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Yes! that, for which you bid us meanly
Resign the soul's divinest flame,
(Which, spite of all, shall shine serenely,)
Is hateful to us as your aim !
The dread tribunals' fire and fetter,

Yes, e'en the taunts from scoffers heard,

Are better to endure-far better

Than benefits by you conferr'd.

The age of darkness now is bounded,
Restoring times are hast'ning on,
In which God's kingdom shall be founded,
In which all hell shall be o'erthrown.
The sentence soon will publish loudly
Whom glory waits and whom disgrace;
Philosophers, who rule us proudly,

Or Jacob's scorn'd and suffering race!

SIR,

HE illustration proposed by J. S.

rebuke was not better calculated to conciliate their prejudices, than that which had given them offence from its apparently paradoxical character. The objection, therefore, that the words must have been allusive to a known place and remembered transaction, because he must have intended that they should be level to their immediate apprehension, is nullified by the defect of proof that he had this intention.

in general, nor the disciples, knew any The position that "neither the Jews thing of a descent of their Master from heaven," would, I think, be met by the Trinitarian and Arian by the replication, that Christ in this very conversation had asserted the fact. "I came down from heaven :" ver. 38. It is not that the acceptation of the words, as referring to Christ's future ascension, and involving, his pre-existence in a state of heavenly glory, is defective in coherence with the argument, that Unitarian believers scruple at receiving it; on the contrary, it must possess a simplicity and connexion in the eyes of those who are prepossessed in favour of the superhuman nature of Christ, which to them must appear conclusive in favour of its truth. reject it because it is inconsistent with the general tenor of scripture evidence. Whether on the Arian or Trinitarian

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Tipustration in John, scheme, it contradicts alike the simple

"What, and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before?" appears to me unsatisfactory.

The inference that the words "must have had an allusion to some place where the Jews knew Jesus to have been," seems to me drawn from weak premises, namely, that "otherwise his question or appeal would not have been more plain or intelligible than the language which had given them offence." But why should it have been more intelligible? Or how does it appear that it was so? The reverse is shewn by the fact that they were still dissatisfied, and that "from that time many of the disciples went back."

If Jesus alluded to the mountain on which he had multiplied the loaves, and meant, as your correspondent supposes, to intimate that if he were again to perform the same, or a similar miracle, they would still remain unconvinced of his being the Christ, the

unity and indivisible attributes of God, the real or perfect humanity of Christ, and the pledge of the human resurrection.

The sense affixed to the allusion by J. S. H. is surely flat and pointless, while the form and manner of the interrogation would seem to indicate something of a significant and important bearing; nor does the conclusion supposed appear to be that which would naturally be drawn from the words. The sentence rather implies, that were he to be seen to re-ascend, their unbelief would give way.

If any mountain were alluded to by Jesus, it might rather be conjectured to be the "exceeding high mountain," Matt. iv. 8, which was the scene of his visionary temptation, and to which his disciples, at least, knew that he had been "carried by the spirit." This appeal would at least be pertinent and striking.

But it may, I conceive, be safely affirmed, that neither the ascension, nor the probationary solitude in the wilderness, is alluded to in the words of Jesus; still less can it be admitted that the tame and cold interpretation of general Unitarian expositors, rests on any probable or reasonable foundation-an interpretation which, explaining the question into an allegorical representation of intimate intercourse with God, stands open to the same censure of frigid insignificancy as that offered by your correspondent. It is natural to suppose that this question of Jesus is connected with, and dependent on, his preceding discourse. The subject of this discourse is not absolutely his Messiahship, or his being really the Christ; but, relatively, his being the appointed medium through which "life and immortality" were to be "brought to light."

An examination of the context will, in my judgment, enable us to ascertain, the sense of this controverted text with a clearness little short of demonstration.

