hands twenty years ago, and of which this first stanza runs in my head. All people that on earth do dwell, For 'tis a comely thing. As to the Dutch Deputies who forbad the Duke of Marlborough thus to consecrate the Field of Waterloo, their decision might, after all, be correct, considering the Duke of Wellington's acknowledged hair-breadth escape from a ruinous defeat by the unexpected attainment of a "signal victory." I cannot take leave of your correspondent without giving full credit to his love of peace, and joining him in a wish for "permanent tranquillity," a good for which we can scarcely venture to hope. We differ only from the different aspects under which we have viewed our subject. He appears to have imbibed some portion of the enthusiasm produced by the late hey day of victory, and can contemplate "the pomp and circumstances of glorious war," while I have indulged the sober sadness produced by beholding the monster stripped of the specious habit which he wears in the masquerade of civilized, and especially of fashionable life, and appearing in native deformity, dreary and disgusting. PACIFICUS. On Poetical Scepticism. No. II.* SIR, THE HERE is no subject on which the orthodox believer and the poetical sceptic more entirely coincide, than that of mystery. It cannot be denied that there is something congenial to the human mind in the contemplation of objects which it sees but in part; and this arises from its perpetual love of action, and its partiality for its own creations. When a magnificent object is placed before our eyes, in its full proportions, little more is left us but to gaze and admire. But when a gloom is thrown round it which half conceals it from actual observation, our higher faculties are called into exercise; imagination fills up the void; a thousand fantasies occupy the place of a single truth, which we delight in the more because they are our own. The love of mystery springs, therefore, not from humility * See p. 157. 917 but from pride-not from a desire to submit to superior wisdom but a craving after opportunity to exert our own creative powers. For this the spirit of inquiry has been too often resigned; for it is always easier to feel than to think, to wonder than to examine, The love of mystery, so far as it excludes reason, is a sensual gratification, though of a noble kind; for it is the absorption of perception in sensation; the triumph of the sensitive over the intellectual faculties. Still it must In the notes to the last edition of his Poems Mr. Wordsworth has preferred a charge against Unitarians, which comes from too high a source to be passed over in si lence. After observing, that the readers of religious poetry are liable to receive a strong prejudice in favour of an author whose sentiments coincide with theirs, and as vig lent an aversion to one who maintains different opinions, he thus proceeds: "To these excesses, they, who from their professions, ought to be most guarded against them, are perhaps the most liable; I mean those sects whose religion being from the calcu lating understanding, is cold and formal. For when Christianity, the religion of humility. is founded upon the proudest quality of our nature, what can be expected but contradics tions? Accordingly believers of this cont are, at one time, contemptuous; at another, being troubled as they are and must be with inward misgivings, they are jealous and suspicious; and, at all seasons, they are under temptation to supply, by the heat with which they defend their tenets, the animation which is wanting to the constitution of the religion itself." Here all the misgivings, jealousies, contempts, and contradictions imputed to Unitarians, are traced to the circumstance of their founding a religion of humility on the "calculating understanding," how can any quality of our nature be termed "the proudest quality of our nature." But proud? Pride is a distinct quality of itself, and though it may be mingled with others in operation, cannot enter into their substance. Besides, reason is a power and not a quality; it may possibly produce pride, but can no more be proud than sight, hear ing or taste. All that can be said of it, even in correct language, is, that it has a tendency to make those proud who take most pleasure in its exercise. But is not the imagipation liable to the same charge? Nay, does it not lead more naturally to self-admiration when it enables its possessors to frame worlds of their own, to create the regions they are to revel in, to rise in the kindling majesty of their own conceptions? Truth, which is the object of the reasoner, exists independently of him, and he is only anxious to find and to enjoy it. The materials of the poet are stored within himself, and 218 On Poetical Scepticism. No. II. be admitted, in the present condition of man, to be the source of many pure and elevated pleasures, and linked to some of the most divine speculations which we are capable of indulging. My design is, therefore, to inquire what advantage the Calvinist possesses by reason of his belief in the TRINITY, over those who maintain the proper unity of the Great First Cause of all things. A mystery, in order to excite lofty emotions of any kind, must not be entirely a secret. It must not be "invisible," but "dimly seen." It