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Review.-Wilson's Dissenting Churches.

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We are a little surprised that the author did not furnish a more complete list of the publications of Dr. Disney. He has not mentioned the very valuable memoirs published by this gentleman of Sykes and Jortin. This is the more singular, as the Life of Sykes is quoted III. 385. There is a similar imperfection in the notice of Mr. Belsham's works. The author has been more careful in his catalogues of the publications of some of Orthodox" contemporaries. [See particularly the articles George Burder, III. 469-471, and Robert Winter, D. D. III. 544, 545].

Our "

The reader will be much amused with the lives of those "Orthodox" wits, Daniel Burgess and Thomas Bradbury, who were both pastors for many years of the respectable Independent congregation, New Court, Carey Street. Burgess once assigned, we suppose in the pulpit, a curious reason why the people of God, who descended from Jacob, were called Israelites; it was because God did not choose that his people should be called Jacobites (111. 498, Note). The following, with other anecdotes of Bradbury, are still related by his respectable

descendants:

"The gloomy state of public affairs, in consequence of the intrigues that were carried on in favour of the Pretender, excited in all true Protestants the most dismal apprehensions for the safety of the nation; when to their unspeakable joy, the storm suddenly blew over by the death of the Queen, after a short illness, on Sunday, August the 1st, 1714. On that very morning, as we are informed, while Mr. Bradbury was walking along Smithfield, in a pensive condition, Bishop Burnet happened to pass through in his carriage; and observing his friend, called out to him by name, and inquired the cause of his great thoughtfulness. I am thinking,' replies Mr. Bradbury, whether I shall have the eonstancy and resolution of that noble company of martyrs, whose ashes are de posited in this place; for I most assuredly expect to see similar times of violence and

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persecution, and that I shall be called to suffer in a like cause.' The Bishop, who was himself equally zealous in the Protestant cause, endeavoured to quiet his fears; told him that the Queen was very ill; that she was given over by her physicians, who expected every hour to be her last; and that he was then going to the court to inform himself as to the exact particulars. He moreover assured Mr. Bradbury

that he would dispatch a messenger to him

with the earliest intelligence of the Queen's death; and that if he should happen to be

in the pulpit when the messenger arrived,

he,

he should be instructed to drop a handkerchief from the gallery, as a token of that event. It so happened that the Queen died while Mr. Bradbury was preaching, and the intelligence was communicated to him by the signal agreed upon. It need hardly be mentioned what joy the news gave him; however, suppressed his feelings during the sermon; but in his last prayer returned thanks to God for the deliverance of these kingdoms from the evil counsels and designs of their enemies, and implored the Divine blessing upon his majesty, King George, and the house of Hanover. then gave out the 89th Psalm, from Patrick's collection, which was strikingly appropri ate to the occasion. Mr. Bradbury ever afterwards gloried in being the first man who proclaimed King George the First.

He

"This bold and unexpected proclamation could not but greatly surprize Mr. Bradbury's congregation, and excite their alarm for his safety. Accordingly, when he came down from the pulpit, some of his friends expressed their apprehension on his account; he, however, soon convinced them that he was upon safe ground, by a relation of what had happened. The sentiments of joy which were diffused throughout the nation by the Queen's death, will be better conceived than expressed; and from what has been already related, it may be supposed that Mr. Bradbury partook largely in the public rejoicing. This, he was not backward to declare, both from the pulpit and from the press; and it is commonly reported, that he preached soon after that event upon the following text: Go, see now this cursed woman, and bury her; for she is a king's daughter.‡ Mr. Bradbury was one of the Dissenting ministers who carried up the congratulatory address to George I. upon his accession to the throne. As they were dressed in cloaks

"The messenger employed upon this occasion, is said to have beeu his brother, Mr. John Bradbury, who followed the medical profession.""

ተ "Private Information."
" Kings, ix. 34.”

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Review-Wilson's Dissenting Churches.

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We are told (IV. 32), that on the lease of the meeting-house in Peter Street, Soho, expiring, the landlord refused from pure bigotry to allow the use of it any longer to the Dissenters: this scrupulous churchman was no other than Mr. Horne, a poulterer in Newport Market, the father of the late celebrated John Horne Tooke, who inherited his father's high church principles, though they did not make him religious, and frequently spoke of the Dissenters with bitterness.