Taking up his metaphor from the bread which he had multiplied on the mountain, he asserts of himself, not merely that he is the "bread of God," the bearer of spiritual food from heaven, but that he is the "bread which gives life to the world;" that "a man may eat thereof, and not die." The metaphor is continued and repeated, under various forms, through vers. 33, 35, 48, 50, 51, 54, 57, 58. Though purposely enveloping his discourse in figure, he allows his general meaning partly to appear, for the benefit of those who were willing to understand him, and candidly disposed to accept his claims on sufficient evidence; for he accompanies the words, "Whoso eateth my flesh hath eternal life," by the illustrative clause," and I will raise him up at the last day." The same intimation is thrown out in vers. 39, 40, 44. Now, is it not natural to expect that he would have made some reference to his own personal resurrection, which is the pattern and the pledge of the resurrection of the righteous to eternal life? How is it to be accounted for, that, in so accumulative and elaborate a series of statements of a predictive character, all referring to the great fact that he was the prince," or leader, "of

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life," and illustrated by a plain and open declaration that he would raise his followers from the dead, accompanied, moreover, by an allusion to his crucifixion, ("the bread which I give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world,") he should forbear a more distinct allusion to the circumstance of his own resurrection, by which the "giving of his flesh for the life" of mankind might be elucidated, and which he would naturally appeal to as the test and the proof of the truth of his words and mission?

But this strange omission has not been made; for, by a natural process of reasoning, he passes directly from the announcement of a general resurrection to that of his own, which was to precede it and confirm it. He corrects their incredulity, and strengthens his previous asseverations, by an appeal which they would not at that time understand, any more than they understood his making himself the antitype of Jonah, but which they were to understand afterwards, when the fact had explained the prophecy : "Doth this offend you? What if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before?" Will ye then doubt that " my flesh is the bread of life, which I will give for the life of the world," when ye shall see "the Son of Man himself ASCEND UP Out OF THE GRAVE, AND STAND AGAIN UPON THE EARTH ?”

I

EBION.

Clapton, SIR, May 9, 1823. AM one among several of your readers who were well acquainted with your valuable correspondent Mr. Cooper, while he was a student in the Unitarian Academy, the dissolution of which, from the failure of pecuniary support, is a just opprobrium to that class of Unitarians whose opulence has found a safe harbour, amidst the wrecks suffered by so many of their neighbours. I then had frequent occasions to observe Mr. C.'s diligent preparation for a station of public usefulness, and I was well aware of the pure motives with which he accepted the offer of a benevolent WestIndia proprietor, who, with a compassionate feeling, worthy a pupil and a munificent friend of Wakefield, but

without his correct judgment, détermined on the hopeless project of uniting the iron and the clay, mental liberation and corporal bondage, the gentle accents of Christian instruction and the horrid echoes from a driver's whip.

I have taken no small interest in Mr. Cooper's communications to your pages, as the result of his mortifying experience, well knowing the judgment, integrity, and entire absence of all angry feeling, by which they were dictated. I was, therefore, not a little surprised to find that the truth of his relations, as, also, his conduct and his motives, had been publicly impeached. The proceedings in the House of Commons, on the presentation of the petition from Southwark, on the 27th of March last, I happened not to have read, but received the first information on the subject from Mr. Cooper's letter (pp. 231-234). Still further to explain that letter, you will, I dare say, allow me to quote the following extracts from the Morning Chron. No. 16829, which Mr. C. says he had "not at hand" at the time of writing.

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Sir Robert Wilson said it was impossible, without the greatest pain, to read the recital which the petition contained, on authority of the most respectable nature, of the inhumanity with which Slaves were treated in the West Indies. It was impossible to reflect, without the greatest pain, that near a million of our fellow-creatures were every morning awakened from their slumbers by the echo of the horsewhip, and were then driven like cattle, or worse than cattle, to be employed in the severest labour at the discretion, or rather at the caprice, of a tyrannical overseer. It was stated in the petition, that a very respectable individual, who had been a Missionary to one of the islands, declared that he had never seen a Black who did not bear on his flesh the marks of the severe infliction of the whip [hear, hear! we believe from Mr. Bright]. The Honourable Gentleman cried hear, hear! but he (Sir R. Wilson) would read the paragraph in the petition. [This the Honourable Member did, and it was to the effect of the statement which he had just made.] Was it to be endured, that in these enlightened times, near a million of our fel

low-creatures, without any consideration of feeling or humanity, should continue to be treated as if they were senseless and material objects? That the wife should be separated from the husband, the mother from the child, and sold for the payment of the debts of the profligate and unthinking master? Such was the degraded condition in which the Slaves were placed in our colonies, that any crime or atrocity on the part of a white man would go unpunished, if committed in the presence of Blacks only, whose evidence was not receivable in a court of justice. There were many other circumstances of similar oppression, but it was not his wish, or that of the petitioners, to exagge rate the facts of the case. All that they wished was, to call the attention of Parliament to the indispensable necessity of interference.