must afford the materials, however visionary and slight, which fancy may mould into images beautiful or sublime. The joy it excites consists not in the absence but in the plenitude of ideas. We must, therefore, be able to form some conception respecting the objects of our wonder. A mere Gordian knot which we cannot untie; an enigma we cannot solve; a direct contradiction in terms which we are unable either to understand or explain, can never become the spring of imaginations either tremendous or delightful. If, for instance, a person ignorant of Algebra is informed that there are quantities less than nothing, he will derive nothing but perplexity from the information, though he may firmly his triumph is peculiarly his own. The love ments. believe it on the credit of the speaker. It is just so with the believer in the Trinity. He says his creed is that one is three and that three are one; but has he the most faint idea of the wonders he receives? Does any dim vision of something unearthly, in which there is a distinction of persons combined with a unity of substance, swim before the eye of his fancy? No. Let him work up his powers of imagination to the utmost, he will still be able only to conceive of three separate beings, in which there is no mystery at all. All the wonder consists in their union, and of that he can imagine nothing. His idea must be either of three divine substances distinctly, or of one alone. In the latter case, he can have no associations, which the Unitarian does not enjoy; and, in the former, as plurality is his only advantage, he is far below the most ignorant inhabitants of Rome. All that is truly sublime in his creed arises from a contemplation of the Divine essence as embodied in a single form. His peculiar belief amounts only to this, that there is something about which he can believe nothing. He may use the term Trinity, or any other phrase of human invention, but it must come to this after all. He is precisely in the condition of a person unacquainted with the laws of nature, who should be told that there is a mysterious principle called gravitation, in which he must believe; but whose ideas respecting it, supposing him to give credit to his informer, would probably be as accurate as that of the blind man, who heard that scarlet was a brilliant colour, and then conjectured it must resemble the sound of a trumpet. A Trinitarian falls short even of this conception. He can surely derive no sublime ideas from belief in his favourite mystery, since it does not afford him even the dimmest image of the object he supposes it to conceal, When the poetical champion of orthodoxy asserts that there is something more lofty in the contemplation of the Divine Being as a triune substance than as properly one, inasmuch as the former is more mysterious, he must admit that, in the latter, a degree of possible sublimity is wanting. No object can derive any additional grandeur from mystery unless it is imperfect. There must be a power in imagination to make it more awful than On Poetical Scepticism. No. II. it is in itself, or it must seem mightier in proportion as it becomes visible. When the object is so sublime as to transcend all human conception, the clearer we behold it, the more must we be filled with wonder and every power be called into exercise to comprehend, to admire, and to enjoy. This has been strikingly the case with the discoveries made by human skill respecting the systems that encircle us. When the Chaldean shepherd contemplated the glory of the starry heavens, he might have trembled at any attempt to investigate the qualities of those immortal lights whose mystery seemed to add to their lustre, and have apprehended that when truth was forced on him his loveliest fancies must vanish. And yet, though such a feeling would have been in perfect sympathy with that of a poetical believer, what shall we say of it now when science has given us a nearer view of these objects of mysterious wonder? Are our conceptions respecting them less majestic because instead of lamps fixed in the heavens for our delight we find them to be the centres of mighty systemssuns which give light to unnumbered worlds-and in their turn catch a distant gleam from ours? Has the region of imagination been contracted, as reason has drawn aside the veil from nature's perpetual miracles? On the contrary, the more we have known, the more, we have been convinced, there is yet to know. Reason has gone forth as the pioneer of imagination into untried regions; and whilst she has found some resting places on which she has kindled beacons that can never perish, she has formed them not only to cheer and direct her followers, but to shed a dim and religious light over a boundless space fitted for the dwelling of her immortal sister. And if this be true as it respects the creation of God, the heavens that are but "his footstool," and the "clouds and darkness that are about his throne," how much more truly may it be urged of the Deity himself! An increase of knowledge respecting him must at once expand and fill all the capacities of the mind; make every faculty overflow with intelligence, every passion still with wonder, and every pulse beat with joy. Yet the Trinitarian promises much sublime contemplation from a mystery respecting his