to the nineteenth chapter, which treats of "the general ground of conjectural reasoning concerning what is unseen or future." It is beautifully written, powerfully argued, and well sustained. Copious as have been our extracts from, and long as our review of this able volume, we cannot deny ourselves the satisfaction of adorning our humble pages with one more quotation; and we select the following passage as a fair specimen of our author's brilliant style, willing, we confess, to leave a favourable impression of the work upon the minds of our readers, and assuring them, in all sincerity, that our necessarily meagre abstract will give them about as faithful a picture of the glowing beauties of the volume itself, as a dry skeleton might afford of the living symmetry and fashion of the once fleshly frame, of which it is the naked sub

stratum.

With the infinity of space, and the infinite creative power and will of the Supreme Being as the field and the means, the belief that this energy reaches its boundary within any circle that any created mind will ever be able to measure, or to conceive of, is not to be entertained. On the contrary, we may far more reasonably suppose, not only that the divine perfections of power and wisdom abstractedly, will always surpass the comprehension of finite beings, but that the products of those perfections will go beyond the longest line of created minds; and that not the loftiest seraph shall ever be able to reach a spot whence, with even a seraph's ken, he may be able to descry the lone boundaries of the creation, and to look beyond the circle of productive power. Rather let us believe that creatures-the highest of them, let them wander where they may, and as far as they may, and let them hold on their course with unwearied curiosity, age after age, and in what direction they may please, shall yet find themselves in the very heart of the populous dominions of the Almighty, and surrounded, in all directions, by worlds and systems of worlds.-Pp. 295, 296.

ART. II.-1. Scriptural Views concerning the Great and Important Doctrine of the Atonement; the Substance of a Discourse delivered on Sunday, December 13th, 1835, at the Unitarian Chapel, Ipswich. By JOSEPH KETLEY, the late Pastor, in consequence of his Change of Sentiment upon that Subject. Second Edition, corrected. London : Longman and Co.; Hamilton and Co.; Hatchard and Son. Ipswich: Pawsey. 8vo. Pp. 39.

2. A Letter to the Congregation who assemble for Worship in the Unitarian Chapel, Ipswich, occasioned by an Advertisement in the Suffolk Chronicle addressed to the Writer; and containing some Account of his Discussion with the Rev. Joseph Ketley, which ended in Mr. Ketley's Renunciation of Unitarianism. By PIERS EDMUND BUTLER, B. A. Curate of St. Margaret's, Ipswich. Second Edit. corrected. Ipswich: Deck. London: Hamilton, Adams and Co.; Simpkin and Marshall. Bury St. Edmund's: Deck. Cambridge: Deightons and Stevenson. Norwich: Stacy. 8vo. Pp. 22. 1836.

3. The Rev. Joseph Ketley's Relapse examined and countervailed. London: Fox. Manchester: Forrest and Fogg. 8vo. Pp. 19. 1836. 4. Remarks on perusing the Rev. P. E. Butler's Letter, addressed to the Unitarians of Ipswich, and on the Rev. J. Ketley's Discourse to the same Body; on the Occasion of his Conversion from Unitarianism. By the Rev. CHARLES EYRE, B. A. London: Longman and Co. and all Booksellers. 8vo. Pp. 27. 1836.

5. Reports of Lectures on Morality as modified by the various Classes into which Society is divided, delivered at the Chapel in South Place, Finsbury. By W. J. Fox. London: Fox. 1836. Pp. 238.

66

We have often been called upon, during our critical career, to point out the illiberality of liberals, the interested proceedings of men of principle," and the religious and political bigotry of those whose whole creed appears to centre in exclusive adherence to their own party prejudices and narrow notions of right and wrong, whilst denouncing with malevolent clamour the articles and ritual of that communion under whose protecting shade they have found the indulgence and toleration which they constantly employ to plot her destruction. Nor in such an age of excitement as this, are there fears lest examples should be wanting to substantiate, by references, our former illustrations. The publications which stand at the head of our present remarks, though in themselves apparently insignificant, will enable us to offer our readers a new chapter in the interesting series of sectarian inconsistencies to which we have above alluded.

The circumstance which forms the subject matter of these pamphlets is of so recent an occurrence, that it may on that very account carry with it an air of recommendation to the discussion of the topic; but at this season, when the christian faith is assailed on the points most dear to its defenders, and the Church is by natural enemies not only openly attacked, but secretly undermined by those whose lofty stations ought to secure them from suspicion even of a compromise, it cannot be a useless employment to point out, as far as our means extend, the innate depravity of every system of moral or religious instruction, which is not based upon the mysterious but indestructible foundation of gospel truth and purity, "God manifest in the flesh."

It appears from the third in the list of publications before us, that the Rev. Joseph Ketley was brought up a Trinitarian, but early seduced into false doctrine, became a student in the Unitarian Seminary at York, and then fully drugged with the leaven of heresy and schism, sent out as preacher to Hull, Whitby, and lastly to Ipswich.

