The remarks which are made on those passages of the Old Testament referred to by St. Matthew, we shall not take the trouble of answering. They are old and impertinent, and have been fully investigated and refuted by the learned Dr. Henry Owen, in his elaborate work entituled "The modes of Quotation used by the Evangelical Writers explained and vindicated," 4to. 1789.

Mr. Stone attempts to give an account of the Platonic system, from which, as he asserts, the Christian Sophists of Alexandria drew their doctrine of the Trinity in the 5th or 6th century. But this is not true, for the Orthodox fathers of the second century platonized. The harmony in fact which subsists generally between pare Platonism and the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, only proves one common origin; and the traditional universality of this sublime article of faith, which is not, as such sciolists as our author pretend, a matter of hu man invention, but of the most early revelation.

What is said about the conversion of attributes into persons, or in the elegant phraseology of Mr. Stone,

the splitting them, so personified, into three distinct beings," is equally a fiction of his own, and betrays a manifest ignorance, not only of the true principles of Plato, but of the writings of those early fathers, who were the admirers, and in some measure the copyista of that philosopher.

As the passage of Scripture taken for the text of this discourse is from the gospel of St. John, and as. no part of that gospel is here called into question, or charged with being a forgery, we may be allowed to suppose that the preacher will admit the whole of it to be an authority. If so he will learn what genuine Platonism is from the first chapter, where the Aoys of the apostle is precisely as energizing and intelligent a being as the Ayos of Plato.

From the doctrine of the Trinity, which is very unaccountably made to be of Arian origin, the preacher proceeds to what he calls "the mistaken idea, too generally received, of the atonement of divine wrath, by the supposed expiatory sacrifice of the death of Christ, by the satisfaction of divine justice in the vicarious punishment of the innocent for the guilty."

This is quite in course, for if the divinity of Christ be overthrown,

overthrown, the doctrine of the atonement falls by a necessary consequence. But both the one and the other will stand unmoved as the pillars of the Catholic faith, notwithstanding all that is here said, however confidently and however rudely, to remove them as of human and corrupt invention.

In the common cant of the party under whose banners he has enrolled himself, this writer misrepresents the doctrine of a " vicarious sacrifice," as making God an "inexorable tyrant, dooming his sinful creatures to everlasting destruction, without hope or remedy, unless Christ had stood in the gap, and appeased the unrelent ing fury of divine indignation, by a generous merciful offer to die in their stead."

This view of the doctrine shews either the extreme obliquity of the man's mind, or the most consummate ignorance of the Scriptures; for the doctrine maintained by the Church of England, in common with all sober Christians, is no other than that of the apostle, namely, that "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself;" and how there can be a reconciliation without previous separation or disunion, we leave this logician to find out and explain.

Mr. Stone professes a most anxious concern about the conversion of Jews, Mahometans, and Deists, and he is of opinion that this desirable event can only be effected by discarding the doctrines which he has here reprobated.

In this project also he seems to be very unfortunate; for the scheme has been already tried, but nothing came of it. Dr. Priestley endeavoured to convert the Jews to Unitarianism; and they very uncivilly returned the invitation back upon his hands, with a denial that he was a Christian himself. They had sense enough to discover, that in embracing his tenets they should not become believers in the Gospel, or in those doctrines which constitute the vitals of the Christian Religion. The same celebrated polemic also tried to convert Mr. Gibbon and other unbelievers, but they were alike obstinate, and rejected his proposals with contempt. In their judgement, the doctrine of the divine nature of the Messiah, and that of redemption by him, were so plainly the doctrines of the. whole New Testament, that they could not, with their

notions

.

notions of human reason, and the sufficiency of morality, accept of Christianity upon any terms.

But we shall ask here on what grounds are we to concede any doctrine for the purpose of making converts? Was this the method by which the faith was propagated in the first ages? By no means. Nothing was yielded either to the prejudices of the Jews, or the superstitions of the Pagans; it was on the contrary deemed an indispensible preliminary, that both should renounce the errors in which they had been bred, with the customs and attachments which were become habitual to them, and embrace what to one was "a stumbling block, and to the other foolishness."

