had neglected the one thing needful, he had not prepared for that awful, that last journey, which all must take; his retrospect in declining life was neither comfortable nor satisfactory, and he expressed repeated and earnest wishes to a friend, who soothed the languor of his last moments, that he could be permitted to live over his life again: "How DIFFERENT A MAN WOULD I BE!" were his remarkable words. Persons placed in similar circumstances will do well to recollect and apply the vain, the unavailing wish of Astley, before the fair sunshine of time and opportunity is passed away, and the dark cloud of everlasting night closes on them and their prospects for ever.

ATHANASIAN CREED, a form of words occasionally read as part of the liturgy of the church of England. This collection of complicated definitions, which at last leaves the point in question unexplained, has proved a stumbling-block to many conscientious men; it excited the inquisitive scruples of Chillingworth, and the candid doubts of Waterland and Clarke: Archbishop Tillotson, in a letter to Dr. Burnet (Oct. 23rd, 1694), wishes the church well rid of it, and Bishop Taylor confesses that it cannot be deduced from the language, or be supported by the authority, of holy writ. Yet a creed which has maintained its ground for almost nine hundred years, and which, excepting the damnatory clauses, is said, by its supporters, to derive its origin from an evangelist, the precursor and herald of Jesus Christ; a creed which has received the open assent or silent subscription of ten thousand sincere christians and excellent divines, ought not to be hastily rejected.

"I acknowledge that it is a complication of subtleties," says one of its learned and able defenders; "but to guard Christianity against the attacks of its adversaries, the verbose rhetoricians of the day, it was necessary to fight them with their own weapons, and by opposing subtleties to subtleties, exhibit an acknowledged and generally received truth in the technical phrases and verbal niceties of its enemies.

On a subject which has for ages alarmed the fears or roused the zeal of many great and many good men, little of novelty can be produced; the question, indeed, can never be satisfactorily or finally settled, until we have determined whether reason is or is not necessary in matters of revelation. I appeal to every considerate orthodox member of our establishment, I appeal to every rational christian, to lay their hands on their hearts, and to say, whether it is possible to peruse this creed without suspense, or to assent to it without hesitation: how painful then must be the task, how keen the regrets of many a worthy clergyman of the church of England, who, at stated intervals, is compelled to declare, with its unknown compiler, that an absolute and unqualified agreement with its elaborate doctrines is, BEFORE ALL THINGS, necessary to salvation; that he who, in the struggle of reason, tramples on its tenets, or, in the timidity of mental reservation, evades its abstruse mysteries, shall, without doubt, PERISH EVERLASTINGLY. I am convinced that the intricacies of this ecclesiastic scale, in which unity and polytheism tremble on the balance, or alternately kick the beam, joined with the inhumanity of the obnoxious clauses, and the unaccommodating zeal

with which, in some instances, they have been insisted on; I am convinced that these untoward circumstances have driven many individuals from the pale of our national church, and ultimately into the disconsolate wilds of deism; for doubt or disgust, once excited, seldom remains at rest in a studious contemplative mind. "The thirty-second verse of the thirteenth chapter of St. Mark," says a divine of the establishment, "clears all my doubts, and at once quiets my mind on the subject; ' of that day and hour knoweth no man, neither the angels which are in Heaven, nor the son, but the father.' Is not this," continues the same writer," is not this a regular climax, beginning with the lowest order of intelligent beings, and ascending gradually to the highest? is not the knowledge of the day of judgment denied, first to men, then to angels, then to the son of God!"

In answer to this quotation, it has been said that, by the law of scripture analogy, passages which apparently contradict the Athanasian hypothesis, should be accommodated to those which confirm it; a canon of theological criticism to which every man will agree, the moment he is convinced that the author of the creed in question was divinely inspired and infallible; and it cannot be denied, that texts occur in the holy scriptures, equally favourable to a different explanation. But waving the divine authority and scriptural correctness of this part of our liturgy, is it consistent with the opinion we are taught to entertain of Almighty God, whose wisdom as well as mercy appears in all his works; is it possible to suppose that he would have insisted on the belief of a specuÎative opinion, as essentially necessary to salvation, without a plain, clear and open avowal of it? Would it not repeatedly and explicitly have been laid down, and alike by all the inspired writers of the New Testament, as a fundamental principle of the christian revelation; a sine quâ non, previous to the admission of any person to share its benefits? Would the Creator of the world, in whom omnipotence and intelligence are evidently united, would he have left the present peace and the future destiny of a considerable portion of mankind to depend on the heated imaginations and the interested decisions of polemic rhetoricians, on a letter, a syllable, or a word; on the difference between a person and a being; a difference which it is not easy to imagine, and I think impossible to describe?