nature, which in so far as it operates at all, must 219 conceal him from us. And then he offers us in exchange for a glimpse of divine perfections, the images which, in the midst of darkness we may our selves be able to create ! It is singular that those who speak of mysteries as the glory of their religion, represent them as intended to vanish in heaven. A state of knowledge is there anticipated as a state of bliss, and yet here there must be no joy but that of darkness. Surely we are at liberty to suppose that the nearer we can approach the perfections of our future being, the longer perspective we can attain of the regions beyond the grave, the clearer glimpses we catch of the beatitudes of eternity, the better we shall be prepared to enjoy them. The more we see of our divine Father" as he is," the more shall we be like him." And yet we are told that "a religion without its mysteries would be a temple without its God." As a system then which leaves us most in the dark is most divine-has most of God in it-how preferable was the faith of the Jews to Christianity, and the Grecian mythologies to both of them! On the contrary, mystery is no more a part of religion than ignorance is of knowledge. The object of the former in divine, is the same as that of the latter in human things; to disclose what before was hidden. No uncertainty can exist now which did not exist always; revelation, indeed, when it made all manifest which it is essential to know, enabled us to perceive that we had much yet to discover. The mystery remains, no doubt for wise purposes, but not in conse quence of our faith. The Calvinist, like the " poor Indian," ""sees God in clouds;" but with this difference: the former traces him as far as he is able in the most ethereal of his works, the latter enshrouds him in darkness which he has himself created. After all, if there is any thing pleasing in the contemplation of mys tery, there are surely objects enough that we see but dimly without obscuring the light which heaven has given us. In the infancy of an eternal being we must necessarily be surrounded with wonders. We feel mighty stirrings within us, like the motions of Homer's Cyclop in his cavern, gigantic though in darkness. Possessed with desires which nothing visible can satisfy, we are elevated by aspirations after ima “Letters from Sir Isaac Newton to Mr. Le Clerc.” ginary good, favoured by visitings which we cannot trace, and delighted with occasional glimpses of our future glorious condition. In the human soul itself, its strengths and its weak. nesses, its high cravings and natural instincts, its depths and its sublimities, there is enough to tremble at and admire. The vast riches of nature are to man but the faint shadows of things that he shall behold hereafter; the sources whence his spiritual associations arise, the fore-ground of his ethereal perspective. The stars" tell him of the glory of God," the loveliness of earth gives him a dim vision of paradise, and he rises from the contemplation of transitory scenes, " to breathe in worlds To which the heaven of heavens is but a veil." And yet there are those who think he wants deeper mysteries-who can find no sublimity but in terms to which they can affix no idea-who, while they talk of the pride of human reason, wish to make the idea of God more sublime, by fancying contradictions in his existence, and think the universe itself too narrow for their lofty imaginations to inhabit! SIR, S. N. D. April 5, 1816. SUSPECT that Dr. Thomas I Thomson, as quoted, p. 143, has brought, or at least credited, a charge against "Horsley, the Champion of the Trinity," which is not well supported. Whether in any other case he" found Newton's papers unfit for publication" I know not; but scriptural inquirers, and especially Unitarians, are indebted to him for the first correct printed copy of Newton's critical testimony against the interpolation 1 John v. 7, and the common reading of 1 Tim. iii. 16. I find it in HorsJey's Newtoni Opera quæ extant omnia. 4to. 5 v. 1779-1785. The concluding article, p. 494, in the last volume, is entitled, "An Historical Account of two notable Corruptions of Scripture, in a Letter to a Friend. Now first published from the MS. in the author's hand-writing, in the possession of Dr. Ekens, Dean of Carlisle." Prefixed is the following "Advertisement. A very imperfect copy of these Tracts, wanting both the beginning and the end, and erroneous in many places, was published at London in the year 1754, under the title of Letters from Sir Isaac Newton to Mr. Le Clerc. But in the author's MS. the whole is one continued discourse, which, although it is conceived in the epistolary form, is not addressed to any particu lar person." 