New Theological Publications. ment, and it is to be hoped that this interesting trial will, on the return home of our countrymen, be given faithfully to the public. The eye recoils with horror on a view of Spain. The officers of the Inquisition boarding ships to examine books, and the defenders of their country suffering torture, are objects too shocking to humauity. It seems as if the legitimate sovereigns were determined to convince mankind that usurpation and exclusion were highly justifiable actions. Where success attends the Spaniards in America, cruelty harrows up the feelings in the rear of their armies. 807 At home the satisfaction was general on the marriage of the presumptive Heiress to the Crown to a young prince of a re spectable family in Germany, the head of which was made royal by Buonaparte. Such a marriage does not involve with it foreign alliances or foreign subsidies, But this event was followed by the distress, ing intelligence of dissatisfaction in several counties on the price of corn, which had broken into tumultuous riotings. These were chiefly confined to parts of Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire. They who are at the head of affairs will follow Lord Bacon's advice we trust upon such subjects. NEW PUBLICATIONS IN THEOLOGY History of the Origin and First Ten Years of the British and Foreign Bible Society. By J. Owen, A. M. 2 vols. 8vo. 11. 4s. Royal 11. 15s. A Second Letter to the Bishop of St. David's. By a Lay Seceder. Prospectus of a Polyglott Bible, in Six Languages. In 4 pocket volumes or 1 volume 4to. with the Prefaces and Specimens of each Language.12mo. 1s. Religious Freedom in Danger; or the Toleration Act invaded by Parochial Assessments on Places of Religious Worship. By Rowland Hill, M.A. 8vo. is. The Sequel to an Appeal to the Yearly Meeting of Friends, on Thomas Foster's Excommunication for asserting the Unity, Supremacy and Sole Deity of God the Father. 8vo. 4s.... Persecution of French Protestants. Resolutions and Statements, relative to the Persecution of the French Protestants, extracted from the Proceedings of the General Body of Protestant Dissenting Ministers of the Three Denominations in and about the Cities of London and Westminster. 8vo. 6d. Statement of the Persecution of the Protestants in France since the Restoration of the Bourbon Family. By the Rev. Ingram Cobbin. 3rd edition. 8vo. 4s. The Cause of the French Protestants Defended against the Attacks of the Christian Observer. By the Rev. I. Cobbin. 8vo. is. Peace and Persecution incompatible with each other: An Address on the Persecution of the Protestants in the South of France, delivered at Worship Street, Finsbury Square, Thursday, January 18, 1816, the Thanksgiving Day for the Peace. By John Evans, A. M. 8vo. 1s. 6d. The Fatal Effects of Religious Intolerance: A Sermon preached at Gateacre Chapel, Sunday, Dec. 17, 1815, in recommendation of a Sub-cription for the Relief of the Persecuted Protestants in France, and published for their Benefit. By the Rev. William Shepherd. 8vo. 1s. 6d. A ́Sermon on Universal Benevolence, containing some Reflections on Religious Persecution and the alleged Proceedings at Nismes. By the Rev. James Archer. (Catholic Priest.) 8vo. Perfect Religious Liberty the Right of Every Human Being, and Persecution for Conscience' Sake the most atrocious of Crimes: Proved in a Ser mon, preached on Dec. 10, at Hemel Hempstead, for the Benefit of the Persecuted Protestants in France. By John Liddon. 1s. Notes, intended as Materials for a Memoir, on the Affairs of the Protestants of the Department Du Gard. By the Committee of Dissenting Ministers at Williams's Library. 8vo. 1s. 6d. The French Preacher; containing Select Discourses, translated from the Works of the most eminent French Divines, Catholic and Protestant, with 1 Biographical Notices of the Authors, and a Characteristical Account of many distinguished French Preachers. To which is prefixed, An Historical View of the Reformed Church of France, from its Origin to the present Time. By Ingram Cobbin. 8vo. 12s. "On the late Persecution of the Protestants in the South of France. By Helen Maria Williams. 3s. 6d. Baptism. Two Tracts, intended to convey correct notions of Regeneration and Conversion, according to the Sense of the Holy Scriptures and the Church of England. Extracted from the Bampton Lectures of 1812. By Richard Mant, D.D. Chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Rector of St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate. 1s. 6d. An Enquiry into the Effect of Baptism, according to the Sense of Holy Scripture and of the Church of England; In Answer to the above. By the Rev. John Scott, M. A. Vicar of North Ferriby, &c. 8vo. 5s. sewed. Baptism a Seal of the Christian Co venant, or Remarks on Regeneration, &c. In Answer to the same. By T.T. Biddulph, A.M. Minister of St. James's, Bristol. 