the Rev. W. Turner , Jun. , MA., Lives of the eminent Unitarians

[398] with and dependance on the state. The controversial character of this work, which doubtless added materially to its popularity and extensive circulation, and, consequently, to its effect in the first instance, may perhaps, in some slight degree, diminish its interest at present; when the publication to which it is an answer has long ceased to attract any notice, and would, in fact, have been altogether forgotten, but for the refutation in which its title and some of its most remarkable passages are embodied. It is, however, an excellent model of the controversial style, and well deserves to be studied in this point of view by every one who finds it necessary to engage in a personal contest of this kind, and is desirous, at the same time, that he does full justice to his cause and his argument, never to forget that he has also to sustain the characters of a scholar, a gentleman, and a christian. The author is very successful in taking advantage of his opponent's mistakes and oversights, and yet does it not in such a manner as to lead to the suspicion that he is contending for victory rather than for truth,—that he is enabled by superior acuteness and dexterity to make the worse appear the better cause,—or that he owes his success not to the intrinsic force of his reasoning, but to the weakness and mismanagement of his assailant. There is just enough of playful good-natured satire bestowed on the weak points of his adversary's case to give the work a sufficiency of that seasoning, without which a dry discussion of questions of this nature would, perhaps, scarcely be read; and yet in no instance does he condescend to such reflections as appear to be intended merely to give pain to any one,