rights, but a prominent defender; his disposition propelled him to the very front of the battle; and that, too, though he well knew that all that was requisite for his advancement to honours and emoluments, was not the surrender of his sentiments, but a little more discretion and a little less zeal. I rejoice that he was what he was-better he might have been: but if we are to wait for perfection before we praise, the example of the wise and good will be lost, and their influence will die away in the day that they perish. Once more I say, I wish he had left the Church; but for not doing so, I dare not condemn him.

Before reading the note on which I have animadverted, I had transcribed for the Pioneer, one of the letters which Dr. Parr sent to Archbishop Magee, in defence of Unitarians. This I beg you to insert immediately after these remarks, and your readers will then be better able to judge of the character of the learned divine, and will also see how far he was ashamed of "obloquy." A volunteer in defence of an obnoxious sect, against the charges of an archbishop, either could afford to keep a conscience, or most lamentably mistook his vocation. G. C. S.

From Dr. Parr to Dr. Magee, Archbishop of Dublin. HATTON, Sept. 25, 1823.

MY LORD, THOUGH differing widely from your Grace upon some important subjects of controversial Theology, I hold, and therefore always shall avow, a very high opinion of your talents and attainments. With much pleasure have I read two of the Charges which your Grace has lately published. I have praised them in the hearing, and recommended them to the perusal, of some enlightened clergymen. I found in them very useful matter, and very splendid diction. But, with surprise, and with concern, I observed, that, in one of them, your Grace has spoken sweepingly of the Unitarians as illiterate. The expression, my Lord, astonished me, and called to my mind the language which Cicero, in his celebrated speech for Ligarius, employed about the cause of Pompey; and which, mutatis mutandis, I shall apply to your severe and contemptuous animadversion upon a well-known, and, perhaps, increasing sect. Speaking of Unitarianism, "alii errorem appellant, qui durius, pertinacium, qui gravissime, impietatem— auabiav præter te adhuc nemo.”* In a dispute, which, about 150 years ago, was carried on with great violence, Bishop Wet

Some charge them with error; others, speaking harshly of them, with pertinacity; and others, in great severity, with impiety; but no one, except you, has yet charged them with ignorance.

tenhall wrote a very judicious, candid, and conciliatory pamphlet, which I found in a huge mass of controversial writings, in which he describes the Socinians* as active, as zealous, as acute, as dexterous in disputation, as blameless in the general tenor of their lives, and, he adds, even pious, with exception to their own peculiar tenets. Every man of common sense, my Lord, will perceive, that the qualifying words are the result of discretion and episcopal decorum, and were intended, probably, for a kind of sop to soften the Cerberean part of the priesthood. Be this as it may, the representation which Bishop Wettenhall gave of his Socinian contemporaries, corresponds nearly with my own observations upon my own Unitarian contemporaries.

Let

Now, my Lord, I know nothing either by report, or my own reading, about the number of Unitarians in Ireland, or their writings, or their erudition, or their want of erudition. I, at the same time, am justified in saying, that among my own learned acquaintance in this country, there is not one teacher in the established Church, whom I could safely pronounce a Unitarian. Without the pale of that Church, indeed, there are several Unitarians with whom I think it an honour to be acquainted; and I shall make no apology for introducing into this letter their names, and avowing the sincere respect which I feel for their intellectual powers, their literary attainments, and their moral worth. us look round a little, my Lord. Will any scholar apply the word, "illiterate," to Grotius, or to Le Clerc? These are the distinguished Unitarians of former days. I have not been a slovenly reader of the Fratres Poloni; and I could mention the names of several persons whose tenets seem to me erroneous, but whom I should not dare to call illiterate. In the last century, lived Dr. Lardner, Dr. John Jebb, Mr. John Baines of Trinity College, Cambridge, the friend of Sir Samuel Romilly, and an academic distinguished in his day, for his proficiency in science, and his skill in classical learning. Perhaps Edmund Law, Bishop of Carlisle, may, without injustice, be supposed to look upon Unitarianism, rather with a favourable eye towards the close of a studious life. Was Bishop Law illiterate? Was Dr. John Taylor of Norwich, illiterate? And, slender as might be the pretences of Dr. Priestley and Theophilus Lindsey to any critical accuracy in the languages, or to any delicate taste of the elegancies of profane authors, Greek and Latin, yet their attention to Scriptural Greek, though it did not preserve them from what you think heresy, was more than sufficient to protect them from the application of illiterate. Was the late Duke of Grafton illiterate? Were the writers of the Free and Candid Disquisitions illiterate? I was not personally acquainted with the late Mr. Cappe of York, but his writings furnish abundant proofs of eloquence,

