40. The Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures, concerning the Only True God, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent. By the late Rev. JOHN CAMERON. London. Published for the Editor by J. Mardon, 105 Paul's Street, Finsbury. 1828. 12mo. pp. 117.

APART from its intrinsic merits, this book has claims upon our notice from the circumstances of its origin and the history and character of its author. From the preface we learn that Mr Cameron was a native of Scotland, and that he entered upon the duties of the christian ministry among the descendants of the Scotch Covenanters, who in consequence of persecution had forsaken their native land, and settled on the northern shores of Ireland. Among them he preached the doctrines of Calvin in their full rigor and austerity, without attempting, as some modern preachers have done, to fashion them to popular taste and to publish them in a moderate tone. The high reputation which he early acquired among the Covenanters by his eloquence and zeal, procured for him a unanimous call from the Presbyterian congregation of Dunluce, in the county of Antrim. This call he accepted, and continued their minister for fortyfive years, till his death in 1799.

About the time of his settlement at Dunluce, a very important change took place in his religious opinions, which we will lay before our readers in his own words.

'I had been invited to dine with a dignitary of the established church, when, after dinner, as both of us were men of literary inquiry, the churchman said to me, "Cameron, have you seen Taylor of Norwich on Original Sin?" No, was my reply; nor do I wish to see it; it is a most dangerous production; and I have often cautioned my flock against its new fangled doctrines. "I shall give it you," said the divine, "when you are returning home." On my retiring, the dignitary said, "Cameron, you have forgotten the book, but I shall bring it you." With great reluctance did I remain until it was put into my hand; and I declare, such was my aversion to it, that I would as soon have been accompanied by his satanic majesty. Next morning I commenced a perusal of this production. As I advanced, a new and wonderful light broke in upon my mind. The author's exposition of scripture, and the illustration of the doctrine proposed, was so exceedingly simple and rational, and so consistent with the word of God, that I never met with anything which made such an impression upon my mind. For a few days I laid the book aside, pondering and revolving in my mind its important contents. I then resumed the peru

VOL. V.-NO. V.

sal, carefully collating every text with the original, and comparing it with the word of God. The result was a complete and entire change in my religious sentiments. My former opinions and prejudices dissolved before the sun of truth, and disappeared as the morning dew before the rising orb of day,' pp. vi-viii.

The work at the head of this article, now for the first time offered to the public, is a posthumous one, and owes it appearance to the attempts recently made in the Synod of Ulster to check free inquiry and to compel uniformity of belief by the imposition of creeds

and tests. Mr Cameron was a member of that synod, and a short time before his death presented this treatise to a friend, as a token of his regard. This friend, who was also a member of the Presbyterian body, is, like the author,

now no more.

A few years previous to his death, he permitted the present editor to take a copy of the work; and he accompanied the permission with the following observation: "That, whilst in respect of controverted doctrines, in matters of religion, the world was comparatively quiet, he had some doubts of the prudence of publishing what might eventually excite a spirit of altercation, such as had too often already disgraced the Christian annals, however purely it exhibited the character of Divine benignity and wisdom-however clearly it displayed the truth, as it is in Jesus Christ.' "But," he added, "should the attempt be renewed, in your day, to interfere with the rights of private judgment, and, in the country where we live, to bind Presbyterians to creeds which set reason and conscience at defiance, you have not only my permission to put this work abroad into the world, but it is my earnest desire that you do so.""" pp. xiv-xv.

6

The editor, believing that the late intolerent proceedings of the Synod of Ulster indicated a state of things such as his friend had imagined, has felt bound to transfer his legacy to the public. We are glad that he has done so; and that he has put into our hands the views which a converted Unitarian, half a century ago, solitary and unaided, had deduced from the bible, concerning the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom he hath sent.' We value this little treatise, because it exhibits plainly, as it professes to do, The Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures,' on this important subject. We do not know that it contains any original views or arguments in support of Unitarian Christianity; but it contains, what is far better, the old scriptural views and arguments, collected under appropriate

style. To us, the consideration of ob

being, and, thus constituted he may and does sin, and often sins grievously. To such a be

tion of the sermon, is the most interesting portion of the whole. As a specimen of the manner in which the work is executed, we offer the following

extract.

