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    the public execution of a Qod , for tbe purpose of satisfying justice and awakening a shuddering dread of sin . "—The ninth and last consideration in favour of the superior tendency of Unitarianism to promote piety is , that it is a rational religion , which , like all the others , is powerfully and successfully treated . The

    conclusion expresses a lively feeling of the value of the Unitarian doctrine , and the duty of diffusing it , and solemnly offers up the building to the service of God in the promotion of the great principles of true aud practical religion . This Sermon eminently preserves the merit of uniting the defence of what is esteemed truth

    with practical utility . If it does much to convince the judgment and enlighten the understanding , it certainly does not do less to improve the heart . The piety which it claims as most naturally and most purely arising out of our sentiments , it causes to glow in our breasts with peculiar warmth , and excites us to love and cherish with increased ardour . Though employed in exposing error , it has do tendency to produce either angry or

    coutemptuous feelings , and if it be apt to destroy a reliance on false grounds of hope , it does not do so without substituting those which can never be shaken . It is a Discourse which exhibits , as much as any with which we are acquainted , the true spirit of Unitarian Christianity , as well as the high intellectual powers of the gifted mind from which it . emanates , and we recommend it to our readers with the fullest confidence of obtaining their gratitude for introducing it to their notice .

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    Art . V . — The Blessedness of the Faithful and Wise Steward : a Funeral Sermon , preached in St . John ' s Church , Tnchinopoly , on the Decease of the Right Rev , Reginald , Lord Bishop of Calcutta . Joy the Rev . Thomas Robinson , M . A ., Domestic Chaplain to his Lordship . 8 vo . London , 1826 .

    For the immense field of duty before a Bishop whose diocese is Iudia , no one seems to have been better adapted than Dr . Heber , so far as any one is capable in such situation of being much more than a moving pageant . The labour of any man will be pretty severe who traverses once or twice only during the probable duration of his career the vast world of territory placed under his guidance . From the many and affectionate ,

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    Critical Notices . 285

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    him to declare , that this execution was appointed as " a most conspicuous and terrible manifestation of God ' s justice and wrath , and of the infinite woe denounced by his law ; and suppose him to add , that all beings in heaven and earth are tie * quired to fix their eyes on this fearful sight , as the most powerful enforcement of obedience and virtue . Would you not

    tell him that he calumniated his Maker ? Would you not say to him , that this central gallows threw gloom over the universe ; that the spirit of a government whose very acts of pardon were written in such blood , was terror , not paternal love ; and that the obedience which needed to be upheld by this horrid

    spectacle , was nothing worth ? Would you not say to him , that even you , in this infancy and imperfection of your being , were capable of being wrought upon by nobler motives , and of hating sin through more generous views ; and that much more the angels , those pure flames of love , need not the gallows , and an executed God , to confirm their loyalty ?

    " You would all so feel at such teaching as I have supposed ; and yet how does this differ from the popular doctrine of Atonement ? According to this doctrine , we have au Infinite Being sentenced to suffer as a substitute the death of the cross , a punishment more ignominious and agouizing than the gallows , a

    punishment reserved for slaves and the vilest malefactors ; and he suffers this punishment , that he may shew forth the terrors of God ' s law , and strike a dread of sin through the universe . "—In justice to the author we must add the following paragraph , though it must close our quotations : " 1 am indeed aware that

    multitudes , who profess this doctrine , are not accustomed to bring it to their minds distinctly in this light ; that they do not ordinarily regard the death of Christ as a criminal execution , as an infinitely dreadful infliction of justice , as intended to shew , that without an infinite satisfaction , they must hope nothing from God . Their minds turn , by a generous instinct , from these appalling views , to the love ,

    the disinterestedness , the moral grandeur and beauty of the sufferer ; and through such thoughts they make the cross a source of peace , gratitude , love and hope ; thus affording a delightful exemplification of the power of the human mind to attach itself to what is good and purifying in the most irrational system . But let none on this account say that we misrepresent the doctrine of atonement , the primary and essential idea of which is ,

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1827, page 285, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1795/page/53/