After fourteen years' service in endeavouring to unteach what the Christian Church has taught for eighteen hundred years, Mr. Ketley, through the arguments and persuasions of the Rev. Mr. Butler, is led, by God's grace, to see his errors.

It is thus the latter gentleman modestly tells the story of the discussion which produced this desirable result :

My acquaintance with Mr. Ketley began on the fifth of January, 1835. On the evening of that day I had the honour of delivering a Lecture at the Mechanics' Institute, as several of you may, perhaps, remember. When my Lecture was concluded, Mr. K. rose and addressed a few remarks to the audience, noticing in a kind and favourable manner what they had just heard. In a few minutes after he approached, and introducing himself to me, requested my permission to visit me at my house, frankly stating at the same time that he was a Unitarian minister, and expressing his hope that I would not consider that circumstance an obstacle to our interchange of the courtesies of life. I replied as you may anticipate-assuring him of my readiness to receive his proposed visit, and of my gratitude for his favourable notice of my Lecture. During our first interview at my house, which followed in a few days, he introduced the subject of religion, observing that he thought Unitarianism was in general misunderstood, and endeavouring, by the suggestion of various considerations which I cannot now recal, to produce in my mind a favourable impression toward it. Such was the origin of our discussion. My opinion of Mr. Ketley's powers, and my distrust of my own, rendered it morally impossible that it should originate on my part; indeed a sense of duty was the only motive which induced me to engage in it when begun by him. A distinct desire for his benefit could not actuate me then; for it would have implied a hope of being instrumental toward it, which I did not then venture to entertain. At a few subsequent interviews my friend appeared still to indulge the expectation of leading me over to his own religious opinions, and directed his conversation accordingly. That expectation, however, very soon vanished. He advocated his opinions from conviction; in addition to conviction, at least, not weaker than his own, I clung to mine for life. He could not but know that a transition from his ground to mine would leave his eternal safety unendangered, even on his own principles; while on my principles, a similar transition to his ground would involve the most ruinous result. He consequently confined himself, from that time, to a defence of Unitarianism-and of the hand then employed on her bulwarks, I think I may affirm in the language of the Roman poet

"Si Pergama dextrâ

Defendi possent, etiam hac defensa fuissent."

To her cause, if I can judge, he did ample justice. During many successive interviews at our respective residences, he drew largely from the resources of abstract argument and of Biblical criticism; and nothing that he brought forward seemed in any degree deprived of its clearness or force by his manner of employing it. If such were the self-diffidence felt by me, and the ability manifested by my friend, whence the issue of our discussion, with which you are all acquainted? With no hypocritical affectation of humility, I wholly disclaim the merit of it. Our discussion took not place amid the alternating applauses of a multitude, but in the quiet of unostentatious retirement, with no other witness than our Maker-it was not conducted in the spirit of combatants, but with the mutual good-will of friends. We were aware that not the sincerity nor the intellect of either party could suffer any just disparagement by the result, whatever it might be. A philosopher, self-dependent, may fail in the investigation of religious truth, while the agency of omnipotence and the instrumentality of a child may discover it to his mind. It is very strange that a man may avow alteration of sentiment on almost any subject but that of religion, without calumny called forth, or indignation excited; while a change in religion, beyond all others, is entitled to a calm and kind consideration. If the convert be wrong, he is a proper object of the deepest commiseration-if he be right, of the purest satisfaction. Too often is he looked on as an enemy and a traitor by the community whose religion he has abandoned, and as the author of a dire calamity to its interest-a thing impossible if that religion be true.

Truth must ultimately prevail, and he who abandons her cause, injures, not it, but himself. At length those feelings of anger, which originate in a mere illusion, gradually subside, like all others of the kind. It is discovered that the sun shines not more feebly than before the calamity of this conversion; and the course of nature flows on unaltered by its influence. It is found, perhaps, in addition to all this, that the convert has not ceased to be human, his integrity is unimpaired, his understanding vigorous as ever, and his testimony and example may in the end be appreciated by many, who once execrated both in the bitterness of their hearts.

The arguments of my friend were principally throughout, and altogether in the first instance, founded on what appeared to him rational principles, rather than on the testimony of Revelation. After briefly contending that they applied not to the doctrines I advocated, my endeavours were employed to convince him that all such arguments proceed on a false supposition-namely, that, admitting the authority of Scripture, we are competent to sit in judgment on the wisdom of its contents. He constantly endeavoured to draw me into argument on the doctrine of the Trinity, which I as constantly avoided; contenting myself with, at most, very brief replies to his objections, and then returning to the consideration of what appeared to me a prior, and yet more important question—the scheme of salvation revealed. I had frequently to remind him that his line of argument was unwittingly inconsistent with his admission of the authority of Scripture; but the complete inspiration of the latter I do not recollect him to have ever directly questioned. Hence, from the origin to the end of our discussion, the main subject of it continued to be the scheme of salvation revealed-including the natural state of man, and the doctrine of the Atonement. This subject I invariably endeavoured to consider with him as one involving his own eternal interest, about which 1 avow that I felt a more than ordinary solicitude from the moment when I dared to hope I might be employed in promoting it—a solicitude which, augmented as my acquaintance with him proceeded, from causes which you, who have known him, will readily conjecture. The first day on which I can now, in looking back, discern any impression made upon his mind (an impression he did not himself become aware of until long after) was the third of April, 1835-a day never to be forgotten by me, I watched by the bedside of my dying wife-you will not deem me impertinent, if I yield to the impulse that prompts me here to pay one tribute to her memory, and record, a better was never formed by God, or lost by man. I watched by her dying-bed-a storm unusual at that season raged, unheeded by her; the thunder roared and the rain descended in

torrents.

