of God, be treated in any other light, than as a convenient mask, or an insulting sneer?

It might be a matter of more than curious speculation, to frame a Bible, according to the modifications of the Unitarian Commentators. The world. would then see, after all due amputations and amendments, to what their respect for the sacred text amounts. Indeed it is somewhat strange, that men so zealous to enlighten and improve the world, have not, long before this, blessed it with so vast a treasure. Can it be, that they think the execution of such a work, would impair their claim to the name of Christians? Or is it rather, that even the Bible so formed, must soon yield to another more perfect, as the still encreasing flood of light poured in new knowledge? That the latter is perhaps the true cause, may be inferred, as well from the known magnanimity of those writers, which cannot be supposed to have stooped to the former consideration, as from Dr. Priestley's own declarations. In his Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever (Part 2. p. 33 -35.) he informs us, that he was once "a Calvinist, and that of the straitest sect." Afterwards, he adds, he" became a high Arian, next a low Arian, and then a Socinian, and in a little time a Socinian of the lowest kind, in which Christ is considered as a mere man, the son of Joseph and Mary, and naturally as fallible and peccable as Moses or any other Prophet." And after all, he tells us (Def. of Unit. for 1787. p. 111.) that he "does not know, when his creed will be fixed." Mr. Belsham having set out

ture which adopted such language, but an idle fable. Non persuadebis etiamsi persuaseris, is the true motto of the Unitarian. And the reader, I trust, will not think that I have drawn too strong conclusions upon this subject in the three concluding pages of the first Number, when he finds the proof of what is there advanced strengthening so powerfully as we proceed.

and ended at the same point with Dr. Priestley; it is not improbable, that he has gone through the same revolution: and, that he, and others who have enjoyed the same progressive illumination, would equally with Doctor Priestley still contend for the freedom of an unsettled creed, is not perhaps too violent a presumption. Now, as every step, in such an indefinite progress, must induce a corresponding change of canon, it is not wonderful that they whose creed is in a perpetual state of variation, and whose Bible must be, like their almanac, suited only to a particular season, should not have attempted any fixed standard* of the sacred Word.

NO. XV.-ON THE HEATHEN NOTIONS OF MERIT ENTERTAINED BY UNITARIAN WRITERS.

PAGE 18. (p)-A writer, whom I cannot name but with respect, to the beauties of whose composition, no one that possesses taste or feeling, can be insensible,-speaking of Dr. Price, in her captivating defence of public worship against Mr. Wakefield, (to which publication I have already referred the reader in a preceding number,) uses this extraordinary language: "When a man like Dr. Price is about to resign his soul into the hands of his maker, he ought to do it not only with a reliance on his mercy, but his justice. (Mrs. Barbauld's Remarks on Mr. Wakefield's Enquiry, p. 72.) In the same stile, do Unitarian writers, in general express them

* Since the date of the above observation first introduced in the second edition of this work, a Testament has been published by the Unitarians, under the title of "An Improved Version of the New Testament." Of this Improved Version, some notice has been already taken in the preceding pages, and more shall be said hereafter.

selves on this subject, representing good works as giving a claim of right to the divine acceptance.

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Indeed, the manner, in which some Socinians of the new school, speak of their virtues, their merits, and their title to the rewards of a happy immortality, is such as might lead us to suppose ourselves carried back to the days of the old heathen schools of the Stoics, and receiving lessons not from the followers of the humble Jesus, but from the disciples of the arrogant, and magniloquent, Chrysippus, Seneca, or Epictetus. When Chrysippus tells us, that " as it is proper for Jupiter to glory in himself, and in his own life, and to think and speak magnificently of himself as living in a manner that deserves to be highly spoken of; so these things are becoming all good men, as being in nothing exceeded by Jupiter:" (Plut. De Stoic. Repugn. Oper. tom. ii. p. 1038. ed. Xyl. :) when Seneca pronounces, that a good man differs only in time from God" (De Provid. cap. 1.;) that "there is one thing, in which the wise man excels God, that God is wise by the benefit of nature, not by his own choice" (Epist. 53.:) and that "it is shameful to importune the Gods in prayer, since a man's happiness is entirely in his own power," (Epist. 31.:) and when Epictetus, (Disc. lib. iv. cap. 10.) represents the dying man making his address to God, in a strain of self-confidence, without the least acknowledgment of any one failure or neglect of duty; so that, as Miss Carter with a becoming piety remarks, it is such an address," as cannot without shocking arrogance, be. uttered by any one born to die;" when, I say, we hear such language from the ancient Stoic, what do we hear, but the sentiments of the philosophising Christian of the present day? and on casting an eye into the works of Priestley, Lindsey, Evanson, Wakefield, Belsham, and the other Unitarian wriVOL. I.

