Milton. What does this prove, except that Milton has blasphemed?

One positive mistatement remains to be contradicted. We said in our first Number, " It is a different class of persons we now attack. And attack them we must and will; for among them, we verily believe, the great enemy of souls maintains, at this hour, his strongest holds in the United Kingdom. They call themselves High-Churchmen-Anti-Calvinists-admirers of the Liturgy-Orthodox." That is, "We verily believe that the great enemy of souls now maintains his strongest holds among certain persons who call themselves High-Churchmen, &c." But Mr. Urban says we affirm, "That the great enemy of souls maintains his strongest hold among High-ChurchmenAnti-Calvinists-admirers of the Liturgy-and the Orthodox." Now this is not the fact. Let the reader look at our words. We affirm no such thing. We do maintain that Satan has a hold, among persons calling themselves by these titles. But as to those persons, to whom the titles really belong, not one word is spoken in the passage. Certain individuals may call themselves High-Churchmen, but we have denied, and here deny it again, that they have any claim to the appellation, or even know what it means.

Others, again, may call themselves admirers of the Liturgy. But how can that be, if they tell us to disobey the rubric, in one of its most solemn ordinances, and in an essential point? Others, again, may call themselves Orthodox. But we regard them as heretics and schismatics; and should be disposed to call many, or most of them, Pelagians or neologians. And, even as to the title of Anti-Calvinists, others, perhaps, may call themselves by this. But we cannot concede to them even this name: for we question whether one in a hundred of them could tell us what Calvinism really is; and, much more, whether one in a thousand of them has any knowledge of the learned theologian's works.

The title of Anti-Calvinist has been used, in this cowardly and hypocritical age, to cloke every possible mode and degree of deviation, from the essential truths of the Gospel. It may not be safe for a man to say, I disbelieve such or such a truth of Scripture: but he may say with great plausibility, I am not a Calvinist. Accordingly, one man has a secret aversion to the doctrines of the Trinity, atonement, redemption, &c. He, then, covers all, by telling us that he is not a Calvinist. Another, again, is not quite clear on the doctrines of grace, original sin, human depravity, and the like. He, in like manner, comes off, by saying that he is not a Calvinist. A third has a

secret objection to the doctrine of eternal punishments. This man, also, shelters himself by telling us that he is not a Calvinist. A fourth is terribly nervous; and, though he holds the faith in his closet, is not a little frightened if he hears a brother declare it plainly from the pulpit. He, too, will say, that he is not a Calvinist. Others, again, are downright Pelagians, Neologians, Unitarians, Socinians, and Freethinkers: and all these get off in the same way, each telling us that he is not a Calvinist. Hence it is, that we consent to bear the despised name of CALVINISTS: as well to shew how totally we stand apart from all those who thus disclaim it, as to testify our general consent to Calvin's theological principles. Many are now disposed to abandon this title, who would formerly have owned it; and we bewail them from our hearts. Our fathers have taught us better things. There was no flinching in this matter formerly. At the same time, we will say thus much in the way of concession without reluctance: that if any honest person has taken up a prejudice against Calvinism in ignorance, not knowing what Calvinism really is, and mistaking for Calvinism that mass of absurdities, falsely so called, in the present day, by such writers as we have now to do with, we entertain for such a person great respect, and can readily believe him to be a sincere and pious man, with more of Calvinism in his own system, perhaps, than he is himself aware of. As for such of our friends as call themselves Anti-Calvinists, as professing the Arminian system, we wish them well, though we certainly think them in the wrong. Among persons regarded as Evangelical, there are doubtless some whose system is decidedly Arminian, and therefore Anti-Calvinistic. But as to those who call themselves Arminians among their opponents, they are for the most part Pelagians, or worse; and often attack as Calvinistic, and that with great violence, parts of the Christian scheme which the most decided Arminians hold with Calvinists in common. once heard a person of some distinction, well known, by all who know any thing about him, for a decided Arminian, and as being nervously sensitive upon the Calvinistic points, assailed, behind his back, for the support afforded by him to some religious institutions: when, be it never forgotten, his accuser summed up all his offences, with this concluding sentence: He is a rank Calvinist." Would that the accused had heard it! If any man cleave to Arminianism from conviction, he will of course lay claim to our respect. But if any man cleave to Arminianism, in the hope of in the least degree mitigating the prejudices, the ill-will, the rancour, the downright malignity and ferocity, excited among those of the opposite party by his

We

holy profession, good deeds, and consistent walk, he knows not how totally, how miserably he deceives himself. He may seem to escape the offence of Calvinism, but there is still the offence of the Cross. That is enough to make him hated. That is enough to make him scorned. That is enough to make him scouted. That is enough to excite and perpetuate the feeling, He is not one of us.

