strenuously to rouse the devotion of the peasants; and composing hymns in her honour, he made the faithful chaunt them. It is needless to say that Ricci died reconciled to the Pope in the odour of orthodoxy, and so ended all hopes of reformation in Italy. We shall conclude this article for the present Number, with a picture of the court and clergy, at the period when Rome was entered by the French, from the pen of a biographer of Pope Pius the Sixth :

All classes in the state were tainted with immorality, not indeed, that immorality of principle, that unblushing impudence of depravity, which publicly proclaims its infamy and mocks all scruple; on the contrary, vice instead of wearing at Rome a disgusting appearance, cloaked itself with all those disguises which could either palliate it or at least render it supportable. It sometimes adopted the language of virtue, and consequently wore the mask of devotion; there, as in almost every other country where great importance is attached to religious ceremonies, and where consequently they are brilliant and numerous, people thought they had performed their duty as good men and Christians, when they had acquitted themselves of their external obligations, The Romans, even those of the most enlightened class, combined the irregularities of vice, with the practices of superstition, in a word, Rome was the true country of modern Pharisees.

"At their head marched the members of the Sacred College. These, almost to a

* As a specimen of the spirit of Ricci in his latter days we take a short extract from his collections concerning his cousin, Saint Catherine Ricci, as now preserved in the Family Archives: "I think I ought to inform you concerning her marriage (to wit, of Saint Catherine Ricci with Jesus Christ) which took place on Easter day in the 9th of April, 1542. At the dawn of day she was visibly taken as wife by Jesus Christ, who gave her a ring of gold, enamelled with red colours, and in which was set a diamond of marvellous beauty, Jesus had appeared to her in all his glory, attended by the Queen of Heaven, St. Mary Magdalene, St. Thomas Aquinas, and other saints whom I do not at this moment recollect. St. Catherine having made the sign of the cross, then spat in all their faces in obedience to the commands of her confessor, who directed her to act in this manner to ascertain whether it were a diabolical delusion or not; for he had assured her, that the saints cannot be defiled by our spittings, and moreover, they delight greatly in seeing us obedient to our superiors. On the contrary, the Devil cannot bear to see us obedient, and besides he does not at all like to find himself despised. Catherine then (after spitting at them) seeing that the vision disappeared not, was now convinced that it was very Jesus Christ, and throwing herself on her knees, she said, my Lord, I implore you to confound thy will with my will, and grant me grace never to be deceived by the tempter. Jesus replied not, and then the virgin bending her knees, addressed him, and said, "My Lord, it is I, that implore you to take this Catherine my daughter, that is here for thy wedded wife;" Jesus remained for a time silent still, and then cried out, "Thou knowest well, my mother, that I can refuse you nothing, I am content then to take her as my wife." Whereupon, taking the ring we have already described, from the little finger of his left hand, while the Queen of Heaven held up Catherine's hand, he put this superb ring on the fore finger of her left hand, saying, 'I give you this as a pledge of my love, you shall never be led astray by the tempter,' and to shew that he really was her husband he kissed her on the mouth and so did the glorious virgin, and then, sister Catherine begged of Jesus to excuse her if not able to find words to express the workings of grace which she felt in her heart, adding, at the same time, My Lord, I thank you, because you have condescended to take for your wife such a miserable creature as I am!!"-Alas that the friend of Leopold and the Reformer of Tuscany should be found in his latter days, with a mind so stultified and degraded as to collect and value such blasphemous and vile nonsense as this:

6

man, essentially vicious from principle as well as inclination, saw in the Catholic religion three objects very different from each other: Its morality, of which the maxims were constantly in their mouths, but which they never observed except on occasion of publicity, and where it required of them no great sacrifice, and which they boldly violated, whenever they were sure of secresy and impunity: Its dogmas, which they professed in public with fanatic emphasis, but which they laughed at in private. Its discipline, for the maintainance of which they would have set the whole universe in flames, provided they could themselves escape the ravages of the conflagration. To render their conduct a complete practical system of depravity, nought was wanting except a scandalous notoriety, but instead of that, hypocrisy closed the black list..

"There now were no longer to be found any real Tartuffes except in one spot of Europe, that spot was Rome, and those Tartuffes were the Cardinals, and the candidates for the Cardinalian dignity; of the three vows by which they were bound they were faithful to the observance of only one, the vow of obedience, which invites the hand of despotism, and affords a sufficient apology for its oppressions; under a vain grimace of affected humility they concealed all their refinements and lofty pretensions of pride. With respect to the most difficult of all the Christian virtues it is well known how they practised it, that sex which is called indiscreet was not the only one at whose mercy their secrets lay, and in this particular at least they have a strong resemblance to those Cæsars whom they had succeeded.

