were several who pertinaciously retained, to the end of their lives, the impression that Adam Clarke and Richard Watson were rivals of each other! Nothing could be more unrighteous, or more base, than these imputations. The tone and manner of Watson's "Remarks on the Eternal Sonship of Christ," was singularly temperate and respectful; and there is every reason for believing that his nature was utterly incapable of the hateful and ignominious motives, which were so unworthily ascribed to him. Adam Clarke himself appears to have been uninfected with these discreditable suspicions. For, although he vouchsafed not a syllable in reply to his antagonist, he afterwards joined most cordially in recommending Watson, as the fittest man that could be named to undertake the defence of Wesley's memory against the alleged misrepresentations of Mr. Southey. We cannot quit this subject without soliciting the attention of the reader to the result of this brief controversy; namely, that the Conference resolved to admit into its body no man who denied the Divine and Eternal Sonship of Christ. Now here we have a very striking instance of the manner in which Creeds, and Articles, and Confessions of Faith, inevitably find their way into religious societies; and we urgently recommend it to the attention of those extremely liberal persons, who are in the habit of pouring upon such things all the phials of their indignation and contempt. In its infancy, a community may be comparatively free from these odious fetters of the conscience. But then there arises among them some turbulent, wrong-headed, or self-willed mortal, who is not content with the perfect liberty of his own conscience; but insists on disturbing the conscience of his brethren, by the publication of his own reasonings or reveries, upon matters which had never before been tossed into the arena of religious conflict. What then is to be done? Is the society to be made a sanctuary for the shelter of every imaginable heresy that can be engendered in the brain of man? And if this is not to be endured, how is the mischief to be prevented but by the establishment of a Test, which shall secure to the Scriptures, which all acknowledge, something like an uniformity of interpretation? This is the manner in which Creeds have been introduced into the Catholic Church of Christ. And this, too, is the manner in which all classes of men who are separated from her communion, must be content to ascertain the fidelity of their own members, and to preserve themselves from a miscellaneous colluvies of principles and opinions. These observations, it will be perceived, are not offered in the way of censure against the Wesleyans; but just the reverse. There can be no doubt, that, on this occasion, they adopted the only practicable method of keeping their own enclosure sacred from a dangerous perversion. But, with in stances like these before our eyes, it really does require some exercise of patience to listen calmly to the invectives, with which the Church is frequently assailed for her bigoted adherence to her own formularies and articles. Of one thing, however, we are profoundly convinced, that there is not a Dissenting community in the realm that would not despise her, as heartily as many of them hate her, if she were to consent to the demolition of those barriers, which have been thrown around her by the zeal, the piety, and the learning of her Reformers. But now let us come to the opinions and the feelings of Richard Watson, as exhibited in the present work, respecting certain other matters; matters in themselves, perhaps, of subordinate importance, when compared with the prime and fundamental verities of the Catholic Faith; but, nevertheless, of great moment at all times, and more especially interesting in these days of fierce sectarian agitation. We allude, of course, to his sentiments, and those of his communion, towards the National Religious Institutions of this empire. In the first place, then, it appears, that Watson, (and we may consider him as the representative of the most moderate and sound-hearted of his sect,) was, like the venerated founder of his society, habitually loyal; an enemy to those who are given to change; a decided adversary to all sweeping and precipitate reform. In the year 1806, he was engaged in the publication of a weekly paper, the prospectus of which is full of most excellent Conservatism. And then, with regard to the Church, he always professed that he was no enemy to the Church! On the contrary, he seems to have had frequent and filial yearnings towards her. He had gone out from her, it is true, and had sought a distinct settlement for himself. But he protested that he carried with him no undutiful or hostile feelings towards his ancient mother. He only complained that she was, now and then, rather too apt to scold at those of her children, who had gone from her household; and that, in her ill-humour, she was a great deal too free in the use of the hard names, Sectarian and Schismatic. When he visited Oxford, there came over him a fit of devout reverence, almost amounting to enthusiasm. "The ancient and venerable appearance of the public buildings, sacred to learning, and the personal examples of virtue and profound scholarship connected with them in his recollections, all tended to awaken in his heart the most pleasurable emotions. Here, many of those master-spirits were disciplined, by whose writings his own studies had been directed, and his mind trained to wisdom and piety. He used even to admire the dresses of that learned body, and took a lively interest in the particulars of a college life." [Said we not well, that Richard Watson would have been, assuredly and cordially, ours, had his early training been such as to bring him within the sphere of all these generous influences?] "No man was better qualified than he to estimate the benefits of sound learning, particularly in connection with theology; and no man was ever more sincerely attached to the institutions of his country, especially those which bear upon its literature, religion, science, and legislation." To be sure, there was one rather awkward circumstance which took place during his visit, and which might have tended to dissipate, for a time, these glorious musings. For while Mr. Jabez Bunting was preaching, the Proctor, (being on the prowl for stray undergraduates, who might be tempted to witness these irregular services,) walked, with an air of authority, into the chapel; took his stand in one of the aisles; deliberately surveyed the congregation; and, finding no schismatical academic present, left the preacher to finish his discourse without further interruption or molestation.