could wish, the fault is not, it may be, in the structure of the sentences at which we pause, so much as in the omission of intimations connecting the thought we are apprehending and the great general object of the work. This object, indeed, is hardly introduced before the readers; and but for a passage in the preface, we might in vain have conjectured what it was. And though it is there announced with sufficient distinctness, yet the bearing on it of many an evidently important passage is too indirect to be easily perceptible. Hence we have often been constrained to doubt whether or not we had extracted the author's real meaning; and hence less careful readers are likely to complain that it is an uninteresting book, and aims at nothing.

The second title which Mr. Tayler has given to his volume, indicates the topics of his more important chapters. A chapter introductory to the whole; another, contrasting 'The Church' and Puritanism;' a brief Conclusion;' and ample Notes ;' these, in addition, constitute the book. And a more unmanageable book for a critical reviewer we have rarely met with. Our memoranda on points on which we should like to engage in friendly discussion with the author, may be counted by hundreds. And these points are not susceptible of classification; nor are they, generally, of such a character, in the form at least in which they come before us, as to admit of our simple affirmation or denial. To enumerate and clarify them would require, however, a volume larger than our author's. We warn our readers, therefore, in relation to these minor matters, that, while recommending this retrospect' to their consideration, we are not prepared to identify it with our own. And after extracting two or three admirable passages, such as introduce our Unitarian friend in an advantageous light, we shall briefly comment on a few instances of what we deem questionable points, and shall then frankly oppose what obstacles we can to the great design avowed by Mr. Tayler in his preface.

The following is part of our author's account of Dr. Owen :

'A man of a different stamp, more profoundly learned in theology, of an intellect more severely consequential and rigidly dogmatic, but less open, genial, and comprehensive, was Dr. Owen, the celebrated leader of the Independents. The congregational system had been supported by some great names before his time; but his numerous writings, high reputation, and great personal influence, gave it form and character, and impressed upon it the peculiar features of his mind, as Baxter left his on Presbyterianism.

The character and principles of Owen present in several respects a marked contrast to those of Baxter. Each had his own decided view of the great questions of religious truth and liberty in which they

were both, with equal piety and earnestness, engaged; and when the grave had closed over Owen's remains, Baxter paid a hearty and generous tribute to the distinguished worth and endowments of one who had been his frequent opponent in life. Owen's congregational principles, though involving, by necessary consequence, a toleration of different forms of worship and church government, at least among Christians, rather tended to encourage narrow and rigid terms of communion within the limits of each particular church. None,' says he, but those who give evidence of being regenerated, or holy persons, ought to be received or counted fit members of visible churches. Where this is wanting, the very essence of a church is lost.' Baxter, on the other hand, abhorring separation, and aiming at nationality, would have taken in all quiet and visible Christians that did not break in on the established church order, from the Papist on the one side, to the Socinian on the other. Spiritual purity, freedom from all heretical mixtures, was the essence of a true church in the view of Owen; comprehensiveness was its outward sign and recommendation in that of Baxter. Owen disapproved of worshipping in the national churches; Baxter never withdrew from their communion, and only recurred occasionally to the use of separate assemblies as a necessity that was forced upon him against his will. Baxter, as he advanced in life, approached nearer in his views to Arminianism; Owen retained his Calvinism to the last. Owen was

profoundly skilled in the theology of his age and school, and had communed much with his own heart, and narrowly watched the manifestations of the religious life in close spiritual intercourse with various members of his own church; Baxter had warmer sympathies with general humanity, and read its indications with a more open and excursive eye. Baxter had great simplicity of character and directness of purpose; while Owen combined with remarkable spirituality of mind, a larger share of shrewd caution, knowledge of affairs, and worldly depth and penetration, than usually falls to the lot of a student and divine.'-pp. 232-237.

We cannot deny ourselves the pleasure of presenting to our readers the following speculations respecting the capabilities of Puritanism :

From the phenomena exhibited by Puritanism in its depressed and persecuted condition, which were an exaggeration of its natural tendencies, it would, however, be wholly unfair to conclude what would have been its settled and permanent character, if, in the struggle with the Stuarts and the church, it had finally carried the day. Nothing can be wider from historical truth than to represent it, even in what are deemed its extreme forms, as a simple movement of democratic fanaticism. The leaders of the Presbyterian party belonged to the nobility and landed gentry; and of the Independents, whom some writers at once dispose of in the mass as illiterate enenthusiasts, it has been observed by Mr. Laing, the historian of Scotland, that,' contrary to the progress of other sects, their system

was first addressed, and apparently recommended by its tolerating principles, to the higher orders of social life.' Had the changes which Puritanism was working in the church, the universities, and the state, fixed themselves in permanent results, the sternness of its earliest aspect would have worn off with the return of a tranquil civilisation; while the strong religious impulse of which it was the expression, and which was needed to counteract the extreme licentiousness of the preceding times, would have produced its natural effect in giving a more earnest and lofty character to the mind of the upper classes; and by drawing them, through education and religion, into closer sympathy with the feelings of the great body of the people, might have prevented some of the mischiefs resulting from that intimate reliance between the church and the aristocracy, which commenced with the Revolution.'-pp. 281-284.

Referring, too, to the injuries inflicted on the Puritans subsequently to the Restoration, Mr. Tayler says:—

'But though the natural influence of Puritanism was thus broken and perverted by the pressure of outward wrong, it brought many noble and generous principles into circulation, and preserved a sound heart in the most valuable portion of the community. Of its beneficial effects on the middle and lower classes of society we become additionally sensible in tracing the religious history of the eighteenth century. It kept alive in them the spirit of religious earnestness, public liberty, and popular improvement, those vital elements of the social system, the violent expulsion of which cost France her morals and her faith, and having produced, as its consequence, two revolutions in that distracted country, may yet be preparing a third.'pp. 289.

