rately transmitted across the Atlantic, yet, being accumulated and embodied by their connexion with an object of so much importance as the Repository, they may possess sufficient reflected interest and borrowed weight to deserve your notice. Perhaps yourself and contributors may not be destitute of curiosity to learn the continued judgment of a stranger respecting your intellectual efforts; on the supposition, I mean, that you find him endued with any of the qualifications requisite for his assumed office. How far it would conduce to the improvement and good regulation of any magazine to contain within its own pages a department of the kind proposed, I leave to your skill and experience, as an editor, to determine. Should you approve of the plan, and be dissatisfied with the execution of the specimens I now forward you, I hope you will engage some of your accomplished friends and fellow-subjects to fulfil my project to your better acceptance. In the mean time, I shall, for my own amusement and improvement, continue my pleasant task in the manner I have commenced it, and should I find that my advances have been received, I shall gladly submit my little labours in this way to your future disposal. Unless I am mistaken, the destiny of the Monthly Repository is yet to be loftier and happier by far than that of any other existing periodical. Its exact adaptation to the liberal and expanding spirit of the age, its freedom from paltry and sectarian pledges, the unwearied homage which it always and every where pays to TRUTH, and the unrivalled importance of the subjects to which it is generally devoted, will unquestionably cause it to remain a consecrated arena for the exercises and encounters of strong and thinking minds, and a favourite publication with all those readers who are anxious for satisfactory views in matters the most intimately connected with human happiness. With these prophetic expectations as to the splendid destination of your journal, you will not wonder that I have attempted to become one of its regular contributors, and sought some mode by which to "Pursue the triumph and partake the gale."

AN AMERICAN.

[Some of our readers may suspect a stratagem in this communication,' but we assure them that it is the genuine production of an American correspondent, of which indeed the internal evidence will be abundant. The writer is known to us, and his name, were we at liberty to publish it, would give weight to his strictures. We cannot help feeling a little pleasure (the reader will pardon us!) in our Transatlantic correspondent's flattering estimate of our humble labours. He is a candid but not blind critic, and we and our coadjutors may read his animadversions with a better feeling than curiosity, and derive some improvement from the calm observations of a wise and friendly Lookeron. ED.]

Monthly Repository for Jan. 1824.

Chenevière's Defence of the Genevan Church. This is perhaps drawn up with a little too much acerbity. There is no doubt that the liberal divines of Geneva have had enough to provoke them, but their apologist has scarcely performed his task with sufficient dignity. After all, it will be difficult for English and American Unitarians to enter with perfect sympathy into the feelings of their injured Genevan brethren. Our notions of church-government partake so much

of

independence, that we can scarcely help revolting at seeing even a fiery Calvinist dragged before a human tribunal for proclaiming his opinions in ever so offensive a form. However, in judging of the merits of this case, we must recollect the state of society at Geneva, and the notions and habits in which both parties have been educated. As far as we can trust this ex parte testimony, M. Chenevière has made out his case very clearly, and shewn that much moderation, forbearance, and propriety, have been exhibited by the Genevan Consistory.

Mr. Cogan on Revelation. Ingenious, powerful and comprehensive. I admire all this writer's communications.

Philadelphus on Future Suffering. A very candid, frank and decent expression of doubts and suggestions that occurred to the author's mind on a subject perhaps more interesting than any other to mankind. In some

of his thoughts quite ingenious, though

eccentric.

Notice of Mr. Woods, very interesting.

Sir Isaac Newton's unpublished MSS. This paper filled me with new emotions of admiration at the character of the great philosopher.

Mr. Wallace on Isaiah ix. 6, 7. Very fine. The error respecting Hezekiah's age seems to be clearly point ed out, and ably corrected.

The Baptismal Text. I allow the strength of many of this writer's reasons against the text, but cannot enter with him into his extreme views of its incompatibility with Unitarianism.

Mr. Rutt-deserves sympathy. I know of one person who intends very soon sending for a copy of the new edition of Priestley's Works.

An Old Subscriber on Mr. Gorton's Work. I have never seen Mr. Gorton's book, and therefore cannot judge of this article.

Dr. Evans on Mr. Irving's Orations-Interesting.

