the power of the Roman Empire-and that by means of his disciples, a few poor illiterate fishermen.

Question. You speak of repentance as absolutely necessary to salvation -I would know what you mean by repentance?

Answer. I not only mean a sorrowing for sin, but a labouring to see the malignant nature of it; as setting nature at variance with herself, by placing the animal part before the rational, and thereby putting ourselves on a level with the brute beasts, the consequence of which will be an intestine war in the human frame, until the rational part be entirely weakened, which is spiritual death, which in the nature of the thing renders us unfit for the society of God's spiritual kingdom, and to see the beauty of holiness. On the contrary, setting the rational part above the animal, though it promote a war in the human frame, every conflict and victory affords us grateful reflection, and tends to compose the mind more and more, not to the utter destruction of the animal part, but to the real and true enjoyment of them, by placing Nature in the order that its Creator designed it, which in the natural consequences of the thing promotes Spiritual Life, and renders us more and more fit for Christ's spiritual kingdom; and not only so, but gives to animal life pleasure and joy, that we never could have had without it.

Question. I should be glad to hear you at large upon religion giving pleasure to animal life; for it is represented as taking up our cross and following Christ?

Answer. Our Lord honestly told His disciples of their danger, and what they were to expect by being His followers, that the world would hate them, and for this reason, because they were not of the world, even as He also was not of the world; but He gives them sufficient comfort, showing that He had overcome the world: as if He had said, you must arm yourselves with a resolution to fight, for if you be resolved to be my disciples, you expose the world, by setting their folly in its true light, and therefore every one who is not brought over by your example, will hate and oppose you as it hath Me; but as it hath had no advantage against Me, and I have overcome it, if you continue the conflict, you, by My strength, shall overcome likewise; so that this declaration of our Lord cannot damp the pleasures of life when rightly considered, but rather enlarges them. The same revelation tells us, that the religious life hath the promise of the life that now is, and that which is to come; and not only by the well-regulated mind described in my last answer, as tending to give pleasure and quiet, but by a firm trust in the providence of God, and by the help of an honest calling, industriously pursued, we shall receive such a portion of the comfortable things of this life as shall be fittest for promoting our eternal interest, and that under the direction of infinite wisdom and goodness; and that we shall overcome all our difficulties by being under the protection of infinite power. These considerations cannot fail to give a relish to all the pleasures of life. Besides, the very nature of the thing giving pleasure to a mind so regular as I have already described, it must exalt the mind above those irregular

passions that jar, and are contrary one to another, and distract the mind by contrary pursuits, which is described by the Apostle with more strength in his Epistle to the Romans (chap. 1st, from verse 26 to the end) than any words I am capable of framing; especially if we take our Lord's explanation of the parable of the tares in the field as an improvement of these doctrines, as it is in Matth. xiii., from the 37 to 44 verse; and Rev. xx., from verse 11 to the end. If these Scriptures, seriously considered, can suffer any man to be easy, judge ye, and they will remain truth, whether believed or not. Whereas, on a mind regular and having the animal part under subjection to the rational, in the very nature of the thing gives uniformity of pursuits. The desires, rectified by the Word of God, must give clearness of judgment, soundness of mind, regular affections, whence will flow peace of conscience, good hope, through grace, that all our interests are under the care of our Heavenly Father. This gives a relish to animal life itself, this joy that no man intermeddleth with, and which is peculiar to a Christian or holy life; and its comforts and blessings the whole Scripture is a comment upon, especially our Lord's Sermon upon the Mount, Matth. v. 1-13, and its progress in the parable of the Sower in the xiiith of Matthew.

DR DALRYMPLE AND DR M'GILL.--In Dr Dalrymple's writings, which are expository rather than controversial, Socinianism can merely be detected by the theological critic. His works deserve study in connection with Burns, if at all, for their tone. Mildness and gentleness of character are exhibited in everything he wrote, and the reader is ever and again tempted to discover in statements such as that natural passions are not criminal, save when ill directed or ill employed, that no penitent sinners whatever are excluded from pardon, the origins of the poet's working theory of life, as well as of the theological dogmas which he held so loosely. It is unnecessary, however, to try to construct a system of divinity out of the scattered materials to be found in Dr Dalrymple's expositions. The testimony contained in the dedication to his colleague of his History of Christ for the Use of the Unlearned, to the unremitting accuracy' with which Dr M'Gill explained and applied by lectures the truths of Scripture, shows that he at least believed that he was substantially at one with his brother in regard to doctrine.