8vo. 5s. sewed. On Terms of Communion, with a Particular View to the Case of the Baptists and Padobaptists. By the Rev. Robert Hall, A. M. 8vo. 5s. 3d edition. The Essential Difference between Christian Baptism and the Baptism of John, more fully stated and confirmed; In Reply to a Pamphlet, entitled "A Plea for Primitive Communion." By Robert Hall, A. M. 8vo. 2s. Baptism, a Term of Communion at the Lord's Supper. By J. Kinghorn. 8vo. 4s. A Practical View of Christian Baptism, addressed particularly to Parents intending to devote their Children to God in that Ordinance. By William Harris. 1s. fine. 6d. common. Scriptural Regeneration not necessarily connected with Baptism, in answer to Dr. Mant. By G. Bugg, A. B. 3s. CORRESPONDENCE. In consequence of the calamitous event recorded in our Obituary department (p. 300), we are constrained to shorten some articles and to omit others designed for the present Number. Our Bristol correspondent, J. B. is referred to Bp. Law's Considerations for an answer to his question. J. T. is informed that the names of the publishers of new works cannot be introduced into the monthly list without subjecting them to a charge from the Stamp Office as advertisements. ERRATA. P. 161, 1st col., 18 1. from the top, for "tell" print tell. P. 162, 1st col., 51, from the bottom, read her nakedness, instead of " for nakedness." Ib. 2nd col., 3 1. from the bottom, for "Mr." read Mrs. Greville. P. 165, 1st col., 18 1. from the top, for "Browne," read Perowne. P. 226, 1st col., 11 1. from the bottom, before the words "didst manifest," &c. place inverted commas. P. 227, 2nd col., 3 1. from the bottom, read (Apol. 1st ed. Thirlby, p. 99). ten." Oration delivered at the Library, RedCross-Street, London, February 7, 1816, being the Centenary of the Founder's Death; by James Lindsay, D.D. BRETHREN AND FRIENDS, SHOULD justly incur the charge the circumstances to which I am indebted for an unmerited precedence among so many colleagues, who could have addressed you on the present occasion with greater talent and better effect. To our visitors this statement is especially due. The father of our Trust, who has been more than forty years its most efficient member; whose fame is coextensive with the world of science; whose learning and virtues shed lustre upon our body, and to whom we all look up with respect and affection is present, and in the chair.* The question naturally occurs, why he has not been selected to celebrate the memory of his own countryman, and to distinguish this day, as it ought to be distinguished, by weight of character and elegance of panegyric? I am bound to exculpate the members of the Trust from what might otherwise be imputed to the want of discrimination:Our united voice would have called him to a post, which no other can fill with equal dignity; but in pleading precarious health and urgent avocations, he resisted our importunities, and has disappointed your expectations. Next to our father in standing as a trustee, and in all the qualifications which would entitle him to be the eulogist of our excellent founder, is that venerable brother who, with a mental eye yet clear and strong, can unfortunately claim exemption on the Jamented ground of bodily darkness.† I am third in the order of seniority; The Rev. Abraham Rees, D.D. + Rev. Thomas Tayler. VOL. XI. and to that cause alone do I owe an office, which I should feel as an honour if it were not for the painful con❤ sciousness that I am addressing men in every respect so much my superiors. Happily the occasion does not demand those arts of an ostentatious oratory, so often employed to deck out vice in to bestow the praise of talent upon the baseness of political intrigue; or to exalt into heroes the scourges of the human race; or to canonize monks and hermits, because they have been the ignorant tools or the hired advo cates of ecclesiastical domination. We burn no incense at the shrine of ambition, and heap no praises upon those who consecrate ambition by naming it religion:-those restless spirits who embroil the world to enrich or to immortalize themselves;-princes, who in extending the boundaries of empire contract the limits of freedom and happiness;-statesmen who plan, and warriors who fight, that they may found a name upon the ruins of honest industry and the destruction of human life;-priests who, instead of being messengers of peace, to allay the angry passions of mankind, become, when ever it suits the purposes of the state which supports them, the trumpeters of discord to irritate the phrensy which it is their duty to restrain. These may constitute fit themes of panegyric to pensioned orators and venal poets:the praises of an enlightened