George the Second and George the Third pass away without leaving any record of this supposed grievance? Why did the fathers and grandfathers of the present Unitarians submit to be married by the exist ing laws, without a murmur? Or if they felt the scruples now complained of, why did they not state their grievances, and petition for relief? FOR THE VERY BEST OF ALL REASONS; BECAUSE THEY NEVER FELT ANY."

"Nor should we have been annoyed with the grumblings and protestations of their descendants, had not the Legislature, with a facility ever to be deplored, consented to repeal the statute against blusphemy. Encouraged and emboldened by that repeal, they immediately fell to work to find out new grievances: and at length came forward with a complaint, that their forefathers had been asleep, as to their real interests, for more than half a century; but that, as for themselves, they had determined to be awake; and upon looking about, bad discovered that the marriage service of the Church imposes upon them a form of words, with which the tenderness of their conscience will not permit them to comply; and they, therefore, beg to be excused from compliance with that service. The first notice that we have of these scruples breaking out into any thing like a formal complaint, was in the case of one FEARON, who, on presenting himself to be married, put into the hands of the officiating minister, what he called his protest against the doctrines contained in the service. This was soon followed by a smilar protest from a Unitarian preacher, named DILLON, whose conduct, on the occasion of his own marriage, was marked with a degree of rudeness and insult to the minister, the church and its services, which ought to have consigned him to the hands of a constable; to teach him that, at least, brawling in the Church can still be punished in some small degree, even if BLASPHEMY CANNOT. Mr. Dillon's account of his own conduct is to the follow ing effect; and I insert it for the sake of afew remarks, which I wish to make upon it. When he entered the Church, he informs us, he delivered his protest, signed by his intended wife and himself, to the Clergyman, which was received with a request that no farther interruption might be given. When they came to the part in which Mr. D. was bid to repeat these words—' In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,' he paused; and told the minister, that disbe

lieving in the doctrine of the Trinity, he could not conscientiously repeat the words; upon which a debate ensued; and Mr. D. says, 'I then appealed to the Clergyman, as a man of religion, and standing in what he thought a sacred place, whether he ought to call upon us to join IN WHAT TO US WAS FALSEHOOD OR BLASPHEMY? At length,' he continues, finding all resistancé vain, I spoke to the following effect: In the name of the Father, and (BUT PROTESTING AGAINST IT) of the Son, and (BUT PROTESTING AGAINST IT) of the Holy Ghost,'-and thus got married. And when the Clergyman repeated the same words from the altar, we are told, that the whole Unitarian party turned away in disgust. This account, disgraceful as it is to the person whose conduct it records, was published, to serve as a model on which all other Unitarians might form their own, when they appeared in our Churches to be married."

"But will any man of sense or feeling believe that such conduct as this could proceed from any thing like tenderness of conscience? I always thought, that persons of a highly conscientious feeling were wont to respect the same feelings in others. Would a British officer, for instance, possessing a high sense of honour, (as I believe all British officers do) endeavour by every means in his power, to induce another officer to commit a breach of honour ? Or, would a person possessing a nice sense of the rights of conscience, try by argu ment and entreaty, by threats and intimi, dations, to force another to do that which, he knew at the time, he was solemnly pledged not to do? I think not,-But this did Mr. Dillon to the, officiating Clergyman. He endeavoured to force the Clergyman to marry him contrary to the Service, which he had solemnly, at his ordination, engaged to observe; and because he could not succeed, he insulted the Minister, the Church, and the Service; calling the Altar idolatrous, and the Service blasphemy."

