ployed upon it is highly meritorious. If to any of his readers a different result from that which he has deduced, should appear more satisfactory, they are still equally indebted to his labours, without which they probably could not have formed their own conclusións. The objections which have occurred to me against a complete adoption of Mr. M's. hypothesis, are the following. It seems more complicated than the object requires. It reduces the original narrative almost to nothing; for there are scarcely more than forty of the verses into which our New Testament is divided, which are expressed by the first three Evangelists in the same words. It does not appear likely; that various copies of the original document, and of copious additional inatter interwoven with its text, should have been translated into Greek, previous to the composition of any of the canonical Gospels. I also think it improbable, that no one of the first three Evangelists should have seen the compositions of either of his brethren. Mr. M. has purposely avoided any consideration of the times and places in which the first three Gospels were written; and seems to regard his by pothesis as equally applicable, what, ever dates they might bear: yet its truth must, in some measure, depend upon the distance of the places, and the coincidence of the times, of the respective dates. If all the three Gospels were written on the same spot, it is hardly credible that the authors should be ignorant of each other's compositions; and however remote the places might be where they were published, yet the difficulties attending such an hypothesis are evidently augmented in proportion to the distance of time at which they were composed. It is true, that ancient traditions vary greatly concerning the dates of the Gospels; yet the earliest, and I think the most probable, state the Gospels of Matthew and Mark to have been written about the same period; the former in Judea, and the latter at Rome. The date of Luke's Gospel appears to be fixed, by his introductory address, earlier than any other canonical Gospel that he was acquainted with; and to be nearly as certained by his own apostolical history. He must apparently have avail ed himself of the two years which he spent in Palestine, during Paul's confinement at Cæsarea, to obtain the accurate information from which he composed his Gospel. This date precedes that assigned by tradition to the writings of Matthew and Mark, by six years: but as he wrote in Greek, for the use of the Hellenist and Gen tile converts, among whom he had la boured with Paul, his Gospel might remain unknown in Judea; from whence also he might have departed for Rome, before his work was com pleted. That Mark, however, should write, six years afterwards, at Rome, or in any place where the Greek language was commonly understood by Christians, without knowing that Luke had already written a Gospel in that language, is extremely difficult to conceive. I apprehend, that Mark had before him the Gospel of Luke; and likewise a copy, in Hebrew, of a narra tive which Matthew made use of, and had perhaps originally drawn up. Mark's purpose was apparently to compile a work which might more readily be transcribed and circulated than that of Luke. With this view, he omitted the longer discourses of Christ, and the events previous to his baptism. He rendered into Greek the original narrative; and where he found this already translated by Luke, he frequently adopted his expressions. When he thought it necessary to insert transactions, that were omitted in the Hebrew, but recorded by Luke, he avoided relating them in the words of the latter; as the apostle John afterwards avoided the phraseology of the first three Gospels, which he doubtless had before him when he wrote. Mark either translated the additional accounts from some other original document in his possession, or (agreeable to ancient tradition) derived his information of them from the apostle Peter. Matthew, about the same time, wrote in Judea; and in completing his Gospel, altered, by his recollection of the events, the order of several parts of the narrative; and, perhaps, the terms also, in which he might formerly have recorded those facts. This hypothesis, so far as it varies from Mr. Marsh's, seems to me more simple and natural than his. I think that the arguments he has advanced against the Gospel of Luke having been used by Mark, are principally obviated by hints I have suggested in the proposed alteration of his plan; and that they might be entirely removed, if there was opportunity for ampler discussion. I have adopted the groundwork, and several leading parts of his hypothesis; and in proposing any amendment, I am conscious of a liability to err. I shall be thankful for correction, as my sole object is truth. I apprehend, with Mr. Marsh, that the inspiration of the Gospels is not infringed by his hypothesis. The promise of the Holy Spirit was to bring to the remembrance of his disciples, what Christ had spoken and done in their presence; and to enlighten them to a clear understanding of his will: not to convey to them a supernatural knowledge of what they had never seen, nor heard from him. It was highly proper for the Apostles, when this promise was fulfilled to them, to record, in detached writings, what was brought to their minds. From such writings, I conceive the Gospels to have been chiefly composed; and to have been completed from verbal information of the inspired eye-wit nesses. 