piety and an honest patriotism will be reserved for very different subjects. He who came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them, has imparted to us far other views of that glory which ought to be the chosen object of a Christian's ambition. He who shared the secret counsels of divine wisdom, and knew what true and lasting glory is, has instructed us in the means by which he obtained himself, -by which every one of us, in our 310 Dr. Lindsay's Oration at the Red-Cross-street Library, measure, may obtain, that honour which cometh only from God. He aspired not at that baneful fame which is seized by diabolical skill and animal courage in fields of death,-which history records in blood, which cha rity defaces with tears; which, if there is justice in heaven, will be the subject of an awful retribution in that world where the destroyers of life will meet themselves a more terrible de struction. To the desire of such fame as this the doctrine and the life of Jesus are directly opposed. His was the glory of pouring the light of divine truth into the dark and bewildered mind, and of delivering it, by just conceptions of the moral government of God, from that bondage of ignorance and superstition, which constitutes its degradation and its misery. His was the glory of speaking promises of rest to the weary and the heavy-laden; of taking the desponding penitent by the hand, and leading him direct, without the intervention of priests or sacrifices, to the mercy-scat of a Father ever ready to forgive, ever anxious to bless even his prodigal child. His was the glory of exposing that pride and covetousness, which establishes an usurped dominion over the rights of conscience, under the hypocritical pretence of zeal for God;-an usurpation which was, and unhappily yet is, employed by men in power, to exalt the few, enslave the many, and defeat the efforts of enlightened benevolence for the peace and improvement of the human race to break down every wall of partition which divides man from his brother; and to bind the rational creation of God together by the tie of a common faith, a common hope, and a common charity; to extipate the base passions which embroil the world, by implanting in the heart that love of God and virtue which elevates and sanctifies all its affections; and thus to spread a divine influence over the pursuits and enjoyments of mortality: -in one word, to restore simplicity to religion, purity to morals, dignity to the minds, and immortality to the hopes of rational beings:-this was the ambition, this the glory of the great Captain of our Salvation,-the joy set before him; for which he endured the cross, despising the shame, and is in consequence set down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. But it may be asked, How is this connected with the occasion of our meeting? In my judgment, closely. We must know the true nature of Christian glory, before we can select the proper objects of Christian admiration, or confer a suitable tribute of Christian eulogy. He only who imbibes a portion of the same spirit, who acts upon the same views, who cooperates according to his abilities in promoting the same ends to which we have just alluded, as the ends of our great Master;-he only merits the name and the honours of a Christian hero; and it is upon this ground alone that we have assembled to express our veneration for the character and memory of Dr. Daniel Williams. It is not by splendour of birth, of brilliancy of genius, or any of those qualities or deeds which dazzle a vain imagination, that this veneration is excited. No. But it is because our founder voluntarily abridged even that splendour which his fortune might have commanded;-it is because he voluntarily devoted solid talents and useful learning to the duties of a profession which the world despised, and from which he expected and received no worldly advantage; it is because he preferred the simplicity of dissenting worship, and the full possession of Christian liberty, to the favours of the great, which he might have enjoyed ;-. because he chose rather to be the honest, disinterested champion of truth and freedom, than to bask in the sunshine of courts and churches ;-because he thus formed one in that illustrious band, who have maintained the rights of conscience against the usurpations of power, and blessed their posterity with greater privileges than they themselves inherited;-it is because, after establishing so many claims to respect by an upright and honourable life, he perpetuated the effect of his beneficence, in devoting his worldly substance, upon a wise and liberal plan, to the instruction of ignorance, the diffusion of knowledge, and the encouragement of rational religion. It is because Dr. Williams acted thus piously, thus nobly, living and dying, that the trustees of his bounty, after the lapse of a century, during which his bequests have been the means of instructing and we hope of saving thousands, meet themselves, and have brought their friends with them, te express their own shankfulness to Pre an the Centenary of Dr. Williams's Death. vidence for having raised him up, and to venerate those virtues which have given him a name by rendering him a benefactor to mankind. These are the peaceful claims of a private mau, which, in the eye of the thoughtless and the proud, are destitute of interest. But they are, in fact, and I hope and believe in your estimation, above all Greek-above all Roman praise. 