The Sun.
London, England, 1827-11-24 00:00:00

the languages of Scripture ; so that at all events
the present men are not much worse than their
predecessors. A key to this may be found in
Goldsmith's account of the offer to teach Greek
in the Univerity of Louvain. " Why (said the
jolly head of the University) I eat well, and
drink well, and sleep well, without knowing
Greek, and I think therefore that Greek may be
very well dispensed with." The Leyden Doc-
tors, were they to come to England, would find
their brethren in England, though little acquaint-
ed with Biblical learning, much stauncher in their
orthodoxy than our earlier Divines, who ad-
dicted themselves to that sort of learning ; for,
as has been well observed, the man who does not
hunt for difficulties is less likely to meet with
them than he who does ; and they would find
moreover that their brethren here are noways
deficient in those arts and acquirements which
lead to livings. However this may be, a theolo-
gical appointment has taken place in Edinburgh,
which would please even the Leyden Doctors,
and must produce corresponding fruits. We
allude to the appointment of Dr. Chalmers to the
Theological Chair. This Doctor has just pub-
ished a Sermon preached by him at Belfast on
the 23d September last, in which he com-
mences with giving St. Athanasius a hard hit.
The terrible denunciations of St. Athanasius
have not helped," he says, " they have injured
the cause." Hear this, ye Archbishops of
Dublin ! But not content with treating St.
Athanasius in this manner, he actually wishes
that the hearts of the Trinitarians might be
softened towards Unitarians, and that Orthodoxy
might clear itself occasionally of her bile.—" And
would the heart of Trinitarian (he says) be but
as obediently schooled by this passage (let
nothing be done through strife, &c.)—would
Orthodoxy, instead of the strife and the vain
glory which have given her so revolting an aspect,
both of pride and sternness, but put on her
bowels of mercy, and to her truth add tender-
ness—would the champions of a Saviour's dig-
nity but learn of his meekness and lowliness, and
while they assert him to be God manifest in the
flesh, meet the perversity of gainsayers in the
very spirit of gentleness that he did—this were
the way by which the Church militant might be
borne onwardly and upwardly to the station of
the Church triumphant in the world. This is
the way in which, by the mechanism of our
moral nature, to obtain ascendancy over the
hearts of men. Truth will be indebted for her
best victories, not t 6 the overthrow of heresy,
discomfited on the field of argument, but to the
surrender of heresy, disarmed of that in which
her strength and her stability lie—of her pas-
sionate, because provoked wilfulness. Charity
will do what reason cannot do. It will take that
which letteth out of the way—even that wrath
of man, which worketh neither the truth
nor the righteousness of God." On another
point, Dr. Chalmers reads a lecture to those
zealots in the City, who, in order to make them-
selves of consequence, have done so much to in-
jure religion. The following passage is descry-
ina of all commendation in these days of hypo-
crisy, when recourse is had to a barbarous legis-
lation, which, to the disgrace of the age, may
still b© enforced, in order to injure the cause to
the aid of which it is brought. The passage is,
indeed, highly honourable to Dr. Chalmers, and
we hope it will have the effect of stirring up
other Theologians to rescue themselves from the
seeming disgrace of requiring the arm of the
Judge to support them :
" But our time does not permit of any further illustrA-
tion—else we might have shown, at greater length, how,
by the oversight of this great principle, the cause both of
truth and of righteousness has been impeded in the world.
Theologians have forgotten it in their controversies ; States-
men have forgotten it in their laws. Never was there a
greater blunder in legislation than that by which the forces
•of the Statute-book have been enlisted on the side of truth ;
and error, as was quite natural, instead of being subdued,
has been thereby settled down into tenfold obstinacy. The
glories of martyrdom have been transferred front the right
to the wrong side of the question ; and superstition, which,
in a land of perfect light and perfect liberty, would bide
her head as ashamed, gathers a title of respect, and stands
forth in a character of moral heroism, because of the in-
justice which has been brought to bear upon her. She
ought, :,11 all wisdom, to have been left to her own natural
decay, or at least, reason and kindness are the only en-
gines which should have been made to play upon her
strong-nolds. But, with such an auxiliary as the mere
authority of terror, upon the one side, and such a resist-
ance as that of a generous and high-minded indignation
upon the other—there have arisen the elements of an inter-
minable warfare. And not till truth, relieved of so un-
seemly an associate, be confined to the use of her proper
weapons, will she be reinstated on her proper vantage-
ground. It is not in the fermentation of human passions,
and human politics, that the lessons of heaven caa be with
efficacy taught—and ere these lessons shall go abroad in
triumph over the length and breadth of the laud, we must
recal the inipolicy by which we have turned a whole
people into a nation of outcasts. To exclude is surely not
the way to assimilate. It is by pervading, instead of se-
parating into an unbroken mass, and then placing it off at
a distance from us—it is by extensively mingling with the
men of another denomination, in all the walks of civil and
political business—it is then that the occasions of converse
and of courtesy will be indefinitely multiplied—and then
will it he found that it is by an influence altogether oppo-
site to the wrath of man, that we are enabled to work the
righteousness of God."
We regret that a recent prosecution should
have thrown a stain on the present Administra-
tion. , for though the Administration have not
countenanced the prosecution, yet it is unfortu-
nate that the return to the old spirit should have
so soon followed the deatili of Mr. Canning. We
regret that the Attorney-General did not use his
authority to crush it, which Ile might have done,
and that it should have been reserved to a Whig
Attorney-General to mix himself up even pro-
fessionally with prosecutions, which his predeces-
sor in office contrived to steer clear of. IN here-
ever there is freedom, there will be diversity.
The only security for truth is, that the mind of
man is so constituted, that when truth and error
present themselves to it, the former will be pre-
ferred to the latter. If truth cannot stand its
ground againsg, error, we must abandon all faith
in a beneficent Creator. Error has its use in
the order of the universe, for it often leads us to
a clearer view of truth. The principle is de-
testable, and unworthy of a free rnan, that the
manifestation of any opinions whatsoever should
become subject of punishment. If the opinions
are bad and mischievous, they will be rejected
the more easily. If they are propounded in an
impertinent manner, they will excite a feeling of
disgust which will only -impede the more their
reception. In short there is no reason for a re-
currence to law, but the mere wish to gratify
malevolent feelings, the love to tyrannize—to
command rather than persuade. The Judges
approve of these prosecutions, on the principle
which leads one sheep to follow another—be-
cause other Judges have approved of them.
They approve of them just as their predecessors
approved of the torture, and their most timid
predecessors of the trial by hot iron ; because
Judges are generaily wedded to what they find
established.—Morning Chronicle.

The Ministerial Journals take much praise to
themselves for contradicting, as they say upon
authority, the report of Sir John Gore having
been sent out to supersede Sir E. Codrington
in his command. To this report, if understood