has assumed the name of Jesus. Only custom reconciles us to the gross impropriety of a similar mode of using the holy name as one of local denomination in our own country. Who that was not better informed would imagine that St. Saviour, St. Luke, St. Sepulchre, and St. Bennet, each of whom has his church in the metropolis, were any other than good Romish saints? Then we have Christ's Hospital and St. Bartholomew's; Christ Church and St. Mary's; Trinity College and St. John's. If it be right to use the thrice holy name of the Deity and the blessed name of Our Lord in this way, it must at least be wrong to use the names of either apostles or apocryphal saints in the same way. No one, indeed, imagines that Christ's Church or St. Saviour's is a more holy editice, or that its founders were more orthodox, on account of the dedicatory name. No one supposes, that the brethren of the Holy Trinity Company are holier in their life and conversation than those of St. Andrew's Hospital; any more than that Trinity Lane is a more sacred place than Pudding Lane, or Paternoster Row and Creed Lane more religious than Pye Corner. Yet, we must confess that our ears have never been reconciled to this nomenclature, though familiar to us from youth. To dedicate a Christian Church to a saint, strikes us as an impropriety utterly irreconcileable with the Protestant faith, which rejects the invocation of saints; but it is a practice which, though originating in superstition, has become unmeaning. However improper, the practice has not the effect of profaneness. But to use the name of Christ, or of the Holy Trinity, in designating buildings, streets, and parishes, must have a tendency to lessen the reverence for those holy names, and is surely one way of taking God's name in vain.

The same objection may not be thought to apply with equal force to the designating of a religious society by the name of the Deity; although the difference lies more in the intention, than in the effect. The intention may be religious, while the effect is profane. The Trinitarian Bible Society is, even in this point of view, an objectionable designation; not less so than that of the Order of Jesus. Perhaps, The Jesuit Bible Society' would be equally improper, but it would be in some respects a more appropriate designation.

6

The intention, however, with which this offensive designation has been chosen by those who would thus proclaim, We are believers in the Trinity', is not less exceptionable than the thing itself. It has been adopted for the express purpose of sanctifying a party division. It is in factious opposition to their fellow Christians, that these dividers of the body write upon their phylacteries, I am of Christ'. It is in the spirit of arrogant assumption and uncharitable insinuation, that the distinctive denomination has been chosen; implying that the Bible Society,

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from which this is a secession, is characteristically Anti-Trinitarian. One of the leaders of this new faction cautions his friends against calling Socinians Unitarians, because it implies that Trinitarians are not the worshippers exclusively of one God. We have, for our own part, always felt a strong objection to concede to the soi-disant Unitarians, their use of the word; not merely because it implies this, but because an unfair advantage has been taken by the Socinians themselves of the seeming concession. We are as truly Unitarians as those who reject the Scriptural revelation of the Godhead subsisting in the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit. And we are as truly Trinitarians as those who assume that name for the purpose of discrediting the orthodoxy of all who differ from them as to the proper constitution of a society for distributing the Holy Scriptures. But if the one denomination be unfair and deceptive, so must be the other. Nor can a more direct sanction be given to the appropriation of the word Unitarian by the Socinians, than is tacitly supplied by the adoption of the word Trinitarian as its opposite, and by the use of the latter word in the same sectarian and unfair way, in order to cast a slur upon those who are not of their party.

That such a designation should have been chosen by the Sackville Street faction, is, however, quite in character with the whole of their proceedings, which are stamped with the correspondent marks of illiberal and deceptive representation, sanctimonious pretension, and profaneness. What would have been said, had a Socinian spoken of the inspired volume in the following language?

Much talk there was about the splendour of its (the Bible Society's) doings; and it might have been supposed that a Millennium was to be manufactured by a certain quantity of paper and sheepskin. (Laughter.)

