muriats. From experiments, which in principle seem nearly unexceptionable, he concludes that 100 parts of muriat of lime, perfectly dry, consists of 50,77 parts of lime and 49,23 of muriatic acid; that of muriat of magnesia the proportion is of the base 43,99 parts, and 56,01 of the acid; and that muriat of soda contains 54 parts of soda and 46 of acid. We have said nearly unexceptionable; for in gaining these results it was necessary to expose muriat of lime and muriat of silver to a red beat, a process which must be attended with some unavoidable uncertainty.

These points being settled, Dr. M. applied different modes of analysis to artificial solutions of these salts, in order to determine the most accurate mode of proceeding; what he fixed upon was the following: The solution was divided into two portions. From one the muriatic acid was precipitated by nitrat of silver, and its quantity ascertained. From the other the lime was separated by oxalat of ammonia, and the magnesia by caustic potash; and the respective portions of acid belonging to each of these earths being calculated, the quantity of muriat of soda was inferred from the remaining quantity of acid. This method proved very accurate, as was demonstrated by applying it to a solution, of which the contents were previously known. The greatest error was no more than half a grain, which is certainly a degree of nicety sufficient to answer every useful purpose.

Dr. Marcet has related very minutely the circumstances attending his analysis of the waters of the Dead sea, which was conducted essentially upon the principles we have just explained. We must content ourselves with giving the result. It is that 100 grains of this water contain,

If the result of Dr. Marcet's analysis corresponds with that of the French academicians in the species of salts, it differs widely in the proportions. We cannot hesitate to prouounce, that the present has been conducted with eminent skill and chemical knowledge.

The water of the river Jordan, which is received into the Desea, is perfectly pellucid, soft, and insipid. But che

mical tests show that it contains similar ingredients to those detected in the former water. However the whole quantity which the doctor received was so trifling, (not more than could be contained in a two ounce phial) that it was impossible to draw any certain conclusions from it. Small as it was, there was a marked difference between them: for carbonat of lime was detected in the water of the Jordan, of which there is no trace in the waters of the Dead sea.

ART. VI.-An Unitarian Christian Minister's Plea for Adherence to the Church of England; including a Narrative of the unsuccessful Fate of the celebrated Clerical Parliamentary Petition and Bill, and its Consequences; with the Proposal of a Practicable Plan of Church Reform on a Scriptural Basis. By Francis Stone, M. A. F. S. 4. London. Eaton, High Holborn. 1s. 6d. 1808.

IN this performance, Mr. Stone has explained the rea sons which, as he thinks, justify him and other persons professing the same tenets, in holding preferment within the pale of the establishment. But as Sir William Scott, or rather the bishop of London, on Friday the 20th of May determined that Mr. Stone should be deprived of all his ecclesiastical emoluments, we shall not at present confine this ar ticle to the consideration of the arguments which Mr. Stone has adduced, for the conscientious retention of those emoluments, but shall enter upon a comprehensive view of the subject to which it is entitled, both from its inherent importance as it affects the cause of religious liberty in ge neral and that of the clergy in particular. We are happy to find that our review of Mr. Stone's letter to the bishop of London has been generally approved both by the clergy and the laity. (See C. R. for January, 1808.) In the present article we will state our opinion with great frankness and unreserve, however opposite it may be to any sect or any party in the church or in the state. Our cause is that of morality and truth; and we care not who are our enemies as long as they advocate the interests of intolerance, of error, and impiety.

In the latter end of the reign of James the first, the clergy of the church of England began to embrace the doctrine of Arminius. Those tenets became more general in the following reign, though they were powerfully combated by the calvinistic notions which were propagated by the puritans. After the restoration, the opinions of the puritans

rapidly lost ground; and the opinions of the established clergy became more and more opposite to the letter of the liturgy and the articles. Among the most distinguished supporters of the Arminian tenets at this period, we may reckon Hammond, Jeremy Taylor, Whitby, Burnet, Barrow, Tillotson, and Fowler. Jeremy Taylor has openly and unreservedly impugned the doctrine of the ninth, as Mr. Stone has that of the first and second, article. But the strenuous defender of the liberty of prophecying' was not to be deterred by human authority from declaring what he sincerely believed to be scriptural truth.

Though the church of England,' said Bishop Taylor, is my mother, and I hope that I shall ever live and at last die in her communion, and if God shall call me to it, and enable me, I will not refuse to die for her; yet I conceive there is something highly considerable in that saying, CALL NO MAN MASTER UPON EARTH; that is no man's explication of her articles shall prejudice my affirmative, if it agrees with scripture and right reason. It were well if men would not trouble themselves or the church with im pertinent contradictions, but patiently give leave to have truth advanced and God justified in his sayings and his judgments, and the church improved and all errors confuted, that what did so prosperously begin the reformation may be admitted to bring it to perfection, that men may no longer go quá itur, but quá cundum est. See Mr. Fellowes's Life of Bishop Taylor prefixed to his Manual of Piety, p. xxix-xxx.

Bishop Burnet is very heterodox even in his exposition of the articles; and many of his explanations evince the sophistry of the casuist rather than the faith of the interpreter.