Among many things in the article before us, which afford just occasion of censure, there is one short sentence, affecting the character of our Review, which ought perhaps to please us. "No clergyman would choose or dare to write this work." We speak of being pleased with these words, because they contain a sort of admission, that we have done something that most of our brethren would be afraid to do; which is precisely what we intended. Truly, we believe there are very FEW clergymen, that would dare to write as we do; but some there are. Yet what an insult (and we call upon our respected brethren, of every class and party, to mark and lay it to heart)—what an insult is here offered to the whole clerical body! A pious clergyman, evidently a man of an elegant and superior mind, publishes a very pleasing and instructive work. An old hack Magazine sets upon him tooth and nail; reviles him; turns him, as far as able, into ridicule; charges his religious system with tendencies injurious to society; and all this, without so much as quoting the parts of the work, upon which these serious charges are grounded. Gross as is this insult to the whole clerical body, unfair as is such treatment, no one interferes; no one of that body dares open his lips; no one so much as mutters, or peeps, or moves a wing! Their brother has been cut up in the Gentleman's Magazine! Who shall presume to speak? We, then, interpose: point out, in plain terms, the injustice of such treatment; expostulate, as we have a right to do; call ignorance, folly, misrepresentation, false doctrine, and blasphemy, by their proper names and, in return, this old toothless tiger leaves worrying our brother, and sets upon us: or, in plain words, this Mr. Sylvanus Urban has the face to pronounce THE CLERICAL REVIEW an IMPOSTURE, and to assert that "No clergyman would choose or dare to write it." We call upon our Clerical brethren duly to consider, to what point of debasement our church and profession must be sunk, that we should have come to this. Truly has it been said, that the clergy must make up their minds, at all times, to be either hated or despised and we are now come to the latter alternative. Not DARE to take up the gauntlet against the press? Not DARE to vindicate a calumniated and injured brother? Not DARE to expose an old

hack magazine? We can assure our present opponent, and the class to which he belongs, that as to what clergymen of the Church of England may choose, or dare to write, they at present know little or nothing. We have set our hands to a work, which, with the blessing of God, we hope to carry forward in such a way, that eyes shall open upon us, mouths shall be shut with mute surprise, and ears shall tingle. We have things to utter, which some day, we trust, it will be said, none BUT clergymen would have chosen or dared to write. The national character requires to be raised, the national literature to be purified, the national religion to be reformed, and it belongs officially to the clergy to do the work. As to those old established corrupters of the public mind and principles, who have so cowed down the nation under the iron bondage of the periodical press, that they think they may revile whom they please with impunity; and who, if a man stands up, and in plain terms denounces their iniquity and profligacy, suffer it to escape them that they wonder who should DARE thus to assail them;-let them look to themselves. The time of retribution and exposure is now come; and they will soon hardly know, whether they are standing on their heads or their heels. When, assailing the literature of the country, we shall have shewn how poor a sort of literature it is; exposing its feebleness, its bad taste, its plagiarisms, its tyranny, its venality, its baseness, its impurity, its blasphemy; and denouncing its periodical department as its worst and most pernicious appendage: when, assailing the politics of the country, we shall have laid open our factions, our false and hypocritical professions of patriotism and public principle, our corruption-not the corruption of any small number of individuals, or of any single party, but of the nation: when, assailing the so-called philosophy of the country, we expose its utter departure from the law of God; its rash and fatal interference with the sources of national wealth; its cruel and unwarrantable experiments upon the prosperity of millions, of which experiments a poor, depressed, corrupt, half-witted, bewildered population are the suffering and reluctant subjects; its base and wicked design of making these poor, depraved, and miserable sufferers a political tool, under pretence of giving them useful knowledge: when, assailing the wealthiest and most influential profession of the country, we shall have exposed the venal prostitution of talent at the bar, in promoting perjury by the browbeating and terrifying of witnesses; in lending itself for pay, with all its powers, to the advocacy of bad causes by dishonest pleas and arguments; and in promoting even good causes, not by the principles on which they rest, but by the technicalities.

of a court of law: when, above all, assailing the irreligion of the country, we shall have laid open the true causes of our national decline in our departure from God: exposing the false doctrine too generally heard in our pulpits; urging the hierarchy, and animating all orders of our brethren, to efforts, and those ecclesiastic, religious, spiritual efforts, suited to the emergency, the dreadful emergency, in which we now are; reprobating our mercantile profligacy; remonstrating with our two Houses of Parliament, and exposing the absurdities and bad principles therein, from time to time, uttered and advanced; reproving the members of his Majesty's government for their total want of any thing like a parental regard for the religious character and prosperity of the people, as betrayed by their tolerating the public sale of blasphemous and impure publications; denouncing the vices of nobles and princes; and addressing even the CROWN in the language of just expostulation :-then shall it be known what Clergymen choose and dare to write. Such is the work which we have taken in hand, that few will perceive its necessity, till it is, in some degree, accomplished. A thousand voices will be raised against us as we proceed. But, when we have delivered our message, and spoken all the truth, a thousand voices will proclaim that the times called for such measures, and will thank us for having adopted them.

As to the political and literary periodicals of the day, their character may be shortly given. They are half poison, half trash. No father of a family ought to admit them into his house. What they offer upon religion and morality contains absolute poison. Take, for an example, the Number of the Gentleman's Magazine now before us. A correspondent complains, certainly with great appearance of reason, that a former contributor, in the same sentence, speaks " of the prophetical language of Scripture, and of the prophetical books of the Chinese;" and that he assigns a motive for the building of the tower of Babel, "far more innocent than that ascribed by Moses:" thus calling the Mosaic record in question, and putting inspired and fictitious prophecy on much the same footing. Now what could be more scandalous, than the admission of such language as this? How does it accord with the editor's boasted orthodoxy? And how does it accord with his appeal for character," to the episcopal bench?” Would the concurrent testimony of all our prelates establish the orthodoxy of such a work as this? Is not their orthodoxy, on the contrary, brought into question, by the very supposition that such a testimony would be given by them? But the worst, reader, remains to be told. As if it were expressly meant to adopt this