in matter or in mind, it is still a miracle. Yet man, inheriting such a nature, by the first act of disobedience, incurs infinite guilt, and falls under the sentence of condemnation to infinite misery. It may be replied, that, because the inability is a moral inability, the sentence is not unjust; and if the moral impotence were acquired there would be reason in the reply; but it is hereditary and not acquired; and we must subvert our notions of justice altogether be fore we can acknowledge responsibility to be the same in both cases. Still I am told that the sentence is just, because I have lost the pure nature which I received from my Maker: but this is an assertion contrary to fact; I cannot have lost what I never possessed. Adam may have possessed a different nature before his fall; but because it was his nature it is not therefore mine, unless we are identical, especially as it ceased to be his before he became my progenitor. My nature is that constitution of mind and body which I received from my Maker, and which gives the sole measure of my responsibility. Sdly. It is essential to punitive justice that the measure of punishment be in proportion to the degree of guilt. No considerations whether of philosophy or policy can sophisticate our moral feelings into a persuasion, that it is just to punish all of fences equally by making the punishment of every offence extreme. The laws of Draco were written in blood, but they have never been cited as a model of justice. It is right that there be a gradation in punishment as well as in guilt. The only mode in which a creature can be made to suffer infinitely is by protracting his suffering without end; and the only case in which this can be just is that in which infinite guilt has been contracted; and if this can be shewn to be an impossible case, it will follow that infinite punishment can never be just. It is admitted, that there is a degree of mental imbecility, which sinks below moral responsibility; that the same criminal action incurs dif ferent degrees of guilt before and after the maturity of mental powers; and that suppose two men, accomplices in a crime, with an indentity of all circumstances, the difference of mental power forming the only difference between them, one having a feeble mind of confined views, the other possessing a powerful intellect which commands a wide extent of prospect into the past and future, it would be universally felt and acknowledged, that the guilt of the one as much exceeds that of the other, as his mind is more powerful, and his view more comprehensive than his companion's. This feeling put in the terms of a general proposition, may be thus expressed; the action being the same the degrees of guilt in the agents are in the direct ratio of their powers of mind; if greater, greater; and if less, less; if finite, finite; and if infinite, infinite. But since there exists but one infinite mind, and every created mind is finite, the highest degree of guilt which can be incurred by the highest intellect must fall short, and infinitely short, of infinite guilt. Infinite punishment, therefore, or punishment infinitely prolonged, cannot be just, unless it be no injustice to make the measure of punishment to exceed infinitely that of the guilt. The Calvinistic system of doctrines is built upon the supposition of infinite guilt, whence it infers the justice of eternal punishment, and the necessity of an infinite satisfaction. To me therefore it appears that the foundation is sand, and that the system which stands upon it, though it has stood for centuries, must fall at last; a ruin which shall be contemplated in distant ages with fear and wonder. J. M. Partington, near Warrington, 14 Dee. SIR, 1814. UNDERSTAND you are in the habit of inserting in your Repository every increase to the cause of Unitarianism. I think you should be as particular in relating every loss which the Unitarians experience. But from your known impartiality I conceive the fault is not in you, but in your over zealous Unitarian Correspondents who wishing to make their cause appear more flourihing than it really is, send you an account of the gains only and not of the losses of their party. In your last month's Repository [ix. 719-720.] you mention a new Unitarian chapel, being opened at Altringham, on Thursday, September 8. It appears that soon after this event a great and blessed change must have been wrought in the minds of some of the principal persons concerned in the 1 erection of the chapel at Altringham. For on the 6th. of November following, the persons above alluded to, being trustees to the chapel in this place lately occupied by an Unitarian minister, and having a legal right to appoint to the situation, chose an evangelical minister, of the Calvinistic persuasion, in opposition to a young man proposed by the Unitarian trustees of Warrington, and therefore suspected of being tinctured with the Unitarian heresy. But this, Sir, is not the only triumph which the friends of orthodoxy expect from the happy and glorious change produced on the persons above alluded to. They are some of the leading persons in the Altringham and Hale congregations, and the leading trustees at Cross Street Chapel in this neighbourhood, and we may therefore anticipate that when these places become vacant, gospel ministers will be introduced into all the three situations. I trust to your impartiality for the insertion of this letter, and am, Sir, Your obedient servant, A Friend to the real Gospel of Jesus Christ. SIR, Bristol, Dec. 1814. DERHAPS you have heard the story finding an unarmed enemy, presented him with one of his pistols, saying, "Now let us fight fair"! Nor can you be ignorant, if you would, nor insensible of the contrary nature of the Christian's address to his supposed enemy, the infidel; he first binds his hands behind his back, threatens him with fine, tortures, imprisonment and perhaps death if he utters a syllable, thrusts a great gag in his mouth, and then exclaims "now let us hear what you have to say"! And don't tell us that this conduct is contrary to the precepts and spirit of Christianity: what my Lord Ellenborough, Lord Erskine, Sir Vicary Gibbs, and Sir William Garrow, are undoubtedly christians! you cannot deny it, or if you should, you will not be believed, for we know them by their fruits. You CHILON. STE, Trowbridge, Dec. 9, 1814. YOU must have