kept it so for fourteen hundred years. Has the Greek church. preserved the faith concerning the Trinity by refusing to insert in their creed the words "Filioque?" Or is the Roman church heretical in retaining them? These two great bodies, for centuries, have charged each other with heresy on this article of faith, and both are doubtless heretical on many others yet both recognize the unity of the episcopate in the three orders; a doctrine which some men think keeps pestilent errors out of the church as by patent. The Unitarianism which appeared in Poland was introduced and propagated there, not by Lutherans and Calvinists, but by men nurtured in the Roman church in Italy. By concealing their sentiments, they artfully gained admission to the Reformed churches. When they ventured openly to express their views, the Synod of Petrikow compelled them to leave the Reformed churches, and form a separate community. And this was done as soon as their heresy was declared; and in less than ten years after their stealthy appearance in Poland. The churches not recognizing the unity of the episcopate, repelled this heresy with a promptness and efficiency never manifested by prelatic churches. At a later period Arianism appeared in England; it seems to have been introduced and advocated by John Biddle, a member of the church of England, educated at Oxford, and master of the Free School in the church in the city of Gloucester. Archbishop Usher, by personal conference, endeavored unsuccessfully to convince him that the doctrine of the Trinity was founded in Scripture. Biddle is called the father of English Unitarianism; he gathered the first congregation of that faith in England. After him, William Whiston, a Fellow of Cambridge, a clergyman of the English church, by numerous writings advocated the same heresy. This was at a time when heresies prevailed in that church, and if not made too public were connived at. Even when he omitted part of the Litany, to suit his peculiar views, the bishop of Ely shielded him and prevented his trial. Though his writings excited much discussion, yet he was never excommunicated or degraded. Dr. Samuel Clarke, Rector of St. James, and Chaplain to Queen Anne, the friend of Whiston, became the acknowledged champion of English Unitarianism; and the churches are more indebted to his writings and influence for the spread of this heresy, than to any other. Dr. Daniel Whitby, an English divine of great celebrity in his day, became a convert to Arianism through the writings of Dr. Clarke, and wrote voluminously in defense of that heresy. Both these heretical clergymen also continued in the church which boasted the unity of the

episcopate, but which had not vitality enough to "slough off" the corruption engendered of its manifold open and latent

heresies.

It should be remembered here, that it had long been the sentiment of the English church, that the oath of subscription taken by clergymen did not imply their belief in the doctrines of the church. Chillingworth, who could not at first "juggle with his conscience" by signing what he did not believe, was persuaded by Laud and Sheldon that "peace and union are the real objects of subscription, not belief or assent-a doctrine held by Archbishop Sancroft, and many other eminent divines." Chief Justice King pleaded the same sentiment with Whiston, telling him that "we must not lose our usefulness for scruples." Paley and a multitude of others found great inconvenience in established creeds and confessions, and were regarded as teaching the propriety of "subscription without belief." Bishop Watson, in an address to his clergy on Christian doctrine, says: "I think it safer to tell you where they are contained, than what they are. They are contained in the Bible; and if your sentiments concerning the doctrines of Christianity should be different from those of the church, be persuaded that infallibility appertains as little to you, as it does to the church. In your public teaching, you ought not, while a minister in the church, to disturb its public peace by opposition to its doctrines; if you do this, your discordance of opinion will do no mischief, public or private." (Overton's True Churchman, p. 18.) It was on account of this liberty, and indifference respecting error, in the Church of England, that Bishop Horsley characterized the sermons of many of the clergy, as inanimate lectures on moral virtue, independent of Christianity. Toplady also asks, in view of the Pelagianism, Arianism and Arminianism of the clergy: "Is there a single heresy that ever annoyed the Christian world, which has not its present partisans among those who profess conformity to the church of England." This church which glories in the unity of the episcopate, appears in those days to have lost the power of "sloughing off;" the corruption exceeded the life. Bishop Warburton, in a letter to Dr. Hurd, says: "The church, like the Ark of Noah, is worth saving; not for the sake of the unclean beasts and vermin that almost filled it, and probably made most noise and clamor in it, but for the little corner of rationality that was as much disturbed by the stink within as by the tempest without." (Letters, p. 84.) Rather a bad smell in a church which "sloughs off" pestilent errors easily.

It is not singular, that in a church so indifferent to the char

acter and orthodoxy of the clergy, heretical opinions should be cherished and abound. Accordingly we find that an association of the established clergy, who were inclined to Unitarianism, was formed for the purpose of procuring relief in the matter of subscription. In 1772 they sent a petition to Parliament, signed by Bishop Law, Archdeacon Blackburne and others, in all about 250; a number larger than all the Unitarian congregations in England or America, at the present time. Burke said of these petitioners: "They want to be teachers in a church to which they do not belong. They want to receive the emoluments appropriated for teaching one set of doctrines, whilst they are teaching another." (Works, American Edition, 2d vol. p. 445.) Though Parliament afforded them no relief, only one or two of these petitioners had the manliness to leave the church, whose doctrines they neither preached nor believed; preferments and emoluments they valued above the quiet of their consciences, or what they pretended to be truth; nor did "the one episcopate" serve to free the church from the full communion and fellowship of this multitude of heretics and hypocrites.

