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Some Observations on the Sermons of Missionaries.

But to explain the thing in simple and natural terms, throwing aside metaphors and allusions, I will make the moral mechanism (if I may be allowed the expression) of what passes in this matter appear clearly.

Men reciprocally inspire each other with decency: those especially who are eminently modest, possess great influence over others. The man who lives in the society of persons whom he believes to be virtuous, is checked by this consideration, and restrained from indulging any passion that may lead him to the cominission of a particular fault; because he is aware his shane would be in proportion to the scarcity of bad examples to keep him in countenance. Let us suppose the case that by some means this man discovers the persons whom he thought virtuous are in reality vicious characters, that they have yielded to the temptations which assault him, what will be the consequence? He will more easily give way to his irregular propensities, not only through the direct incentive of bad example, but also by the removal of the restraint which the supposed virtue of his companions and neighbours had hitherto imposed on his mind. From hence it is plain how much harm may be produced by proclaiming the prevalence of any particular vice in a town or district. However, may not this abuse of the pulpit be a mere imagination of my own, raised for the sake of combating it? Would to God it existed only in my fancy! I have received but too certain information of its reality, and sometimes I have witnessed it myself. I once heard a preacher of no small eminence declaim in his discourse against a particular vice, which although frequently very mischievous, was not more prevalent in the town where he preached, than in any other place of equal size:-however, his mind infamed with zeal represented the evil of such magnitude, that he exclaimed all the inhabitants were guilty without exception, raising his voice to its utmost pitch, and repeating all, all, that he might leave no doubt of the universality of the inculpation. Was not the effect on his congregation such as I have stated, answerable to the enthusiasm of the orator? In general, whatever multiplies delinquents in opinion, in reality multiplies crimes.

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There exists another abuse very nearly allied to the former, which, by being more common, is, perhaps, still more pernicious:—many preachers in sermons they call moral (and all ought to be of this description), frequently introduce invectives against the sex, insisting on the fragility of women, not reflecting that this encourages vicious men in their criminal enterprises. To exaggerate the weakness of one party is to strengthen the audacity of the other, and augments the evil on both sides; since while the confidence of men is increased, women are furnished with an excuse for their failings. Would it not be more adviseable to reprove the aggressors, than inveigh against their victims? I have written elsewhere what I repeat here, That whoever would render all women, or nearly all women chaste, must begin by reforming all men.

The second remark I have to offer on missionary sermons, is, that they call on men to repent through dread of the Divine justice, but rarely or very slightly excite them to love God on account of his infinite goodness. I allow that God is not only supremely benevolent and merciful, but likewise rigo rously terrible and just, but with this difference, he is good from the excellence of his nature, he is terrible on account of our wickedness. I likewise allow that the fear of God is holy; I allow there are circumstances in which it is proper to give particular weight to motives derived from terror; I allow God ought to be feared as well as loved: there is no doubt in all this;but the question is, whether fear or love is the strongest incentive to obedience, and which of the two is most agreeable to our Creator. On this point I shall call in the great authority of St. Bernard to decide. "God," says he, Sermon 83, "exacts from his rational creature, that it should fear him as a master, honour him as a father, and love him as a husband. Now which of these three species of tribute is most pleasing to him? which most suitable, which most worthy? Without doubt it must be that of love." He pursues this subject through the whole discourse, extolling in the most beautiful language the great superiority of love over fear, both as to its pleasing God and being useful to ourselves.

The divine St. Francis de Sales goes

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Some Observations on the Sermons of Missionaries.

still further (Practice of the Love of God, Book 11. Chap. 8): he says "Love is the universal means of our salvation, which mingles with every thing, and without which nothing is salutary." This is to assert that love is the universal remedy for all the diseases of the soul; it is the liquid gold that the alchymist sought in vain to cure bodily infirmities. Christ, our Redeemer, when he came into the world, drew it from heaven to heal all those of a spiritual nature: before his coming, the prophets, who were the preachers under the ancient law, denounced threats and terrors; but when Jesus appeared, the tone of preaching changed, passing as we may say from the warlike Phrygian to the soft lonian measure, wooing with the most affectionate sweetness of the lyre, those who were before intimidated by the martial sound of the trumpet. The Gospel no where resounds with the formidable titles of God strong and terrible, God of vengeance, Lord of hosts, or God of armies, which in the Old Testament made the nations treinble; on the contrary, in our Saviour's discourses, he very frequently calls God our Father. He is mentioned fifteen times in a sermon that is contained in the 5th, 6th and 7th chapters of St. Matthew, and always under this denomination, either simply your Father, or with the addition your heavenly Father, so that he calls on us to fulfil our duties not as servants through fear, but as sons through lové.

