and unexpected attack. From this confideration perhaps it may be inferred, that the weapons of an adversary so incautiously aimed, might have been allowed to spend their force, and fall harmless to the ground. It may no doubt be thought a needless waste both of time and labour, to employ them in the refutation of arguments which, like all those that have ever been produced against Episcopacy in general, have been already fo often refuted; or even to take so much pains in defending our own Epifcopacy in particular, from an attack, which has nothing but its novelty, and perhaps the character of its author, to support it. With respect to the former, we have already faid all that is necessary to shew, how little strength there is in it: In regard to the latter, we could wish to say nothing; because we are well aware how much weight will be thought due to it.

Far be it from us to say any thing, that could be fuppofed to detract from the perfonal worth, and purity of morals, which distinguished the character of Dr. Campbell. We know him to have been in general, as his biographer justly describes him-" a

man of a mild disposition, and even temper, and " who was not much subject to paffion." We recollect with pleasure the opinion delivered by him in favour of a repeal of the penal laws, which, in times of civil commotion, had been passed against the Scotch Epifcopalians, as well as against those of the Roman catholic perfuafion. And as far as we were concerned in the relief which was obtained from the severity of these statutes, all due acknowledgement was made, for the friendly part which Dr. Campbell had acted in recommending the measure, as reasonable in itself, and what, he thought, would be generally agreeable to the established church of Scotland. To express our gratitude on that occafion to him, and to every one else who had any hand in procuring for us the toleration which we now happily enjoy, was both our bounden duty, and our earnest defire; and we cannot charge ourselves with any neglect of what was so justly incumbent on us. Yet our fpiritual character we must regard as of infinitely greater consequence, than any temporal indulgence which we can possibly meet with: And as it was Dr. Campbell's avowed opinion, that " true

religion never flourished fo much, nor fpread fo rapidly as when, instead of perfecuting, it was perfecuted, and instead of obtaining support from "human fanctions, it had all the terrors of the ma

giftrate, and the laws armed against it,"† we have fome reafon to suspect, that the removal of these terrors was confidered as no great fupport to our cause, while room was left to beat it down from another quarter, and a proof of the invalidity of our clerical orders was thought to be a severer blow than any effect of fines and imprisonments. Relieved as

we

† See his " Address to the people of Scotland, on the alarms which had "been raifed by the bill in favour of the Roman Catholics,"

1

we have been from the latter by the clemency of government, we must still feel the weight of the former, if not repelled by the force of those arguments, which the cause we have to maintain so plentifully affords: And should these be found to fail in producing the designed effect on every unprejudiced mind, it must be owing to the weakness with which they are urged, and not to any want of strength in the arguments themselves. One thing we wish to be constantly remembered; that this dormant controverfy has not been revived on our part from any other motive than what has arisen from abfolute neceffity: And whatever has been faid in the course of our reasoning against some of the pofitions laid down by Dr. Campbell. has been brought forward entirely in our own defence, and to affert our right to that firm ground, on which the belief of Epifcopacy as a divine institution has hitherto rested with inviolable security.

Had our Professor's Theological Lectures been confined to the chair from which they were delivered, and reached no farther than the circle of his pupils, we should not have been obliged to take any notice even of that part of them which was directly intended to oppose the principles and pretenfions of what he calls the "Scotch Epifcopal party ;" because, as an established Lecturer, he had a right to instruct his students as he thought proper, in the peculiar tenets of his own and their profeffion. But when these inftructions were committed to the press,

and

and published to the world, for the evident purpose of impreffing on the public mind not only a mean and unfavourable idea of the established form of church government in the other part of the kingdom, but a thorough contempt of what still remains of the ancient establishment of this country, we could not allow ourselves to be wholly filent on a subject, with which our best and dearest interests are fo intimately connected, nor fuffer the Epifcopal Church of Scotland to appear as without a friend in the day of her humiliation, complaining as it were, in the words of the prophet, that there was none

to take her by the hand, of all the fons that she "had brought up." - If it shall be faid, that the appearance we have now made in her defence would not have been attempted, had the perfon himfelf been alive, out of whose hands we have endeavoured to refcue her credit and character, it may be sufficient to answer, that if he had intended the attack to be made in such an open and public manner, he would have conducted it after a different form, and fo as to have exhibited a more fatisfying evidence of the truth of what has been faid in his favour,

66

that he was uncommonly liberal to those who " differed from him in religious opinions." If indeed he was fo liberal to the infidel Hume, as to expunge or foften every expreffion that either was fevere, or was only supposed to be offensive,"†

See the Account of bis Life and Writings, prefixed to his Lectures, p. 16.

in

in his controversy with that sceptical philosopher, we might hope, that he would have been no less so to a fociety, or even " party," as he calls them, profeffing to be Christians, and avowing a fincere and uniform belief in all the great truths of divine revelation.* But if we must not prefume to call in queftion

• We have already taken fome distant notice of the favourable opinion which Dr. Campbell entertained of the fentiments professed by one of the most infidious and inveterate enemies of Christianity, and shall now produce a more direct proof of it, in the following letter written by our Profeffor to Mr. Strahan the printer, and dated-June 25, 1776.

" I have lately read over one of your last winter's publications with ve

ry great pleasure, and, I hope, some inftruction. My expectations were

" indeed high, when I began it; but I afsure you, the entertainment I received, greatly exceeded them. What made me fall to it with the greater avidity was, that it had in part a pretty close connection with a fub"ject I had occafion to treat fometimes in my theological Lectures, to wit, "the rife and progress of the hierarchy: And you will believe, that I was "not the lefs pleased to discover, in an hiftorian of so much learning and " penetration, fo great a coincidence with my own fentiments, in relation to " fome obfcure points in the Chrißian antiquities. I suppose, I need not

now inform you, that the book I mean is Gibbon's History of the Fall of "the Roman Empire, which in respect of the style and manner, as well as "the matter, is a most masterly performance." - See Mifcellaneous Works of Edward Gibbon, Esq. &c. published in 2 vol. quarto, by John Lord Sheffield, 1796. In this letter, we cannot but observe the most unqualified approbation given to a work, which, even from what was then published of it, juftified too well the remark that was afterwards made on the whole, that-" the author often makes where he cannot readily find, an occasion to " infult our religion, which he hates so cordially, that he might feem to

revenge fome personal injury." Yet a coincidence in sentiment, with respect to "fome obfcure points in the Christian antiquities," was sufficient to make our theological Lecturer applaud, in the most flattering terms, this avowed bater of Chriftianity. It was enough to secure every encomium which Dr Campbell could bestow, that this impious scoffer at the worship and worshippers of Chrift held the fame opinions as those which