Friendly Correspondence between an Unitarian and à Calvinist. Some beautiful specimens of amicable and humble feelings in this portion of it.

Dr. Carpenter's recommendation I approve, and shall take care to become a subscriber to, or procure two copies of Mr. Wright's Life.

Letter from a Muggletonian. Some orthodox doctrines carried to their legitimate results.

Hints to Unitarians. Excellent; as I have often thought in reading them before, where they first appeared; -but all out of the way in ascribing "self-complacency" to the Monthly Repository.

Poetry. First Article, rather a happy translation.

Second and third, of no ordinary excellence.

Hymn to the Holy Alliance, might have been left in the Daily paper where it first appeared.

Obituary Notices. Of Mrs. Hosmer, exquisite.

Intelligence. Indian Memorial.Highly curious and interesting. The government of that country will one day repent of the oppressive measures to which this memorial relates. Remember how the American Revolution began.

Negro Slavery. Mr. Buxton is

aiming at impracticabilities. I have lived in a slave-country five years. If he had done so as many weeks, I think he would have modified many of his projects. Does even Mr. Cooper think think them all wise?

Monthly Repository for Feb. 1824.

Professor Chenevière's Defence.The personal attack on M. Malan here is quite unnecessary and offensive. I must say that such a method of proceeding would have proved injurious to the Professor's cause in my own mind, had not the facts and documents which follow, set the conduct of the Consistory in a favourable light.

Notes on Scripture. Generally very good. I do not quite feel the propriety of the explanation given of "the clouds returning after rain.”

Report of the Committee of Dissenters. Worthy of the subject.

Mr. Jevans's recommendation to insert Jehovah in the English Bible, very laudable, but carries almost an air of irony with it, in consequence of the obstinate prejudices and indifference of the age with regard to this subject. It is somewhat like exhorting the Papists not to wave incense before their bit of bread.

Dr. Evans on Hall's Life of Toller, is a charming specimen of fair and good-natured criticism, and puts the eloquent Baptist entirely in the wrong.

Cornish Correspondence. Manifestly some misunderstanding, hastiness and personal exasperation, if not error, on both sides. But good, we must trust, will come out of evil.

Extract from Everett's EuropeJudicious.

Mr. Wallace on Isaiah ix. 6, 7. No. II. Strong and well-supported, if not absolutely convincing, criticism.

Mrs. Hughes on Philadelphus. Unnecessarily and unjustifiably severe, besides implying a censure on the general character of the Monthly Repository, which is scarcely ever destitute of some articles analogous to that here attacked.

Epitaphs. Rich.

Thoughts on the Connexion between Poetry and Religion. A most exquisite Essay, and evidently the production of a highly accomplished and philosophic mind. The author should be taxed, if possible, to contribute one

timed.

Correspondence between a Unitarian and a Calvinist. No. II. The style of this Unitarian is of a very high order. It displays rather a rare combination of power and ease. Sometimes his shafts are too cruelly pointed. But how can we help forgiving him when he is ready the next moment to confess, and ask pardon for his error? Besides, a little sarcasm, if ever, may be indulged to the opponent of a man, who seems inspired with a kind of morbid and horrible delight in taking the gloomiest views possible of the purposes of heaven. Is there a darker or deeper expression of sublime despair in any metaphysical romance of the Godwin school, than this" I expect, that if I do not most faithfully and unreservedly make the confession [that God might justly condemn him for ever], God will oblige me to do so by making me feel the deprecated evil"? This is, indeed, the concentrated essence of Calvinism.