"Not scruples of conscience, therefore, but some other motive, must have induceed the Unitarians to put forward Mr. Dillon, to act in the way here described,—and, I am much mistaken, if the following was not their real motive. The Unitarians, presuming upon the easy and compliant disposition of the Legislature, recently experienced in the repeal of the statute already mentioned, and having no just

"The statute against blasphemy."

grounds on which to ask the exemption in question, determined to make the solemnization of their marriages such a scene of altercation and tumult, as might, by shocking every feeling of piety in Churchmen, induce parliament to accede to their request, as the best means of putting a stop to scenes, at once so tumultuous and disgraceful. And in strict accordance with this design, the Edinburgh Reviewer treated the subject. He affected to feel vast respect for the Church of England, lamented the shocking and tumultuous scenes by which she had been disgraced; and, as the best mode of consulting her dignity and perpetuity, and, at the same time, of satisfying the wishes of the Dissenters, recommended a ready compliance with their demands. The remedy which he proposes for the safety of the Church is, in his own words, 'The dimunition of needless hostility; a display of good hu mour, liberality and condescension; and an habit of giving way in trifles, in order to preserve essentials.'-Edinburgh Review, No. 69.-Had this writer been able

perhaps, for what you have already done; but, at the same time, assuring your Right Honourable House, that your past favours are incomplete, unless you also repeal the Test and Corporation Acts; and admit them to all the rights and privileges enjoyed by members of the Establishment: i, e. unless you consent tamely and quietly to the subversion of the Established religion. This, as we have already shewn, is their ultimate object, and unless you are prepared to grant this, you must make up your minds immediately to stop, ere you shall have advanced to a point, from which all attempts at retreat will be ineffectual." P. 73.

This pamphlet must at least be considered as an useful and seasonable publication; although, perhaps, the writer has not done full justice to his own sentiments. His notes are too long and numerous, and not in all cases perfectly judicious. Nor do we think that he is

authorities. Neither the British Review nor the Velvet Cushion seem well adapted to his purpose. Many good sentiments and sound positions may indeed be found in both; and the passage quoted from the former, in page 47, is certainly of this de

P. 62.

Most cordially do we agree in the sentiments expressed in a subsequent passage of this Letter.

"Every new act of concession only be gets a new demand; every recent boon is made the ground for asking another:-Thus the repeal of the act against blasphemy,

was the motive with the Unitarians for seeking an exemption from the marriage ceremony-and their petition to Parhament was actually founded upon that repeal. In the same way, let the present Bill be passed, and they will then come forward with a petition, thanking yon,

of these works is of such a nature, that they can never be admitted as authority on the side of the Church. We have not forgotten some articles in the British Review, which contained quite as much calumny and defamation, quite as much bitterness against the sounder portion of the Clergy, as any which have been more recently imported from the North.

With these exceptions, which do not affect the validity of a single argument, we may safely recom

mend this letter to the attention of our readers. The subject, indeed, is one, which must be regarded with an anxious eye by every sincere friend of the Church of England. We lament that the Bill has been committed, because we fear that

it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, so to guard and limit its operation, as to prevent Dissenters of every description from adapting it to their own use. Nor is this the only ground of apprehension. The success of this Bill, however modified and restrained, would be a signal for similar attempts. The whole body of Dissenters would be encouraged to approach Parliament from year to year, assuming an higher tone, and demanding larger concessions. We confidently hope, however, that the wisdom of the Legislature, and the firmness and vigilance of the Episcopal Bench, will be conspicuous on this casion; and that the Church will still be protected from this, and similar encroachments, which are only intended as a prelude to her destruction.

OC

tion in the mouth of her adversaries, that the reformation of the English Church was occasioned by the violent passions, and sordid cupidity, of princes and powerful men, and not by the energy of a purifying principle within herself. Every reader of English history is aware, that such a principle was actually existing, and in operation, long before the era of Henry the Eighth. The leaven was infused into the mass, and was constantly, though almost imperceptibly, at work, from the days of Wicliffe, Sautre and Thorpe; and it ought never to be forgotten, that the earliest enemies of the papal system, the first maintainers of the authority and sufficiency of Scripture, were clergymen of the English Church.

The spirit of inquiry and independent judgment which had taken such firm root in this country, as to make it expedient, for the maintenance of the Romish religion, that all civil officers should take an oath to do their utmost to destroy Lollardry, was, for a time, oppressed and smothered by the power of the dominant belief; but it was never extinguished. The cruelties which were exercised by the rulers of the Church were sufficient to excite in the people a just suspicion of the system which they were intended to uphold; and the wealth of the establishment became an object of cupidity to the government. It is surely rather a topic of commendation than of reproof, that those pious men, who conducted the reformation of our Church, were wise and sagacious enough to take advantage of the secular policy of an ambitious, intemperate monarch, and to convert the evil passions of men to the ends of God's honour, and to the purification of the na

tional faith.

