Christian religion, and those moral canons, which are more or less common to all ethics, and which enter so largely into those neutral systems of education which are meant to obviate the perplexing effects of these controversies.

The Church of England does no more than profess to be a branch of that Church of which Christ (and not the Pope) is the head. She is not built on the foundation of uninspired men; but on that of Christ and his Apostles, who are the very Seal, as well as Messengers of the New Covenant, and attested as such by the mighty works which were done by them, and by that sure word of prophecy which places the New in such inseparable connexion with the Old Testament as to make it impossible that either could have existed without the other, or without being the very word of God Himself.

Such being the case, what every sincere Christian must desire, as the first wish of his heart, is to see religious differences removed to the utmost; and this can only be effected by an appeal to the Bible, not in the vain expectation of universal agreement, but in attestation of its vital doctrines, and in the strength of the maxim propounded by our Saviour,-" Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of me. Let all the world know that the Bible is the Word of God; and that all we know of our condition, as his creatures, is contained in that book. If there are difficulties therein-so are there in the material universe-and what then? Do

John v. 39.

not "the heavens, nevertheless, declare the glory of God?" And shall we become Pyrrhonists, and doubt every thing, for no better reason than because we cannot penetrate the counsels of the Almighty? The book of nature is spread out before us, and little is that man to be envied who can turn over its pages without being impressed with profound admiration of its Author. And, as in the natural world, if what appear to be even loathsome creatures may here and there meet the eye, shall we therefore presume to say that they may not fulfil some useful purpose in the diversified plan of Providence? So, in contemplating God's written word, shall we fail to recognize, in the benignant scheme of human redemption, the overwhelming mercy of God, who perhaps in no other way than by the sacrifice of Himself, in the person of His only begotton son, could reconcile the attributes of mercy with those of justice-of justice absolute, not qualified by the supplements of human frailty, but of such bright purity as we shall not be able adequately to appreciate until we know Him as He is? What I contend for is the paramount necessity of giving the same prominence to the Bible in the spiritual world, as we do to the Sun in the natural; keeping the main doctrines of salvation as far as possible apart from the cavillings of sceptics and even from dissensions among brethren. Happily there remains scarcely any vestige among us of that school of Freethinkers to which I have alluded. It is true that an attempt was made a short time since to draw attention again to the writings of Hobbes, by the publication of a new edition of his works; but who has ever seen this new edition? The attempt

proved an entire failure; yet Bishop Warburton, in the middle of the last century, speaking of "the Philosopher of Malmesbury," says, that he was the terror of the preceding age, as Tindal and Collins were of his. What can speak more for the good sense of the present day than this repugnance to infidelity? An avowed infidel, with any pretensions to learning, is nearly an extinct thing among us; and does it not therefore follow that we may fearlessly scatter the Bible over the world, since there is no longer any question of the abstract veracity of the inspired volume?* And if we are really sincere in the wish to Christianize the world, surely we had better trouble ourselves less with controversies of faith, and be more absorbed in the contemplation of the main doctrines of sanctification and redemption. It is these controversies, as they may well be called, of faith, which have chiefly led to the attempts now making in this country, and in America, to separate the moral precepts of Christianity, in their educational schemes, from its vital doctrines; thus reducing it to a system of ethics such as Cicero, Epictetus, or Seneca would admire, and with equal facility dispense with, as a rule of conscience.

If we would know God as He is, we must know Him as He is set before us in the Bible-not only as a Being all whose attributes are infinite; but as a hater of iniquity,

It is exceedingly interesting to observe what a wholesome terror of renouncing the name of Christian is discoverable in the speculative systems of some of our modern scientific philosophers; and this fact may suffice to remove any apprehension of danger from the greatest possible diffusion of the Scriptures. Since it is only by the comparison of speculative notions with revealed doctrines that error can be avoided.

knowing the very thoughts of our hearts, and alone able to rescue us from the penalty of their evil suggestions.

When Mr. Martyn was engaged in controversy with the Persian Moolahs, who were by far the shrewdest adversaries he met with in the East, his chief difficulty lay in the obstacles opposed by their pride of intellect to the majesty, yet childlike simplicity, of revealed truth. They failed to distinguish between the evidences of Christianity and those of Mahomedanism; and, not having prophecy to depend upon, threw all their strength into the argument from miracles; than which, in their own case, nothing can be more entirely specious.

In his first public controversy with Persian Moolahs, Mr. Martyn was confronted by the Moojtuhid, or Professor of Mahometan Law; a man of great consequence, and of the highest authority, in matters of religion, in Shiraz. The arena in which they met was most formidable. There sat the Moojtuhid surrounded by a considerable number of his friends; my brave little friend having a place assigned him on the left hand, while Mirza Seid Ali Khan, a learned Persian, almost, but never quite, a Christian, and Martyn's zealous coadjutor in the work of translation, occupied the seat of honour on the right.

The substance of the Professor's address, Mr. Martyn tells us, was flimsy enough. He talked for a full hour about the soul, its being distinct from the body, superior to the brutes, &c.: about God, his unity, invisibility, and other obvious and acknowledged truths. That philosophers had proved that a single being could produce but a single being. That the first thing God

had created was Wisdom-a being perfectly one with Him; after that, the souls of men and the seventh heaven; and so on, till he produced matter, which is merely passive. He illustrated the theory by comparing all being to a circle: at one extremity of the diameter is God, at the opposite extremity is matter, which is the meanest thing in the world. In this scale, the highest stage of matter is connected with the lowest stage of vegetation; the highest of the vegetable world with the lowest of the animal; and so on, till we approach the point from which all proceeded. "But," said he, "you will observe, that next to God, something ought to be which is equal to God; for since it is equally near, it possesses equal dignity. What this is, philosophers are not agreed upon. You," said he, "say it is Christ; but we, that it is the Spirit of the Prophets. All this is what the philosophers have proved, independently of any particular religion." "I rather imagined," Mr. Martyn replied, "that it was the invention of some ancient Oriental Christian, to make the doctrine of the Trinity appear more reasonable." "There were, in fact, a hundred things," he adds, "in the Professor's harangue that might have been excepted against, as mere dreams supported by no evidence, but I had no inclination to call in question dogmas, on the truth or falsehood of which nothing in religion depended." At length the Professor was brought reluctantly to the direct question. of the credibility of Mahomedanism; and, after endeavouring in vain to identify our Saviour with the Jesus whom they acknowledged as a Prophet, he turned to the proof from miracles, enumerating many who had