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resolved to continue there at the peril of incurring their displeasure. The interference of this assembly was diametrically opposite to those sentiments of religious freedom which Mr. Abernethy had been led to entertain, both by the exercise of his own vigorous faculties, and by an attention to the Bangorian controversy which prevailed in England about this period. Encouraged by the freedom of discussion which it had occasioned, a considerable number of ministers and others in the north of Ireland, formed themselves into a society for improvement in useful knowledge; their professed aim was to bring things to the test of reason and scripture, instead of paying a servile regard to any human authority. This laudable design is supposed to have been suggested by Mr. Abernethy, and as the gentlemen who concurred in the scheme met at Belfast, it was called 'The Belfast Society.' In the progress of this body, and in consequence of the debates and dissensions which were occasioned by it, several persons withdrew from the society, and those who adhered to it were distinguished by the appellation of non-subscribers. Their avowed principles were these, "First, that our Lord Jesus Christ hath in the new testament determined and fixed the terms of communion in his church; that all christians who comply with these have a right to communion, and that no man, or set of men, have power to add any other terms to those settled in the Gospel. Secondly, that it is not necessary as an evidence of soundness in the faith, that candidates for the ministry should subscribe to the 'Westminster confession,' or any uninspired form of articles or confession of faith, as the terms upon which they shall be admitted, and that no church has a right to impose such a subscription upon them. Thirdly, that to call upon men to make declarations concerning their faith, upon the threat of cutting them off from communion if they should refuse it, and this merely upon suspicions and jealousies, while the persons required to purge themselves by such declarations cannot be fairly convicted upon evidence of any error or