1 am SIR, truth; inveighing against the creeds and confessions of other men, to make way for their own: as though all that went before them were knaves or fools; while they, benevolent_souls! are willing to step forward to disabuse mankind, and to prepare them a set of principles free from the "barbarism and rubbish of former ages." If the reader can give them credit for these pretensions, all is well: but if he question their ipse dixit, in the manner they teach him to question when examining the Bible, he will not be able to get on. This writer complains of the reproaches and anathemas that are cast upon the Unitarians for their adher ence to reason, p. 11: and so did Mr. Biddle above a century and a half ago; to which Dr. Owen, if I remember right, replied, that if it were so, he thought them very unjustly treated; no less so than poor St. Hierome, who said he was beaten by an angel for preaching in a Ciceronian style, a crime of which it is thought he was never guilty. The author having thus, according to custom, introduced himself to his reader, pursues his principal object. Rejecting what he calls the popular doctrine of atonement, on the one hand, and that advanced by Dr Taylor, (which is embraced it seems by a large majority of the Unitarians) on the other, he declares, that, "the most powerful motive to Christian Remarks on Simpson's Doctrine of the obedience is not to be found in either Atonement. TO THE EDITOR. MR. EDITOR, A : FRIEND of mine lately put into my hand a new pamphlet entitled, Plain Thoughts on the New Testament Doctrine of Atonement, by John Simpson, of Hackney." As the motto seemed rather singular, I read it with an expectation of finding something new and I cannot say that I have been wholly disappointed. The introduction, however, contained in the first ten pages, is little more than a repetition of what most of his predecessors have said before him. It is common with these writers to begin with magnifying the reasoning powers of man; disowning all dependance on the teachings of the Holy Spirit; declaiming against orthodox ministers, under the name of priests, and pretended monopolizers of the the system of Socinus or Calvin. By the popular doctrine he means, that of a satisfaction to divine justice, which he thinks is founded on a total misunderstanding of the nature of atonement. By the scheme of Dr. Taylor, he means that exposition of the doctrine of reconciliation, which makes it consist in the reconciliation of our heathen ancestors to Christianity, to the superseding of personal conversion in their descendants: and this he says renders the atonement almost, if not altogether, a nullity." p. 13. It is thus he accounts for a fact acknowledged by Dr. Priestley, and of which Mr. Andrew Fuller has availed himself: "that the Unitarians of the present age are only men of good sense, and without much practical religion." It is no wonder, he thinks, that the advocates for an entailed Christianity should have to make such a complaint of their fol range through the whole of mankind that man is an enemy of God-and that the consequence of this is condemnation, or an exposedness to future punishment, p. 35.—that God, however, is not the enemy of man, nor so offended with his sin as to require any satisfaction, pp. 49, 50, 57, 58.-that Christ, though he did not die to remove any bar or hindrance, which on God's part opposed the fullest display of mercy, yet laid down his life for the good of sinners-that he perfectly removed all the mischiefs occasioned by the first transgression, the principal of which seems to be an exposedness to annihilation, rendering the human race once more candidates for immortality, p. 31.that the atonement made by his death consisted in his furnishing a motive to reconcile or conciliate the hearts of men to God, p. 38.-that salvation is a mere gift of grace, and is not bestowed in reward of the me rits of Christ, p. 41.-that the term of it, on our part, is believing, which is within the compass of every man's power, p. 27.-that believers shall pos sess a happy immortality, p. 32, 33.and that unbelievers will be exposed to future punishment, p. 64. TUTE OF THE GRAND PRINCIPLE OF CHRISTIAN OBEDIENCE. This is an important concession. Dr. Priestley would have persuaded Dr. Price, that in becoming an Unitarian there was no danger of losing “the consideration on which the Scriptures always lay the greatest stress as a motive to gratitude and obedience; namely, the love of God in giving his son to die for us." Defence of Unitarianism for 1786, p. 101, 102, But if this writer may be credited, among a large majority of Unitarians, and some others, IT IS LOST. Their system is a mere assemblage of dry bones. If Mr. S. as a friend to it in the main, can inspire it with the breath of life, his party ought to be greatly obliged to him: but if not, dead it must remain, and the sooner it is buried so much the better for mankind. I shall take no notice of this "feeble effort," as the author very justly calls it, to overturn the doctrine of Christ's satisfaction, and if I did, I should not think myself obliged to defend every explanation of it which he has intro duced, and much less to admit bis gross misrepresentations: I shall merely attend to his hopeful undertaking of inspiring the Unitarian sys-"human systems," as though his tem with a principle of life. Having rejected this scheme of atonement on the one hand, and that on the other, our author proceeds to state his sentiments of the Gospel; for we must not call it his scheme, lest he be found at last among the "system-mongers." Nor is it very easy to reduce what he says to a scheme: for he no where states his ideas on this great subject in an explicit and connected form; but leaves us to collect them from scattered sentences, and figurative language. If I understand him, he believes that the death denounced against the first transgression did not consist in an exposedness to eternal punish ment, but to annihilation, p. 30. that neither was there any contagion conveyed from Adam to his posterity, p. 33, 34-but, that sin has neverthe less, somehow, taken an universal These sentiments the author not only" conceives to be a just represen tation of the Gospel of Christ, uncontaminated with human invention;" but proceeds to speak of them as if they were the Gospel itself; and of all others that differ from them as conceptions of the Gospel were not human, as well as those of other men. He is mightily offended with certain ministers for arrogating to themselves the character of Gospel preachers, p. 41. yet in almost the same breath he would persuade us that what he has written is indeed the Gospel, "free from all human inventions." For my part I consider his opinions to be as inuch a human system as those of other people, and therefore shall offer a few remarks on what appear to me their inconsistency with themselves, and with the scriptures. 