Dr M'Gill, on the other hand, was an able and (up to a certain point) bold and frank dogmatist. His Practical Essay on the Death of Jesus Christ (Edinburgh, 1786) was fairly enough described by his chief critic, Mr Dun, minister of Auchinleck, as 'copied after Ebion, Cerinthus, and Socinus.' Though he set out with the avowed intention of calling the attention of Christians to what all are agreed in, rather than to those minuter and less important points in which some may differ from others,' he can hardly have been ignorant that, at all events, the theory of redemp tion which he propounded would probably provoke from the orthodox such criticisms as Mr Dun's. Perhaps, in one passage describing the suffering on the cross, where he spoke of Christ laying aside all appear

ance of his divinity, he thought to disarm such charges as the minister of Auchinleck brought against him-viz., that he was attacking the doctrines which, at license and ordination, he subscribed as his creed, 'and promised to God and the Presbytery to defend and abide in.' M'Gill's theology anticipated in some degree that of Maurice. The principal doctrine of his Essay' is that the death of Christ derived all its efficacy from its being subservient to the plan of divine wisdom and goodness for promoting the chief happiness of man. It is thus stated : Upon the whole, to suffer many indignities in the world, and to die on the cross were not the chief and ultimate ends of our Saviour's mission, nor any direct ends of it at all, but only incidental calamities, which could not fail to come upon him in discharging the duties of his mission faithfully, amidst an evil and adulterous generation. The direct and immediate end of his mission was to preach the gospel of the kingdom, or reveal the Will of God; to confirm his doctrine by proper evidences; to set an example of what he taught; and, in short, to promote the salvation of sinners in the most effectual manner, whatever sufferings the doing so might bring upon him, and though it should cost his life.' Christ's reward was declared to be the power to forgive the penitent and raise the dead to eternal life, as well as to punish the ultimately disobedient; with this power He was invested in return for His obedience.

GOUDIE'S BIBLE.-Essays on Various Important Subjects, Moral and Divine, the work with which John Goldie contributed to the black mischief' which befell orthodoxy, was commonly known as 'Goudie's Bible.' Although the title says 'in three volumes,' it is probable that only the first appeared. It was originally published (price 5s. 6d.) at Glasgow in 1779; a second edition, with a London firm as publishers, being issued six years later, in conjunction with The Gospel Recovered. The book is made up of a large number of essays, not strung together in strict sequence, but all directed to the confuting of the practice of interpreting the Scriptures literally, which is attributed to the Originalists (Burns's Orthodox, or Old Lights). The style is vigorous, but loose in construction, and the grammar is often faulty. While upholding the necessity of revealed religion, Goldie starts with, and supports throughout, the contention that every text of Scripture must be 'brought to the infallible test, the nature and perfection of the true God and if the literal meaning of the text will not agree therewith, it is morally certain that it consists of a figurative sense.' After some beating about the bush, the author applies his test to the subjects of divine revelation and inspiration, and argues with considerable freedom, and not a little heat-he calls the doctrines of the Literalists lying vanities-that we are to receive and esteem revelations only according to the degree they resemble Him to whom they are ascribed for their author.' All this is, however, merely preliminary to an essay on 'Original Sin.' The broadest statement of the author's thesis is this: 'The great cause of all the moral evil that abounds in the world ariseth,

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not from the effect of what they call original sin, proceeding from ordinary generation, but only from that constitution (being subject to vanity) in which Adam was created for a probationary trial, though not proof against but liable to fall.' No textual argument of the 'Originalists' is too trivial for him to refute gravely and philosophically. Thus he declaims and reasons against the doctrines that the human race was depraved through Adam's sin, that animals were likewise depraved by the same cause, that if Adam had not sinned, man would not have died, and so forth. The weeping of children,' a pretended proof of Original Sin, is treated as seriously as Infant Baptism. Depravity, he argues, cannot be conveyed by heredity, because sin is only an act of the creature, and is more metaphysical than the spirit itself, because it depends upon created spirit for its being, and not upon God.'

