The operations of conscience are clearly developed in the children's reflections and after conduct or condition. Everything is defined that needed to be for a child's use, and all is so arranged that the little reader sees at once the moral truth, the precept which is built upon that truth, and the important consequences, flowing from the obedience required. Then instead of actually formed characters, there are many introduced who are just trying to be good, and all the meaning of effort is carried home to the child's mind. There are faults corrected in the course of the stories, and thus repentance is illustrated. The distinction between great and little sins, or we should say rather, the necessary relation of the one to the other is set forth, so that the moral truth on the subject is felt as it can only be by such evidence as facts supply. How to put in practice all that is learned at school, and at church, is excellently taught here. And the relation between piety and morals is strongly marked.

The language chosen by this writer is the very plainest, and yet the style is good, and the whole book suited to the proposed object. We wish it may be distributed widely among the laboring class, though it is by no means limited in its utility, to any grade in life.

INTELLIGENCE.

French Protestants.-A unitarian clergyman, Rev. S. Wood, travelling in the south of France, wrote thus, respecting the state of the protestant interest, to the Editor of the Monthly Repository, a few months since. 66 I have endeavored wherever I went, to become acquainted with the Protestant Pastors, and the statements which I shall make, are founded on their testimony, as well as on that of other intelligent persons whom I met with. The result of

my inquiries is, that the majority of the French Protestants are Arians; not, indeed, that they would profess themselves such, if asked what their opinions are, but, if questioned more closely, they would be found to be so in point of fact. With regard to the Atonement, I have been assured by a very sensible man, that they are, to use his expression, “Arminians in a large sense." Those of the pastors who entertain these sentiments, are a very numerous and an increasing body. The organ of this party is the Revue Protestante, which appears at Paris on the 15th of every month. Of the minority, the greater part may be described as orthodox, i. e. Trinitarians, without being Calvinists. The rest are Calvinists. These are an active, perhaps an increasing body. The organ of the Calvinistic party is the Archives du Christianisme. The prospects of an increase of numbers among the Protestants are exceedingly cheering."

Shuckford's History.-Dr Russell, Episcopal Minister at Leith, is continuing the work of Shuckford on the connexion between sacred and profane history.

Greek War.-Dr Howe, who has resided in Greece during most of the period of its struggle for independence, is about publishing a History of the Greek revolution, from its commencement.

The Sabbath in New-York.-A petition has been lately presented to the Common Council in the city of New York, upwards of ninety feet long, with two tiers of names abreast, praying that means may be taken to effect the closing of the shops on Sunday.

New Periodicals.-Just announced are the following periodicals. Repository and Christian Review, edited by Professors Ripley and Chase, of the Baptist Seminary at Newton. Quarterly.

Magazine of the German Reformed Church, by the Theological Seminary at Gettysburgh. Monthly.

Evangelical Museum-Fayetteville, N. C.
Virginia and North Carolina Preacher.

Western Preacher.

Home Missionary and American Pastor's Journal-New York.

We have received a communication with the signature " S," and regret extremely that it is, by a press of matter, excluded from the present number. It shall appear in our next.

THE

UNITARIAN ADVOCATE.

VOL. I.

JUNE, 1828.

No. VI.

SOME ERRORS RESPECTING THE METHOD OF PARDON IN THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT.

It has been an almost universal opinion that in the government of God, the natural course of Mercy was, in the case of the truest penitence, as completely obstructed, as by obduracy and abandonment in the offender. Indeed, God could only pardon by means of an expedient, provided for the very purpose of enabling him to do so. And yet we cannot, and none will deny, that God is in his own nature placable, disposed to forgive. How now is this? Our Creator has in himself the love which prompts to mercy, and he is also at the same moment a perfectly just being. The purest and strictest rectitude and the mildest and most relenting compassion actually coexist in the divine mind, and yet they cannot both be expressed in the natural way, but only by means of some interposing expedient. God may be merciful in his own nature, he may feel a sincere desire to save the erring and guilty creature; but this desire must not go out in any positive act naturally flowing from it. Can we believe these qualities and affections to be any less right when in action, than before?

We know it will here be said that it was mercy which 26

VOL. I.-NO. VI.

led the Creator to provide the atoning sacrifice. If you interpret that phrase, however, as it always is interpreted, the remark is unfounded. The doctrine of atonement, as it is commonly defined, teaches that God punished Jesus for human sins; for every sin which he ever has or ever will remit. If so, unless it be mercy that prompts to punish, no human sin is remitted in mercy. It was justice that went forth to slay the substituted victim. How much less merciful would God have shewn himself, had no such victim been provided, but every human soul been left to perish in its guilt? He is said to have now inflicted suffering equivalent to, nay greater than that which the everlasting torments of all our race would have implied. Here then, God seems quite as unmerciful in saving, as he could have appeared if he had not saved mankind. He has manifested as much wrath in the agony he awakened in the bleeding Saviour, as he would have exhibited in the eternal wailings of a damned world. If all souls had perished hopelessly, their ruin had been no display of compassion. The death on Calvary is declared to be an event equally replete with the proofs of the divine anger. If so, the word mercy may be expunged from the Christian's vocabulary.

But some will say, Christ was not called to endure an equal penalty. Then they are not taught by such instructors as have authority in the orthodoxy of the day. A late writer,* in his sermons on the death of Christ, thus affirms. "His death was to be at least as strong an expression of the divine displeasure, against the sins of all mankind, as their eternal confinement in the

Rev. S. E. Dwight.

prison of his wrath." Again he says "Punishment is the manifestation of displeasure against sin." Now we again entreat to know, how much less mercy had been shown in the world's hopeless perdition, than in the punishment which was at least, as strong an instance of divine wrath? And if the Supreme Being did actually inflict a penalty as great as could be inflicted in the case, or one which proved his displeasure equally, where was of the sacrifice of Jesus?

the mercy

Times have not so changed but that the language we shall next quote has too many imitations, in the common phraseology of the present period. Dr Barrow, the eminent theologian and mathematician, has in his sermon on the Passion, these words, "Who should dare to put himself between God and us, or offer to screen mankind from the divine wrath and vengeance?" "He [Christ] was to labor with the pangs of charity, and through his heart to be pierced with deepest commiseration of our wretched case; he was to pass through the hottest furnace of divine vengeance, and by his blood to quench the wrath of heaven; his grief was to supply the defects of our remorse, and his suffering to countervail the eternal torments due to us." Ser. 2d vol. 313. Compare with this these extracts from Watts's Hymns, a book which furnishes the weekly psalmody of nearly all our churches.