We come now to state briefly a fact or two respecting Unitarianism in New England. And where did this heresy first find a resting place in the land of the Pilgrims? Not in a Congregational church; but in the principal Episcopalian congregation in Boston; which finding itself at liberty, after the Revolution, consented to reform the Liturgy for the most part according to the one used in London by Mr. Lindsey, a church-of-England Unitarian; which was substantially a copy of the one reformed by Dr. Clarke. A majority of the congregation of King's Chapel constituted the first Unitarian church in New England. It is sometimes said that the congregation occupying King's Chapel after the war of the Revolution was not an Episcopalian congregation. But there is no evidence to justify this assertion. Mr. Freeman, the pastor, says in 1786 he attempted to introduce the Essex street (London) Liturgy entire; but the people were not ripe for so great a change: he expressed the hope that when their minds were more enlightened, they would consent to a farther alteration. These changes were made some years after; and the Episcopalian character of the congregation is put beyond all question, by their protracted attachment to the Prayer Book. (American Unitarianism, pp. 11, 12.) In 1792, the Rev. Thomas Oxnard, minister of the Episcopal church in Portland, became a Unitarian, and with a considerable majority of the society formed themselves into a separate congregation;

and this was the second Unitarian church in New England. (American Unita. p. 16.) From King's Chapel, as a centre of influence, this heresy made its way silently into the Congrega-. tional churches; though from no other pulpit in Massachusetts was a sermon preached against the Trinity till after 1810. In the mean time the work of corruption made great progress; while formal Unitarianism was nowhere avowed, though many were suspected. When the heresy was openly declared, the Orthodox as a body at once forebore all communion and fellowship with its advocates. At the sacrifice of personal friendships, and parochial peace, they unhesitatingly resisted this heresy; their zeal and moral courage for the truth have no parallel in the Episcopal church when infested with a similar heresy.

While the chief Episcopalian church in Boston was passing into Unitarianism, a convention of clerical and lay delegates of the same denomination, was held at Philadelphia. This convention was moved with the spirit of reform, the Thirty-nine Articles were reduced to twenty, the article on the Trinity being somewhat modified; the Athanasian and Nicene creeds, which so emphatically assert the doctrine of the Trinity, were rejected; and it is said that Dr. Provost (who had been a pupil of Dr. Jebb, a church-of-England Unitarian) proposed to alter the Litany, by leaving out the invocations to the Son, the Holy Ghost, and the Trinity, and retain only the first, which is addressed to God the Father. (Am. Un., p. 13.) When it was ascertained that the Archbishop of Canterbury was dissatisfied with these alterations, they substantially restored the Articles, adopted the Nicene creed only, and made such satisfactory changes as to secure the consecration of two bishops; evidently sacrificing their real principles to "the miter and the lawn." These things indicate, in some sort, the Unitarian tendencies of the first Episcopalian convention; as another alteration did the Pelagianism of the same body. In the service for the private baptism of infants, the words in the English Prayer Book, "who being born in original sin, and in the wrath of God," are not found in the American edition. If now in this outline of Arianism, as it has appeared in churches maintaining the three orders of the ministry, any evidence appears of the potency of prelacy to preserve incorrupt the doctrine of the Trinity, or promptly "slough off" heresy, high-churchism is welcome to the comfort it affords.

Of one more topic we speak briefly. The Reviewer represents the great design and use of infant baptism to be, "the remission of the guilt of original sin." He holds that as this guilt is incurred without fault or agency of the subject, so also

with as little agency on his part, is the guilt remitted by baptism. It is enough for us that the Bible teaches no such doctrine; it ought to satisfy Episcopalians that the Prayer Book does not. In the catechism, the question, why are infants baptised? is answered,-" Because they promise faith and repentance by their sureties; which promise when they come to age themselves are bound to perform." Pious Episcopalians teach that only when these promises are fulfilled is the blessing of baptism actually experienced; that when the minister says of the child after baptism, "thou art regenerate," &c., it means that when he actually exercises the faith and repentance promised by his sponsors, then, and not till then, is he regenerate. In the Articles and catechism, there is no intimation of the opinion expressed in the Review. But there are many Episcopalians whose glorification of baptism is more amusing than solemn. Dr. Dodwell asserted that baptism rendered the soul immortal: and that no future existence awaited those not baptised by successors of the Apostles. This is, on the whole, a more sensible doctrine than that of the Reviewer, which consigns to perdition all who do not receive the rite by duly authorized hands. Highchurchmen seem to find no language too extravagant to express their views of regeneration by water. Chrysostom speaks in their vein when he says,-" Although a man should be foul with vice, the blackest that could be named, yet should he fall into the baptismal pool, he ascends from the divine waters, purer than the beams of noon." (Taylor's Ancient Christianity, p. 325.) It was owing to the prevalence of this abominable doctrine concerning the efficacy of this sacrament, that the custom originated of deferring baptism till the last hour of life; and also that the peculiar expression, "one baptism for the remission of sin, found its way into the Nicene creed,-for it was not so when that creed was first adopted. The significancy of the expres sion depends on its reference to persons about to die, who believed that a death-bed baptism would remove all defects of character; by that "one baptism" the sins of a whole life were instantly washed away. That the peculiar opinion of the Reviewer on this subject was not held by the ancient church, and has not been by the English church generally, is quite too plain to require any evidence. The doctrine here presented, that those churches which teach that the guilt of original sin is remitted by baptism, are likely to be preserved from heresy respecting the doctrine of man's nature, is a twin absurdity with that, which makes the unity of the episcopate the only safeguard against Arianism. We are curious to know if the ingenious author still possesses parturient force.