra accomodarunt-Et hoc artificio vet. Christiani opinionem novitatis, quæ vel maxime Ethnicos à religione Christiana averti sunt amoliti. P. 1. He proceeds to point out instances of this elegans convenientia inter Gentilium et Christianorum mysteria. Pp. 3-11.