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On the motion for bringing up the petition,

"Mr. Bright was impelled by a strong sense of duty to notice the gross exaggerations which the petition contained; such, for instance, as that there was not a Negro on whom the marks of the lash were not visible. He was perfectly confident, that if the allegations of the petition were strictly examined, they would be found to contain much more falsehood than truth. As to the character of the individual, to whose authority the petitioners referred, he knew nothing of it. But it appeared that he had been sent out as a Missionary to his estate, by a benevolent Planter, who had proved the humanity of his disposition by reducing the labour which used to be performed by his Slaves a fourth. After having been so sent out, what did that person do? He was there three years, and he complained that he had been able to preach to the Negroes only eleven times a-year; but preaching was not the way to do them good. His duty was to have visited them, to have seen to their wants, to have relieved their necessities. The individual in question, however, had too much spiritual pride to do any thing but preach; and yet it was on the authority of such a man that the petitioners called on the House to believe the allegation of their petition.

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Mr. W. Smith said he was very much inclined to follow the advice of

the Right Honourable Gentleman," (Mr. Canning, who wished not yet to discuss the question,) though the personal attack of an Honourable Gen

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reproached thein many years ago, are signing declarations of independence with one hand, and with the other brandishing the man-driver's whiptleman, (Mr. Bright,) in a sort of pa-He finds his fellow guilty of a skin

rable, was very little calculated to put an end to discussion. Though he did not personally know the individual alluded to, he could, from what he had heard of him, give a direct contradiction to the imputation of the Honourable Gentleman.

"Mr. Bright explained that he was not personally acquainted with the individual referred to."

From the Times and the Morning Post it appears that Mr. Cooper was named by Sir R. Wilson. Mr. W. Smith, according to the latter newspaper, availed himself of his long experience, the result of a most exemplary attention to this subject. "He wished the Honourable Member, before he made the speech he had made, had looked into the parliamentary annals of thirty-five years past, where he would have found the Members for Bristol using exactly the same arguments, not only against the abolition of the Slave Trade, but against any modification of it."

From what I have heard of" the Honourable Member for Bristol," to whom I am an entire stranger, I should have expected that these recorded examples of too many of his predecessors, during "thirty-five years past," would have become warnings against lending himself to advocate what is too justly called (p. 242) the "inhumanity of Bristol," rather than encouragements, to pursue such an occupation. A gentleman so intimately connected with the good sense and liberal policy, the justice, humanity and Christian spirit, which are not sparingly found in that city, would have been, I had supposed, ambitious to represent these, rather than to be the representative of her rum puncheons and sugar hogsheads, or even of villas and equipages, dearly purchased by the whip-extorted labours of our brutalized brethren, who bear "God's image though cut in ebony." Well might the poet of the Task exclaim of the white-man, as he discovers himself in those isles of the blessed, the West Indies; or among those shameless Republicans, the slave-holders in the United States, who, as Mr. Day justly

Not colour'd like his own; and having

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Tenforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause

Dooms and devotes him as a lawful prey :

Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat

With stripes, that Mercy with a bleeding heart

Weeps, when she sees inflicted on a beast."

If the advocacy of a system, thus characterized by a poet, accurately, as in the plainest prose, be the price of a seat in Parliament, then let virtuous ambition "weigh well the wages with the work assigned." If to deserve and retain that seat, the most authentic and respectable testimony must be impeached, and the purest motives misrepresented, because the back of some Negro or of some Negress may possibly be found unfurrowed by the driver's scourge, then let the meanest mechanic of Bristol, or the hind whose daily bread is dependent on his daily toil, be grateful to Providence for the favourable distinction, while he feels on the comparison that "the post of honour is a private station."