It is said, that men cannot understand the views which seem to me so precious. This objection I am anxious to repel, for the common intellect has been grievously kept down and wronged through the belief of its incapacity. The pulpit would do more good, were not the mass of men looked upon and treated as children. Happily for the race, the time is passing away, in which intellect was thought the monopoly of the few, and the majority were given over to hopeless ignorance. Science is leaving her solitudes to enlighten the multitude. How much more may religious teachers take courage to speak to men on subjects, which are nearer to them than the properties and laws of matter, I mean their own souls. The multitude, you say, want capacity to receive the great truths relating to their spiritual nature. But what, let me ask you, is the christian religion? A spiritual system, intended to turn men's minds upon themselves, to frame them to watchfulness over thought, imagination, and passion, to establish them in an intimacy with their own souls. What are all the christian virtues, which men are exhorted to love and seek? I answer, pure and high motions or determinations of the mind.

That refinement of thought, which, I am told, transcends the common intellect, belongs to the very essence of Christianity. In confirmation of these views, the human mind seems to me to be turning itself more and more inward, and to be growing more alive to its own worth, and its capacities of progress. The spirit of education shows this, and so does the spirit of freedom. There is a spreading conviction that man was made for a higher purpose than to be a beast of burden, or a creature of sense.

The

divinity is stirring within the human breast, and demanding a culture and a liberty worthy of the child of God. Let religious teaching correspond to this advancement of the mind. Let it rise above the technical, obscure, and frigid theology which has come down to us from times of ignorance, superstition, and slavery. Let it penetrate the human soul, and reveal it to itself. No preaching, I believe, is so intelligible, as that which is true to human nature, and helps men to read their own spirits.

But the objection which I have stated not only represents men as incapable of understanding, but still more of being moved, quickened, sanctified, and saved, by such views as I have given. If by this objection nothing more is meant, than that these views are not alone or of themselves sufficient, I shall not dispute it; for true and glorious as they are, they do not constitute the whole truth, and do not expect great moral effects from narrow and partial views of our nature. I have spoken of the godlike capacities of the soul. But other and very different elements enter into the human being. Man has animal propensities as well as intellectual and moral powers. He has a body as well as mind, He has passions to war with reason, and self-love with conscience. He is a free being and a tempted

great spiritual effort, put forth in habitual watchfulness and prayer; and all the motives are needed, by which force and constancy may preacher to talk perpetually of man be communicated to the will. I exhort not the "as made but a little lower than the angels." I would not narrow him to any class of topics. Let him adapt himself to our whole and various nature. Let him summon to his aid all the powers of this world and the world to come. Let him bring to bear on the conscience and the heart God's milder and more awful at

tributes, the promises and threatenings of the divine word, the lessons of history, the warnings of experience. Let the wages of sin here and hereafter be taught clearly and earnestly. But amidst the various motives to spiritual effort, which belong to the minister, none are more quickening than those drawn from the soul itself, and from God's desire and purpose to exalt it, by every aid consistent with its freedom. These views I conceive are to mix with all others, and without them all others fail to promote a generous virtue. Is it said, that the minister's proper work is, to preach Christ and not the dignity of human nature? I answer, that Christ's greatness is manifested in the greatness of the nature which he was sent to redeem; and that his chief glory consists in this, that he came to restore God's image where it was obscured or effaced, and to give an everlasting impulse and life to what is divine within us. Is it said, that the malignity of sin is to be the minister's great theme? I answer, that this malignity can only be underderstood and felt, when sin is viewed as the ruin of God's noblest work, as darkening a light brighter than the sun, as carrying discord, bondage, disease, and death into a mind framed for perpetual progress towards its Auth

or.

