corresponds well with the medium which conveys it; but a set of scholastic propositions, like Articles and Creeds, might as well have been written on the sky; and many a bitter doubt and bitterer controversy might have been spared. We believe, Gentlemen, that the minds of serious and considerate persons are weary of the aggressions of Churches upon the private and secret faith of the individual heart; that they will not long be forced to live on the dry husks of Creeds which have lost the kernel of true life; nor accept mere puzzles as divine mysteries. It is at the peril of all religion that its illimitable truths are embalmed in definite formulas, and the abyss of God confidently measured by thrusting out the foot-rule of ecclesiastical wisdom. The things most holy cannot without injury be thus turned from the contemplation of the affections, to the small criticism of the intellect; and the acute and polished dividing-knife of dialectics, when applied to cut theology into propositions, is apt to leave scarce a shred of faith. That all professing ministers of the Gospel may speedily turn from their divisions of belief to a hearty union of spirit, is the desire and prayer of Us, who in this temper, and in better times, might have been owned as Your fellow-labourers, JAMES MARTINEAU. JOHN HAMILTON THOM. March 25th, 1839. HENRY GILES. ----- Footnote 10: Rev. F. Ould’s Letter of February 11. Footnote 11: Rev. T. Byrth’s Lecture, Part I. p. 114. Footnote 12: Rev. Dr. Tattershall’s Lecture on the Integrity of the Canon, p. 69. Footnote 13: “Whatever lessons of instruction or doctrines they teach us, _these doctrines being themselves wise and holy_, must have been delivered under a divine sanction, and therefore possess divine authority. “If he (that is, the person who performs miracles) also teaches lessons,—_lessons worthy of God_,—these lessons undoubtedly come to us clothed with divine authority.”—_Dr. Tattershall’s Lecture_, pp. 70, 71. Footnote 14: Sherlock’s Discourses, No. 10, Hughes’s edition, Vol. I. p. 197, and No. 15, Vol. I. p. 278. Footnote 15: Lord King’s Life of Locke, p. 125. Footnote 16: Sermons at the Boyle Lecture, Prop. xiv. Footnote 17: Essay on Miracles, p. 99, _seq._, as quoted by Farmer in his Dissertation on Miracles, chap. i. § 3. Footnote 18: “No minister or ministers shall, _without the licence and direction of the Bishop of the Diocese_, first obtained and had under his hand and seal, ... attempt, upon any pretence whatsoever, either of possession or obsession, by fasting and prayer, to cast out any devil or devils, under pain of the imputation of imposture or cozenage, and deposition from the ministry.”—_Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical_, lxxii. Footnote 19: