punishment, if a non-commissioned officer, or "private soldier? Nor ought any officer or soldier "to upbraid another for refusing a challenge, "whom his Majesty positively declares he considers "as having only acted in obedience to his royal "orders; and fully acquits of any disgrace that may be attached to his conduct.* Besides, what necessary connexion is there between the fool"hardiness of one who risks the eternal perdition of his neighbour and of himself in an unlawful "combat, and the patriotic bravery of him who, "when duty calls, boldly engages the enemy of "his king and country? None will dispute the "courage of the excellent Colonel Gardiner, who "was slain at the battle of Preston Pans, in the "rebellion in 1745. Yet he once refused a chal

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lenge, with this dignified remark: 'I fear sinning, though I do not fear fighting.' The "fact is, that fighting a duel is so far from being "a proof of a man's possessing true courage, "that it is an infallible mark of his cowardice. "For he is influenced by the fear of man,' whose

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praise he loveth more than the praise of God."

"See Articles of War, sec. 7."

"See Doddridge's Life of Colonel Gardiner, an interesting "piece of Biography, worthy the perusal of every officer in the "army and navy.”

REVIEW

OF

ZEAL WITHOUT INNOVATION.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

IT was the opinion of some sincere friends of religion, that a republication of the following strictures might have its use in certain quarters, where the literary journal in which they first appeared may possibly not have extended. The writer of these remarks has nothing in view but the promotion of christian charity, the vindication of calumniated innocence, and the counteraction of those insidious arts by which designing men are seeking to advance their personal interest, or those of a party, at the expense of truth and justice. How far the author here animadverted upon falls under this description, must be left to the decision of an impartial public. If it be thought that more commendation ought to have been given in the following strictures to those parts of the work which are confessedly unexceptionable, the writer must be allowed to remark, that the effect of what is good in the performance is entirely defeated by the large infusion of what is of an opposite quality. In appreciating the merits of a writer, the general tendency of his work should be

principally regarded, without suffering the edge of censure to be abated by such a mixture of truth as only serves to give a safer and wider circulation to misrepresentation and falsehood.

It has been deemed a capital omission in the following critique, that no notice is taken of the author's illiberal treatment of the puritans. This omission arose partly from a wish to avoid prolixity, and partly from an apprehension it would lead to a discussion not perfectly relevant to the matter in hand. It would be no difficult matter to construct such a defence of the puritans as would leave this or any other author very little to reply; but to do justice to the subject would require a deduction of facts, and a series of arguments, quite inconsistent with the limits to which we are confined. To oppose assertion to assertion, and invective to invective, could answer no end but the reviving animosities which we should be happy to see for ever extinguished. The controversy betwixt the puritans and their opponents turns entirely on these two questions :-Has any religious society, assuming the name of a church, a right to establish new terms of communion, distinct from those enjoined by Christ and his apostles? Admitting they have such a right, ought these terms to consist in things which the imposers acknowledge to be indifferent, and the party on whom they are enjoined look upon as sinful? Is not this a palpable violation of the apostolical injunction, "Him that is weak in the faith, receive

ye, but not to doubtful disputations?" We are persuaded we speak the sentiments of some of the best men in the church of England, when we assert that the basis of communion was made narrower at the reformation than is consistent with the dictates of christian charity or sound policy, and that the puritans were treated with a severity altogether unjustifiable. The author of Zeal without Innovation declares himself "dissatisfied with the trite remark that there were faults on both sides, when the guilt of aggression rests so clearly on the heads of the nonconformists." To infer their guilt as aggressors, because they were the first to complain, is begging the question at issue. Before we are entitled to criminate them on this head, it is requisite to inquire into the justice of their complaints. They who first discover a truth, are naturally the first to impugn the opposite error. They who find themselves aggrieved are necessarily the first to complain. So that to attach culpability to the party which betrays the first symptoms of dissatisfaction, without farther inquiry, is to confer on speculative error, and on practical tyranny, a claim to unalterable perpetuity-a doctrine well suited to the mean and slavish maxims inculcated by this writer. The learned Warburton was as little satisfied as himself with the trite remark of there being faults on both sides, but for an opposite reason. "It : would be hard," he affirms, "to say who are most to blame; those who oppose established authority

for things indifferent; or that authority which rigidly insists on them, and will abate nothing for the sake of tender, misinformed consciences: I say it would be hard to solve this, had not the apostle done it for us, where he says, 'We that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves.' 'I myself,' says he, 'do so, and all for the gospel's sake.' This is the man who tells us he had fought a good fight and overcome. And we may believe him; for, in this contention, he is always the conqueror who submits."

When the question is fairly put, whether a tender conscience, admitting it to be erroneous, shall be forced, or the imposition of things confessedly indifferent be dropped, it can surely require but little sagacity to return a decisive answer. The arguments which induced Locke to give his suffrage in favour of the nonconformists, the reasons which prevailed on Baxter and on Howe to quit stations of usefulness in the church, and doom themselves to an unprofitable inactivity, will not easily be deemed light or frivolous. The English nation has produced no men more exempt from the suspicion of weakness or caprice than these.

Desirous of composing, rather than inflaming, the dissensions which unhappily subsist among christians, we decline entering farther on this topic, heartily praying, with the apostle, that " grace may be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity."