sidering such a scheme of religion as directly contrary to the simplicity of the gospel; and, with whatever appearance of humility, and confession of ignorance, it is advanced, as a part of that wisdom of the age which is foolishness with God. It is exceeding strange, that men who have any pretensions to reason, and the light of revelation, should make a merit of setting forth their faith as irrational, and their very wisdom as folly.

Of the same stamp is that other ridiculous assertion, that faith must triumph over reason; which seems to have been first set on foot by the Romish church; where, indeed, it was absolutely necessary to reconcile the minds of weak people to their extravagant doctrines. But it is not easy to see with what consistency Protestants, and the avowed enemies of priestcraft and imposition, can employ these or such like declarations. For God's sake, gentlemen, let faith and reason go hand in hand, or the necessary consequence, upon your own principles, will be that all the world must commence Atheists or madmen. What advantage can they propose to their cause, by setting the two lights of the world at variance? Do they think that human beings are so much more unit subjects of religion than brutes, that we can have no true piety as long as we keep our senses, nor admit the light of heaven, while the least spark of reason glows in our breasts? The gospel contains many commands for vanquishing our unreasonable passions and desires, but not a single precept for expelling reason, and subduing our common sense. Besides, there can be no such thing as a triumph of faith over reason, in the way they talk of: for either faith is supported by reason, and they will triumph together: or else such invincible objections lie against any pretended doctrine, that the belief of it is absolutely impossible and in such a case, to say that faith can obtain a triumph over reason, which concludes fully against it, is the mere rant of enthusiasm.

What testimony, human or divine, could prove the doctrine of transubstantiation, which implies a direct contradiction, to be true? And how much cause hath a Roman Catholic to boast of victory, when he obstinately stands out against all the evidence which enables him to reject it? I remember an excellent remark of Monsieur Leibnitz, in his discourse upon the agreement of faith with reason; a subject which he manages very well for a disciple of Cartesius and St. Augustine. His words are these: 'But since reason is as much the gift of God as faith, to set them one against the other, would be opposing God to himself. 'And

if the objections of reason against any article of faith are really unanswerable, it is necessary to say that this pretended article must be false, and not revealed-a mere chimera of our own imagination; and the triumph of such a faith over reason, can be compared to nothing else but the triumph of the French over the English, when they sing Te Deum after a defeat.'

I think it very fit that such systems of religion and politics should go together, where they pair so nicely. But I wish to persuade my countrymen to adopt a manner of thinking more just, and more agreeable to the genius of Englishmen and Protestants, and to esteem it no disgrace to themselves, or their religion, to be able, in every thing, to give some reason of the faith and the hope which is in them. There are two sorts of men who always bear it asserted with pleasure, that Christianity and its doctrines will not stand the test of argument, and were-never intended to be tried by the measure of human understanding : these are the disguised Papists and Sceptics. The latter of these applaud themselves upon such wild concessions, and think nothing more can be wanting, to render the belief and the hope of Christians ridiculous. And the others have a fair occasion from thence, of over-running us once more with their tenfold delusions. For a small degree of penetration will teach us, that, to men who are in good earnest determined upon renouncing their reason, all nonsense will be equal. If we could possibly be in danger of a return of popery and arbitrary power, under the best constitution in the world, it must be from such representations as these, which help gradually to enslave the mind, sap the foundations of liberty and protestantism, and pave the way for the grossest absurdities.

For these reasons, if there were no other, we have just cause to be offended with those preachers, who from the pulpit, or in their writings, set up human reason as a bugbear, to frighten silly women, and make themselves the patrons of spiritual ignorance and implicit faith. But the truth is, we pay too much regard by half to the decisions of men, beset with the same passions and infirmities with ourselves, and who employ their learning and ingenuity to no better purpose than to invent arguments for setting aside the use of reason in the most momentous concerns of human life. Yet, perhaps, it will not be sufficient to set us right, that we quit the precepts of human authority, and keep clear of the bias of opinions, which time and long usage have rendered respectable; we must likewise mortify the old

eager panting after truth, at whatever labour-a warm support of it, at whatever expence. No consideration for forms, because they have been long established-for systems, because they have been long endured;-no regard to the empty ceremonies of life, where sincerity, and the interests of religion, call for decision of conduct-no respect for the half enlightened, whose knowledge only increases their condemnation-no reverence for long garments, when they cover infamy-no esteem for riches and for honourable names, when they support vice, and are satirised by the dishonour of their possessors.

That such a religion, so supported, and so disseminated, should have been embraced by knaves and hypocrites in former ages, and have become so early contaminated by the amalgamation of irrational opinions, immoral doctrines, and superstitious observances, is indeed so surprising and extraordinary, that we might be almost tempted to pronounce it above belief, did we not see the knaves and bypocrites of our own times sinning up to the full standard of ancient turpitude, by deprecating all attempts at restoring the system to its first purity-by opposing all the means of further reformation, and by crying down with indiscriminate rancour the honest efforts of those who propose to range themselves under the banners of free enquiry, that they may regain once more that liberty from a worldly and an idolatrous bondage with which Christ has made them free.