This mixture of presumptuous ambition, and feigned humility, of external decorum, and internal corruption, of apparent superstition and secret incredulity, had stamped on all their enormities a peculiar character by which it was impossible not to recognize them; their words, their looks, their features, every thing about them was false, habituated from their early age to dissimulation and restraint, they suspected each other, guessed at each others thoughts, but never betrayed their own. Resembling in many particulars the Haruspices, their predecessors, they differed from them in one which was that they did not laugh at each other. Hence the difficulty of defining a prince of the Roman Church, hence the diversity of features under which they have been generally pourtrayed, and the diversity of characters under which they have alternately been seen to act.”

[To be continued.]

Bible Controversy in Ireland-Infallibility not possible--Error not culpable; with some Notice of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation, in reply to Messrs. Pope and Maguire. By the Author of a " Letter on the Immateriality of the Human Soul," &c. 8vo, pp. viii. 212.-London, Hunter. 1828.

Jesus Christ the Great God our Saviour: being a view of the Doctrine of Scripture respecting the Deity of the Son as connected with the Deity of the Father and of the Holy Ghost. By the Rev. James Carlile, one of the Ministers of the Scots Church, Mary's Abbey-Dublin, Westley & Tyrrell, 1828. (pp. xv.-471.)

(Continued from Page 307.)

In our last we introduced the first volume at the head of this article to the notice of our readers, and made some observations on what we conceived to be the pernicious character of its principles. We were the more anxious to declare our sentiments, as the rumour had reached our ears, that the author, who seems like some of the heresiarchs of the North to glory in the name of Arian, was really in the orders of the National Church, and actually held a preferment under her sanction; and we were anxious to guard our readers against the opinions he has broached, as we were aware

that his authority would be used to stamp the Arian character on our apostolic church, and to give currency to sentiments that she has stigmatized as unchristian. On the individual who has, we fear, taken no pains to conceal his opinions, we shall not venture to pass a judgment; the man who continues to be a minister of such a church as ours holding his creed, is more indebted for his continuance in it to the lenity of our rulers than to the consistency of his own conduct; but if he use her authority to propagate opinions she has censured, and to eat the bread she has provided for those who maintain her doctrines, we confess that we are inclined to search for other motives for such conduct than mere obliquity of understanding.

:

One cause of the errors so apparent in this author's reasoning, arises from his confounding the responsibility of man for his faith to his Creator, with that which his fellow man has occasionally thought fit to claim. We protest as strongly as this writer can do against the claims of the Church of Rome; we deny not merely her infallibility, but her right to dictate on the subject of religion; we deem that for opinions not affecting the peace of society, no human being has a right to control his fellow for his religious opinions, and the care he takes that they should be correct, he is answerable only to his God, but to him he is answerable; and in asserting that error is culpable, we can only be understood to mean that its culpability relates to the supreme God, to the use or abuse of the means he has given, to the indifference or estimation with which we treat the important subject of his revealed word.-Men have the right of forming voluntary associations, agreeing in the interpretation of Scripture, and from these associations to exclude those who differ with them in what they deem to be essential truths; but there their authority terminates, and no human power can come between the individual and his God. But because we thus agree with the Pseudo-philosophers of this school, in denying that man has a right to interfere with religious belief, and that the sacred right of private judgment belongs to each individual as an unalienable prerogative, we are far indeed from proceeding in their deductions; we consider this right as one for the use of which the possessor is awfully responsible, and we deem all such statements as those put forward by this author, as tending to introduce a lax system, not merely of faith, but of morals. With these observations we dismiss this motley production, which for its controversial merits we never would have noticed; and we know but little of the individuals* to whom he alludes by name, "the Popes, and Singers, and Urwicks, and M'Neiles," if his animadversions on them and their modes of thinking and acting, will ever occasion them one moment's uneasiness. He may call them "conspi

• A peep into the rejected addresses that fill some corners of the Christian Examiner box, might suggest some reason for the vials of wrath that this intemperate writer pours out on some of the individuals whom he may suspect of having contributed to the suppression of some former lucubrations which the Curate of hoped to see appearing in the pages of the Church of Ireland Magazine.

rators," and " Popes," and accuse them in all the emphasis of capitals, of trenching on the attributes of God, but the only feelings such unmeaning verbiage is calculated to produce is extreme pity for the distempered mind and judgment that could thus confound feelings so different as the affection that would warn, and the anxiety that would reclaim, with the assumptions of infallibility and the claim of exclusive salvation. We ever hope to see the individuals alluded to honored with the censure of such writers as the author of "Bible Controversy;" to us it will be the best pledge of their orthodoxy.