Princes Street, Westminster, gives occasion to some of the richest pieces of biography in the work (IV. 57 -118). The author has done justice to the able Nonconformist historian, Calamy. As this eminent divine was engaged in controversy with the French prophets, his biographer properly traces the history of those extraordinary enthusiasts, whom he doss not with Messrs. Bogue and Bennett survey with any feeling of doubt or wonder. [See Mon. Repos. IV. 634. Also III. 467.] With the memoir of Mr. Samuel Say, of whom and his papers there is a full account in our fourth and fifth volumes, we have a good portrait from a painting in the possession of the Rev. S. S. Toms, of Framlingham. In the biography of Dr. Kippis, which is well drawn up, there is a piece of advice to "Socinians," founded we apprehend upon a mistake. It is allowed that the Dr. "inclined to the distinguishing tenets of Socinus" (there was more than inclination), but it is added to his praise that he disapproved of the conduct of the modern Socinians, in assuming to themselves the exclusive appellation of Unitarians." Did then Dr. Kippis wish that Trinitarians should be called

"Said to have been Lord Bolingbroke." + The humble calling of his father gave occasion to one of the earliest sallies of John Horne Tooke's wit. His classfellows at one of the public schools were one day boasting of their families. Horne was silent, but being pressed on the subject of his parentage escaped contempt by a well-timed pun: his father, he said, was a Turkey merchant.

Unitarians? The extension of the term was never debated with regard to them, but in reference solely to the Arians, to whom the majority of the Unitarians of the present day are in the habit of applying it. Encouraged however by Dr. Kippiss example, Mr. Wilson proceeds seriously to advise the "Socinians" to drop a name which will always be withheld from them by intelligent " Anti-Socinians." This reminds us of the old practice of re-baptizing heretics. With submission, we venture to pronounce that the name Unitarian will not be always withheld from those that claim it by Anti-Socinians, whether "intelligent" or "unintelligent." A mass of books must be destroyed in order to eradicate the term, and amongst them Mr. Wilson's History, in the third volume of which the running title for twelve pages together is "Essex Street Unitarian."

We are indebted to Mr. Wilson for a better biographical account than we had before seen of John Canne, the Puritan annotator. He was a thorough reformer and upon the whole a very interesting character. There is a statement here of the charge against him [see Mon. Repos. X. 418, 547] of designing a Bible "without note or comment. Canne emigrated from England to Holland, with other Brownists, to avoid persecution. He settled at Amsterdam, and there followed the art of printing for a livelihood: his name appears as printer to a 4to. tract before us (which is referred to by Mr. Wilson) entitled "Man's Mortallitie, &c. by R. O. 1643."* His being accessary in any degree to the appearance of a work designed to explode the common notion of the human soul, is a proof of his being at least a friend to free inquiry.

Canne preached whilst he was in

There is a large account of this book in Archdeacon Blackburne's Hist. View of the Controv. concerning an Intermediate State, ch. xv. It is there stated by mistake that the date of the first, Canne's, edition was 1644. The Archdeacon is also in error with regard to the date of the 2nd edition at London. He assigns the year 1655; but the year in a copy in our possession is 1674. This edition is (not as Blackburne says 24to. but) very small Svo. The title is altered to Man wholly Mortal, &c.

Review-Wilson's Dissenting Churches.

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Veil to a Cobler, if they know but How.

This lay-preacher was much persecuted, and dying under the sentence of excommunication, was buried in the highway, in a spot where many of his people afterwards directed their ashes to be laid.

A good story is related (IV. 155, 166), of Richard Baxter. Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, and Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, wits and debauchees of the court of Charles II. meeting the old nonconformist teacher as they were riding in the country, and wishing to have a little merriment at his expence, accosted him gravely, "Pray Mr. Baxter, which is the nearest road to hell?" The good man replied, it may be supposed to their surprise and confusion,

"Rochester some say, But Buckingham's the nearest way." It is remarked (IV. 225), as a singular fact with regard to the Baptist ahurch, Carter Lane, Tooley Street, that during the ninety-four years that it has existed, it has had but two pastors, Drs. Gill and Rippon, of whom the latter is still living, and, it may be added, actively performing his ministerial duties.

The introduction to the account of St. Thomas's, Southwark (IV. 294 et seq.), contains some reflections uncalled for by the subject. The decline of the congregation since the time of its having Calvinistic ministers is charged directly to its departure from "the old Protestant doctrines;" but how many declensions has the historian recorded in churches that have never swerved from the Assembly's Catechism? He has not accounted for these, nor was it his province; and his work would have been fully answerable to its title if he had contented

himself with giving the history of

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Presbyterian churches without speculating upon the causes of their decay.

He insinuates a charge against this congregation of "an approximation to the world." Can the reader guess the reason? it is because the people at St. Thomas's call their place of worship an "Unitarian chapel." The worldliness is not, we presume, in the former of these terms; but what new superstition would the writer introduce, by thus dividing the nonconformists into worldlings or saints, according as they denominate their houses of prayer chapels or meetinghouses?