If, as is the opinion of many, the soundness of whose faith, and the goodness of whose intention, I have neither right nor inclination to call in question; if the entire removal of the Athanasian Creed from our national liturgy, is thought, at the present crisis, unsafe and inexpedient, long may it remain; for I confess with shame and regret, that it is a subject on which, after many a bitter struggle, I have not yet formed a decided opinion: indeed of what avail are doctrinal investigation and speculative opinion without that more essential orthodoxy, a pure heart, and an amended life!! But justice, humanity, and good policy require, that the reading it, or not reading it, should be left to the discretion of the minister, who is too often obliged to submit to that most odious compromise, religious hypocrisy, or to relinquish the support of his family. This salutary and reasonable regulation was approved of and proposed by Arch

bishop Tillotson, by the Bishops Taylor, Pearson, Beverley, and Clayton; by the learned and pious Doctors Cave, Hole, Bennett; and lastly, by that eminent divine, as well as great lawyer, Lord Chancellor King.

On the other hand, it has been observed by some of its defenders, that an implicit, orthodox, pure, uncontaminated faith, is more manageable in a state, and more conducive to the peace of the church, than rational conviction, or the hallowed warmth of sincere devotion: I once pronounced, and I again repeat my emphatic protest against such an odious, abominable, time-serving system, which strips from religion consolation and purity of heart, and in their place wraps around it a parti-coloured robe of worldly policy, and disgraces a countenance divine with a mask of atheistic perfidy. If once an opinion should be impressed on the great body of the people, that in matters of religion profession and belief do not go hand in hand, the church of any country under such circumstances totters to its foundation; sooner or later it must fall, and christianity, however its flourishing may be insisted on by some as wholly independent of worldly support, Christianity may be buried in its ruins. This awful, this momentous truth, confirmed by past ages and evinced by present example, I would wish to impress strongly on prelates and

statesmen.

The following is part of the speech of Dr. Clayton, a bishop in Ireland, on his making a motion in the house of peers for expunging the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds; a motion which the primate declared "MADE HIS EARS TINGLE."

"The Athanasian Creed," said Dr. Clayton, "has not even the authority of a council to support it, but is now a known forgery, detected by the criticisms of the learned Vossius; it cannot be traced within two hundred years of Athanasius. Perhaps it may be asked, How come it then to bear his name? The answer is, that it agrees with the Athanasian doctrine, and had his name affixed to it by the church of Rome, because he was a person much esteemed by that church, which has long laboured to propagate his political and religious principles; but as the true character of Athanasius is not generally known, I beg leave to inform your lordships who and what he was. Athanasius was a young, forward, petulant deacon, in the church of Alexandria, of an ambitious spirit, and with talents admirably suited for disputation. Having no probability of succeeding to the Bishopric of Alexandria, unless he could drive out Arius, who was the senior presbyter in that church, he fomented a dispute on the subject of the Trinity between the archbishop and Arius, who being obstinate, uncomplying, or sincere, was excommunicated and expelled from the city. The old prelate died not long after, when Athanasius, only twenty-eight years of age, by a union of force and corruption ascended the archiepiscopal throne, was illegally consecrated, and confirmed in his see by the Emperor Constantine. But the turbulent arrogance of his spirit was not to be controlled by gratitude or by policy; he grossly insulted his benefactor the emperor, and treated Constantius, his successor, with insolence and contempt; for this, and other irregularities, he was deposed by a numerous council of bishops regularly assembled; but in defiance of