Mr. Frend's suggestions in reply to Mr. Wallace are generally just. In one of his remarks I do not entirely agree. He says, "I cannot apply the word superstition to any thing which our Saviour thought worthy to adopt." If the expression adopt were here exchanged for originate, I could join in the sentiment. But it appears to me quite compatible with the object of our Saviour's mission, that he should adopt forms of speech, of which the origin had been superstitious. We find that he made no attempts to alter the received phraseology respecting demoniacal possessions. In fact, the settlement of the right meaning of terms was too insignificant an object for him to dwell upon. All his instructions seemed to bear upon the most important and essential principles of ethics and religion. Other questions he left to the decision of critics and philosophers, since the natural reason of man is sufficient for

such purposes. On these accounts, I can easily conceive him falling in with the customary mode of designating the Supreme Being, in the country where he was himself born and educated, even though that mode might have been traced to a superstitious origin. If I may judge from my present impressions with regard to his errand and character, the prescription of new forms of speech would not a little have lowered his dignity, and thrown a shade or two of doubt on the divinity of his mission. His business was with things, not words. He came rather to remind us of such principles as these, that anger and lust are, at times when we little suspect it, equivalent to murder and adultery,—that the character of God is a combination of infinite moral perfections,—that the Jews were radically mistaken in their conceptions of the true Messiah,—and the like.

Mr. Sturch in Reply to Mr. Cogan appears to me to adduce some objections which are rather popular and superficial than profound. The controversy between these gentlemen I believe might be shewn to be principally of a verbal character, and I have no doubt that the interchange of a few good-natured arguments will bring them both to one goal.

I firmly believe, with Mr. Cogan, that modern Deists owe much of their boasted light to revelation; not entirely to Christianity, however. The Unity of God, I am persuaded, was revealed in some mode or other to the oriental world. It is a conclusion to which mere reason could never demonstratively arrive. I would rather allow that the belief of the doctrine is instinctive, or accidentally conjectural, than that it can be inferred from any premises within reach of our experience and reason. Paley's argument from unity of design has always struck me as deficient. It would go to prove that a whole city was built by one architect. A diversity of design is quite as apparent in the operations of nature and providence, as unity. On the other hand, I cannot allow to Mr. Sturch that Cicero possessed a conception of the Deity at all corresponding with the vast, and all-embracing idea of him which is taught us by Jesus Christ and his religion. Those

elear, philosophical and elevating views of the character and attributes of God, which are now spreading through the world, in despite of a thousand accompanying errors both of metaphysics and phraseology, can be traced, I believe, by no fair mind, to any other source, than the doctrines of the New Testament. It is true, their progress has been very much assisted by the speculations of John Locke, but his achievements consisted rather in shewing the correspondence existing between the religion of nature and that of the New Testament, and in exhibiting limitations and facilities for the right developement of truth, than in the discovery of divine truth itself.

Obituary. These notices must possess no little merit, since they interest a stranger at the distance of three or four thousand miles.

Intelligence. The Memoir of Werner furnishes some apt illustrations of the Essay on the Connexion between Poetry and Religion in this very number. The allusion afterwards to American Jews causes me to observe, that persons of that denomination are found in some of the most responsible civil situations under our National and State Governments; they are also officers in the navy and army, editors of some of our most popular newspapers, and teachers of excellent schools, to which Christians send their children with as little repugnance as to those of their own creed.

rity of others, and the best we can do is to select what we believe to be the most correct. I have endeavoured to do so, but not without the fear, that I should err in many particulars; and although I did regret that the first edition of the Lectures went no farther than four hundred, yet I am now satisfied that it is better it should have been so; since it will be in my power, as it shall be my endeavour, to make the next edition more comprehensive, more correct, and, therefore, more complete than the first.

Let me beg your correspondent to state rather more particularly, which, if he pleases, he may do in a letter addressed to myself, wherein the great difference between my statement of the Bishop's election, and that which he has given, consists-to justify his saying that mine is erroneous in every particular. I may not have expressed myself in legal terms; but if the word permission were changed for order or authority, it seems to me that I have not erred; unless I have falsely stated, that a religious service is connected with the act, in which the assembled Bishops unite in asking the aid of the Almighty to make a proper choicewhile they are compelled to follow the instructions of their earthly head. Do they, in a prayer appointed for the purpose, pray for the Divine assistance, or do they not; and do they, after they have obeyed the Monarch's command, thank God for having directed them in the choice of so worthy a person? I suppose it must be in this that I am erroneous in every particular, but I will correct myself if in this fact I have trusted to a false authority. I solicit his reply.

I. WORSLEY.

I have said, "not daring, at the peril of losing their preferment, to choose any other." It seems that it should be "at the peril of the penalties of a premunire."