points of discussion even among its advocates. For myself, I consider them as inatters of trifling importance, which may both be adapted to the circumstances and views of the parties.

As to the form of this service, whether the questions are retained or rejected, or whether it is made to consist merely of an address delivered conjointly to the minister and his flock, and on an ordinary occasion without what is called the parade of an Ordination Service, it may be rendered agreeable to those who are most concerned in it. It is at best a subject of inferior consideration. I have retained the common form, because I consider each part as useful, though not essential. The prayers implore the Divine blessing upon the mutual endeavours of the parties to fulfil the ends of their connexion. The questions afford the minister an opportunity of stating the views and dispositions with which he has entered upon his office, and prepare him for receiving the charge which elucidates his duties, both public and social, and encourages him to perform them with exemplary exactness. And the discourse to the people sets forth, at a moment the most impressive, their obligations as a Christian society, who have invited a public teacher to minister among them, and who is dependent upon their behaviour, upon their attentiveness to his services, and the teachableness and kindness of their dispositions, for the greatest part of his individual happiness.

As to the time of an Ordination Service, many good reasons might be adduced for fixing it immediately after the settlement of a minister. The purposes would thus be best answered; and were it possible to make the desirable arrangements, and, at the same time, preclude every superstitious notion that some power was thus communicated essential to the administration of the two positive rites of Christianity, I should at once prefer the earliest opportunity, and propose to rescind all objections to the name by substituting that of inauguration. Perhaps some of your readers can provide us with another term sufficiently descriptive without being open to the objections of the old one. Such a change might silence opposition to a service which seems most offensive by the associations of its name.

The

I quite concur with Mr. Johns in the scriptural meaning of the word ordain. Where it does not merely imply appointment to an office, it defines the act by which the appointment is made, as xeporovnσates, Acts xiv. 23, the stretching out of the hand as an assent to the election. manner in which these appointments were made to offices in the Christian church, will, if candidly considered, considerably strengthen the propriety, if they do not enforce the adoption, of some such service as the present, at the entrance of a young man upon his public duties as a minister. I am aware that its disuse is recommended on the ground of there being no specific scriptural command for its continuance: but on a further examination of the passages to which I referred in my late communication, I must repeat my conviction, that there is eminent authority for such a practice in the New Testament.

Christ, as soon as he entered upon his public ministry, selected his apostles, and gave them general and particular directions for this guidance and behaviour. When he sent out the Seventy to preach, he accompanied his instructions, as in the former case, with the gift of supernatural powers. Of course, at this period, while the Christian converts were few, and all of them received some spiritual influences for the dissemination of the truth, there were no regular societies, and, consequently, no such connexion as now exists between Christian assemblies and their ministers. After the death of Christ, however, the organization of the church commenced; and, under Paul's ministrations, we can trace its progress, and find the elements of that executive constitution, which now characterizes, in different forms, and under différent names, most of our churches. There were deacons, elders, bishops, ministers, all having their duties in the management of the secu lar and spiritual concerns of the early Christian communities. Now, it is in the manner in which these officers were appointed that the force of the scriptural argument consists: since, as far as we can judge from the apostolic records, it was generally, if not always, distinguished by a special act of devotion. When the seven deacons were selected, there was a solemn act

of prayer and the laying on of hands, Acts vi, 6, 8. Elders were ordained in Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, by fasting and prayer, ch. xiv. 23. Timothy was ordained by the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery, 1 Tim. iv. 14. From which accounts I infer that some religious service accompanied the appointment of public teachers in the purest age of the church. It has been argued that these times were distinguished from ours by the supernatural powers which the apostles were empowered to confer. The emblematic act of this communication of gifts was the laying on of hands. So that, if this part of the service be omitted, the act of prayer remains, together with the personal instructions-certainly neither less necessary nor less decorous for us who acknowledge the same Father in heaven, and who are but frail beings without any

help, in an arduous office, but what

we can derive from human sources. The letters which Paul wrote to his younger fellow-labourers, Timothy and Titus, are admirable specimens of apostolic instruction, sufficient almost in themselves to justify the imitation of such a practice in all after times.