Is it said, that terror is the chief instrument of saving the soul? I answer, that if by terror, be meant a rational and moral fear, a conviction and dread of the unutterable evil

incurred by a mind which wrongs, betrays, and destroys itself, then I am the last to deny its importance. But a fear like this, which regards the debasement of the soul as the greatest of evils, is plainly founded upon and proportioned to our conceptions of the greatness of our nature. The more common terror, excited by vivid images of torture and bodily pain, is a very questionable means of virtue. When strongly awakened, it generally injures the character, breaks men into cowards and slaves, brings the intellect to cringe before human authority, makes man abject before his Maker, and, by a natural reaction of the mind, often terminates in a presumptuous confidence, altogether distinct from virtuous selfrespect, and singularly hostile to the unassuming, charitable spirit of Christianity. The preacher should rather strive to fortify the soul against physical pains, than to bow it to their mastery, teaching it to dread nothing in comparison with sin, and to dread sin as the ruin of a noble nature. pp. 23-26.

Such views of Christian theology as these, defended and recommended thus, cannot fail to exercise an elevating influence on the moral and religious world.

42. Presumptive Arguments in Favor of Unitarianism. By M. L. Hurlbut. Boston. Bowles & Dearborn. 1828. 12mo. pp. 42.

WHOEVER is acquainted with the admirable memoir prefixed to Sermons by the late Rev. A. Foster, of Charleston, S. C., must welcome another production from the same classical pen. Mr Hurlbut, in the pamphlet before us, has stepped aside from the beaten track. The stock of direct arguments in favor of Unitarianism, though not indeed exhausted, has been employed of late years among us to an extent that must satisfy every mind in a state to be satisfied. Our author exhibits the subject in a somewhat new point of view. Granting, for the moment, that the scriptural arguments on both sides of the question may balance each other, he proceeds to inquire whether all the antecedent probabilities do not bear entirely in favor of Unitarianism. The investigation we deem to be as seasonable as it is manifestly well conducted. We have no doubt that many minds have become wearied and confused, by the apparently contradictory testimonies, adduced on the opposite sides of the principal controversy which has agitated the religious world. Yet still men must be anxious to know the truth, and must rejoice to be calmly led by some master hand to a solid eminence, on which they can repose with steadiness and satisfaction. For our own part, we think the task is here conclusively done. We are utterly at a loss to conceive how a Trinitarian could devise similar arguments in favor of his own doctrines. Indeed, the bare mention of presumptive arguments and antecedent probabilities in favor of Trinitarianism, savours somewhat, we are free to confess, of the unnatural and incredible. Mr Hurlbut has happily no paradox to maintain. He proceeds along a broad and open road, and gathers his numerous illustrations and proofs from every quarter of the world of nature, of the human mind, and of the known character of God. His thoughts, if not always original, are always dressed in a new and peculiar drapery of their own. We subjoin one or two extracts, as specimens of the beauty and force of his style, and for the sake of attracting to this little work the attention of our readers in general. Orthodoxy has so long had possession of the public mind, that its roots have spread far,

and struck deep. It has infused its spirit into the whole mass of our literature. It has tinged the very atmosphere through which the light of heaven visits our eyes. It has tainted the very springs and vehicles of thought. It is no wonder, that those who come to the study preoccupied by artificial formulas, inculcated of this question in the scriptures, with minds from infancy into the warm and yielding texture of the growing intellect; with prejudices the whole mind, should find in the scriptures trained and fostered till they have overgrown the very things they come to look for. It were strange indeed if they should fail to do so. Nor is this all. Fear has been enlisted on the side the offspring and the parent of ignorance and of error, and in aid of prejudice; fear, at once imbecility of mind. Men have been taught to believe that it is unsafe to trust their own reaquire into the grounds of their faith; and fatal son and judgment; that it is hazardous to into relinquish certain articles of the popular creed. It is time men were disabused of this delusion, which, if universal, would cndue erTor, once prevalent, with immortality. Let men once be cons inced that they may examine the claims of Unitarianism without danger to their virtue, their peace, or their hopes, and they will not, we are persuaded, be long in embracing it. We hope we shall be able to show them, in the course of the following remarks, that they may do this; and that in so doing, they will only follow the guidance of nature, reason, and common sense. pp. 4, 5.