Towards the conclusion of this discourse, Mr. Stone informs us that he was one of those, who above thirty years ago associated in petitioning parliament for an abolition of subscription to the articles. He speaks of this "with heart-felt satisfaction" we are to conclude therefore, from this, that for above thirty years he has been holding communion with, and exercising the office of the ministry in a Church, which, according to his own principles, is idolatrous, as paying the highest acts of divine worship to a creature instead of the Creator. And has he never joined in this worship during that long period? Has he never once in the face of the congregation called Jesus Christ the only begotten son of God; begotten of his Father before all worlds; God of God; Light of Light, and very God of very God?-has he never invocated the mercy of “God the Son as Redeemer of the world," of the Holy Ghost proceeding from the Father and the Son, and of the Holy, Blessed, and Glorious Trinity, three persons and one God?" Has he never in the course of thirty years taken into his hands the sacred symbols of the body and blood of Christ, as a representation of that "full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world," which was once offered upon the cross by the only Son of God?

If the answer be in the affirmative, then may we not say, with what face can such a person presume to recommend from the pulpit "repentance and faith, with virtue or good moral conduct evinced in an uniform performance of the whole lovely train of religious, social, and personal obligations?"

Vol. XI. Churchm. Mag. Oct. 1806.

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Is not religious sincerity in the catalogue of these "lovely obligations?" and how does that man manifest his sincerity, who repeats the creeds of the Church, pronounces her prayers, and administers her sacraments, the doctrines of which he totally disbelieves? It may be said, perhaps, that he does not officiate himself, but that he keeps another to perform these services for him. This is to keep the bag while he betrays his master. What must the flock think of the Church, or of their pastor? If they entertain a respect for him, and his sentiments, they must come up weekly before the Lord with a lie in their mouths; professing a belief in the Messiah as their God and Saviour, when in reality, through the teaching of their minister, they are persuaded that Jesus Christ was a mere mortal man, and consequently a sinner, Are the children of the parish instructed according to the rubric in the principles of the Christian Religion cons tained in the Church Catechism? It they are, and that they must be if the Rector fulls his "personal obligations; then does he instruct them in principles which he from the pulpit pronounces to be "strange figments of the human brain." For in that catechism they are taught to express their belief in "God the Son, who hath redeemed them and all mankind;" and in "God the Holy Ghost, who sanctifieth them and all mankind." Now if they should hear their instructor's private senti ments, or read this sermon, they will find that these two articles of belief are gross fallacies, for that there is no "God the Son, no God the Holy Ghost, nor any such thing as redemption of the world by Jesus Christ!!"

If men of this cast can reconcile their continuing in the ministry of the Church of England, and the holding of benefices therein, with the ordinary rules of morality and the plain obligations of common honesty, then we have no scruple in saying, that Deists, and even Atheists too many subscribe our articles, and minister in our ecclesiastical offices, with a perfectly good conscience,

An

An Historical View of the Rise and Progress of Infidelity, with a Refutation of its Principles and Reasonings. In u Series of Sermons preached for the Lecture founded by the Hon. Mr. Boyle, in the Parish Church of St. Mary le-Bow, from the Year 1802 to 1805. By the Rev. WILLIAM VAN MILDERT, M. A. Rector of Mary-le-Bow. Two Volumes 8vo.

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(Continued from page 228.)

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HE fourth and fifth sermons treat on position of the Heathens to the Gospel from its first promulgation to the reign of Constantine, and thence to the end of the sixth century."

We have here a neat and perspicuous abstract of Ecclesiastical History, particularly of the persecutions endured by the Christians from the heathens, who, as it is justly remarked, were "unceasingly stimulated by the Jews to this perpetual warfare with truth."

"Notwithstanding the terrible judgements inflicted upon them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, notwithstanding their inveterate hatred to the Gentiles, and their fellow-sufferings with the Christians in the earlier persecutions of the Gospel, by the Roman power, they still continued to rage against them with unabated violence. Nor can we suppose them to have been weak or impotent adversaries, however enslaved and oppressed by the Roman government; since from their professed acquaintance with the principles of the Christian Faith, it is probable that they were regarded by the Heathen philosophers, at least as useful coadjutors in the grand design of effecting its overthrow. Thus did this infatuated people league even with their own bitterest enemies, in the cause of error and impiety!

"But see the power, the wisdom, and the goodness of God, in confounding the devices of all these enemies to Truth, and bringing to nought the counsels of the ungodly! Before the end of Claudius's reign, the Christians were become so numerous, as to give alarm to the Roman Government. Not long after apprehensions were entertained in the city of Ephesus, that the temple of Diana was in danger, and its worshippers likely to be converted to the Gospel. Even in the reigns of Nero and Domitian they encreased to an astonishing degree. Under Trajan they were more numerous in the distant province of Bithynia, than all the other inhabitants: and under Adrian, a large and populous kingdom was added to the Church. Even in the idolatrous land of Egypt, they were not inferior in numbers, or

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