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ters, we do not instantly recognize that proud, and independent, and I had almost said heaven-defying, self-reliance, which had once distinguished the haughty disciple of the Stoa?

NO. XVI.-ON DR. JOHN TAYLOR'S SCHEME OF ATONEMENT.

PAGE 20. (q)-The scheme of Atonement, as it is here laid down, is that which has been maintained in the letters of Ben Mordecai, by the learned and ingenious, but prejudiced and erroneous, H. Taylor. It is substantially the same, that has been adopted by other theologians, who admitting a mediatorial scheme in the proper sense of the word, have thought right to found it upon the notion of a pure benevolence, in opposition to that of a retributive justice, in the Deity. But I have selected the statement of it, given by this writer, as being the best digested and most artfully fortified. It seems to avoid that part of the scheme of Dr. Taylor of Norwich, which favours the Socinian principles: but as will appear on examination, it cannot be entirely extricated from them, being originally built on an unsound foundation.

With respect to the system of Dr. Taylor of Norwich, as laid down in his Key to the Apostolic writings, and his Scripture doctrine of Atonement, it is obvious to remark, that it is nothing more, than an artificial accommodation of Scripture phrases, to notions utterly repugnant to Scripture doctrine. A short view of his scheme will satisfy us on this head. By a Sacrifice, he says (Script. doctr. ch. 2. No. 24, 25,) is meant a symbolical address to God, intended to express before him the devotions, affections, &c. by significant, emblematical actions:" and consequently, he adds, "whatever is expressive of a pious and virtuous disposition, may be rightly included in

the notion of a Sacrifice; as prayers, thanksgivings, labours, &c. &c.

Having thus widened up the notion of Sacrifice, it becomes necessary that sacrificial atonement should be made of equally extensive signification: and accordingly, because the word 5, which we commonly translate as making atonement, is, as he says, found to be applied in the Old Testament, in its general sense, to all means used for procuring any benefit, spiritual or temporal, at God's hands, whether for ourselves or others, such as obedience, a just life, sacrifices, prayers, intercessions, self-denials, &c. &c. he therefore thinks himself justified in extending to all these, that particular species of atonement, which is effected by sacrifice: and thereby is enabled to pronounce the Sacrifice of Christ to be a ground of atonement, without taking in a single idea, that truly and properly belongs to sacrifice, or sacrificial atonement. And so, he triumphantly concludes, (Script. doctr. &c. No. 152.) that he has made out the Sacrifice of Christ to be "truly and properly, in the highest manner and far beyond any other, piacular and expiatory, to make an atonement for sins, or take them away; not only to give us an example, not only to assure us of remission, or to procure our Lord a commission to publish the forgiveness of sin: but moreover, to obtain that forgiveness, by doing what God in his wisdom and goodness judged fit and expedient to be done, in order to the forgiveness of sin."

But in what, according to this explication, consists the efficacy of Christ's Sacrifice, and how has it made atonement for sin?--He informs us himself (Key, &c. No. 148.) "Obedience, or doing the will of God, was the sacrifice of sweet smelling savour, which made atonement for the sins of the world; in this sense, that God, on account of his (Christ's)