311 to purposes of charity, and he showed them at the end of the year how it had been expended;—an example of generosity which, whilst it enhances his honour, should put to the blush those miserable creatures who, with coffers rumming over, are deaf to every call, either of public benefit or private distress. His politics were those of freedom. Fearful lest the machinations of the High Church party should de feat the Protestant succession, he re monstrated boldly on that subject with Lord Oxford, to whom he was well known, and incurred his resentment because he communicated his fears to others. per It may be expected, perhaps, that I should enter into some details relative to the life of Dr. Williams; but this would not be consistent with the brevity of such an address: besides, the necessity is precluded by a short memoir,* written, with his usual spicuity and information, by our excellent friend and librarian. I shall therefore merely observe, that, judging from his writings, our founder was evidently a man of strong natural powers, of considerable learning and acuteness; and, what is still more to his credit, whilst he steadily defends what he conceived to be important truth, he discovers that spirit of candour which ought ever to distinguish, though it too seldom has distinguished, the Christian controversialist. His religious sentiments were orthodox, according to the common acceptation of that word, though not orthodox enough to satisfy the bigots of his time, by whom he was accused of the horrid crime of Socinianism. Had he lived till now amidst increasing light, there is reason to believe that he would have imbibed what we think more rational and enlarged views of the Christian doctrine and from the candour which he exhibited, when candour was not yery common, we may pronounce with assurance, that, whatever might have been his religious opinions, he would have yielded to none of us in liberality towards those who might have held a different creed. In character he stood high, not only in his own immediate connexion, but among Dissenters in every part of the British dominions. And no wonder. For his labours were abundant and disinterested. Ile very properly insisted, indeed, upon his annual salary from his congregation, who could well afford it; but none of it went to increase his own fortune. It was wholly devoted Communicated to Mom. Repos, and inserted Vol. X. p. 201---203. The Rev. Thomas Morgan. But his principles were to him more dear than the favour of the great; and his adherence to rectitude on this occasion received an appropriate reward. For the displeasure of a tory minister was soon compensated by the approbation of a constitutional king, to whom, at the head of the dissenting body of ministers, he delivered a congratulatory address on his accession to the throne. He had formerly been consulted by William III., one of the few princes who have had the wisdom and the manly condescension of mind to advise with such a character. His counsels were congenial to the private opinions of that truly great man, who, had he been permitted to follow his own inclinations, would have extended the limits of religious freedom much further than the prevailing toryism of the country would permit. But Dr. Williams's solid claim to fame rests upon the favour or displeasure of the great, only as these were indications of his unshaken and disinterested integrity. With us he stands upon higher ground. Though dead, he yet speaketh. His best monument is that charity which for a century has been communicating instruction to youth, administering the consolations of religion to age, and giving relief to indigence and deprivation. This charity embraces various objects; but these so wisely combined, that they all concur in promoting one great end-the spread of religious knowledge, in connexion with that liberty which alone can render it efficient as the means of promoting rational piety and social happiness. His first object was to establish schools in the different parts of the country where his different properties lay; and in these schools more than |