How long miraculous powers were continued in the church, is not essential to the present question. As soon as they ceased, of course the qualifications for preaching the gospel would be acquired in a different way; and this change of circumstances would naturally introduce correspondent changes both in the manner of preparing and appointing ninisters. If the spirit of the practice is preserved, we shall best consult its utility by adapting the manner of observing it to our own time and country.

The preceding remarks will, I trust, sufficiently establish one of my former observations, that a public religious service, at the introduction of a young man into the ministry, is beneficial in its tendency, and eminently scriptural in its practice,

How far it is calculated to serve the cause of religion, is a question which might well deserve a separate consideration. As the followers of Christ, and a branch of his universal church, I cannot but regard it as highly becoming our profession to distinguish such an important connexion as the union of a minister and a congregation, with

a special devotional service, neither, overlooking the spirit nor the letter "In of the Apostle's exhortation, every thing, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be known unto God." While the general use of this service among Unitarians would tend to remove the charge of religious indifference which has been brought against us, we might, by making it rational and public, strenuously oppose those superstitious additions which still accompany it in many of our churches, and in time introduce a form of Ordination or Inauguration, or any thing else that it may be called, in every way reasonable and acceptable to the general body of. Christians.

SIR,

FRANKLIN BAKER.

Clapton,
June 14, 1825,
questions, each important to Uni-
HERE are two very different

tarians, which appear, so far as I have
any judgment of them, to be now
set at rest by the discussions in your
pages.

The first, and by far the most important question, as a consistent adherence to principle is to be estimated above the security of property, respects the late attempt to revive among Unitarians the ceremonies of Ordina tion, which they had suffered to fall into disuse, That such an attempt was well designed cannot be doubted, from the respectability of the young minister who proposed himself to be ordained, and of those who lent the assistance of their talents and characters to the success of the project. Yet I question whether such a project would have been entertained in the 19th century, by Unitarians, or, indeed, by any other Protestant Dissenters, if the Nonconformists in the 17th century, had not separated from the Episcopal Establishment under Presbyterian, rather than under popu-~ ́· lar influence. I refer not to such as the modern misnamed Presbyters, like my friend Dr. Kippis, or that eminent person to the collection and illustration of whose writings I have cheerfully devoted several of my later years, but to the priest writ large of Milton; to such as Baxter and Bates. These, and indeed all the English Presbyters of their day, like those of the Northern

Establishment, maintained the minister's superiority to the people, as really, though not so vexatiously, as did Laud or Sheldon.

That such Presbyters, when demurring to Episcopal ordination, should have contrived to guard their own assumption, from the encroachments of Christian equality, by an ordination, alike fitted to distinguish the minister from the people, was naturally to be expected; nor is it surprising that a people, of whom, probably, a very large majority could not read the Bible for themselves, should have readily admitted such a distinction.

You have recorded (XVI. 134, col. 1) as the opinion of "Mr. John Fox," that "Mr. Hallet had high notions of the ministerial power." "I had occasion to shew, (p. 222,) in a note on that passage, how Mr. James Peirce also had maintained, as late as 1716, as if he were living in the apostolic age of miracles, that "Presbyters are to judge of men's qualifications for the sacred office," because "we read of the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery, but never of the laying on of the hands of the people," and because we cannot “find the least intimation, that the apostles acted in the people's name, when they ordained ministers."

I am quite aware that my respected friends, who sanctioned by their concurrence the late ordination, are as ready as any one to smile at the recollection of those absurd pretensions which render ridiculous, for a moment, even such names as Hallet and Peirce; though, such pretensions once assumed and admitted, nothing can be more consistent than ordination. Yet it must always have been ill-contrived that the young aspirant to the rank of an ordained minister should have been obliged to listen to the counsel of Christian experience, called a charge, while standing up, a spectacle to a large congregation, instead of receiving such counsel in the less embarrassing form of a private interview, or a friendly correspondence. Nor was it very decorous that a congregation, to whom the sermon was especially addressed, should be lectured before their neighbours, on the conduet it became them to observe to wards the young minister whom they had chosen

I trust, however, that the late attempt to revive the semblance of ordination among Unitarians, will be the last; from a growing conviction that such forms, with whatever guards and qualifications they may be accompanied, are calculated to encourage what those who assisted on that occasion would, on the discovery of such a tendency, be among the first to disapprove. We want, indeed, if we would maintain Christian equality, nothing to enhance the distinction between minister and people, but rather every thing which can be fairly applied to a contrary purpose.