Such is the language of the Rev. H. Melvill, of the Trinita

Is not this despised "sheep-skin" the casket in which the inestimable pearl of Divine Truth is sent to every kindred and nation and tongue and people? Is not this scorned "paper" written with the finger of the Living God? If they who profanely swore by the Temple, virtually swore by Him whose glory filled the Temple, they who hold up to derision the "paper" on which the revelation of God's will is inscribed, and the "sheep-skin" in which it is preserved, are, in fact, deriding the Revelation itself, and Him who made it. I be lieve the Rev. Gentleman who gave utterance to this expression-as destitute of taste as it is revolting to piety-said it in "his haste", and, when he thinks thereon, will weep: but the mischief of such statements, coming from such a quarter, it is not easy to calculate. Surely it is enough for infidels to sneer at the Word of God!'

King's Comparative Claims, p. 28.

rian Bible Society, in a speech in which he goes so far as to charge the Bible Society with conferring a dignity on heresy, while it struck at truth with a sledge-hammer'. What, again, would have been thought of the following expressions, had they appeared in any publication intended to burlesque the evangelical faith?

'Let them go forth in this great undertaking, and leaning, as it were, their backs against the strength of the Lord Jesus, who has grown up, as it were, as a man behind them'. Or, according to the Corrected Speeches, You must each go forth as single men, and just lean your back, as it were, against the strength of your risen Lord that is behind you.'

Such is a specimen of the highly admired and impressive speech of Mr. Perceval on the same occasion! From the applause and laughter' these flowers of rhetoric called forth, our readers may fairly judge of the solemnized spirit', the peculiarly devout and chastened sobriety which characterized the first meeting of the Trinitarian Bible Society.

Of the publications before us, it is unnecessary for us to express our cordial approbation. If the controversy could be settled by calm reasoning and forcible statement, the circulation of these pamphlets, and others previously noticed in our pages, would soon bring it to a happy issue. That fresh publications should be deemed necessary, is a circumstance, however, that gives one but a melancholy idea of the internal state of religious society. We could not have conceived it possible that it should have required so long a time, and such an expense of labour, to dissipate the delusion, and to expose the hollowness of this last stratagem of the Enemy. Mr. Bacon has, however, explained the way in which the mischief has become epidemic.

'As I hope to be believed when professing some solicitude in reference to the general spirit and temper which shall be seen to prevail among those who, in more than the ordinary manner, profess and call themselves Christians," and as I see the New Society promoted and patronized to a great extent by those who have at least been closely connected with very bold adventurers in various novelties and imaginations, I am induced to entreat all our Bible friends to think for themselves; and, in so doing, to lay every consideration connected with the question generally, and with the Scriptures cited on both sides, seriously to heart. And to this request I take the liberty to add one suggestion, which may not be irrelevant in the present day, namely, that too precipitate a conclusion be not drawn from impressions-frequently termed convictions-respecting Religious questions and opinions, merely because they have remained on the mind after prayer has been offered for Divine illumination and guidance. Though it be indeed true, that if a man "lack wisdom" and "ask it of God," he shall receive it, yet I am assured, that what has just been alluded

to has been the occasion of many a dangerous downfal" among sincere persons. It is not in a few instances that I have seen the minds of such, especially young Christians, taken captive by certain pleasing novelties, spiritual discoveries, things "given of God," as they have concluded, either to themselves or their teachers. The fact, however, has appeared quite evident, in many instances; namely, that they have already embraced the views and sentiments which are professedly to be inquired into by prayer and reading of God's Word: -they may pray, perhaps sincerely; and they may search, as they hope, in a right spirit; but the preconceived sentiment, having been supposed to possess Divine sanction, and being connected with a consequent fear of resisting what has been, as they cannot but still believe, "given to them of God," causes them to seize with avidity every passage they meet with in Scripture which appears to sanction the favourite view, and to pass by, or soften down, all others which militate against it. In this way, I am assured, thousands of pious and sincere young Christians are jointly deluded by the Tempter and by their own unsuspicious hearts. Indeed I may add, that I know this to be the case, from two circumstances: first, that when I have simply submitted to them the most powerful passages, calculated at least to moderate their views, and set them on a re-examination of the data on which they have been founded, I was told, I was doing nothing less than fighting against God: and, secondly, because some of those very individuals, having at length, Icarus-like, soared till they have melted their wings, have, after resuming that path where he who walketh uprightly walketh surely," had the Christian humility to confess to the truth of what I had been suggesting.—And here I cannot lose the opportunity of recording the expression of one amiable individual, who had at one time soared more powerfully and loftily than most others:—“ I have done with romance in Religion."