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I am old enough to recollect when, in the year 1792, Negro-Slavery was advocated by another Member of Parliament, from whom, also, better things might have been expected. That gentleman, who has long emigrated to the United States, then justly boasted that "he had been educated by Dr. Priestley and the father of Mrs. Barbauld,” whose “ timents he had imbibed," for "in the early part of his life, he was strongly in favour of the abolition." He was, however, the son of a West-India Proprietor, and "left England for Jamaica," where, he says, "he found the situation of the Slaves much better than he had imagined. Setting aside liberty, they were as well off as the poor in Europe," and then, after having admitted this trifling exception of liberty, he proceeds to describe the blessings of Negro-Slavery; as your readers will find the tantalizing detail in Mr. Clarkson's History (II. 379).

I am happy to add, on the same authority, (p. 383,) that this Member of Parliament "declared in a future stage of the debate, that he wished to see a prudent termination, both of the Slave Trade and of Slavery; and that, though he was the eldest son of his father, he never would, on any consideration, become the owner of a Slave." Were "the Honourable Member for Bristol" once to contemplate this subject as a man, and especially as a Christian, rather than as a retained advocate of "West-India interests," I should not despair of his listening to the whisper from his internal monitor, abi et fac similiter.

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J. T. RUTT.

May 14.

P.S. When I wrote the above, I had not met with the pamphlet entitled Negro-Slavery," on reading which, the conduct of "the Honourable Member for Bristol" appears still more unaccountable, if we admit the undisputed principles of equity, which are acknowledged to direct the intercourse between man and man. It had been inexcusable in an advocate of " WestIndia interests," not to have read this pamphlet with the most diligent attention. Reading it, indeed, with any degree of attention, he must have discovered not only the dispassionate terms in which Mr. Cooper expresses himself, but the facts to which he appeals as an eye-witness, and especially the powerful corroboration of his testimony, which immediately follows in the "Evidence of John Williamson, M.D." (p. 71,) certainly no willing evidence against the system of NegroSlavery, for the continuance of which he is unequivocally an advocate.

This physician resided in Jamaica from 1798 to 1812. In 1817 he published "Medical and Miscellaneous Observations relative to the West India Islands," dedicated "to the Earl of Harewood, on whose estate, in the Vale, Jamaica, he had lived for about four years in a professional capacity." Dr. Williamson sufficiently, though incidentally, proves all which the justification of Mr. Cooper's testimony can possibly require. He discovers to us our brethren and sisters, the Negroes and Negresses of Jamaica brutalized under the driver's whip, and reduced to, at least, a community

of suffering with those proverbially unfortunate quadrupeds, by whose aid "the Honourable Member for Bristol" may, perhaps, be now posting to Parliament, there to expose the enthusiastic humanity of fanatics, and to vindicate the endangered reputation of the West-India Slavery.

Dr. Williamson, no fanatical preacher of human equality, shall describe this Slavery. He witnessed, as evidently no rare occurrences, "lacerations which tear up the skin" repeated till "the parts become insensible,” when "new sources of torture must be found out by which the commission of crime may be checked. I blush," he adds, to reflect that white men should be the directors of such disgraceful deeds." He shews his readers

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a large heavy whip" in "the driver's hands," and describes "the frightful sound" heard" every minute in passing through estates." This is "the crack of the lash," which "when a Negro seems to be tardy at his work," perhaps "incapable of the usual labour of the healthy-the driver sounds near him, or lets him feel it as he thinks proper;" nor is the Negress exempted from this discipline of the whip, while "the impression made upon the passenger, who is probably a stranger, is horrible indeed. If," says he, in a warm day, we pass by a gang" (their backs being then uncovered), "it is a reproach to every white man to observe in them the recently lacerated sores, or the deep furrows which, though healed up, leave the marks of cruel punishments." These he justly reprobates as unperishing testimonials of uncalled-for cruelty."

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I know not whether "the Honourable Member for Bristol" will allow himself to join Dr. W. with Mr. Cooper in a common charge of " gross exaggerations," or how he will receive my animadversions, not unjust, I believe, however unceremonious, on the language which he is reported to have uttered in that privileged place, where, alone, libels are legalized. Should he be convinced that he has ill-treated Mr. Cooper, it inay be fairly expected, from a regard to his own reputation, (for Mr. Cooper's can receive little injury from the ipse dixit even of a Member of Parliament,) that he will hasten to make his amende honorable,

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