The other question to which I referred is that respecting "the project of the Lancashire Calvinists for depriving Unitarians of their places of worship." These assumed children of light, as if they had been in consultation with the children of this world, and thus had become wiser in their generation, have been contriving, it seems, to save the expense of building chapels, by entering upon and possessing those of the Unitarians. In reading my friend Mr. Hunter's very satisfactory statement of this question, I was reminded (p. 261) of some letters from Mr. Jollie to Mr. Heywood, in the British Museum. They forin part of a large "Collection of original letters of bishops, divines, and learned men, formerly belonging to Ralph Thoresby, and bought at the sale of his Museum by Dr. Birch."

A copy which I took of one of the letters is at your service. It appears from one of your early volumes, (VI. 9,) that Mr. Jollie "succeeded Mr. Frankland, who died in 1698, as Tutor in the Academy at Attercliffe."

J. T. RUTT.

Nov. 29th, 1700.

Ever-honoured and dear Sir,

You wil excuse me if I say the truth, the soul-refreshment I had under your roof, in my last return from Lancashire, gave me the livelyest adumbration of the society above, yt ever I found in private conversation any where; but I must forbear, lest I trespass: my very heart rejoiceth to hear of you, or see your lines, yet I would not think of you above what is meet; if I can pray, you share largely in that kind of remembrance, that you may yet see more of God's salvation,

wch your soul has long travelled for. I have not yet seen Mr. Smith's booke. Oh yt we of the ministry were more cloathed with humility! but alass I find it one thing to preach Christ, another to put him on: I must conclude my case hopeless, if my iniquities be not laid on Christ, and his righteousness (who is ye Lord our righteousness) be not imputed to me. I do heartily condole with you in the apprehension the common adversary wil gain by these efforts, but I trust the faith of the martyrs and glorious Reformers wil not be abandoned to novelists. I thank you for your prayer-ful remembrance; truly I need it; my head, hands, heart are filled with the Lord's work. I bless the Lord for good success both in church and pupil work. Soli Deo in Christo sit Gloria. 46 hopeful young ministers are gone forth from my eye to do good service in the Lord's vineyard, and sundry of them spiritual fathers. I mention this with an humble freedom that our dear Lord may have his due. Mr. Hemingway is every way a choice young man, both for parts and piety; Elk. Bury is truly hopeful and capable. My wive's service, with my hearty duty and love to yourself, service to good Mrs. Hey, with thanks for your kindness last vissit. When I can forecast my travelling affairs I should be glad to see you once more; what will the meeting in the general gathering be! I send you the in closed subscribed. Dear Sr, let me be reckoned

on this subject in the House of Commons, that we labour under a very considerable degree of obloquy, and it cannot be denied that some of our writers have afforded just grounds for this obloquy. With the great truth which we all hold, that our prayers are to be addressed only to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus, they have mixed up notions of their own on a variety of topics, such as liberty and necessity, free-will, atonement, the existence of the Devil, the philosophical ignorance of Moses and other subjects, and by their dogmatical conclusions on these heads, they have contrived so to mix with the simple doctrine of Unitarianism their own peculiar notions, as to excite an aversion to examine the great truth itself, and even an imputation that, under the mask of Unitarianism, we deny the important doctrines of Christianity, and are in fact only Deists under another name.

I feel in common with Mr. Clarke this opprobrium on our faith, and the more so as my name has been placed in connexion with certain opinions, which I hold in the utmost abhorrence. It is of importance that the public should clearly understand what it is that separates us from the great body of professing Christians, what are the grounds of this separation, and that our doctrines do not militate with the due veneration of our Lord and Saviour.

