ing to V. T., was one of those that were withheld under the curse; consequently there could have been no multiplication of the human species from the fall to the flood. From whence then came those that were drowned? been, had he been liable to the fatigue of labour, to the annoyance of brambles, or to the alarm of whirlwinds and earthquakes. Not that I suppose, he was inactive. Far from this. He was put into the garden "to dress it, and to keep it." But his labour, whatever it The second is that of dominion was, was a source of enjoyment, over the lower orders of creation. and not of suffering. The moment, To Adam, "Have dominion over we talk about suffering in paradise, the fish of the sea, and over the it ceases to deserve the name. If fowl of the air, and over every there could have been suffering in living thing that moveth upon the paradise without sin, there may be, earth." To Noah, "The fear of for aught I can see, in heaven? If you and the dread of you shall be God, consistent with his justice, upon every beast of the earth, and could inflict pain upon Adam upon every fowl of the air, and while in perfect innocence, who upon all that moveth upon the can tell but the angels of heaven earth, and upon all the fishes of the may yet be afflicted and tormented, sea; into your hand are they delivand that too, in the midst of all ered." What is the inference from their purity? this, according to V. T.'s reasoning? Why, that the human race had no control over the lower orders of creation, from the fall to the flood. How then could Abel have been a shepherd? It was not my intention to remark on every thing in the communication of V. T. which I thought objectionable; and I shall forbear mentioning any thing more except a word or two about the wonderful similarity which he says exists between the blessings promised to Adam at the creation, and those promised to Noah at the cessation of the flood. The inference which he deduces from this similarity, you shall have in his own words. "The particular mention of all these blessings in the covenant with Noah, would seem to imply, that under the curse they had all been withholden. And indeed there is some evidence from other sources that such was the case before the deluge." The blessings alluded to, are noticed in five particulars. The first is that of fruitfulness. The promise to our first parents was, "Be fruitful, and multiply and replenish the earth, and subdue it." To Noah, God said, "Be fruitful, multiply, and replenish the earth." Now let it be remembered that the blessing of fruitfulness promised to Noah accord The third is "The use of what was necessary and pleasant for food." "And God said, “behold I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat." Noah had a still more liberal grant: "Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things." The inhabitants of the old world, must have been in straitened circumstances indeed, if V. T.'s conclusions are sound; for if what was promised to Noah was withheld from them, then they could not have found so much as an apple on the tree, or an herb in the meadow to satisfy their hunger. For the herb was promised as well as animal food. How then were they supported? The fourth is the blessing of fruitfulness upon the earth. To Adam, "God said, let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself after his kind." To Noah, "While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest shall not cease." The inference is, that from the fall to the flood, there was no seed-time -no harvest! Pray where did Noah get seed-corn to plant the ground after the deluge? 66 The fifth is the regularity of the seasons. To Adam, "God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years." To Noah, Cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease." The situation of the antediluvians, according to V. T.'s logic, has been very deplorable every step we have followed him; but now he has reached the top of the climax. They have neither cold nor heat, summer nor winter, day nor night! There is no avoiding this conclusion; for he tells us, that "the mention of the blessings in the covenant with Noah, imply that under the curse they had all been withholden." And one of the blessings promised to Noah was, that "cold and heat, &c. should not cease." To the Editor of the Christian Spectator. D'ALEMBERT's description of Massillon's manner in the pulpit, may interest, if it does not profit, some of your readers who have not beE. K. fore seen it. "His manner as a preacher, was well suited to the style of eloquence which he had adopted. Upon entering the pulpit, he appeared deeply penetrated by the great truths which he was about to utter, with his eyes cast down, a modest yet collected air, without any violent motion, and almost without any gestures at all, but animating the whole with a touching voice of sensibility, he diffused over his audience, that religious emotion which his exterior indicated, and made himself heard with that profound silence, by which eloquence is better praised than by the loudest applause." The celebrated actor, Baron, on leaving the church after hearing one of his discourses, said to a friend who accompanied him, "This man is an orator, and we are only players." REVIEWS. Reply to the Christian Examiner. Concluded. To the Editor of the Christian Examiner. THE eleventh and last evasion respects the moral tendency of the two systems; that is, their actual efficacy in producing a pure and strict morality. My argument is, that the faith delivered to the saints produced a morality of peculiar purity and strictness, that the evangelical system produces a mo rality of similar purity and strictness, surpassing the morality produced by the liberal system, and that therefore the evangelical system is the faith delivered to the saints, and the liberal system is not. To this the reviewer replies, that "Unitarians have always felt and expressed a reluctance to enter upon this discussion." 