and Truth, who leadeth men by a way that they know not, in order to answer the purposes of his beneficent Providence, which shall end in the ultimate removal of all darkness, and the wiping away of all tears from all eyes, throughout the whole creation.

The writer of these pages was a few years ago enabled, by the kindness of Mrs. Bromley, of Hayling Island, to present to the Philosophical Society at Portsmouth a complete collection of Mr. Taylor's writings, some of which are now extremely scarce.

D. B. PRICE.

MR. SHARPE ON THE EGYPTIAN ORIGIN OF THE TRINITY IN

UNITY.

In the Egyptian temples we find the gods were often worshiped in groups of thrce. In Thebes, these were Amunra, the sun; Maut, the mother; and Chonso, their child: in other places, Ra, the sun; Pthah, the god of Memphis; and the Nile; while in other cities they were Isis, her brother Osiris, and their son Horus. No images are now more common in our cabinets of curiosities than the group of Isis, her son Horus, and her sister Nephthys. This worship of the number Three was common to the earliest as well as the latter times; we see it in the temples of Rameses and in those of the Ptolemies.

Plutarch, in his treatise on Isis and Osiris, explains this, and tells us that the Egyptians considered that every thing perfect had three parts, and therefore that the God of Good made himself threefold, while the God of Evil remained single. And he adds, that they worshiped Osiris, his sister Isis, and their son Horus, under this form of a right-angled triangle, in which Horus, as proceeding from the other two, was the side opposite to the right angle.

This is a distinct Trinity in Unity in the time of Plutarch; but we have no evidence in the older monuments to prove that the groups of three gods before spoken of bore that character. Indeed, it is far more probable that it was only in modern times, after the fall of Thebes, after the Persian conquest in 523 B. C., that the priests began to explain away their polytheism by the scheme of a plurality in unity. Thus the Hebrew Scriptures, in the Book of Deuteronomy, ch. vi. 4, say, The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. This is only forbidding polytheism. But when the Septuagint translation was made by the Greck Jews in Alexandria in the reign of Philadelphus, the Egyptian priests had already invented the plan of explaining away the absurdity of their numerous gods by calling them a plurality in unity; and, in opposition to this new scheme, the translators make that text declare, The Lord our God is one Lord.

This change of opinion, or rather this having one doctrine for the ignorant crowd, and another doctrine for the select few, is shewn in the architecture of the more modern temples. In the older temples, the portico was open to the crowd in the court-yard to see the ceremonies performed under it; but in the time of the Ptolemies they built a low wall or screen across the portico, which had before been open to the sight of all. Henceforth there was a separation between the cere

monies for the priests and the ceremonies for their followers in the court-yard.

This love of mysticism also took hold of the Alexandrian Jews, as we see in the writings of Philo. This eloquent and earnest writer found an allegory or secondary meaning in the plainest narrative of the Old Testament. In his book De Cherubim, he says Abraham's wife Sarah is Wisdom, while Hagar is Instruction. In his book De Agricultura he says, God's Word is his first begotten Son, by whom he governs the world. In his book De Abrahamo, speaking of the Creator, he says, there are three orders, of which the best is the Being that is, who has two ancient powers near him, one on the one side and one on the other; the one on the right hand being called God, and the one on the left Lord; and that the middle Divinity, accompanied on each side by his powers, presents to the enlightened mind sometimes one image and sometimes three.

The writer of the Apocryphal book named the Wisdom of Solomon, who proves himself to have lived in Alexandria after the time of Philo and to have been a Christian, makes a person of God's Word, by whom he made all things, and who afterwards leapt down from heaven in the time of Moses to punish the Egyptians,—and also of God's Wisdom, who was present at the creation, and who was an unspotted mirror of his power and the image of his goodness. Here we have a Trinity of persons in the Godhead; and when the word Trinity is first used, it is by Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch, who describes it as the Almighty, his Word, and his Wisdom.