The weakness, and presumption of these men in forbidding every one to go a step further than themselves in the paths of discussion and research-in attempting to silence all who differ from them--and affecting to make common cause with the system they at once disgrace and vilify, is really wonderful. The pursuit of truth must be abandoned, because it interferes with their opinions; the cause of Chris tianity must be deserted, because it clashes with their interests. Though they make the house of prayer a den of thieves, the voice of honest expostulation must not be raised against them; and while their conduct excludes the application of every term of praise, the well-merited epithets of censure are reprobated by them as uncandid, and appealed against as ungentlemanly and illiberal; the courtly rules of modern breeding, and the sublime principles of a pure religion; the maxims of a Chesterfield, and the precepts of a Jesus, are alike laid hold of to evade the manly openness of truth, and to rebut the stern but well deserved upbraidings of the friends of free enquiry

strongly reminding us of the customs of the darker ages, when the villain fled to the precincts of the palace and of the altar, for protection from the hands of justice; and when the courts of law, and the temples of religion, were claimed as the safeguard of vice, and considered as the sanctuary of crime.

Regardless of all such considerations, the conductors of the Freethinking Christians' Magazine have, during the past, and for the future will proceed in the right onward path prescribed by the religion of Jesus, convinced that falsehood alone need shrink from free discussion-that amid the clash of opinions the spark of truth will be elicitedand that while the man who believes without due enquiry may be right, the man who refuses to believe till after such enquiry must be so.

An ancient author relates an anecdote of a party of Grecian females who were envious of the artless but superior beauty of one of their poorer companions; they dressed, they painted, they adorned themselves, but their inferiority was still, they feared, too evident to every eye; resolved to mortify her, they one day proposed a game in which each should alternately relate some circumstance, or perform some action, which should in succession be followed and imitated by the whole company. One produced her ornaments-one described her riches-one summoned her servants-one boasted of her family, and expatiated on the nobleness of her ancestry-but all joined in enjoying the confusion of the object of their envy, who had none of these things to boast of, and who shrank abashed from the designing inquisition. At length it became her turn to direct the actions of the company-all eyes were upon her, every one enjoyed before-hand her expected overthrow, when calling for an ewer of water and a napkin, she triumphed in her turn by bathing her face, and carefully wiping it dry, which the others being compelled to imitate, their painting was discovered, and their assumed and artifi cial beauty exposed to merited contempt and ridicule.

The object and the boast or the conductors of the Freethinking Christians' Magazine is to hold the ewer and the napkin to all the existing systems of Christian faith and practice convinced that while falsehood, superstition, and hypocrisy, can only be exposed to detection, derision, and contempt, the unaffected charms of truth will be rendered. yet more lovely, and real Christianity come forth triumphant from the ordeal,

REVIEW OF LITERATURE.

ART. VI.—A Dialogue between A MINISTER OF THE CHURC
OF ENGLAND AND HIS PARISHIONER, on the nature of the
Church, the necessity of union with it, and the SiN OF SCHISM.;
By the REV, GEORGE HUITON, D. D. Vicar of Sutterton, and
Rector of Algarkirk and Fosdyke, near Hoston; and some time
Fellow of St. Mary Magdalen College, Oxford. 8vo. 22 pages,
Kelsey, Boston.

Fany thing can awaken us from that indifference and

neglect which we have uniformly exhibited towards our political establishment, the church of England, it must be. the imprudence and stupidity of any of the members of that, corporation, gravely presenting themselves before the public, in the nineteenth century, to assert its pretensions to the, title and character of a Christian church, to defend the divine origin of its laws and government, and to reason the, question as to the regular succession of its priests and ministers from the servants and apostles of Jesus.

We own we could not repress our honest indignation at the sight of the title-page of the present pamphlet. Is it not enough, we were ready to exclaim, that this association is endured in defiance to the enlightenment and common sense. of mankind? Is it not enough that the pastors of the church should glut on the spoils of successful labour, or starving industry? And must they appear before us as the ministers of God, and shelter their iniquity under the mantle of a heavenly calling? This is returning effrontery for our tender mercies-insult for our long-suffering. Indeed, we wonder the folly and the imprudence of the present undertaking is not apparent even to the author himself. Does he not see that, by writing in defence of the company to which he belongs, he must necessarily bring its pretensions, into discussion? And does he not know that the moment. those pretensions are brought into discussion, that moment, they are in danger of becoming odious?

For ourselves, if either of us (which God forbid) were the, bishop of the diocese, to which the reverend gentleman belongs, we should certainly, for the honour and safety of the craft, take him to task for his incautious and impolitic. attempt to serve us in the way he has chosen in the present instance. And if, as it is, the gentleman would consent to take a hint from those who certainly have no high respect, for his profession, we should say, "keep thy peace, Friend Hutton-do any thing but write in favour of thy establish ment—if the labour of preparing thy sermon against Sun