The appellation Socinian, might have been taken from the Socini, a family which submitted to voluntary exile from Sienna, with Lactantio Pagnoni and Mino Celso, on account of the persecutions they suffered for having adopted the reformed opinions in religion; as well as from the writer Socinus.-M'Crie's History of the Reformation in Italy.

acuteness, and, I add, erudition. Was Encedinus illiterate? Is Wegscheider illiterate? Was Semler illiterate? Is Eichorn illiterate? Let me not pass by some dissenting clergymen, who are avowedly Unitarians, and upon whose claims, to be considered as scholars, I can speak, and, therefore, do speak, with confidence. Mr. Berry of Leicester, who, to Greek and Latin erudition, adds no inconsiderable portion of oriental; Mr. Cogan, a Schoolmaster at Walthamstow, whom, from conversation and correspondence, I know to be an accurate Greek scholar, and a diligent and discriminating reader of the best critical books, which have, of late, been published at Berlin, Leyden, Gothingen, Leipsic, and Paris; and at home, by Porson, Blomfield, Gaisford, Elmsley, &c. Is Cogan illiterate? No, no. My mind passes on to Mr. Corrie of Birmingham, who not only is well acquainted with Natural Philosophy, and is a fine writer of English prose, but has an exquisite taste for the compositions of Greek and Roman writers, and is a reader of what Bentley, Dawes, and Toup, have written upon philology. My neighbour, Mr. Yates of Birmingham, is one of the most studious men I know. I have seen his admirable collection of books; and I consider him as a diligent and intelligent reader of the most abstruse and elaborate writings of Theologians, both in Greek and Latin. Mr. Robberds of Manchester, had a classical education in Norwich School. He is an excellent writer of English prose; and can such a man be called illiterate? It becomes me, after many interviews, to bear my testimony to the merit of Mr. Shepherd of Liverpool, and, in truth, so far as classical learning is concerned, his proficiency would do him honour, if he sat upon the episcopal bench. My Lord, from motives of delicacy, I will not enlarge upon the learning of Mr. Belsham, He neither understands, nor professes to understand, very critically, those profane authors who are taught in our public Schools, and our two Universities: yet I think and speak respectfully of his biblical learning; and I am pretty sure, that Archbishop Newcome, if he were now living, would, upon this subject, speak and think as I do. In my own neighbourhood, lives a lineal descendant of Oliver Cromwell.* He does not pretend to be a profound classic, but he is largely furnished with general knowledge; he is a diligent reader of the Greek Testament; he has great dexterity in reasoning; he excels in clearness and vigour of style; he is not contentious; he is not conceited; but upon two or three occasions, when provoked by insulting calumnies against himself and his sect, he has confuted and silenced some accusers, whose orthodoxy was not accompanied by a due share of sense, learning, or moderation. Your Grace will do me the justice to observe, that I mean not directly, or indirectly, to defend the heretical opinions adopted by any of the worthies whom I have enumerated. But I should

say of them, whether I adverted to them in the senate, or from the pulpit, or from the press,-yes, my Lord, I should say in the hearing of all the conclaves, and all the convocations in Chris.