With innumerable examples of a similar description existing on the right hand and on the left, and viewing, as most conscientiously I do, the new views and opinions taken up respecting the Bible Society, as only a part of the general delusion which prevails principally among the ardent, the susceptible, the adventurous, the flexible, the young, and the unsuspicious, to the serious injury of individuals, and the reproach, not to say disgrace, of Religion itself, I shall hope to obtain credit for a solicitude, not only in behalf of the Bible Society, but for the best interests of my fellow-Christians, and the honour of Him whom it is our common privilege to call " Our Lord and our God."'

Bacon, pp. 37-39.

We have seen no better statement of the question at issue, and of the arguments in support of the principles upon which the British and Foreign Bible Society is founded, than is contained in the Hibernian Bible Society's Address'; it is very concise, lucid, and convincing. Mr. King's examination of the Comparative Claims' of the Bible Society and the new anti-Bible Society association, is a very forcible appeal, written in an excellent spirit, and adapted, we should think, to have a very good effect. Mr. Scott's Letter will serve a most useful purpose, if it

renders the character of the Record Newspaper more generally understood; and Mr. Dudley's Two Letters, a simple statement of facts, will, we hope, operate in some quarters as a mild alterative in cases where prejudice is not virulent.

There is one paragraph in Mr. King's Letter, to which we feel it necessary to advert, before we close this article. Of all the objections brought against the Bible Society, the most disingenuous, perhaps, and the most foolish is, that it has imitated the example, and adopted the principle, of those Dissenting deno6 minations who combine with Socinians in the defence and exten'sion of their civil and religious rights.' Referring to this charge, Mr. King waves the question, whether the orthodox Dissenter 'may lawfully enter into such a coalition for the attainment of this end; but he has endeavoured to shew, what is indeed obvious to any person of common sense, that the two cases are by no means parallel; and that it is possible for the one to be perfectly justifiable, though the other may be quite indefensible. Mr. King gives a fair and correct account of the manner in which, under the denomination of Presbyterians, Socinians have become combined with the orthodox Dissenters in that particular association; but he has not so fairly described the principle of the association in the following paragraph. He is shewing that the two Societies differ in principle as well as in practice, inasmuch as one proceeds on the ground of selection, the other on the ground of general comprehension,-a just and important distinction.

'When I say,' he continues, that the Red-Cross-Street Society adopt the principle of selection, I do not mean that the orthodox Members of that Society had any such predilection for Socinianism, as to fix on the professors of its creed in preference to all others; but I mean, that they associated with a body of men who were from the first tainted with this heresy, and yet made no provision to secure themselves against the growing influence of this fatal leaven. They rather overlooked, than encouraged it. But having chosen the body in which Socinianism ultimately prevailed, they still keep up their connexion with that body, and, in their official character, put forth the imprimatur of their approbation upon it. Then, again, they not only thus select the Socinian Denomination, but exclude every other. Neither the Wesleyan Methodists, nor the Society of Friends, nor any other community of Dissenters, are, or can be admitted, according to the present constitution of the Society. Now this appears to be an honour paid to Socinians; as if they were worthy to be distinguished from all others, and suffered to participate in privileges denied to others. It must be allowed, that, in such a combination, the Socinian is entitled to lift up his head with a good degree of confidence: and, if report speaks truly, he is not backward to vindicate his right, and take the lead in most of the proceedings of Red-Cross-Street Library. He feels like a champion belonging to David's "first three," being honoured with the distinctions of fraternity by the largest and most influential bodies of Dissenters.

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