66 It is to be regretted, that the author of these papers should have avoided so cautiously any direct declaration of his opinion on the subject of the Trinity. He says indeed, in the beginning of the first paper, referring to 1 John v. 7, that in the eastern nations, and for a long time in the western, the faith subsisted without this text," as if he would be understood to recognize the truth of the orthodox doctrine. Yet, in quoting the baptismal form in Matthew, he speaks of it as "the place from which they tried to derive the Trinity." And having observed that in Jerome's time, and both before and long enough after it, this text of the three in heaven was never once thought of," he adds, "it is now in every body's mouth, and accounted the main text for the business." Would a Trinitarian thus express himself, without taking some occasion to avow his orthodoxy, especially while he was exploding as notable corruptions" two main pillars on which the doctrine of a Trinity had rested for ages. These papers by Sir Isaac Newton are not dated, but they may be placed among his comparatively early productions, as he refers to a testimony of "Dr. Gilbert Burnet," as "lately" given "in the first letter of his Travels." Burnet's Travels were in 1685, and his Letters to Mr. Boyle describing them were first published in 1687. N. L. T. Attack on Unitarians in the last Quarterly Review. In his awe before the episcopal throne, he is utterly astonished at Mr. Belsham's presumption in looking up to so elevated a personage, and at his irreverent boldness in contradicting a Bishop uttering his commands to his clergy. He then falls into his common places. We have another outcry at the scandalous deception" practised by the Unitarians in the publication of the "Improved Version;" they have republished an Archbishop's book with alterations and additions, and have still kept up his name in the titlepage: it is true they carefully explain all the additions and alterations, but their explanation is of no use to those that will not read it, and what ortho. dox writer, be he monthly or quarterly, will do this? The Unitarians, again, are haters of the Church of England: the proof of this charge is, that they united with the other Dissenters and the Methodists in oppos ing Lord Sidmouth's bill, which was so wise a provision even for their own respectability! What had that bill to do with the Church by law establish ed? Its object was to fritter down the Toleration Act and bring Dissenters more completely under the surveillance of the government The Unitarians .generally did exert themselves to oppose Lord Sidmouth's insidious project; but the Reviewer's anger with them on this account is surely mistimed, when vented at the moment in which he was employed upon what he and his friends no doubt meant as a castigation of Mr. Belsham; for this gentleman, alone, we believe, of all the Dissenters, vindicated and complimented Lord Sidmouth, maintaining that his lordship's design was good, and that his bill might have been shaped into a liberal and useful law. The Reviewer next takes up the old calumny; the Unitarians are Deists, or at least very much like them. They reject as much of revelation as they like! But what part of revelation do they reject, for the rejection of which they do not give a reason? They renounce the text 1 John v. 7,.8, and the Reviewer knows, or ought to know, that it is a forgery; and who are the better Christians, the Unitarians who explode this foul interpolation, or the governors of the Church of England who, with their eyes open, still impose it upon the multitude for genuine scripture? But the Unita 221 rians resort to figurative interpretations of scripture! Of what sort is the Protestant interpretation of This is my body?-Still, Unitarians are charge able with the pride of the understanding. All pride is bad, but the worst pride of all is the pride of folly; and it may be that some Unitarians in their wish to avoid this extreme have run into the other. They, moreover, claim great men as of their party, witness Bishops Law and Shipley, who were not Unitarians for two reasons, 1st, the Reviewer never knew of their being such, and 2ndly, there is positive evidence of the contrary, in their having subscribed the ThirtyNine Articles ! The main subject of the article is, however, the late repeal of the statutes against Unitarians, on which the Reviewer writes cautiously; on one side urged on by his zeal for the Church, on the other restrained by his rever ence of the government. He complains that the Unitarians have misrepresented the act of repeal, as if the government had repealed the Trinity itself; whereas he is authorized to say that his Majesty's ministers are sound. in the faith. What Unitarian ever doubted their orthodoxy? They are orthodox by virtue of their places.The Reviewer cannot blame the repeal, for that would be to blame the government, which is not the business of a Quarterly Reviewer; but he thinks the Unitarians should not have sought it it became them to be quiet and contented. To be sure, Toleration is agreeable to the spirit of the English Constitution, and if we bear with Jews and Quakers, we cannot consistently drive Unitarians out of the country. In justice to the Reviewer be it said, that he fully exposes the fallacy of the distinction of doctrines as essential or non-essential, with regard to Toleration; all dissent must be allowed or none, at least all within the limits of scripture, though this does but partially comprehend the Jews, towards whom this writer is benevolent beyoud his own measures of charity. : Whether to account for the harmlessness of the repeal or to explain the grounds of his own attack, the Reviewer represents the Unitarians as few in number, cool and philosophical, fond of writing, but sure not to prevail to any great extent. The reason why |