Whitby wrote a refutation of the unscriptural doctrine of original sin; in his Five Points he totally subverted the most distinguishing articles in the creed of the Calvinists, which is, ipso facto, the creed of the established church, and in his Last Thoughts he renounced the Athanasian hypothesis respecting the divinity of Christ.

In the writings of Barrow and of Tillotson, innumerable passages may be found which are not only contradictory to, but totally irreconcilable with, the ninth, eleventh, thirteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and thirty-first articles. If it be asked why Taylor, Barrow, and Tillotson, were not, like Mr. Stone, cited before the spiritual court and deprived of all their ecclesiastical emoluments, we can only answer that the evil genius of methodism had not then stolen into our churches and cathedrals, and made even the coat of purple

and the sleeve of lawn a receptacle for superstition and intolerance. In his Design of Christianity' which is printed in Watson's Theological Tracts, Bp. Fowler has exhibited a simple and beautiful view of the doctrine of Jesus; but this view is as opposite to the articles as the articles are contrary to the scriptures.

In the year 1712, Dr. S. Clarke, a name which will long be dear to critics, to moralists, and divines, published his Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity,' in which he demonstrated by that method of induction which since the time of Bacon has been so successfully practised in all the branches of philosophy, that the Trinitarian hypothesis, as it is stated in the Athanasian creed, in the liturgy and the articles of the Church of England has no foundation whatever in the scripFor Dr. tures; and is not supported even by a single text. Clarke brought forward all the texts of scripture which had either any real or supposed connection with the subject; and he proved with almost as much clearness as Euclid ever established any geometrical proposition, that those texts, which were supposed to favour the Athanasian hypothesis, would not, when explained according to rules of sound criticism, bear such an interpretation. In the discussion of this important subject, Dr. Clarke, who was at that time rector of St. James's, and chaplain to the queen, could not be deterred from publishing his opinions by their opposition to the liturgy and the articles, nor by the terrors of penal law,which the bishop of London of that day, as well as the bishop of the present, might have invoked to the aid of his spiritual jurisdiction. We shall quote a few passages from the introduction of Dr. Clarke, because they will shew that it was as much his opinion then, as it is that of Mr. Stoue or of any other clergyman of the present day, that every minister of the protestant church of England is justified by his ordination vows, and by the sixth, the twentieth, and twenty-first of the thirty-nine articles, in making the scriptures the only rule of his own faith, and the only guide in his clerical instructions.

'If,' says Dr. Clarke, any man can by any external authority be bound to believe any thing to be the doctrine of Christ, which at the same time, his best understanding necessitates him to believe is not that doctrine; he is unavoidably under the absurdity of being obliged to obey two contrary masters, and to follow two inconsistent rules at once. THE ONLY RULE OF FAITH, therefore, to every christian, IS THE DOCTRINE OF CHRIST; and that doctrine as applied to him by his own understanding. In which matter, të

preserve his understanding from erring, he is obliged indeed, at his utmost peril, to lay aside all vice and all prejudice, and to make use of the best assistance he can procure. But, after he has done all that can be done he must of necessity at last understand with his own understanding and believe with his own, not another's, faith. For (whatever has sometimes been abruptly pretended to the contrary) 'tis evidently as impossible in nature, that, in these things any one person should submit himself to another, as that one man should see or taste, should live or breathe for another.'

"The books of scripture are to us now not only the rule, but THE WHOLE AND THE ONLY RULE OF TRUTH in matters of religion.'

'At the reformation, the doctrine of Christ and his apostles was declared to be the only rule of truth, in which were contained all things necessary to faith and manners. And had that declaration constantly been adhered to, and human authority in matters of faith been disclaimed in deeds as well as in words; there had been, possibly, no more schisms in the church of God; nor divisions of any considerable moment among protestants.'

Dr. Clarke afterwards quotes a passage from Chillingworth in which that able antagonist to popery says,

I do not understand the doctrine of Luther, Calvin, or Melanchthon; nor the confession of Augusta, or Geneva; nor the catechism of Heidelberg; nor the articles of the church of England; no, nor the harmony of protestant confessions: but that wherein they all agree and which they all subscribe with a greater harmony, as a perfect rule of their faith and actions; that is the bible. THE BIBLE, I say, THE BIBLE ONLY IS THE RELIGION OF PROTESTANTS. I am fully persuaded that God does not, and therefore that men ought not, to require any more of any man than thisto believe the scriptures to be God's word, to endeavour to find the true sense of it, and to live according to it.'

Dr. Clarke afterwards cites the vows which a clergyman makes before the bishop, when he is ordained priest, with the sixth, twentieth, and twenty-first of the thirty-nine articles, from which he contends that a minister of the establishment is to make the words of God and not the opinions of men the rule of his belief; and that

'If tradition or custom, if carelessness or mistake either in the compiler or receiver happen, at any time, to put a sense upon any human forms, different from that of the scripture, which those very forms were intended to explain, and which is, at the same time, declared to be the only rule of truth, no man can be bound