St. Paul as well as Jesus represents God as the beneficent, the universal Father of mankind. He generally begins his Epistles, which are really so many missionary sermons, with this salutation full of benevolence and kindness" Gratia vobis, et pax a Deo Patre nostro et Domino Jesu Christo:" nor does he omit this kind introduction even to the Galatians, who deserved the severest rebukes for their declared propensity to apostatize from Christianity to Judaism, which they had before abandoned.

Thus spake St. Paul because Christ had thus spoken. Christ was the promulgator of the law of grace and St. Paul a learned interpreter of that law; he who most deeply penetrated its spirit, as opposed to the spirit of the ancient law. In what does this dif

ference consist? One is a law of servitude, the other a law of liberty. In the first God treated men as his servants, in the latter he regards them as children: in one he rules them by motives of fear, in the other by motives of love. This is precisely what the Apostle writes to the Romans (chap. 8.)intimating that those who embraced the Gospel should no longer be subject to the timid spirit of bondage, but should be governed by sentiments of love suitable to the children of adoption. "Non enim accepistis spiritum servitutis iterum in timore, sed accepistis spiritum adoptionis filiorum, in qua clamamus alba Pater.")

Having now strongly inculcated the propriety of leading men to virtue by motives of love rather than those of fear, an opinion founded on the most venerable authority; it is easy to enforce it by considerations of the greater utility of this method, motives to obedience derived from love being more agreeable to the goodness of God, and more conformable to the nature of rational creatures. The submission of a servant which springs from fear, is a very different hoinage from the willing tribute of affection: the servant obeys reluctantly, the son with delight; one follows his inclinations, the other struggles against difficulty; one is allured by the beauty of the object, the other cannot advance a single step without subduing himself; one finds a road if not entirely smooth, at least with but few inequalities, the other in every passion encounters a fresh impediment.

You must clearly perceive by what I have said of fear, as opposed to loveI mean servile dread; for filial fear is not only compatible with love, but may be regarded as a disposition conducive to it. The dependence of a slave on his master differs widely from the dependence of a child on his father: the slave dreads the scourge, the child only fears to give offence. The Lord is terrible to the slave, but the father is venerable to the child; the slave suffers chastisement as an act of vengeance, the child receives it as intended for his good; the slave regards it as the effect of stern dominion, the child as means employed for his improvement in virtue.

I think I have sufficiently proved by what has been said, that a preacher

Notes for the Monthly Repository, by Mr. Fr. Adr. Vander Kemp.

bught to avail himself of motives drawn from love, preferably to those that spring from fear. But one excellence still remains to be mentioned, which gives infinite advantage to the former; it consists in this, that love enpobles every good work that proceeds from this generous sentiment, and renders it, much more pleasing to God than any thing which is the offspring of fear, inasmuch as when love has attained that perfection, which we denote by the term charity, it becomes deserving of that ineffable felicity, the duration of which no time can limit, and that surpasses in greatness all the human mind can conceive. To this happiness neither obedience to the commandments of God, nor freedom from sin, can ever raise us, if we are merely influenced by fear: it is the reward of love alone.

But supposing eternal felicity were doubtful, would not the certainty that God loves us, oblige us in return to love him with all our powers? Men love each other, and run the risk of meeting with reciprocal affection. Examples of this are innumerable: we meet with them in every page of his tory. Here we read of a man who, at the expense of his fortune, relieves his friend from want, and is afterwards reduced to the same situation, without receiving the smallest assistance. In another place we find a veteran who, after shedding his blood in defence of his country, is repaid by total neglect. Again, a third person divests himself of his offices and employments to confer them on his friend, and raise his consequence on the ruins of his own.

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Let us revert to what passes between the sexes in this matter, and gives rise to such endless complaints; though I must remark that if the affection be criminal, the ingratitude is well deserved each party accuses the other of perfidy, and what is worse, the accusation being true on both sides, the warning is of use to neither. How differently does God behave towards us! That he loves all those who love him, is a proposition of eternal trutha sentence he himself has pronounced by the mouth of Solomon," Ego diligentes me diligo," (Prov. viii.): and it is repeated in the Gospel of St. John, chap. xiv. What honour! what hap piness! Among mortals, he who loves the best cannot be sure of a return, even when the claims of gratitude are

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superadded to the strongest titles; for how often does it happen, that the man who receives a favour turns his back on his benefactor, the subject abandons the prince, the prince the subject, the son forsakes his father or the father neglects his son.