This change, too, as well as the institution of Unitarian Lectures in the chapel, is attributed to the passing of the Trinity Bill; whereas both the Lectures and the inscription were, if we remember rightly, set up before that wise and just legislative measure had been adopted.

There is the error (p. 296 and 319) of Thomus for John Kentish; and Mr. Kentish is represented as having been afternoon preacher at St. Thomas's from the time of his removal from Plymouth, to his settlement at Bir mingham, whereas he was for several years the afternoon preacher to the Gravel-Pit congregation, Hackney.

The author is mistaken also with regard to Mr. Edmund Butcher's leaving Sidmouth and being "now (1814) at Bridgwater" (IV. 405). Mr. Butcher is and has been for many years the much-respected pastor of the Presbyterian congregation at Sidmouth.

We have an interesting memoir (IV. 408-410) of John Humphrey, one of the ejected ministers, who is said to have survived all his brethren, living to nearly his hundredth year. Calamy relates that when he was writing his account of the ejected ministers he sent to Humphrey for a list of his writings: "The good old gentleman," says he, "sent me word for answer, that he desired no more than to go to his grave with a sprig of rosemary." He complied, however, with the request, and communicated with the account of his publications some anecdotes of his life, which may be seen in Calamy.

We might extend our remarks, and multiply our extracts, but we have already exceeded the limits of our review and must desist.

Our opinion of this work has been

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Obituary-Rev. Dan Taylor.

freely expressed in the course of our review; but we shall have misrepresented our own sentiments if the reader have not gathered that we regard it, with all its little defects, as the most valuable contribution that has been made of late years to the records of nonconformity. It is entitled to a place in all our congregational libraries. We wish the author had not so often indulged his religious partialities; but, as it is, we cordially thank him for his volumes, and if our voice could have any influence over him, we would earnestly intreat him to favour the public in some shape or other with the remainder of his historical collections.

A large Appendix is added to the IVth volume, on the present state of the Dissenting interest and other branches of ecclesiastical history,

which contains many just thoughts and seasonable remonstrances, but which occupies room that we would rather have seen filled with memoirs of nonconformist churches.

There are twenty-six portraits, in the four volunies, of the following ministers: Timothy Cruso, William Har ris, D. D. Samuel Wilton, D. D. Benjamin Grosvenor, D. D. Benjamin Robinson, William Kiffin, John Newman, Samuel Pike, Samuel Wright, D. D. John Evans, D. D. John Allen, M. D. Caleb Fleming, D. D. Timothy Rogers, M. A. Thomas Amory, D. D. Richard Steel, M. A. Hanserd Knollys, Joseph Burroughs, William King, Benjamin Avery, LL. D. Daniel Burgess, Samuel Say, Joshua Oldfield, D. D. Timothy Lamb, Thomas Cotton, Joshua Bayes, Joseph Hussey.

OBITUARY.

Died Tuesday November 26, the REV. DAN TAYLOR, who had been pastor of the General Baptist congregation, Church Lane, White-Chapel, London, thirty one years, aged 78. Mr Taylor was active and respected in his profession. He was considered as the head of the new connexion of General Baptists, and for some years superintended their academy for ministers. He was several times appointed to the chair at the meetings of the Dissenting ministers at Dr. Williams's Library.

He was born in the neighbourhood of Halifax, in Yorkshire, December 17, 1738, and became a preacher about the year 1760. He married about 1763, and by his first wife had thirteen children, of whom six, namely one son and five daughters, survive him. He had been married five weeks to a fourth wife at the time of his death. He had been subject to faintinge for some months, and was sometimes affected in the street, and obliged to casual passengers for conveyance home. Thursday November 21, he had a severe epileptic attack, but recovered in a few hours, and preached twice on Sunday, November 24. Monday 25, he walked not less than seven or eight miles, but was excessively fatigued. Tuesday morning, November 26, at three o'clock, he was

scized suddenly and very seriously; afterwards, however, he became tolerably cheerful, conversed much in his usual way, got up to dinner, smoked his pipe, and afterwards slept very calmly for two hours, got up again in the afternoon, conversed and smoked as before, walked a little at intervals till seven o'clock, when he died almost instantaneously, while sitting in his chair. He was cheerful, composed and peaceful to the last.

His remains were interred on Bunhill Fields, December 5: Mr. Kello, the Independent minister spoke at the grave. His funeral sermon was preached at his meeting-house on Sunday December 15, to a numerous auditory, by the Rev. Robert Smith, of Nottingham, from 2 Tim. iv. 6, 7, 8.