The Trinity in Unity is not the only part of modern orthodoxy which claims an Egyptian origin. Among the persons whom the Egyptians worshiped was a being who had two natures, one human and one divine. Osiris was at the same time a man and a god. He was put to death as a man, and worshiped as a god. At the annual ceremony, when the priests consoled Isis for the death of Osiris, this inconsistency was remarked and discussed by the Greeks. And Xenophanes, who travelled in Egypt about the time of Herodotus, wittily and wisely argued with the priests, that if they thought Osiris a man, they should not worship him, and if a god, they need not lament his sufferings.

It was moreover in Egypt that the word God was first used in that lower and less important sense in which alone it was applied to beings who had lived and walked upon earth. The Greek and Roman gods, Jupiter, Apollo, and the rest, were all supposed to have some share in the government of the world, and as such fairly entitled to the prayers of those who believed in them. In Alexandria, on the other hand, the kings, while living and tyrannizing over their subjects, were called gods; Cleopatra, living in vice with Antony, was called a goddess. But they never fancied that such people had any share in creating and governing the world, or were to be addressed with prayers by the devout. And it was only in the lower sense that Justin Martyr, Origen and Clemens of Alexandria, called Jesus a god. Indeed, Origen expressly says in his Treatise on Prayer, that Jesus ought not to be prayed to; and Clemens shews his use of the word by saying that every good Christian, rising in piety daily, may, if he take pains, at last become a god walking upon earth.

SAMUEL SHARPE.

LINES ON HYDE CHAPEL.

Nor in rich dome or ample hall
Our pious fathers bent the knee,
But where the earth was free to all,
They sought and found their liberty.
Their temple was the eternal sky,

Their "hallowed ground" the fresh green sod, And on the wild winds sweeping by,

Their hymns were wafted up to God.
There, to the deep wood's dim recess,
Or to some gorge of yon bare hill,
Steal the brave few, who dare confess
Their faith against a nation's will:
In Nature's solitude they raise

The still small voice of contrite prayer,
And there the song of grateful praise

Goes echoing through the midnight air. Prayer, that no trial their faith might shake In thought's eternal liberty

That, as in life they mocked the stake,

Death, when he came, might find them free: Thanks, that though fallen on evil days, Theirs, by God's grace, had been the lot To journey still in honest ways,

To buy the truth and sell it not.

Praise be to Him! our church-spire stands
Proudly before the eye of heaven;
We bow the knee to no commands
By any earthly hierarch given.
In Him we trust, whate'er betide,

Whose arm hath our salvation wrought,
And fear not that our God will chide
The utterance of our honest thought.

And though, thank God! those days are fled,
And ours is now a happier time,

When Conscience need not hide her head,
And love of Truth is not a crime,-
Still may be ours their earnest mind,
Their godward life, their steadfast will,
The daring arm no threat could bind,
The honest tongue no bribe could still!

Still may be ours the loving heart,
Yielding the freedom which it sought,
Like her who chose the better part,
Sat ever waiting to be taught.
Still may be ours the hopeful love,
Which o'er the raging waves of strife
Brings blissful tidings, like the dove,

Of rest beyond the sea of life.

Our Fathers' God! we humbly trust

That when the last of this our train
Shall mingle with the common dust,

Our work may not be all in vain.
Here may our sons Thy name confess-
Here burn Devotion's purest fire-
And children's children learn to bless

The hands that raised the old grey spire!

C.

MR. KENTISH'S SERMONS.*

WE receive and welcome this interesting volume of Discourses with a feeling of reverence. Its venerable author has associated his name with the assertion of liberal Christianity in England for a period very little short of sixty years. It will surprise those who are only acquainted with the Unitarian literature of the last few years, and who have appreciated the vigorous style of his latest occasional sermons and his recent contributions to our periodicals, to learn that Mr. Kentish commenced his ministry so far back as 1790, and first appeared before the public as an author in 1794. It is a rare occurrence to see the mental powers applied with undiminished force through two entire generations; perhaps it is still more rare in such a case to see the same pursuits and principles followed for so long a period with unflagging interest. In the author of these Discourses we see not only an instructor of the present generation, but one of the very few remaining links that connect us with the age of Theophilus Lindsey† and Dr. Priestley. Long continued as has been Mr. Kentish's pastoral relation with "the members of the society of the New Meeting-house in Birmingham," to whom this volume is dedicated, he had previously given his ministerial services to two congregations in the West of England and to three Metropolitan societies. As at Hackney and Newington Green he was one of the successors of Dr. Price, so at Hackney and Birmingham he was of Dr. Priestley. We see in him first the pupil and then the colleague of Mr. Belsham, and afterwards the co-pastor of Dr. Toulmin.