[To be concluded in the next No.]

Notes for the Monthly Repository, by
Mr. Fr. Adr. Vander Kemp.
Oldenbarneveld, S. of New York,
July 1, 1816.

Mon. Repos. V. 49.

Do not hesitate in the least to declare that note in the Eclectic Review without any truth. I am persuaded I must have heard of the fact, if it were as it is asserted. Venema, who wrote against Crellius, and respected him, La Croze, who loved him, and was his constant correspondent, and bewailed his errors, as is evident from their correspondence, never suspected it. Till his death Crellius was a member and a patron of the collegiants at Amsterdam, who were generally Unitarians. He went to their place of meeting with his sister every Sabbath day, when they were the only remaining members, and she proposed to serve their God at home, which he declined, full in hope of a revival, and he lived till he did see the congregation again increased to seventy. This I have been often told by respectable members of that congregation, who at that time could not suspect that Crellius's religious opinions would stand in need of their evidence. I know all this is negative proof. I shall therefore copy you the opinion of Bockius, whose orthodoxy as a Trinitarian was, as far as I know, never doubted. He says, in the Nova Litteraria, Hamburg. 1747, p. 703, "there is a story that Crellius repented of his errors towards the close of his life, and gave clear proofs of unfeigned penitence." This Paul Berger, Archdeacon of Harmspruck, thinks not improbable (see the same Work, 1748, p. 345,) because, while he was Jesiding at Amsterdam, Crellius in the year 1731 informed him that in consequence of conferences with the cele brated Schaaft, his belief of some opinions had been shaken, so that he was in doubt concerning them.

But in the same Work for 1749,

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pp. 92 and 480, we are assured that Crellius to the last moments of his life remained an Unitarian. This, also, his brother Paul has repeatedly declared to me. Stosch, in his History of the Eighteenth Century, which Jablonski has made the third volume of his Ecclesiastical History, page 424, says, "I remember that Crellius, when I visited him at Amsterdam, in 1742, and we conversed much on various doctrines of Christianity, declared to me with some warmth that he did not adopt the system of Socinus, but rather with his whole heart believed the doctrine of the satisfaction of Jesus Christ, in the sense in which it is taught by the Remonstrants, and that he was persuaded that through Jesus Christ all men would at some time be saved and delivered from the pains of hell." He added, "that he was certain that there were now to be found few or no Socinians, properly so called." In Strodman's Europ. Litter. tom. i. P; 280, Crellius himself thus writes, "I have at all times as well among the Unitarians as the Remonstrants, taught the expiatory sacrifice of Christ, and my instructions have not been contradicted." Fred. Sam. Bock. Hist. Antitrin. Lips. 1774. tom i. pt. i. pp. 167, 168.

Stosch, mentioned above by Bock, likewise says, it seems to me to be asserted without good reason, that Crellius renounced his errors before his death." Stosch was a Trinitarian as well as Bock. His book is a college book, used in the Dutch Academies as a text book in ecclesiastical history.

I ought, perhaps, to notice, that Samuel Crellius, referred to in what precedes, is not to be confounded with his great uncle, the famous John Crellius, who was one of the Fratres Poloni.

His works are mentioned by Bockius.

Gen. Repos. and Rev. Vol. IV. pp. 387-389. Cambridge, 1813.

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Page 430. Coloss. iii. 19. Non pro hibetur autem ab Apostolo, nec charitati maritali in uxores adversatur, moderata admodum et prudens, að emendationem salutemque uxorum comparata castigatio, sive verbis ea perficiatur, quæ omnium est brevissima, et maxime licita, sive factis aliquibus, ad quod castigationis genus tarde admodum et lente, et non nisi summo cum consilio accedendum est, nec id leves ob causas, sed ob gravissimas demum suscipiendum.

Ethicæ Christ. cap. xii. p. 429. Jo. Crelli Op. Bibl. Frat. Pol. tom. iii.

Add. to p. 11, of Socinus's Life, by J. Toulmin.-Socinus visiting Great Britain.

Przipcovii Op. in fol. p. 419. Elentheropoli, 1692.