good, in the obvious and popular sense of the 'Reason and nature teach us, that God is term; good in such a sense that he cannot perform an action, the final purpose of which is the infliction of suffering; good in such a view of the case, would, in a human agent, be sense that he cannot do that, which, on a full denominated cruel or unjust; good in such a sense, that he will not punish an innocent being for the crimes which another has committed; good, in fine, in such a sense that he cannot punish a frail creature, for not performing what the very law of his being had disqualified him to perform. Suppose we admit, that these views may be, in some measure, incorrect; that a stronger and a brighter light shed from heaven on the mental eye may enable us to see further into the deep mysteries of the Divine charac ter; and that these dictates of reason may be set aside by the decisions of superior authority. Let us suppose that such evidence may be presented in the gospel as shall constrain us to admit, that the goodness of God is something diverse, in kind as well as degree, from the same quality in man; and that he may, without impeachment of his character, perform what to us seems palpable cruelty and injustice. But is this probable? Is there not a trines inconsistent with this view of the divine strong presumption beforehand that no doegoodness will be found there? Ought we to anticipate a revelation from heaven, which school of nature; unsettle the fixed principles should unteach us all we had learned in the of the intellect; falsify all the conclusions of reason, our primary guide amid the dark and intricate windings of our earthly course, and had enkindled in our minds? Yet such, if the thus extinguish the light which God himself views of our opponents be correct, is the character and tendency of the revelation God has sent us by his Son. pp. 12, 13.

Unitarian Mission in Bengal.-[In our last number we gave that part of the Second Memoir respecting the Unitarian Mission in Bengal,' which relates to the Cooperation of Foreign Unitarians,' the Employment of a Missionary, a Chapel for English Worship,' and a Native Service.' We now redeem our promise to present our readers with the remainder of that valuable document.]

V. Education. The next subject to which the Committee have directed their attention is Education, to which they have no hesitation in avowing that they principally look for the renovation and improvement of the Hindoo character. The difficulties they have had to contend with in securing the aid and in making the arrangements that have been already detailed, and their yet limited resources, have hitherto prevented them as a body from taking any share in the means employed for the diffusion of native education; but a distinguished native member of the Committee, about the time of its formation, established an Anglo-Hindoo School, chiefly at his own expense, but occasionally aided by the liberal contributions of a few friends. The object of this institution is to instruct a limited number of boys in the English language and in the elements of general knowledge, and although this Committee are in no respect connected with it and have possessed no control over the mode in which it has been conducted, they have sincere pleasure in directing the attention of the public to this laudable exertion of private philanthropy. The extent of the Committee's exertions for the promotion of Education will necessarily depend upon the means placed at their disposal for that purpose by the public in India, England, and America. In the measures that may be adopted they are desirous of proceeding with great caution, in order that the object may not be defeated by a defective or erroneous system; for, although they do not expect instantaneous conversions as the probable or natural consequences of the means employed to diffuse education, they cannot resist the conviction that VOL. V.NO. V.

the beneficial effects actually produced, although considerable, are inadequate to the expenditure that has been incurred and the exertions made. The Committee are not able at present to point out the cause to which this should be attributed, if their apprehension is well founded; nor are they prepared to detail any general plan of education which they would recommend for adoption in preference to those which are in operation. But there is one branch of this subject-the kind and degree of connexion between education and religion-on which the most vague or the most opposite notions are entertained, and on which they think it proper at this time distinctly to state the principles by which they will be guided. 1. Education will never be employed by this Commitice as a direct means of proselytism to Christianity: they say direct means, for the diffusion of education and the spread of knowledge generally they consider in a high degree, although in an indirect manner, friendly to the cause of Christianity. What they mean to affirm, is, that in any institution established by them or placed under their control for the promotion of education, no one religion will be recommended more than another to the attention and favor of the pupils. To attempt to initiate the infant mind into the peculiarities of any religion or sect would, they consider, be unwise in any case, and in the case of Hindoos receiving education from the benevo lence of Christians, it would be cruel to the children, unjust and in most instances deceptive to the parents, and inconsistent with the spirit and genius of the Christian Religion. 2. But the opposite evil must also be guarded against, for if religion and morality are not inculcated, they will not be understood or practised any more than astronomy and navigation without being taught. They should be taught, therefore, but taught in such a way as to be consistent with perfect good faith to the parents and children, without exciting their prejudices, and without vi olating the principles which a judicious parent would lay down for the religious education of his own child. For this purpose the facts of religion should be 56