1. Because of its liability to lead to uncandid and unchristian remarks.' 2. Because "it is less likely than any other to advance the interests of truth." 3. Its only probable effect upon the adverse party is to exasperate their feelings and rivet their prejudices, or at best to inflict on them a deep sense of intentional injury.' 4. Its only influence on the party whom it favours is to confirm them still more in the vicious habit of trusting in themselves that they are righteous, and despising oth ers.' 5. When however, they have been dared to it, and provoked to it by their adversaries, and it has become necessary in justice to their own characters, and in justice to that cause which they believe to be the cause of truth and the cause of God, to enter into this comparison, they never have yet, and they never will shrink from the trial.' I am persuaded that the reviewer has not spoken even with his "usual accuracy," in saying that Unitarians have always felt and expressed a reluctance to enter upon this subject, and that his brethren will by no means thank him for such a concession. Have not Unitarians insisted upon the unworthy and even blasphemous conceptions of the divine character and conduct which are entertained by the Orthodox-that our doctrines are irrational, absurd, contradictory; and in their tendency, melancholy, and morose, and austere, and severe; that they paralyze effort, produce spiritual pride, and encourage men to calculate upon impunity in sin? And is it not a standing argument in favour of the Unitarian system, that it dispels all these Calvinistic clouds which have been gathered about the character of the Deity, and brings out the glorious sum in all his loveliness to smile on and to cheer the earth, and to quicken spiritual vegetation? If Unitarians have not and do not insist on the superior moral efficacy of their system, they have thrown out a multitude of words very incautiously, and kept the world very much in ignorance of their views to this day. If all they have meant to say, has been only to assert the superior theoretical adaptation of their doctrines to produce a pure and strict morality, as the reviewer has asserted their untried efficacy to produce revivals and missionary effort, then no wonder they have always felt and expressed a reluctance to agitate the question of the actual comparative efficacy of the two systems in producing a pure and strict morality. But if they have intended to claim, and do in reality believe, that their views of doctrine do produce in fact the purest and strictest morality, they are the strangest logicians I have ever met with, or read of,-to be reluctant to approach the strongest ground of argument which men can possibly possess. And yet this impregnable fortress, whose first fire, if they have got the munition of moral effects, would silence orthodoxy forever, they approach, the reviewer says, 66 reluctantly," and only to save their honour, and show their courage, when they are pricked and pushed up to it by orthodox bayonets. Doubtless the reviewer is mistaken in respect to his brethren; for why should Unitarians be reluctant to investigate the moral effect of the two systems? Are they not candid, sincere, and in earnest, in their search after truth? Is not practical tendency the universal mode of common sense, judging on all subjects? Do farmers buy for use patents on account of their theoretical excellence; and should two machines be offered to the public for the same use, and one should court and the other always deprecate a reference to experiment; which would the farmers buy? I would ask whether practical effect is not the rule of trial which the Bible has instituted; and whether Unitarians do not know this and resort to it? When the Orthodox speak of the importance of doctrine, do they not hear in reply, about metaphysical subtilties and speculative opinions, of no practical utility? And are they not told with exultation, "By their fruits shall ye know them;" that it is not what men think, but what they do, which decides their character; and that we shall not be judged by our creeds, but by our deeds? When we appeal to revivals of religion as evidence of the truth of our doctrines, we are told about "certain feelings," which it is as easy to get up in "town meetings" as in conference meetings, and are warned against enthusiasm, and referred to the unfailing test of good works. "By their fruits shall ye know them." It is too late in the day for Unitarians to shrink from this test of divine appointment and of their own choosing. And as to those effects which make the reviewer deprecate the comparison, they are only the effects which the preaching of the gospel produced on those who rejected it. It exasperated those who rejected it, and it divided families, and kindled a fire in the world which has not gone out to this day. And as to spiritual pride and the "vicious habit of trusting in themselves that they are righteous, and despising others," it is the charge which the virtuous heathen flung indignantly back upon Christians for presuming to think themselves so much better than others, that none could be saved but in their own way. And yet as the Saviour directed the gospel to be preached with all these effects in view, it may be safe for us to examine the effect of the two systems, even though the same results should follow which