seen in the papers such an account as the follow VOL. Xa ing; on such a day Mr. Such-a-one was condemned to pay to the King a fine of two hundred pounds and to be imprisoned in Newgate for the space of two years for writing a book called "Ecce Homo". You must have seen too, I suppose, the speeches of Mr. Whitbread and others about the Spanish Inquisition, and have noticed the universal silence about the English one. I can hardly tell which of these circumstances appears to me most shocking, nor am I going to express to you my deep detestation and horror at such proceedings, for that is impossible. Also, I do not wish to give occasion for refusing the insertion of this. But what I wish you to notice is, the cruelty and baseness, the detestable cowardice, while things are in this situation, of writing defences of the Christian Religion, of challenging its adversaries, provoking them to the combat, when it is known the more strong and unanswerable their arguments may be, the more certain will be their personal ruin. The only reply that I can think of, and I hope and believe that Unitarians generally are able to make it, is, that they are not more approvers than this will not be sufficient, since, (not to mention that they make no exertions to remedy this case, nor to notice Mr. Smith's declaration, that as Christians, they have no further toleration to wish for,) the charge of cowardice cannot be got over whilst they continue to provoke their fetter'd antagonists. I am sure that any man of a free and generous spirit must scorn such conduct when seen in this light, which I'till better informed, shall continue to think the true one. I am, Sir, Your obedient servant, Natural Arguments for a Future vise, powerful and good Being F we admit the belief of an infinitely presiding over the universe and superintending the affairs of his creatures, we must, I think, see reason to sup pose that this life is not intended as the termination of our existence. Inde pendently of the revelation which God has been pleased to bestow on inan 26 Natural Arguments for a Future State. kind, in which we are assured in the most express terms of the resurrection of the dead, and of a future state of retribution; independently I say of this revelation, there are many appearances in the present system which seem strongly to countenance the hope of futurity. itself in its most horrid forms, rather than commit the smallest deviation from what they believed to be the will of their creator. In the case of Jesus Christ, of the Apostles and primitive Christians, as well as of innumerable others of the best and wisest of men in all ages since, we see If we consider the powers of the hu- such examples of disinterested piety, man mind, and the situation and cir- virtue and benevolence, and such cumstances of man, we must clearly fearless sacrifices in the cause of truth perceive that his present limited sphere and integrity, as it seems impossible of existence can never afford sufficient to suppose can be intended to go withexercise for those noble faculties of out an appropriate and distinguished mind which give him such a distin- reward. And as we have seen in fact guished superiority over the lower or- that their portion here consisted of ders of creatures. Is it not then highly little more than a life of suffering, terreasonable to suppose that those powers minated in a violent and a painful death, have been conferred on him in order it seems perfectly agreeable to all our to qualify him for a much higher ideas of the wisdom, justice and goodsphere of action than is at present al- ness of the Creator to suppose that at lotted to him? Of all the various some future period, they will not only tribes of beings which inhabit this be restored to existence, but will be lower world, man alone seems capa- placed in circumstances suited to their ble of becoming a subject of moral distinguished excellence and merit. discipline, and of being made ac- For can we for a moment suppose quainted with the attributes, will that the worthiest, the most amiable, and perfections of his Creator; and and the most truly valuable of human does not this peculiar trait, this cha- characters were formed, only that they racteristic feature of the human mind, might pass through this life, in a state strongly indicate some striking peculia- of the most extreme suffering, and rity in our ultimate destination? All then to be for ever buried in obother beings appear to answer the end livion, and no further notice taken of for which they were created; they attain those highest instances of virtue their utmost perfection in a short space which would have reflected honour of time. Man alone is in a state of on superior beings? The desire of continual progression, without ever immortality has been evidently imbeing able to arrive at the summit. planted in the human breast by the Is it not then highly reasonable to Creator of all things; is it not then Suppose that in some future period of the highest reflection both on his his existence, his faculties also shall wisdom and goodness to imagine that have room to expand themselves, and he should have afforded such hopes that a degree of light and knowledge to the wisest and best of men only shall be poured in upon him, suitable in order to deceive them into acts of to his exalted capacity? 1. virtue so exceedingly painful to themselves, and which in this case do not appear to be of the least utility to the world? This argument will acquire a much greater degree of force, if we consider the case of those exalted characters who, from a principle of love to their That Almighty Being who at first Creator, and of the purest benevo- called us into existence, who has lence and good-will to their fellow- given us bodies fearfully and wondercreatures, have devoted their time, fully made; and who has adapted their talents and their property to every part of our frame with the most the promotion of those objects which consummate wisdom and the most they conceived to be the most emi- exquisite skill to the purposes for nently subservient to the welfare and which they were designed; who has improvement of the whole human bestowed on us powers of mind whererace: and this, not only without the by we are made capable of admiring least prospect of any remuneration in, and imitating his divine perfections; the present state, but often at the