by four ministers of the Synod of Ulster, and an Introductory Essay, by the Moderator of that body.

The strikingly aggressive character of that work called for the present volume. In it no allusion is made to the Introductory Essay, because properly it forms no part of the controversy. It appears to have been prefixed to what was preached, in the hope that the name of a Moderator would add dignity to the publication.

In these Letters, the author has been careful to meet every important argument of his opponents, to falsify no truth, to distort no evidence, and to take his quotations, not from second-hand sources, from popular furnishing Treatises, but from the originals themselves.

Written, as they have been, in the midst of the engagements of parochial duty, the Letters may contain inaccuracies which the author has not had leisure to discover. If such exist, they are unintentional.

October, 1839.

LETTER I.

THE SPIRIT OF DISSENT TOWARDS THE CHURCH.

TO THE REV. W. M'CLURE,

PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER OF LONDONDERRY.

SIR,

I HAVE just finished the perusal of a volume entitled, "Presbyterianism defended, by four Ministers of the Synod of Ulster;" and have bestowed upon it all the respectful consideration which the topics it treats of appear to me to demand. You cannot be surprised that I take up my pen in reply to it. The prominence which this Publication gives to a Volume of Sermons which I, last year, submitted to the public, is a compliment too flattering to remain unacknowledged. It may be that my acknowledgments may be of a kind which would make silence the most acceptable reply I could return, but I cannot do you the injustice of thinking that the setting forth of truth (even though it should be found to militate against your arguments,) will not prove grateful to a mind so marked by candour as yours.

I feel that I owe you an explanation for addressing to you the first of a series of letters in reply to the volume you have contributed to bring into the world. Your discourse, being second in order in that volume, would

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seem to assign you a second place in my reply. The arrangement, however, which I wish to make of my topics, appeared to me to require that the subject embraced in your sermon should be discussed previously to that treated of by Mr. Killen. The nature of Church government in the Apostolic and Primitive Churches, the question as to the parity or inequality of ministers, ought to take precedence of the consideration of the primitive mode of electing them. I intend anything but disrespect to Mr. Killen, in turning in the first place to address you, but while I am persuaded he will not feel displeased in being thus postponed, you, I am equally persuaded, will not deem it an offence that you are placed in the highest room.

Before entering upon the question in discussion between us, (which I purpose to consider in the succeeding letter,) I may be allowed to make some observations on the history and character of these Presbyterian discourses. That they are intended chiefly to be a reply to the "Sermons on the Church," no person who compares the order and arrangement of the two volumes, who observes the frequent allusions to the sermons and their author, or who imposes on himself the trouble of reading your preface, can possibly entertain a doubt. It must be in some slight degree a consolation to me, in the midst of the intentional severities which dim the polish of these discourses, to find that the field is taken against me by such a number of antagonists. It was not unlikely, but that in some form or other, notice would have been taken of a volume, which has obtained a value from the approval of the congregation who listened to its con