* Rev. W. Field, Unitarian Minister, Warwick.

tendom, utinam essent nostri.* I hope, therefore, my Lord, and if you were not an Archbishop, I should advise, that, in some future edition of your excellent charge, you would withdraw the word, "illiterate." There are many other points upon which your sagacity, learning, and eloquence, may be employed with the greatest propriety, and far better effect. If you were more intimately acquainted with myself, you would find that no man is more ready to bestow prompt, sincere, and ample praise upon the talents and the learning, which the ecclesiastics of the Established Church have, in our own days, displayed in the defence of their tenets. Glad I am, that so large a part of that praise falls to the share of the distinguished Prelate to whom I now writing. In natural religion, and in revealed, there are some truths bright as the sun in meridian, and solid as adamant itself; but in both, there are quæstiones per difficiles et per obscuræ, upon which a man of reflection will often think it his right and his duty, ETEEN,t and will apply to speculation, what has been well said of practice: Nunquam ita quisquam bene subducta ratione ad vitam fuit, Quin res, ætas, usus semper aliquid adportet novi; Aliquid moneat, ut illa quæ te scire credas, nescias: Et quæ tibi putaris prima, in experiundo ut repudies.

For more than 50 years, I have attended diligently and seriously to Theology; at me ipsum, quondam et animi quodam impetu concitatum, et vi naturæ elatum, et recentibus præceptorum studiis flagrantem, dies tandem aliquando lenit, ætas mitigavit.§ As to the conflicts in which other men are engaged, I cannot, from habit, and perhaps nature, be a careless spectator, but being far advanced in my 77th year, I am upon my guard against the perils to which partisans are exposed; and, as a lover of letters, and a religionist, I am content γηράσκειν αιει πολλα διδασκομενος.||

The Editor of the Christian Pioneer may have misunderstood the remarks of the Reviewer of Dr. Parr's Life, and if so, the Note in the last Number was unnecessary; but it then seemed, and still seems to him, that the Reviewer held up the character of Dr. Parr, in his religious principles and conduct, as entitled to unqualified admiration. Dr. Parr was asserted to hold "the Divine Unity in the strictest sense"- -to have " abjured all the strange

* I wish they were ours.

+ Duty-to suspend his judgment.

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No one has ever been so completely equipped for the duties of life, but that circumstances, the lapse of time, and experience, furnishes something new; admonishing you that you are ignorant of what you imagined you knew, and to reject in practice, what you have deemed fundamental principles.

But at length time hath softened, and the experience of age mitigated, the impetuosity of my spirit, and the predominant force of my nature and genius, as well as the recent impressions of philosophy. To grow old, constantly increasing my knowledge.

and astounding doctrines of original sin, hereditary depravity, arbitrary election, and eternal reprobation"-"his views of ecclesiastical reform" were said to be "carried" "to a full and proper extent"—" religious candour," it was affirmed, "never appeared upon earth in a purer spirit or under a more engaging form"-in Dr. Parr "there was the stirring and active life of Christian charity"—he vindicated," by his principles and conduct, "our common and much defamed nature"-and his "testimony" to the truth of Unitarianism, not only gave weight to its evi ́dences, but "no little comfort and support" to the minds of its advocates. Now it did, and does appear to the Editor, that had he allowed these statements to go forth to the world in the Christian Pioneer, without note or comment, he would have been guilty of a dereliction of duty. It was once remarked by Dr. Wardlaw, that as to those persons who are said to be Unitarians, but still continue members of Trinitarian churches, the Unitarians may claim as much honour as they think they derive, from their sentiments. They are welcome to as many hypocrites as they choose to say belong to them. But it is surely paying their principles but a left-handed sort of compliment, thus to acknowledge they have not power sufficient to make their believers honest men. In the spirit of these observations, the Editor perfectly coincides. More injury is done to the cause of truth by such temporizing, such moral delinquency, than by the most strenuous efforts of bigotry and fanaticism. There has been too great a fondness for this mustering of names. The questions are not what Doctor this, or Bishop that, might in speculation admire and talk about, but what declares Reason? what say the Scriptures? To live, if possible, in habits of intimacy of friendship, with persons of different religious opinions is useful-is a duty; but to regard it as a mighty honour, should a Churchman or a Church Dignitary visit a Dissenter, is to exhibit a deference to prevailing and established error, which is not consistent with unswerving principle. The dissenters have injured their cause, and lowered themselves in public estimation, by this feeling. Instead of claiming men as belonging to the Unitarian faith, who, even in private letters to Archbishops, denominate that faith "heretical," the lesson that should constantly be inculcated, is, Religious integrity.

The Editor would not indeed have gone out of his way