TAYLOR ON ORIGINAL SIN.--The title of this work is, The Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin Proposed to Free and Candid Examination: By John Taylor. The first edition was published in 1740. The third, dated 1750, is an 8vo volume of nearly 500 pages.

In the first part, the author starts with the admission that 'all truth necessary to salvation is revealed in the Holy Scriptures.' He immediately adds: As for human wisdom and knowledge, I ought to value it, in religious matters, just so much, and so far only, as it serves to unfold the mind and meaning of God in the Scriptures; in the interpretation of which we ought not to admit anything contradictory to the common sense and understanding of mankind.'

He then proceeds to say, that there are no more than five places in the Bible where the consequences of the first sin are certainly spoken of. I. Gen. ii. 17. 'But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.' He argues that the punishment here threatened is simply the loss of that life which God had lately conferred upon Adam. He remarks that there is not one word here relating to Adam's posterity. II. Gen. iii. 7-24. And the eyes of them both were opened,' &c. In this text the commentator sees only that, Adam having sinned, and fallen under shame, guilt, and fear, 'God graciously proposed to continue his race, to appoint his Son, the Messiah, to oppose the kingdom of the Devil, now begun by the sin of Adam, but withal subjected the man to sorrow, labour, and death.' III. 1 Cor. xv. 21, 22. For since by man came death, by man came also resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.' 'From this place,' he says, 'we cannot conclude that any other evil or death came upon mankind in consequence of Adam's first transgression, besides that death from which mankind shall be delivered at the resurrection; whatever that death be.' IV. Rom. v. 12-19. 'Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin,' &c. The author acknowledges that this text is more difficult; but after a long and subtle argument, he arrives at this conclusion, that, furthermore, God in Christ hath

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bestowed upon us mercy and gifts, privileges and advantages, both in this and a future world, abundantly beyond the reversing of any evils we are subject to in consequence of Adam's sin.' V. 1 Tim. ii. 14. On this text the author makes no remarks.

The second part of the work is devoted to an examination of the principal passages of Scripture which have been applied in support of the common scheme of original sin, and have not been discussed in the first part. The passages examined are those adduced as proofs for the propositions laid down in the Larger Catechism of the Westminster Assembly. After discussing the whole, he says: 'I cannot see that we have advanced one step further than where we were at the conclusion of the first part-namely, that the consequences of Adam's first transgression upon us are labour, sorrow, and mortality.' He elsewhere adds: And that thereupon a new dispensation, abounding with grace, was erected in a Redeemer.'

No. III.-TARBOLTON MASON LODGES.

The St James's Tarbolton Lodge, No. 178, was constituted by a charter from Kilwinning in 1771. A number of members left the St James's in 1773, and formed themselves, with some new entrants, into the St David's Lodge. A union of the two took place on the 25th June 1781, and it was agreed that the one lodge then constituted should bear the name of St David's; probably a compliment or concession designed to appease the schismatic body. Burns was admitted an apprentice in this sole Tarbolton Lodge, styled St David's, on the 4th July, and passed and raised on the 1st of October 1781, and these transactions are recorded in the books peculiar to the distinct St David's Lodge. A new disruption took place in June 1782, and the separating body then reconstituted the St James's Lodge. Burns was of this party, and thenceforward his name is found only in the books of the distinct St James's Lodge. It would therefore appear, that though entered in what was nominally the St David's Lodge, he does not properly belong to the detached lodge now bearing that name, but to the lodge distinctly called the St James's, which he has immortalised in verse.

St James's Lodge has still in keeping its minute-book containing three minutes in the poet's handwriting, and thirty signed by him as Depute Master-to which office he was elevated in July 1784. The lodge preserves also the mallet used by Burns when presiding over masonic meetings, the silver badge referred to in the Farewell to the Brethren of St James's Lodge, Tarbolton,' the lodge Bible, dated 1775, presented by Burns, and the holograph letter of 23d August 1787, excusing himself from attending the quarterly meeting. Mr Peter Watson, Annbank, Tarbolton, who has gone thoroughly into the matter, shows that Burns, who, whether living at Lochlea or Mossgiel, must have had several miles to walk in order to attend the meetings of the lodge, was most attentive to his duties.' The Grand Masters, who were drawn from the landed