Mr. Taylor's opinions were, with the exception of baptism, nearly the same as those of the Wesleian Methodists. He separated some years ago from the General Baptist assembly. Of late years he has been heard to express respect for some of the members of the old connexion to whom his zeal for a higher system of orthodoxy caused him to appear for a time hostile.

The following is the most complete list of his numerous publications which his family can furnish.

1. The Necessity of Searching the

Obituary.-Rev. Dan Taylor.

Scriptures; with directions. A Ser

mon.

2. The Faithful and Wise Steward. A Sermon addressed to young ministers at an association.

3. The Mourning Parent comforted. The substance of two Sermons, occasioned by the death of two of the author's children.

4. The Scriptural Account of the way of Salvation; in two parts.

5. The Duty of Gospel Ministers, explained and enforced at an ordina

tion.

6. An Humble Essay on Christian Baptism. The second edition, with two Letters to the Rev. Dr. Addington on the subjects and mode of Baptism. 7. Our Saviour's Commission, explained and improved. A Sermon on Matt. xxviii. 19, 20.

8. Scrutator's Query, respecting the extent of our Blessed Saviour's death.

9. Scrutator to Responsor; or an Introduction to a farther proof (if need be) that Jesus Christ laid down his Life for the Sins of all Mankind.

10. Scripture Directions and Encouragements for Feeble Christians.

11. Rules and Observations for the Enjoyment of Health and Long Life. Extracted from Dr. Cheyne.

12. Candidus Examined with Candour. On Free Communion.

13. A Practical Improvement of the Divinity and Atonement of Jesus, attempted in Verse.

14. Entertainment and Profit united. Easy Verses on the chief subjects of Christianity, for children and youth. Third edition.

15. The Stroke of Death, practically improved. A Funeral Sermon for Mrs. Susanna Birley, late wife of the Rev. George Birley, of St. Ives, Huntingdonshire. To which is prefixed the Speech delivered at her Interment, by the Rev. Robert Robinson, of Cambridge.

16. An Essay on the Right Use of Earthly Treasure, in Three Letters to a Friend.

17. Observations on the Rev. Andrew Fuller's Pamphlet, entitled "The Gospel of Christ worthy of all Acceptation." In Nine Letters to a Friend.

18. Observations on the Rev. Andrew Fuller's Reply to the above, or a Further Attempt to prove that the Universal Invitations of the Gospel are founded on the Universality of

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Divine Love, and the death of Jesus
Christ, as the propitiation for the sins
of the whole world. In thirteen
Letters to a Friend. Second edition.

19. The Friendly Conclusion with the Rev. Andrew Fuller, respecting the Extent of our Saviour's Death. In four Letters to a Friend.

20. The Cause of National Calamities, and the Certain Means of preventing or removing them. A Fast Day Sermon on 1 Sam. xii. 14, 15, Feb. 25, 1795.

21. The Eternity of Future Punishment, asserted and improved.

22. The Eternity of Future Punishment re-asserted, the Importance of the Doctrine stated, and the Truth of it vindicated, in a Reply to the Exceptions of the Rev. Mr. Winchester against it. In six Letters to the Rev. G-B——— of C—

23. The Interposition of Providence in the Recovery of his Majesty King George the Third, illustrated and im proved. A Sermon.

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24. A Dissertation on Singing in the Worship of God, interspersed with occasional Strictures on the Rev. Mr. Boyce's Tract, entitled, Serious Thoughts on the Present Mode and Practice of Singing in the Public Worship of God."

25. A Second Dissertation on Sing ing in the Worship of God, in defence of the former.

26. The Consistent Christian, or Truth, Peace, Holiness, Unanimity, Stedfastness and Zeal recommended. The substance of five Sermions.

27. A Charge and Sermon, delivered at the Ordination of the Rev. John Deacon, on Wednesday, April 26, 1786, at Leicester; together with the Introductory Discourse, the Ques tions proposed to the Church and the Minister, the Answers returned, and Mr. Deacon's Profession of Faith. The Introductory Discourse and Charge by D. Tavlor, of London; the Sermon by W. Thompson, of

Boston.

28. A Charge and Sermon, together with a Confession of Faith, delivered at the Ordination of the Rev. George Birley, on Wednesday, October 18, 1786, at St. Ives, Huntingdonshire. The Charge by D. Taylor, of London, the Sermon by R. Robinson, of Cam. bridge.

29. Memoirs of the Life, Character and Ministry of the late Rev. William

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