We must close the present 'series of quotations with the following remarks on the spirit of Dr. Watts's ministry, regretting much that we cannot add to them the account, which immediately succeeds, of his contemporary, Doddridge:

At the time when the rationalistic tendency sprang up, Watts earnestly contended for a different mode of preaching Christianity, and placed the consummating evidence of its Divine authority in the testimony of man's own conscience and personal experience. 'A statue,' says he, hung round with moral sentences, or a marble pillar with Divine truths inscribed upon it, may preach coldly to the understanding, while devotion freezes at the heart' and he eloquently vindicates the movements of sacred passion,' 'life and zeal in the ministry of the word,' though they may be the ridicule of an age which pretends to nothing but calm reasoning; and he tells us he has made it his aim to rescue appeals of this sort from the charge of enthusiasm, and to put them in such a light as might show their perfect consistence with common sense and reason.' Had more of this spirit remained among the Dissenters, associated with sound

biblical learning and general cultivation, and controlled by good taste, it would have preserved the religious life inherited from their forefathers, carried the heart of their people along with it, prevented the decline of their congregations, and superseded the extravagances which accompanied the revivals of Methodism.-pp. 392, 393.

We repeat, now, the expression of our grief, that the writer of passages like these-and there are many-should be able, however unconsciously, to employ in behalf of Unitarianism a mode of representation and of reasoning which, if we refrain from calling it assumptive and sophistical, we must describe as loose, inconclusive, and obscure. We proceed to animadvert on a few out of almost innumerable statements thus distinguished.

We have already quoted from page 235, a passage which seems to reflect on congregational principles as tending to encourage narrow and rigid terms of communion within the limits of each particular church.' On page 229, too, we are told that Howe disapproved of the strictness of the Independent discipline.' After stating also, on page 223, that Baxter's chief ground of difference with the Independents was, in his own phrase, their separating strictness,' Mr. Tayler adds, 'Under the guidance of this principle,' desire, namely, 'for a national settlement of religion on the broad basis of purification and reform,'' Baxter's mind became more tolerant, enlarged, and catholic, the longer he lived.' Such an exhibition of congregational principles is, surely, not very recommendatory. Of this, however, we should have little cause to complain, if these principles themselves were so stated as to seem worthy of the disparaging epithets employed. But when Owen's own words are quoted, as follows, None but those who give evidence of being regenerated, or holy persons, ought to be received or counted fit members of visible churches: where this is wanting the very essence of a church is lost:' when, on pages 262, 263, Mr. Tayler ascribes a benignant universalism' to 'the Anglican view' of a church, that it is a congregation of faithful men, in which the pure word of God is preached, and the sacraments are duly administered:' when Mr. Tayler himself, after describing what he deems true Christian union, adopts the words of Howe, and says, page 475, 'The change must be effected not by mere human endeavour, but by an Almighty Spirit poured forth, which shall conquer private interests and inclinations, and overawe men's hearts by the authority of the Divine law, which now, how express soever it is, little availeth against prepossessions; we think that the insinuations respecting congregational principles are little warranted by aught that appears in Mr. Tayler's book, and are, in fact, injurious and abusive.

We

do not forget that by faithful' men Mr. Tayler understands men who may not yet be saints,' and who give no 'outward token of their Christianity.' We do not wish to hold our friend to what seems to us, however, a necessary inference, that a society of such unholy men is, as a Christian church, an attractive and a beautiful idea;' or that such men were denoted by the framers of the 'articles' as 'faithful.' All that we infer is, that Mr. Tayler has not thought enough about the force of words, and that through prepossessions,' not yet conquered by 'an Almighty Spirit,' he has misrepresented those from whom he differs.

On p. 106, Mr. Tayler speaks of some who had once been Calvinists, but had abandoned their earlier tenets for a milder system. The stern, impassioned Calvinism of Whitefield' is contrasted, too, on p. 124, with 'the more persuasive Arminianism of Wesley.' Again, on p. 303, 'The Arminian and Socinian systems were not identical, but they had near affinities, and grew out of a common tendency of mind. They both indicated a determination to quit the ground of authority, or of mere appeal to enthusiastic feeling, and to bring the doctrines of religion to the test of conscience and the understanding; Arminianism being more immediately the dictate of moral sentiment, and Socinianism a product of the reason.' Yet we find on p. 104, in relation to Laudism; a theology of this description, by requiring the prostration of the intellect, was favourable to the designs of tyranny, and entered into a ready alliance with the doctrines of passive obedience and non-resistance. It combined also more easily with the Arminian than with the Calvinistic view of man's relation to God. It offered salvation to all who would submissively accept it on the church's terms; whereas Calvinism demanded a change within, which no external ordinances could reach, and which left the human soul more directly in the hands of God.' See, too, on p. 101; Arminianism and tyranny were supposed to have some secret affinity with each other.' It is, also, in language such as this, and found in every part of his work, that Mr. Tayler contrasts the 'benignant universalism' of the Church-of-England, with the less attractive features of Congregationalism; while, nevertheless, his occasional, or rather his frequent, descriptions of the inhumane and antisocial tendencies of both Anglicanism and Arminianism, are as severely condemnatory as any we can think of. That Mr. Tayler thinks Calvinism stern, not mild, and Congregationalism far too rigid, we have not a doubt. We deny, however, that a righteous historian should speak of them in terms like these, when not merely making no effort to justify his terms, but actually representing in the most repulsive aspects the two sys