In the minds of many persons, these circumstances will add not a little to the interest which of right belongs to these Sermons on account of their sterling and varied merits. The volume is not, in the ordinary sense of the term, published. It is, we believe, distributed by its

Sermons, by John Kentish. 8vo. Pp. 468. Birmingham-James Belcher and Son. 1848.

We have lying before us a letter, dated May 12, 1791, in the autograph of Theophilus Lindsey, from which we extract the following passage:-"I congratulate you on the excellence, seasonableness and happy success of your father's discourse at the opening of the Unitarian chapel at Plymouth Dock. From such an opening, and from two such zealous, enlightened ministers as Messrs. Porter and Kentish, what may we not expect!" The letter is addressed to Rev. Mr. Toulmin, Chowbent, Manchester.

author as a gift to the members of his congregation. We are sure that they will put a high value on the work, as a memorial of their venerable pastor's labours amongst them, and of his solicitude for their spiritual welfare.

We are glad to see that Mr. Kentish has throughout the volume illustrated the difference between a theological or a moral essay and a sermon. He has not been betrayed by his copious learning or his aptitude for biblical criticism, into theological disquisition which befits the chair of the College Professor rather than the pulpit of the Christian Minister. The text and context are generally illustrated with happy brevity. We do not remember to have seen a volume of Sermons in which the texts are more felicitously chosen. There is a plentiful seasoning of well-chosen and rightly-applied Scripture language, the want of which is so serious a defect in most of the American and some of the recent English preachers. Our author has proved that it is possible to combine a considerable degree of unction with an accurate style and elegant diction. The Sermons are, without exception, short, as are also the appended Sacramental Addresses. In aiming at brevity, however, Mr. Kentish has in no instance contented himself with a superficial treatment of his subject, nor has he failed to preserve the proper proportion between the several parts of his discourse. There is internal evidence of preliminary care in the outline, and of patient thoughtfulness in the execution of each sermon.

We are far from saying that they are all of equal merit; this the principle on which the volume appears to be constructed forbids. Designed as a memorial of his habitual preaching, to be placed in the hands of those who have for a long series of years been instructed by it, Mr. Kentish has properly selected specimens of discourses on all those topics which of necessity at times engage the attention of the judicious preacher. Without professing to give an analysis of each discourse, we now proceed to offer an account of the subject and occasion of most of them, and to select a few passages which our readers will peruse with pleasure.

The volume opens with a serious and impressive sermon, preached on the first Sunday of the year, urging "Self-dedication to God." The second sermon has for its text Psalm xxxix. 9, I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it. Thus sweetly is the subject of the sermon deduced from the text:

"Could I draw the picture of RESIGNATION, this verse should give me the design. I would paint her with no sullen brow, with no features denoting insensibility to pain: I would represent her with a countenance marking recent sorrow, yet expressive of serene and holy trust. Wiping the 'natural tears' of Grief, and looking up to Heaven, she should appear to say, 'I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it.""

Sermons III. and IV. are upon the incommunicable Bitterness of the Heart, as Sermons V. and VI. are on the incommunicable Gladness of the Heart. In Sermon VII., Penitential is contrasted with Worldly Sorrow; and all of these discourses are marked with the nice discrimination of one who has closely observed the workings of the human soul. From Sermon VIII., which is entitled, "The Humble Worshiper deprecating God's Justice," we select the explanation of the text and of kindred passages of Scripture, which is as just as it is striking.