The martyrdoms of Bilney and Bainham, men who suffered when the fire of persecution was blown

into unusual fierceness, by the suspicion of an approaching change, are related by Mr. Southey with much feeling and eloquence. The following character of Sir Thomas More, deserves to be given at length.

"Sir Thomas More is represented, by the Protestant Martyrologists, as a cruel persecutor; by Catholics, as a blessed martyr. Like some of his contemporaries, he was both. But the character of this illustrious man deserves a fairer estimate than has been given it, either by his adorers or his enemies. It behoves us ever to bear in mind, that while actions are always to be judged by the immutable standard of right and wrong, the judgment which we pass upon men must be qualified by considerations of age, country, situation, and other incidental circumstances; and it will then be found, that he who is most charitable in his judgment, is generally the least unjust. Sir Thomas More would, in any age of the world, have ranked among the wisest and best of men. One generation earlier, he would have appeared as a precursor of the Reformation, and perhaps have delayed it by procuring the correction of grosser abuses, and thereby rendering its necessity less urgent. One generation later, and his natural place would have been in Elizabeth's Council, among the pillars of the state, and the founders of the Church of England. But the circumstances wherein he was placed, were peculiarly unpropitious to his disposition, his happiness, and even his character in after times. His high station (for he had been made Chancellor upon Wolsey's disgrace,) compelled him to take an active part in public affairs; in forwarding the work of persecution, he believed that he was discharging not only a legal, but a religious, duty and it is but too certain, that he performed it with activity and zeal. The Lord forgive Sir Thomas More,' were among the last words which Bainham uttered amid the flames. The Protestants who, by his orders, and some of them actually in his sight, were flogged and racked, to make them declare with whom they were connected, and where was the secret deposit of their forbidden books, imputed the cruelty of the laws to his personal inhumanity. In this they were as unjust to him, as he was in imputing moral criminality to them; for he was one of those unworldly dispositions which are ever more willing to endure evil than

to inflict it. It is because this was so

certainly his temper and his principle, that his decided intolerance has left a stain upon his memory: what in his contemporaries was only consistent with themselves and with the times, appearing monstrous in him, who in other points was advanced so far beyond his age. But by this very superiority it may partly be explained. He perceived, in some of the crude and perilous opinions which were now promulgated, consequences to which the Reformers, in the ardour and impatience of their sincerity, were blind: he saw that they tended to the subversion, not of existing institutions alone, but of civil society itself: the atrocions frenzy of the Anabaptists in Germany, confirmed him in this apprehension; and the possibility of re-edifying the Church upon its old foundations, and giving it a moral strength which should resist all danger, entered not into his mind, because he was contented with it as it stood, and in the strength of his attachment to its better principles, loved some of its errors and excused others. Herein he was unlike his friend Erasmus, whom he resembled equally in extent of erudition and in sportiveness of wit. But More was characteristically devout: the imaginative part of Catholicism had its full effect upon him; its splendid ceremonials, its magnificent edifices, its alliance with music, painting, and sculpture, (the latter arts then rapidly advancing to their highest point of excellence,) its observances, so skilfully interwoven with the business, the festivities, and the ordinary economy of life, ...... in these things he delighted, and all these the Reformers were for sweeping away. But the impelling motive for his conduct was, his assent to the tenet, that belief in the doctrines of the Church was essential to salvation. For upon that tenet, whether it be held by Papist or Protestant, toleration becomes, what it has so often been called,... soul-murder: persecution is, in the strictest sense, a duty; and it is an act of religious charity to burn heretics alive, for the purpose of deterring others from damnation. The tenet is proved to be false by its intolerable consequences, ... and no stronger example can be given of its injurious effect upon the heart, than that it should have made Sir Thomas More a persecutor." Vol. II. P. 24.

The dissolution of the religious houses was advised by Cranmer, as