hathis same almighty power, we cannot zard of every thing dear to them in doubt to be equally competent to reife; and have even encountered death store the existence he at first be stowed, at any time, and in any way, winter's cold, if not a direct argument, When fate relenting lets the flowers re- Shall nature's voice to man alone unjust, Bid him, though doomed to perish, hope to live? The many pleasing analogies of a future state which are furnished by the contemplation of nature cannot but be highly gratifying to the serious and contemplative mind. The wonderful changes which many of the insect tribe are destined to undergo; from the state of a crawling, groveling reptile, intent upon nothing but gratifying the sensual appetites, it gradually decays, sickens, and spins itself a tomb, in which it wraps itself up, and remains without the least appearance of motion or animation; but after a while it bursts the enclosure, and breaks forth with new life and beauty, with powers of action and enjoyment unknown before; and from a crawling reptile on the earth be comes a winged inhabitant of the air. What a beautiful and striking emblem does this afford of our own revival at some future period! The revivifying ef fect of spring both on the animal and vegetable creation, after the torpor and death-like inactivity oocasioned by the No; Is it for this fair virtue oft must strive Sma, Newport, Isle of Wight. In the memoirs of the generous and independent Mr. Hollis, it is related that during his visit to Naples in 1751, having received inforthat one of mation from his steward, the livings in his gift was likely to become vacant, he took occasion to express his opinion respecting the qualifications which every clergyman of the Establishment should possess, in order properly to discharge the duties required of him in the pastoral office. These qualifications appearing to me no less reasonable than necessary, I am induced to submit to you an extract from one of Mr. Hollis's I tters. "First, that his morals be irreproachable; secondly, that he be of a mild and tractable disposition; thirdly, that he be moderately learned; fourthly, that he be undoubtedly a Whig in its most extensive sense, that is, BIBLICAL CRITICISM. A Dissertation upon the Number of the Hebrew People at different Periods: from the unpublished Manuscripts of the Rev. Samuel Bourn, of Birmingham. THE HE number of Hebrews who emigrated from Egypt is said (Exodus xii. 37,) to be "about six hundred thousand men on foot beside children." In the book of numbers (ch. ii. 32.) we find a second and more particular account taken in the wilderness of Sinai, in the second month of the second year after their departure; where the males twenty years old and upward, all who were able to go out to war," are said to amout to "six hundred and three thousand five hundred and fifty," exclusive of the tribe of Levi, which consisted of seven thousand and five hundred males from a month old and upward." In a third numeration (chap. xxvi. 51. of the same book) we find them to be "six hundred and one thousand, seven hundred and thirty," and the tribe of Levi to be increased to "twenty three thousand, all males of a month old and upward." Taking the number of the males then of twenty years. old and upward at six hundred thousand, and adding all the males under twenty years, together with all the females of every age, in the proportion of three to one, the whole nation must consist of two million four hundred thousand souls, according to the first and lowest account, without including the mixed multitude, mostly Egyptians, as we may reasonably suppose, which is said to have accompanied them. We may compute the number then upon an average of the accounts above, including the strangers, at two millions and a half. Now let it not give offence or alarm to any pious reader, if he shall find it clearly proved, that the preceding numerations, and many other contained in the historical parts of the Old Testament, are exceedingly magnified. For those are errors which may be most naturally imputed to the negligence or vanity of the transcriber of copies. Numbers are denoted in Hebrew by the letters, and it might easily happen that the transcriber mistook one letter for another; or if he was doubtful, that he would be inclined to prefer that number which seemed to do honour to his nation, by displaying its ancient great.ness. The following arguments may probably suffice to satisfy the inquisitive Reader. I. There is a passage in Exodus (xii. 40,) which has been mistaken, as, if it asserted the residence of the Hebrews in Egypt, to have lasted "four hundred and thirty years,' wheras it includes the whole time from Abraham's removal from Chaldea into Canaan, till the departure of the Israelites from Egypt; during which long period neither he, nor his. descendants by his Grandson Jacob, were ever settled in a country or land, which they might call their own; and therefore the whole is stiled the sojourning of that people. This period of time is properly divided into two equal parts, the first preceding, and the latter following, the descent of Jacob and his family into Egypt. This construction is supported by the authority of St. Paul, Gai. iii. 17. At his descent his whole family, it is said, consisted of“ seventy souls;" and it is added, "that they were fruitful, and increased abundantly and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them." Let us examine what the. number might probably be at their departure, according to the natural increase of mankind. The greatest multiplication we are informed of, from proper evidence, hath been in the temperate climates of North. America; in some parts of which, according to accounts received from thence, the number of inhabitants hath been doubled in the short space of twenty-five years by births only. This increase hath been thought surprizingly great, and imputable to their rural situations and employments,, or their freedom from large. cities and unhealthy occupations; both which are known to be great. checks to the multiplication of the. human species. Allowing then, the Hebrews to multiply in the same proportion during the whole time of their dwelling in Egypt, which was two hundred and fifteen years, the account will be this: the whole number of souls at the descent of Jacob and his family into Egypt, we are informed by the text, was |