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truly identical as Ireland is Ireland. Will any man that knows the use of words, say that the above phrases are perfectly equivalent? Instead of this are they not of a completely different meaning? To satisfy any rational being on this point, let the matter be brought to the test. If the phrases are identical in meaning, the one may, in all instances, be substituted for the other. We may speak of the faculties of the doctrine of philosophical necessity; and instead of saying that the doctrine of philosophical necessity is true or false, we may say that the human mind is true or false. Your criticism, Mr. Student, betrays not only ignorance but stupidity.

But the Student tells me, "You should have known that the doctrine of necessity is simply so many facts stated in reference to the human mind." Had it not been for the lesson which I taught him about Pythagoras, he would very likely have assured me, as he had assured Erasmus. But this is an assertion that no man of ordinary powers of discrimination could ever make. A doctrine is not facts: facts are not a doctrine. A doctrine may be founded on facts, but the two things are entirely distinct. No man who knows the use of terms could speak thus. If the necessit of actions is a doctrine, it cannot be the human mind, nor an its attributes, nor operations. You see, Mr. Editor, that notwithst... ing all the trouble I have taken with the Student, I cannot make him a metaphysician. I can give him argument, but it is God only wh can give him an understanding.

The Student says, "To tell us what it is about a future state God could not communicate to us by revelation?" It would be necessary to know that which the Student affirms we are absolutely and confessedly unacquainted with. Here again is a want of discrimination. The writer confounds the knowledge of a thing as a question with the knowledge of its answer.

"Of a future state," says the Student, "our ignorance is about as perfect as it is possible to be about any thing." I charge this assertion with infidelity. Our knowledge of a future state, if the Scriptures are a ground of evidence, extends to several points.

"A knowledge of the mind," says the Student, "is forced upon us whether we will or not." Some knowledge of the human mind is forced on us, but is the knowledge of every thing about the human mind forced upon us? Could not God tell us something about the human mind, that is not known from the mind itself? This is the question.

(To be concluded in our next.)

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RELIGIOUS INTELLIGENCE.

Ordination.-The Presbytery of the North-west of England, in communion with the Established Church of Scotland, met at Brampton, upon Tuesday, the 15th Nov. last; and having been highly satisfied, upon examination of Mr. Hiddleston's li. terary and theological acquirements, proceeded to ordain him by prayer and the imposition of hands. The Rev. R Court, of Maryport, preached from the words of Solomon "He that winneth souls is wise," on which the preacher showed very impressively the value of the soul, and the wisdom requisite in Ministers, under the blessing of heaven, for directing their hearers to the truth and the practice of holi ness. The Rev. Walter Fairlie, of Whitehaven, put the questions prescribed by the General Assembly of the Church, offered up the ordination prayer, and gave an address to the newly-ordained minister. The Rev. C. Turner, of Workington, delivered a most suitable charge to the congregation, and the Rev. James Roddick, of Gretna concluded the solemn services by a discourse in the evening.

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THE

ORTHODOX PRESBYTERIAN.

No. XXX.

MARCH, 1832.

VOL. III.

NATIONAL EDUCATION, VIZ.:—

Resolutions and Petition of the General Synod of Ulster— Parliamentary Debates-Petition from the Congregation of Broughshane-Protest of the Archbishops and Bishops of the Established Church.

THE great question of education remains still undetermined, and we make no pretensions to foretelling the result. We are, however, by constitution, more given to hope than to fear; yet we do confess that, on three accounts, our fears are rather predominant. First, because there is in Parliament such a united phalanx of Popery and Infidelity to attack the character of every individual, and of every public body that dares to petition; second, because of the tact, zeal, and violence with which Popery and Infidelity continue to wield the public press; and thirdly, from the apathy or timidity of many Protestants, who either care not, or dare not, to express their opinions. Of these three causes of fear, the second seems to us the most formidable. The press is a mighty engine of good or evil. One time it appears in all the splendour of a rising sun beaming forth its light upon the dark chaos of ignorance; at another time it seems as the awaking arm of the Almighty smiting down with irresistible force every enemy of God and man; but again it becomes dark as the thunder cloud, and mortal as the sirocco of the desert; it flashes or it breathes upon life and loveliness, and ghastliness and death are left the monuments of its power. Again it becomes "Satan's seat," the place "where Satan dwelleth," where he raises himself up in proud defiance against God, and battles with his Son for the dominion of the universe.

This satanic power of the press is most dexterously and powerfully wielded by the advocates of Popery and Infidelity; and in no case have they exhibited more zeal

than in their opposition to scriptural education. Their tactics appear reducible to one practical plan-so to abuse every friend of Bible education, that no one may dare to be its advocate. They hope to put down scriptural education by affrighting Protestants into silence or desertion. Thus Dr. Crolly, the Roman Catholic Bishop, flings aside that usual reserve by which he has so long and so effectually cajoled the Protestants of Belfast, and assails from one common battery of misstatement and calumny, the good name of the living and the ashes of the dead. The wily Jesuit thinks he would gain his point, could he affright Lord Donegall from giving countenance to the friends of scriptural education—a plan not unlikely to succeed, in future, when we consider the modest and retiring character of that amiable nobleman. Next we have had the rude, unmannered, assault of Mr. Sharman Crawford and his vociferous associates, against Lord Dufferin, when presiding at a meeting to petition Parliament in favour of scriptural education; on which occasion his lordship, with upwards of four hundred of the moral and personal respectability of the parish of Rangor, retired, for peace's sake, before the clamour and violence of little more than one hundred, chiefly the riff raff of the neighbourhood. Here we have just another example of that violence by which Popery and Infidelity hope, in future, to deter another nobleman from any public patronage of scriptural education. His lordship's sentiments and habits have ever been to court the shade, to promise less and perform more than other men; and, we doubt not, he must feel dissatisfied at the unkindness of Mr. Crawford and the violence of his partizans. But we trust, that in both these, and in other similar cases, the tactics of the enemies of scrip. tural education will fail of their object; and that these distinguished noblemen will continue their countenance and support to the cause of the truth, unmoved by the violence or cunning of its enemies.

