protested against its theology-let us examine its reasoning: "At all events, with respect to the law of the case, if assurance in this matter can never amount strictly to knowledge, is it just to punish a man for professing disbelief of that which no man can know to be true?" The proposition put forward in this question is this-In any case where assurance cannot amount to knowledge, it is unjust to punish a man for professing his disbelief.

Let us try this principle in another case. The assurance with which any inhabitant of this country can receive the fact that William IV. is the son of George III., and therefore rightful King of the United Kingdom of England and Ireland, cannot amount strictly to knowledge; therefore it would be unjust to punish a man for professing his disbelief that William IV. is the lawful King of these realms. We would ask is this a good argument? If a man was tried on a charge of treason for endeavouring to turn men from their allegiance to the King, would it be a valid plea in his defence that assurance in this matter never could with him amount to knowledge, and therefore he had a right to lead all other people to refuse him allegiance as King? If, then, his assurance, not amounting to knowledge, is no warrant for freedom of discussion in the case of an earthly king, why must it be in the case of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords? We cannot help thinking that in the statement of uncertainty necessarily attached to our belief of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, there is very false religion; but (even were the fact admitted for argument's sake) it is very bad logic to conclude from thence that it is unjust to restrain a man from endeavouring to turn others from the faith. The reasons which may make it fit that law should restrain a man from insulting one Being and injuring many others may be, and indeed must be, drawn from something very different than the degrees of his knowledge or his ignorance.

But it is not only here and there that we find, under much that is clever and specious, very unsound reasoning and much sophistical argument; we find it in the main branch of the argument which runs through the work. The principal assertion which lawyers have made to prove the right, nay, the necessity of restraining men from impugning the Christian Relevation is that Christianity is part and parcel of the law; and against this our author directs the chief force of his argumentative powers; and in his treatment of this question lies, as we conceive, the whole fallacy of his work. He throughout confounds the subject matter of legislation with the law itself. The lawyers have asserted that Christianity is the law of the land, incorporated with, and part and parcel of, the common law of the realm. He confounds with it the assertion that Christianity has been established by the law, and has become the subject of legislation by the law. We must let the author speak on this subject for himself:

The foregoing remarks will also apply, for the most part, to the great and mystic dictum that Christianity is part and parcel of the law ;'

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which is only the plea of Establishment' in another and still obscurer shape, and labouring under the same defect-viz: that of studiously excluding the special consideration which alone could make it pertinent.

"The deficiency of the argument is, however, in this case better veiled by the greater ambiguity of diction. The term part and parcel' is deceitful; it cheats us with the semblance of a meaning, having none in reality. When we are told, The Christian religion is established,' we have at least a proposition with a meaning, and therefore some means of judging whether or not a given inference from it be a just one. But the assertion that it is part and parcel,' &c. having no determinate sense, one inference from it is near about as good as another; nor can the puzzled hearer say with certainty of any one that it is not fairly deducible; but, hearing it authoritatively propounded, is led to suppose there is a meaning, and a connection, though he cannot perceive it.

"The Christian religion, in common with sundry things of meaner sort, has been a subject-matter of legislation: and the existing LAWS upon that subject, whether derived from statute or precedent, form collectively a part ór parcel of the general body of our laws,--in other words, a part or parcel of the law. In like manner hares and pheasants have been a subject-matter of legislation; and the existing enactments on that subject are also part or parcel of the law of England. Whether, or under what restrictions, the evidences of Christianity may be discussed, or a hare or pheasant shot, are questions which can be solved by one test only, viz: by reference specifically to the said laws so existing on either subject: but to say summarily of the Christian religion, that its truth must not be questioned, because it (the Christian religion) is part of the law of the land,-is, I allege, an abuse of terms precisely similar to that of saying that ares and pheasants must not, in such and such cases, be shot at, because they (hares and pheasants) are part of the law of England. In each case alike you confound the idea of a subject-matter of legislation with that of the law or laws which may exist thereon."

Whilst every serious mind must be hurt at the irreverence and bad taste exhibited in this comparison between Christianity and "hares and pheasants," every thinking mind will be struck by the sophistry that pervades the reasoning. When Judge Hale said that "Christianity is part of the law of England, and therefore to reproach the Christian religion is to speak in subversion of the law," it is evident he never meant to say that Christianity was the subject matter of legislation, just as hares and pheasants are the subject matter of legislation; and therefore it is a flagrant sophism to impute to his saying in the one sense an absurdity which would only belong to it in the sense in which he did not say it. Judge Hale never said that to reproach Christianity was to speak in subversion of the law, because the law had passed enactments in favour of Christianity; but Judge Hale said that Christianity was an integral part of that common law of the land from the authority of which enactments derived their force. In

Judge Hale's view, the Divine law of God, as we have it in the Christian Revelation, was the original anterior foundation of the common law of England; and therefore he that impugned the Christian Revelation impugned the very foundation of the law of the land.

Our author says, you may impugn Christianity, which is the subject matter of legislation, because you may impugn the wisdom of any enactment, though you may not set at nought the authority of the law that makes the enactment. Judge Hale says, you may not impugn Christianity, because it is the foundation on which the law rests; and you may not upset all law, by taking from it that from which it derives all its authority.