1. If the sin of Adam exposed him not to punishment in a future state, but to annihilation, how can it be true that, "If the death of Christ had not taken place, we had now been sitting in darkness, and in the shadow of death, under an apprehension of falling into eternal nothingness?" p. 31, 32. If Christ had not died, the sentence, whatever it was, must have been executed; and if its meaning was, that in the day he ate of the fruit, he should be annihilated, or die to rise no more, his death must have necessarily prevented our existence. 2. This account of things is no less inconsistent with the scriptures than with itself. The sentence of death, which entered by one man's sin, is said to have passed won all men, which supposes that they should all exist, and would all be sinkers, and therefore could neither consist in, nor with, the immediate annihilation of the first progenitor. It is also called condemnation, and stands opposed, not to a mere resurrection of the body, but to justifitation of life, even eternal life by Jesus Christ. Rom. v. 16-21. The resurrection which is ascribed in 1 Cor. xv. to the second Adam, means not simply a resurrection, but a resurrection to eternal life; for it is of the resurrection of them that are Christ's that the Apostle there speaks. v. 23. If antecedent to the gift and death of Christ we were exposed only to fall into "eternal nothingness," his errand could not have been to have delivered us from the wrath to come. 1 Thes. i. 10, The sentence under which we lay as sinners, is expressly said to be death and judgment. From the sting of the first we are saved by his death who was once offered to bear the sins of many; and from the terrors of the last, by his appearing, to them that look for him, a second time, without sin, unto salvation. Heb. ix. 27, 28. 3. That sin should have taken an "universal range through the whole of mankind," of whatever age, nation, or condition, and should have been so malignant in its operation as to render them all the "enemies of God, and exposed to future punishment," is a concession somewhat singular for an Unitarian. If all this do not imply a corrupt nature, it must remain unaccounted for: that is, it must remain a "mystery." And if it ean exist without incurring the wrath of God, if whatever love he bear to the souls of men, he can pass over their enmity against him, without any expression of displeasure against it, he must be a very different Being from what the scriptures represent him. 4. After all that is said about the true scripture doctrine of atonement, it is not in an atonement that the au thor believes; but merely in such a kind of reconciliation as that wherein the sinners' enmity is conquered. There is no condemnation of sin in it; no such propitiation as that wherein the righteousness of God is declared in the remission of sins, and in which hẹ is just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus; nothing wherein the chastisement of our peace was upon him; nothing, in a word, that essentially belongs to the idea of an atonement. Rom. viii. 3. iii. 24-26. Isai. liii. 5. 5. Whatever be the meaning of the phrase "God hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ," it must be expressive of what was wrought for us upon the cross, while we were yet enemies; and not any thing which implies a change of mind on our part, seeing it is held up as a motive to induce that change. 2 Cor. v. 19-20. "God hath reconciled us to himself ..... therefore be ye reconciled?" Re conciliation does not always denote a change in the mind of the party reconciled, though to enjoy the benefit of it such change is necessary. To reconcile to one's self is to restore to favour. Thus God reconciled Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar to himself, by the mediation of Job. Nor does such reconciliation denote a change of mind in the offended party, The soul of David longed to go forth to Absalom, while yet he thought it not proper to express his goodness, lest the honours of justice and paternal authority should be lightly esteemed. 6. Salvation by mere grace is not inconsistent with its being bestowed in reward of the merits of Christ. The pardon of Israel was not the less of grace for its being given for the sake of Moses, and at his request: nor that of Job's friends for its being granted in answer to his intercession, an intercession too preceded by an atoning sacrifice. If salvation be not bestowed as the reward of Christ's merits, his intercession is of no account, and it is improper to make use of his name in our petitions. I pass over several articles in this author's creed, and conclude with appealing to the judgment of thinking men, whether, if the Unitarian system have no more hope of a resurrection than what is to be derived from these opinions, it must not remain in the congregation of the dead. ZETA. A COMPLETE LIST OF NEW PUBLICATIONS IN MARCH, Sold by T. WILLIAMS, STATIONERS' COURT, and W. CLARKE, NEW BOND STREET. By à New Regulation at the Stamp Office, the Names of the respective Publishers cannot be inserted, without each Article being paid for as a distinct Advertisement. 1. AGRICULTURE. Essays on Agriculture, with a Plan for the Speedy and General Improvement of Land in Great Britain. By Benjamin Bell, F. R. 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