In connexion with this controversy, in which the anonymous author of "Bible Controversy," is found fighting against his own Church and the truth as it is in Jesus, we are glad that we have found an opportunity of making our readers acquainted with Mr. Carlile's valuable reply to the Rev. Dr. Drummond; which, if Unitarians did not partake something of the nature that is ascribed to Bancquo, that of "not dying" when "the brains were out,' might be fairly supposed to finish the controversy, so far as the Doctor's pamphlet is concerned. We think the cause of orthodoxy owes much to Mr. Carlile; and as we have been prevented from noticing his very valuable Sermons on Faith and Repentance, and their timely defence against the errors of Sandemanianism, by their having appeared prior to the commencement of our labours; and that our wish to avoid the apocryphal controversy deterred us from noticing his little work on that subject-we take the present opportunity of thanking him for having taken the trouble of collecting and condensing his pulpit exhortations into the valuable volume before us, and we recommend it in all sincerity to our readers, as a full and complete refutation of the unscriptural tenets of the writer on whom he animadverts.

One feature of Mr. Carlile's book is its good temper; the violence of his adversary never moves him from his own cool examination of facts and principles; and he evinces the correctness and sincerity of his convictions by the power of his reasoning, not the weight of his invectives. Not all the Doctor's sneers at the sacred subjects he examines; not even his outpoured wrath against the respectable body to which Mr. Carlile belongs, can turn him aside from his straight-forward course, or take him off his legitimate object, the confutation of his adversary's opinions. He writes in downright earnestness; wasting none of his strength on rhetorical flourishes; and it is impossible to read half a dozen pages of his book, without seeing that its subject was the only topic presented to his mind during its composition. Connected with this is our author's candour; he never asks too much for himself or gives too little to his antagonist; nor do we think that he ever takes up an indefensible position during the whole of the discussion. We may, perhaps, differ from him as to the weight that is to be attached to certain points of the controversy, rather than to others; but we are convinced that all sound Trinitarians will go along with him in the greater part of his reasonings.

We subjoin the table of contents, in order that the reader may see the view that the author takes of the subject, premising that

it is to his arrangement we would principally object; and as in his two first chapters he enters deeply and usefully into the subject, so we would recommend him, if his work reaches, as we hope it will speedily, a second edition, to change the order of his chapters, putting that which stands third in the place of the second, or throwing the first and third into an introductory chapter, as preliminary to the discussion of the subject:

"On the Principles of Reasoning from Scripture.-Jesus Christ a Man, and yet more than Man.-Division of the Subject.-What is implied in the Manifestation of God in Christ Jesus.-Jesus Christ declared to be God.-The Name Jehovah given to Jesus Christ.-The Attributes of God ascribed to Jesus.-The Works of God ascribed to Jesus.-Divine Worship paid to Jesus.-The Exaltation of Christ inconsistent with his being a mere Creature.-Recapitulation.-Objections answered: Christ's Mediatorial Kingdom.-On the Deity and Personality of the Holy Ghost.-On the Trinity of Persons in the Godhead.-On the Influence of Unitarianism on the Religious Character."

Our readers will see that Mr. Carlile has left no part of the subject untouched; and in every part has made sensible, and generally original, remarks. He indeed thinks for himself; and although his pages bear proof that he has read extensively, as well as thought maturely, and although he acknowledges in his preface his obligation to some authors, as Wardlaw and Fuller, still but little occurs to invalidate his claim to originality of reasoning and composition.

In his chapter on the division of his subject, Mr. Carlile justly distinguishes between the proofs for the doctrine of the Trinity and those that tend directly to evidence the Divinity of Christ :—

"The two doctrines rest on totally different foundations. The intimations, on the one hand, that there is a plurality in the one Deity, and that this plurality consists of three persons, furnish no direct evidence that Jesus was God; and, on the other hand, after Jesus has been proved to be God, that fact requires to be explained by showing that, in his divine nature, he is a different person from the Father and the Spirit; and even when so explained, it furnishes only one argument for the doctrine of the Trinity."-(p. 81.)

"There is another distinction of importance between the two doctrines, namely, that the doctrine of our Lord's Divine nature is a doctrine of direct explicit revelation, repeatedly asserted in the plainest terms, supported and illustrated in a vast variety of particulars; whereas that the doctrine of the Trinity is rather a doctrine of inference and of indirect intimation, deduced from what is revealed respecting the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and intimated in the notices of a plurality of persons in the Godhead, in the form of baptism, and in some of the apostolic benedictions, than a doctrine directly and explicitly declared."—(p. 81.)

There is, we think, soundness in our author's distinctions; though, if the doctrine of the Trinity be an inferential one, it must be confessed to be one of very few steps indeed. God is declared to be one; yet three persons, evidenced to be distinct, are declared, each by himself, to be God; therefore there must be a Trinity in Unity. Yet even if it be inferential, nay, though the divinity of the Second Person were so, is that an objection to the doctrine? If reasoning be the systematic exercise of the sa