-(p. 226.) It does not, however, appear that this very untoward occurrence gave any thing like a serious shock to his sentiments of veneration for the university, which was dear to his heart, as the nursery of Wesley. His notions on the subject of education are worthy of all acceptance : "With the infidel systems of education, which assume that human nature is pure, and, therefore, needs no discipline but that of instruction, literary, scientific, and moral, he held no compromise, but waged a most determined war. All education he considered as radically defective, unless it comprehended a distinct and explicit knowledge of the nature and method of Salvation through the sacrifice of Christ, as well as a competent acquaintance with Christian duty. The polities erected and adorned by ancient nations were built like Babylon, with clay hardened only in the sun, and which has long become a mass of ruin, undistinguished from its parent earth. They were without perpetuity, because they were without the elements of it. The fabric of their grandeur had tumbled down, because it was not combined with the imperishable principles of virtue; and their want of virtue resulted from their want of religion. Athens mourning along the galleries of our public museums, over the frail Ægis of her Minerva, admonishes us to put our trust within the shadow of the impenetrable shield of the truth of the living God.” His own religious loyalty, and that of the Conference, were nobly manifested in an address to the Methodist Societies in 1819: "Remember," he says, "you belong to a Religious Society which has, from the beginning, explicitly recognized as high and essential parts of Christian duty, to fear God, and honour the King; to submit to magistrates for conscience sake. You are surrounded with persons to whom these duties are objects of contempt and ridicule. Show your regard for them, because they are the doctrines of your Saviour. Abbor those publications in which they are assailed, along with every other doctrine of your holy religion; and judge of the spirit and objects of those, who would deceive you into political parties and associations, by the vices of their lives, and the infidel malignity of their words and writings." "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?"-p. 271-273. His notions of unity, in religious matters, are very distinctly set forth in his speech at the Wesleyan Missionary Society in 1830. In this address, he professes to consider, as among the most interesting effects of such meetings and associations, their tending to abolish the sectarian spirit. And here we must, of course, expect to find him speaking the language of all religious parties who have contrived to reconcile their conscience to a deliberate separation from the one Apostolic Church. "It is very true," he says, "we might go on, as the various religious bodies went on formerly. The Established Church might throw on us a look of haughty contempt, and we might return it with a scowl of defiance. We and our Calvinistic brethren might wrathfully erect our quinquarticular controversy, and dip our pens in gall. And our excellent friends, the Baptists, might convert the waters of the Sanctuary into waters of bitterness and separation. All this might be done; and, perhaps, the common Father might, in pity, deal better with us than we were disposed to deal with one another.” And then, after enlarging on the milder and more comprehensive spirit which had softened off the lines of division between the various denominations of Christianity, he proceeds thus : "It has been a frequent and favourite metaphor, with many eminent writers and speakers on this subject, to compare the paternal union of the Churches to the union of the colours in the rainbow; and a very beautiful metaphor it is. It was not, till lately, that the Church has been entitled to this comparison. For, if formerly it was like one, it was so distinct in its hues of colour, and with edges so sharp and defined, that they seemed intended to cut each other through the whole span of the arch. For my part, I do not admire such a rainbow as this. Neither could I be much taken with a rainbow of one colour only. I am afraid we should begin to dispute as to what colour this should be. And, if we agreed as to that, we should not long rest satisfied with it. One party would wish to have it enlivened with a little more red; and another would have it sobered with a little more purple. For my part, I am contented with the rainbow of nature, with its distinct, but commingling hues, soft, beautiful, varied, one. And if we could see all the Churches of Christ worthy to be compared to such an appearance, we might, in the language of one of the writers of the Apocrypha, say, ' When thou seest the rainbow, bless Him that made it. Very glorious is it to behold; and the hands of the Almighty have bended it.' And I have no desire that the union of the Churches should be more perfect than this, till we enter into the bright and colourless light of eternity, and see, eye to eye, and face to face."-p. 499. As a further proof of his Catholic temper, his biographer apprizes us that Watson even went so far as to express his persuasion, that Among that part of the Clergy who are not usually denominated Evangelical, and the attendants upon their ministry, there is far more sincere piety than some warm religionists are disposed to admit; though somewhat of an ascetic (ascetic?) kind, and not so aggressive and missionary in its character as is desirable. In short, uncharitableness be regarded as a sin; and greatly admired that universal benevolence which Mr. Wesley inculcated and exemplified. One of the characters of genuine Methodism, he said, is, that it is abhorrent from the spirit of Sectarianism. It meets upon the common ground of loving the Lord Jesus in sincerity."-p. 647. : Now, it cannot be denied that all this sounds very soothing and delightful. It would be irresistibly pacific, if one could but forget two things: first, that there may, after all, be some serious danger lest all manner of unsound principles should stealthily creep in, beneath the ample folds of this mantle of Christian liberality and secondly, that there still survives upon the earth, in many quarters, a strong persuasion, that a wilful departure from the practice and the constitution of primitive Christianity, involves-we must write it-the guilt of Schism: so that, even in these enlightened times, there are actually multitudes of honest, well-informed, and learned men, who-when they behold the apparition of many-coloured unity, above presented to us-are tempted to distrust this beautiful metaphor, and to exclaim, with a very different image in their thoughts, Aut hæc in nostros fabricata est machina muros; And as we, ourselves,-bigots that we are!-are not free from such apprehensions, we hope that we, too, shall be pardoned for saying a word or two on the beautiful metaphor in question. The physical rainbow, then, as every one knows, is a phenomenon produced by the separation and untwisting of the various-coloured rays, of which the uniform and candid blaze of the solar light is composed. And we know that every colour exhibited in the spectrum is equally from heaven. But we are unable to discern any satisfactory resemblance between this appearance and the ecclesiastical rainbow which delights the imagination of Richard Watson. We cannot be at all sure that the light of God's will is capable of this sort of decomposition and analysis. At all events, we cannot be sure that God hath endowed the moral elements in which we live with any such analogous powers of reflexion, or refraction, as shall faithfully convey to the eye of the spirit the component rays of that glorious and perfect emanation. When, therefore, we look upon this varied collection of tints, we cannot be certain there may not be -some optical delusion. We can feel no assurance that God hath here set his bow in the heavens, or that the hands of the Almighty |