"Without was nature's elemental din,

And beauty died, and friendship wept within."

A servant announced that Mr. Ketley was in the house. I declined seeing him. "Go," said the dying-" go to him, Piers; you may be of use to him." On seeing my friend, I said to him, " I feel incapable of entering into argument with you now but let us read together a portion of the Bible." He consented. I chose the third chapter of the Epistle to the Romans; and read, briefly commenting as I proceeded. In answer to some remarks I made on the term "propitiation," he contended that the word in the original, being the same by which the mercy-seat is denominated, merely implied the manifestation of divine mercy by Jesus Christ, without any reference to Atonement; and that nothing was mentioned of his blood. I repeated the words which had escaped his attention, "through faith in his blood." When leaving me, “I am convinced," he said, "no man in your present situation could make the effort you have made in conversing with me to-day, without a genuine desire of my spiritual benefit; and whatever conclusion I may come to respecting the subject of our conversation, your motives I shall ever appreciate as I ought." From that time his manner became more serious in our discussion, and he appeared to defer more to the authority of Scripture. I requested him to study the Epistle

to the Romans, in the original of Griesbach's edition, being one which the most learned Unitarians generally consider impartial. He readily consented to do so, and was soon convinced, by the Latin Preface of Griesbach, of the genuineness of some portions of the Bible which he had doubted before. The common version was now rapidly read, the original, at the same time, being consulted on all disputed passages. At this point of his progress I gave him a copy of my Sermons. He at first declared himself gratified, but unconvinced, by the perusal of them. In a few days, however, he acknowledged to me that his confidence in Unitarianism was completely shaken-that he more than suspected the soundness of the mode of interpretation employed in its support-and that my second Sermon had shown him the moral impossibility of serving God without a belief of the Atonement. He asked me to name some books I would recommend him to read for additional information on the subject. I mentioned Magee and Wardlaw. His progress was now rapid and decisive. He saw the Atonement, first as appointed, and deriving efficacy from divine appointmentthen as "elect, precious," intrinsically meritorious, and therefore appointed to reconcile mercy with justice, and man with God. On the latter point, the tenth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews appeared to him decisive. He perceived at once the connexion of the Atonement with the Deity of Christ, on which subject we discussed but one only text, "Thy throne, O God, is for ever," &c. as quoted from the forty-fifth Psalm, in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. He argued for the Unitarian translation, “God is thy throne," &c.-to which I replied that our explanation of the passage alone coincides with the scope of the whole context, which is evidently to exalt the dignity of the Mediator. What appeared to him the strongest evidence of the deity of Christ, was the recorded fact that inspired men transacted immediately with Him the business of personal religion. (2 Cor. xii. 7-9.) Similar evidence appeared to him for the personality and deity of the Holy Spirit, who is declared to be the immediate agent in the inward change inseparable from salvation the prompter of prayer in all who acceptably pray-the sanctifier and upholder of all who live for God. It was in the beginning of December, 1835, that the crisis arrived in the inquiries of my friend. His intention of publicly announcing to you his change of sentiment in religion, was communicated to me only on the day before you heard him announce it. He solicited my advice. I observed that the duty of confessing Christ was inseparable from belief in him, (Rom. x. 9,)—that the time when we believe in him must, therefore, be the time to confess him-and that he could not, without hypocrisy, preach Unitarian doctrine while he disbelieved it. What followed you already know.-P. 15-22.

We have given this narrative entire, chiefly because it may afford a useful hint or two on the subject to persons situated as Mr. Butler was, and because it is such a narrative as carries upon it the air of genuine, unadulterated truth. In addition to the aid received from Mr. Butler, Mr. Ketley mentions in his notes, Mr. Notcutt, independent minister at Ipswich; Mr. Aldrich, perpetual curate of St. Lawrence, in that town; Mr. Meffen, of Kidderminster; and Mr. Gurney, of Norwich; from all of whom, either by discussion, books, or conversation, his mind was aided in its progress to its present state.

But we must use his own words:

On the day preceding his avowal of a change of sentiment, the author saw the path of duty clear before him; but as he had, for the last three months, been reading hard upon the subject, on an average not less than twelve hours a-day, he felt somewhat of that nervousness inseparable from close and continued application, coupled with the circumstance that he had to make to the