The whole fallacy of John Search, from beginning to the end, is laid open when we keep before us this distinction, which he studiously confounds. One short paragraph will lay it open to the mind of the reader; we give his own words:—

"We have in this procedure no bad specimen of the capabilities of the common law to be wrought by a competent artist into any required form. We have a series of learned authorities, from Hale and Raymond downwards, professing to extract the legality of coercing discussion on Christianity out of the bare fact of its being established as the State religion. I speak not here of the Statute, nor of the precedents which they may or might have cited for this end, but of their preferring to offer as an independent and self-sufficient ground for such coercion, the single fact of Christianity being established,' or, as they more love to phrase it, a "part or parcel of the law."-(p. 21-2.)

Now, we would ask, was ever Jesuit guilty of more sophistry than is exhibited in this paragraph? Could this acute author have been so blind as not to have seen the distinction between the ideas which he here confounds, or was he so dishonest as to see the difference clearly, and yet confound them for the sake of his argument? What! is there no difference between Christianity as the foundation of all human law, and a form of Christian doctrine and worship established in the land? The author knows there is immense difference. That form which is established was never called by any person, before John Search, "part and parcel of the law;" and so, in fact, there is no restraint put upon the discussion of the merit or demerit of that form of doctrine or worship which is established by law; whilst there is restraint upon the discussion of that Christianity which, so far from being established by law, gives to the law its authority and its sanction. Judge Hale never sought to coerce discussion on Christianity on account of what the law had done for Christianity, but on account of what Christianity does for the law-not because Christianity is the child of the law, but because it is the parent of the law. And this principle is acted upon in other things as well as religion. No judge would permit the King's authority to be called in question; not because the King's

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authority is, in many respects, the subject-matter of legislation, but because it is the foundation of the law-because the King's right is part and parcel of the law.

It is the aim of the author throughout to confound these two distinct ideas, the law and the subject-matter of the law; he does it most especially in a note in p. 21:

"See a like equivocation in another phrase occasionally resorted to in working the dictum. Christianity, it is said, is the law,' or 'part of the law,' &c., and therefore must be protected as the law.' So Lord Ellenborough, in Eaton's case, refers to the doctrines of Hale, Raymond, and Kenyon (State Trials, xxxi. 950;) and in reference to that of Williams, Mr. (now Judge) Bayley cites Lord Raymond in much the same form. • Must be protected as the law!' How moderate, how reasonable does this sound! to be protected,' just as any other part' or 'parcel' of the law is protected.' Yet how different the demand in reality! Other laws ask only protection' from infringement; this from criticism; nay more, from constructive, undesigned, involuntary criticism; from criticism, not of it, the law, but of the subject-matter to which the law relates!"

Was there ever more sophistry in any piece of writing? The Judge says, Christianity must be protected as the law; our author argues upon it as if he had said it must be protected as any other enactment of the law; and thus he would prove an "equivocation," because other laws ask only protection from infringement-this from criticism, &c.; and yet, in the very last sentence, he himself shows that he is perfectly aware of, and has clearly before his mind, the distinction, whilst he falsifies the fact: "From criticism, not of it, the law, but of the subject-matter to which the law relates!" The Judge plainly says the very opposite of what our author attributes to him; he would protect from criticism and reproach the law and not the subject-matter of the law. Let but this point be considered, and the sophistry of John Search will be at once detected. His whole argument is, that Christianity, as the subject-matter of the law, should not be protected more than any other subject-matter of the law; whereas the fact is, that Christianity is protected from attack and reproach as being the law itself. "By it kings reign and princes decree justice." It cries aloud, "Let every soul be subject to the higher powers; for there is no power but of God; the powers that be are ordained of God," &c.

We cannot say that we are sanguine in our expectation that the sentiments in this pamphlet will not become more generally received than they are now; on the contrary, we see the general feeling of the country moving fast towards infidelity and atheism. We see the infidel spirit which has long been the curse, the demoralizer of France, gaining ground in these countries. We see nothing to give us an assurance that Great Britain and Ireland will not, ere long, be as free from the wholesome restraints of religion as France has long been; when it will be as lawful to

revile and reproach Christianity generally as to contend against particular opinions connected with it. But whilst we cannot say that we are sanguine in our expectations, we are very earnest and sincere in our desires that the sentiments of this pamphlet may not gain ground in our country. They are connected with degrading views of Christianity; low views of the evidences as compared with natural religion; and low views of its position as connected with human laws. No man who admits the propriety (as our author does, though he is shy to speak out,) of restraining men from denying the existence, wisdom, and mercy of God the Creator, would sanction the denial of the existence, the wisdom, and mercy of God the Redeemer, if he believed that "no man could come to the Father, but through the Son," and that every man should" honour the Son even as he honours the Father."

No man can take the part which our author has done, without setting up deism, whilst he is willing to cry down atheism, without becoming the apologist of those who deny the testimony of God's word whilst he is willing to join in just indignation against those who deny the testimony of God's works. John Search is, in fact, such an apologist for deism. We find a long note, page 69, which is an apology for deism, in which a professing Christian-one who professes himself to believe the Scriptures, which we profess to be as much God's work as the heavens above are God's work-gives reasons to justify a man in denying God's hand in the one, whilst he acknowledges God's hand in the other. But we confess we cannot make the distinction. We believe Redemption to be as glorious a work of God as Creation; and as the things that are seen declare the glory of God as Creator, so the revealed Word declares the grace of God as Redeemer. We believe the stamp of the Divine Author to be as visibly fixed upon the one as upon the other, and it is the same evil heart of unbelief that rejects the testimony of the Word or the testimony of the Works. "He that despiseth me," said he, "despiseth him that sent me." "He is alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that is in him, on account of the blindness of his heart."