SIR, Wisbeach, Oct. 14, 1816.

BELIEVE it is very generally understood that field-preaching is illegal; and, until a recent prosecution under the Toleration Act, (see p. 624,) which rendered a new and more close examination of the subject necessary, I had been accustomed to consider the law so established. That examination raised considerable doubts in my mind; and although the magistrates in that case decided that a field is a "place of meeting" within the contemplation of the legislature, and therefore requiring registration, I was very far from being satisfied with their decision, and subsequent consideration has convinced me it was wrong.

The prosecution to which I have alluded arose at Doddington, in the Isle of Ely, and was instituted by the Reverend Algernon Peyton, Rector of that village, against Mr. Robert Newstead, a preacher in the Methodist connexion, who early in the spring of the present year thrust himself in the Rector's estimation, into his parish, and preached in the open fields to part of his flock. The Reverend Rector deeming this a very serious and unpardonable offence, in the plenitude of his zeal to put down sectarism, and support mother-church, convicted Mr. Newstead, with the assistance of a brother magistrate, in the full penalty which the Toleration Act imposes. Mr. Newstead appealed to the last General Quarter Sessions, at Wis

On Field-preaching.

beach, where, as his friends had expected, the conviction was confirmed. It was the intention of Mr. New stead's friends to reinove the conviction into the Court of King's Bench; but the Rector perceiving their determination, and being very well disposed to get out of a business which was likely to become more troublesome to him than at first he seemed to apprehend, proposed that if they would desist from carrying the projected measure into effect, he would not enforce the payment of the fine, but would suffer the prosecution to rest. This proposition was acceded to; and such, Sir, is, and always hath been, either immediately or remotely, the certain effect of a persecuting or illiberal interference in religious matters: the Doddington prosecution, like all which have preceded it, hath terminated in the establish ment and advantage of the party intended to have been suppressed; for a chapel hath been since erected in the parish, which is attended, I am informed, by a considerable number of the parishioners, to the extreme vexation of the orthodox spirit of the Rector.

It is important to Unitarians, and particularly so to Unitarian Missionaries, to ascertain how far this decision is correct; and it becomes the more important, since, if preaching abroad be illegal, I am extremely doubtful whether a prosecution might not be instituted under the statutes of Elizabeth and James I. which do not appear to be repealed, but merely suspended, by the act of William and Mary, as well as under the late Tole

ration Act.

At the time of the Revolution, Popish recusants were viewed with a very jealous eye; their principles were deemed subversive of the laws of civil society, and their attachment to the expelled family rendered them just objects of suspicion and alarm to the new dynasty. The Protestant recusants, as friends to liberty, were warm in their approbation of the change; and such was the opinion which the new government entertained of their loyalty, that, but for the danger which might have resulted to it in its then infant state, from the grant of unrestrained religious liberty, in consequence of the avowed hostility of the

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Papists, and the ease with which they might have availed themselves of that grant to effectuate their machinations, it is highly probable that no qualifications would have been required from Dissenting Protestants, nor any restrictions imposed upon them, save such as were common to Established Protestants. The meetings of the former might, in that event, have been of the most private kind; and under colour of Dissenting Protestant religious assemblies, the most seditious and dangerous meetings might have been held by the friends of the old dynasty, and these might have terminated in the subversion of the new order of things. Hence the necessity for registration, which renders the meeting public, and enables the agents of government to resort to it without difficulty, to ascertain the cast of its character. If then publicity be the sole object of registration, can it be necessary to register a field? Is not a meeting in a field necessarily public? of that public nature, that no plans dangerous to the government can be there entered into, or even projected, without immediate detection? Publi city is certainly the only object of registration; and as a field is necessarily public, the registration of it cannot be requisite.

The words of the statutes are "place of meeting," which would certainly comprehend a field, if the object of the acts required that construction; but the object of these statutes appears to be answered by the nature of a field; and, moreover, this term, "place of meeting," is defined, in the eleventh section of the late act, to be a place with a door capable of being locked, bolted, or barred. field cannot come within this description; it is necessarily excluded. building may have a door, and it is a place of this kind only, where meetings may be secretly held, which was contemplated by the legislature at the time the Toleration Acts werepassed.

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Agreeably to this view of the subject, wherever the legislature have deemed the registration of a field ne cessary in order to effectuate the object of a law, the term has been used. Thus in Pitt's notorious acts of 1796 and 1799, for suppressing popular assemblies, the terms are "house, room,

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