In a former letter I have given my sentiments on the term Unitarian, as

T. JOLLIE.

which I gree most cordially with Mr. Clarke, that the former name is not to be denied to him who acknowledges only one God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and whatever other opinions he may hold I tender the right hand of fellowship to him as my Unitarian brother in a common Lord and Saviour. On the sentiments entertained by the apostles on our Saviour's character, I am inclined to agree in the main with him, and I think I can see a reason why among modern Unitarians that apostolical faith is far from being clearly understood and heartily embraced.

Our Trinitarian brethren entertain an opinion, sanctioned by the almost uniform belief of many ages, that our Saviour is God equal to the Father.

In contending against them, Unitarians are often led to consider his character only, whilst he was with us on earth, and they are met by their adversaries with the glowing language of the apostles, who are speaking in their writing, of his present glorified state, in which the man, who was persecuted to death, even death on a cross, is exalted to that glory for which he endured shame, and willingly exposed himself to this disgrace. That Jesus in the first state of his existence was a man like ourselves, sin only except ed, I cannot for a moment hesitate to affirm; but in this state he was distinguished from all other human beings, by the peculiar appointment of the Almighty to the high office of Messiah, proclaimed by the voice from heaven, "Thou art my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased;" and two of his apostles were favoured with a glimpse of his future glory, when they saw him in the Mount, conversing with Moses and Elijah, and heard his superiority over those great characters maintained by a similar heavenly voice; "This is my beloved Son, hear ye him."

That Peter, after such a manifestation of the glory of his Master, could deny him, is a melancholy proof of the weakness of human nature; yet he nobly redeemed this fault, and shewed by his future life, his convic tion that he was the servant of one who was enabled to make him partake of even a greater glory than that of which he had been an eye-witness. The descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, the vision of Paul, the miracles performed in the name Jesus by the apostles, all tended to confirm their faith in a glorified Master, and naturally led them to the use of that language respecting him, which is too much neglected by modern Unitarians. We cannot exalt the Saviour too highly: all our words fall short of the ideas entertained by a true Christian towards him. If we contemplate him on earth, performing the arduous duties of his mission without fear and without reproach, how much beneath him do other mortals appear, whose deeds are emblazoned in the pages of history! But now that he is exalted on high, that he who was perfected by suffering is admitted to a glory which surpasses

all human imagination, and that he has lived in this state for upwards of seventeen hundred years, what power of language can convey an adequate idea of such a character! Exalt him as we please, we shall fall far short of his perfections: yet are we related to him, though in a different manner from that derived from our common ancestor. Adam, the first man, was of the earth earthy, and through him we derive the appellation of sons of Adam: Christ is the second man, the heavenly Lord, who was sent to make us like himself, and through him we become sons of God. He is a brother, gone before us to prepare a place for us in heavenly mansions; he has pointed out the way to us by which we may become like him and partakers of his glory; and there is one quality in which, if he must always beyond measure surpass us, yet are we called on to imitate him, and in this consists the great excellence of the Christian character. The words of the Apostle Paul are the most appropriate I can use on this occasion:

There are three things, faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love." The two former have their places in this life; but the latter, if it takes up its abode with us here, will remain with us through the ages of eternity.

Let not then the Unitarian be afraid of too highly exalting our Saviour: whilst he acknowledges the unrivalled supremacy of God the Father, he need not be afraid of expressing in too exalted terms, the reverence he entertains for his Lord and Saviour. We shall thus convince our Trinitarian brethren of the impropriety of those epithets with which they too often designate us; we shall lead them to understand the true grounds of our separation from thein; and that, if our respect for the Majesty of heaven entitles us to the name of Unitarian, yet we glory no less in the name of Christian. We shall manifest to them that our faith is in perfect accordance with the words of the apostle, "To us there is but one God the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him." In great seriousness of mind, and with a most ardent zeal for the promotion of Unitarian Christianity, I submit