followed the preaching of the gospel. It will serve at the same time to relieve us from the solicitude of possible mistake, could we ascertain on which side the complaining is heard, and the sense of "intentional injury" created. I do not pretend to universal knowledge on this subject; but, so far as my information extends, I have heard no complaint from the Orthodox, concerning this test of truth. The treatise of Andrew Fuller on the subject has been, with the Orthodox in England and in America, one of the most popular argumentative works which has ever been written. And the sermon entitled "the faith once delivered to the saints," which was not borrowed from Fuller, but treats on the same subject, has been regarded by the Orthodox with higher and more universal approbation than the author had any right to expect. In the mortal affray of battle, we always conclude that the most wounds are received where there is the most outcry, and that they who are first to denounce a particular mode of warfare, are they who have received most harm from it. Indeed the reviewer seems plainly to intimate, that the balance of gain from the argument is on our side; and, the 'sense of intentional injury,' on the side of Unitarians; for, not to refer to the reluctance with which he comes to the comparison of moral effects, he has these remarkable words, which, as heretofore used by Unitarians, seem to characterize none but the Orthodox; "While its only influence on the party whom it favours is to confirm them still more in the vicious habit of trusting in themselves that they are righteous, and despising others." Now we are not at liberty to suppose that the reviewer meant to charge on Unitarians this "vicious habit of trusting in themselves, and despising others," however just the charge might have been, in opposition to the technicalities of the invective which they cast upon the Orthodox. It is fairly to be claimed, therefore, that rious without concession, the reviewer takes no notice-does not deny them, and makes no attempt to reconcile them with the suppo faith delivered to the saints. the Orthodox were intended in this passage, and yet we can hardly credit our eyes when we read the implied concession, that the Orthodox are the party whom the dis-sition that the liberal system is the cussion of the moral influence of the two systems favours, and favours to such an extent as to make Unitarians unwilling to resort to it; and for this, among other reasonslest the Orthodox should injure themselves by the increase of their "vicious habit of trusting in themselves that they are righteous, and despising others." I have no objection to the statement of the question by the editor of the Baltimore Miscellany; "not which party is perfect, but which is most defective, in consequence of its faith;" though I cannot subscribe to his insinuation, that "the party whose morality is the most pure and strict, is to be regarded as "pointing at, and denouncing and condemning all the rest." I have yet to learn that a candid statement of facts cannot be made without invidious intent, or that a man can by no means perceive that his morality is more strict than that of his neighbour's, without denouncing his neighbour and setting up himself as a vain-glorious boaster. In the attempt to ascertain the comparative strictness of the morality produced by the evangelical and the liberal systems, I waived the comparison of individual character, and looked, for their relative tendency, "to communities where the two systems have been most unmingled, and of the longest duration," and to those "obvious changes which may have appeared as one or the other system has prevailed." As evidence in favour of the superior strictness of evangelical morality, I quoted a concession from the British Encyclopædia, written, as it is said, by an infidel, and the concessions of Dr. Priestley, and of the Edinburgh Review, which give the preference in point of strictness decidedly to evangelical morality. Of these facts, noto Now when natural philosophers differ in theory, and facts are adduced by one in confirmation of his opinions, an obligation is supposed to be laid on the other to account for these facts in accordance with his theory, and the philosopher who makes no reply to matters of fact, and makes no attempt to account for them upon his own system, is supposed to be vanquished, and to be conscious that he is vanquished. The rule is certainly fair in natural science, and why it should not be applied to moral subjects is more than I can perceive. It is a hopeless case to adduce facts in evidence, if all an opponent has to do, is to pass them over in silence, or to make a diversion to draw away the attention of the unwary. I call on the reviewer as a philosopher, as a professing Christian, and as a professed minister of the Lord Jesus Christ, to take notice of the facts which I have adduced to prove the superior strictness of the morality produced in communities by evangelical doctrines, to that produced by the liberal system. Instead of doing this, he evades my argument by replying to it as if I had attempted to compare Unitarian nations with Evangelical nations, and says, "Unfortunately Unitarianism has never yet prevailed in any country, and therefore the comparison cannot be made." But I have made no such comparison of nations of Unitarians and of Calvinists. It is communities-bodies of men, among whom the two systems have most prevailed, or where one or the other has prevailed alternately, that I speak; and by prevail,' I do not mean prevail exclusively, but where they exist, and exert their moral power on masses of men sufficiently large to disclose in |