ecclesiastic discipline and the laws of decency and justice, he forced his way into the see over the murdered bodies of his antagonists, and made a forcible and bloody entrance into the cathedral. All the enormities I have mentioned were committed with the concurrence of the Vatican; for it ought to be observed, that while Athanasius treated his royal master and the rest of mankind with insult and defiance, he paid servile court and implicit obedience to the papal chair. This slavish submission paid by Athanasius to Julius, is the first precedent that can be produced in the books of the canon law, in support of the supremacy of the pope, who till that time was considered as little more than bishop of Rome. Your lordships will be so good as to observe that I do not take upon me to say, that the doctrine contained in the Athanasian Creed is false; I only say that it is not plainly and clearly revealed; nor do I presume to condemn those who think they have evidence sufficient to justify their being peremptory and positive in support of it. I judge no man: I only say it contains a doctrine of too nice, difficult, and metaphysical a nature to be made the subject of a creed, directed to be read by the minister and repeated by the congregation. But, my lords, let us suppose for arguments sake, that the doctrine contained in this creed should be wrong; and unless the author was, what no human being ever was, infallible, there is a possibility that it may be so ; in that case, let us only imagine what would be the consequence-it would be no less than blasphemy; it is indeed the dread and terror of an erroneous determination on so delicate a point, that makes me solicitous to remove it from the liturgy."

In answer to the bishop it was observed, that his disapproving the Athanasian Creed was by no means a sufficient reason for rejecting it; that he should have been direct, explicit, and particular in pointing out how far it agreed or disagreed with the holy scriptures, which after all are the only true standard by which such questions can be properly decided. It has often been lamented, that the doors of admission into the church of England were not more liberally widened; on this subject it was said, by a writer who has been justly accused of treating serious subjects with too much levity; on this occasion he observed, "that there were many good things in the church for which the candidates were numerous, in general more than the good mother can effectually provide for; that by adding breadth to the door, the number of those who enter would of course be proportionately increased, and the share of ecclesiastical loaves and fishes to be divided among the orthodox proportionately diminished."

ATTORNEY GENERAL, an officer of the crown, armed by the laws of England, or by immemorial usage, with powers apparently inconsistent with a free constitution, and which it has been the earnest wish of many great and many good men, to see moderated and restrained. In the business of filing informations, and carrying on what have been called ex officio prosecutions, he is not directed by the previous examination of a grand jury, or controlled by the established forms of any court, which are cautiously observed in all other cases; by his own mere

motion, he can give a name to, and put any construction he pleases on, the conduct, the writing, or even the thoughts, of any person whatever. His proceedings are commenced without any previous affidavit, and if, in the course of the trial, there appears a probability of failing in his charge, he incurs neither risk nor expense, as is regularly the case with all other prosecutors, but by a short motion puts an end to the suit, and saddles an unfortunate, perhaps an innocent defendant, with heavy and ruinous costs. Another circumstance which has attached suspicion to this mode of proceeding, is, that the Attorney General is a law officer removeable at pleasure, and placed in the high road to promotion; a trying situation, dangerous to human virtue, which is not always sufficiently powerful to make a man decide in favour of conscience, duty, and honour, against a good place, the solicitations of a minister, or the mandates of his master.

In defence of this species of prosecution, the crown lawyers have replied, that the licentiousness of the press has been, and still is, carried beyond all bounds of decency and truth; that kings and ministers are continually exposed, by artful seditious writers, to hatred and contempt; that in the business of proceeding against libels on government, juries are notoriously partial to the side of the people; that in the most flagrant cases, a verdict cannot be obtained for the king; and that a judicial and more summary method, free from the inconveniences of popular restraint, is for urgent reasons absolutely necessary.

I cannot, I will not deny, that the temper of the times has, in general, an influence on jurymen, who are men of like passions with ourselves, and are in fact aliquot parts of that public, on whose interests and demerits they are frequently called on to pronounce; yet many trials, in the memory of my readers, prove that an English jury is by no means insensible of the respect due to the executive power, nor tardy in bestowing exemplary punishment on the defamers of public worth or private virtue. The general cry which has echoed through the land against ex officio informations, has been considered by many as a sufficient reason for modifying and restraining them; nothing in general being so likely to counteract the impartial administration of justice, as a defendant coming into court with every appearance of having been rigorously or unfairly proceeded against. It is also the opinion of several sound lawyers, whom I could easily name, and whose inclinations in favour of the liberty of the subject will never be numbered with their faults; it is their decided opinion, that whenever the Attorney General commences a prosecution, the defendant, as in other cases, ought to be permitted to show cause why the information should not be granted. This rational and salutary concession would still leave ample discretionary power in the breast of a court; would deprive many a plausible superficial declaimer against our constitution of a powerful common-place argument; and refusing it cannot be defended on any plea of justice, common sense, or good design.

AUBRIOT, HUGO, a native of Dijon, and Provost or Mayor of Paris, in the reign of Charles the Fifth, King of France; a stern