Next we have the editorial labours of the Radical and Popish press, both in Dublin and the North, in which they so abundantly bespatter every one who has dared to write or to speak in favour of scriptural education; and then we have the polished argumentations of George Armstrong, Clerk, (we believe formerly a Curate in the Established Church, now said to be a Unitarian; and if so, at his patronage of the Government plan we are not surprized ;)

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then we have the lengthened and unreadable lucubrations of W. Saxon, (of whose state and condition we know nothing,) who writes against the unanswerable and most eloquent arguments of the Rev. Robert M'Ghee; and, finally, one and all of us have to endure the whole vengeance of the ruffian philosophy of George Ensor, Esq.

For all these things we know not any remedy but patience, prayer, and good courage. There is cause of fear, but there is still hope. If Protestants stand firm, we believe they need not yet despair. Some great points are already gained in God's good time others will follow.

It may be useful hereafter to have on record the sentiments of the Synod of Ulster on the subject of national education; we therefore subjoin the following resolutions and petition. Should all their apprehensions turn out groundless, the documents preserved will merely convict them of a very venial mistake; should they turn out wellfounded, as we believe they will, they will serve to commemorate their watchfulness and their courage; and should the present experiment, as we farther believe, be merely "the beginning of sorrows," these documents will be valuable, as constituting the first act in the drama of their struggles for "civil and religious liberty," against the conjoint powers of Popery and Infidelity.

SPECIAL MEETING AT COOKSTOWN—1832.

I. "That as Christian Ministers and Elders, we pray that divine grace and blessing may descend abundantly upon the person and government of our Sovereign, King William IV.; as dutiful and loyal subjects, we declare our unshaken attachment to the constitutional principles which called the Illustrious House of Hanover to the Throne; and, as Presbyterians, we rejoice, with gratitude to Almighty God, in the distinguished part taken by our forefathers in the advocacy of the principles, and the promotion of the measures, which happily terminated in that great national event.

"II.-That we feel grateful for the countenance and support which the Presbyterian Church, in this country, has long continued to receive from ́Government, and more especially since the accession of his Majesty's august family.

"III. That nothing can be farther from our thoughts than to embarrass his Majesty's Ministers, by any demand upon their time and atten. tion, in the present critical state of the empire; nevertheless, the principles and measures relative to education, embodied in a letter from the Chief Secretary for Ireland, dated October, 1831, and addressed to his Grace the Duke of Leinster, compel us to approach the Government and Legislature with a dutiful and faithful statement of the scriptural principles adopted by us, as a Church, upon the subject of popular instruction.

"IV. That it is our deliberate opinion and decided conviction, that, in a Christian country, the Bible, unabridged and unmutilated, should form the basis of national education, as we learn from Deut. vi. 6, Psal. cxix. 9, John xvii. 17, 2 Tim. iii. 14, 15, 16; and that, consequently, we can never accede to any system that, in the least degree, interferes with the unrestricted possession and use of the Scriptures in our schools. "V. That we have heard with deep regret, that his Majesty's Government have proceeded to erect a Metropolitan Board of Education, vested with complete control" over all schools and teachers receiving public aid, and an entire control" over all school-books, whether for literary or

religious education.

"VI. That such "an entire control" as, by the constitution of the Board, the Government have vested in the hands of one member of this body over all school-books employed by Ministers in the religious instruction of such children of their congregations as may attend the national schools, cannot, in our opinion, be transferred to, nor be exercised by, any one, without innovating upon our constitutional principles, and creating a supremacy over a church, the absolute parity of whose Ministers is, and ever has been, one of her distinguishing and essential characteristics.

"VII. That we cannot contemplate without peculiar disapprobation, that part of the proposed system which requires any member of the Synod, that may be called to the Board, to "encourage" religious teachers in the inculcation of doctrines which he must conscientiously believe to be directly opposed to the Sacred Scriptures.

"VIII. That for the reasons embodied in the four preceding Resolutions, the Metropolitan Board has not received the approbation, and does not possess the confidence, of this Synod; and that our Ministers and people are earnestly entreated to keep themselves totally unconnected with it.

66 "IX.-That being aware of the difficulties and embarrassments of his Majesty's Government, arising from the conflicting opinions, claims, and interests of Protestants and Roman Catholics, which we believe it impracticable for the Legislature ever to combine under one system of education, except by concessions of principle upon our part, which we feel it to be impossible for us ever to make; yet feeling anxious respectfully to suggest a plan that seems to us calculated to remove the difficulties and embarrassments of the subject-we do resolve earnestly to entreat of his Majesty's Government, that if they cannot patronize an unrestricted scriptural education, (the only system founded on divine authority,) they will be pleased totally to abstain from establishing any monopoly of control over teachers and school-books, leaving these matters in the hands of parents, to whom the Allwise God has primarily committed the trust; and if they cannot devise a plan of granting pecuniary aid without requiring such "complete and entire control" in return, that they will be pleased to leave the support of schools for the poor to the voluntary contributions of the friends of education, by which means, both we and our people will be preserved from every compromise of religious principle, and by which we doubt not that, under the blessing of God, the progress of national education, as in many instances experience has already proved, will be happily and efficiently promoted.

"X.-That we shall, by a loyal, and dutiful, and earnest address to the Lord Lieutenant, and humble petition to the Commons' House

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