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SIR,

Penzance. AM tempted to submit a few remarks to the consideration of your correspondent Mr. Clarke, (p 279,) in the hope that they may lessen in his mind the force of some of those offences which he appears to find in the conduct of his Unitarian brethren. It is in the abuse of certain names that he sees matter of complaint; and although he appears to me to overcharge the case, yet I must own I feel some little sympathy with him, on the whole, and am willing to shew him that he is not quite so much in the minority as he seems to suppose.

I think Mr. Clarke completely right in the sense which he wishes to assign to the term Unitarian, viz., that it ought to designate all those who confine the names and honours of Deity to the one God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. With him I judge that those who attempt to attach any more limited meaning to the word than this, do an injury both to their brethren and their cause. The very derivation of the word makes the true sense of it obvious to every one: the Unitarian is one that is distinguished as contending for the unity of God. So evident is this matter, that it makes our adversaries dislike to allow us this name; it appears to them like a concession of the great point in dispute; and as names are important, they grudge us the advantage of so good a one. We, however, claim the name; we adopt it, and know ourselves by no other; because we think it a just and true name. We contend for the unity of God in opposition to polytheism; it is indeed possible that we may fancy polytheism where it does not exist, and this our opponents will say. Still, I repeat it, we contend against Trinitarianism on no other ground than because we regard it as polytheism. In short, Trinitarians may as properly allow us our name as continue to use their own both parties must feel that these names very justly characterize the opposite points of opinion existing between them; and it is inevitable that they will be taken by each party in its own sense. To us the two terms are equivalent to Monotheists and Tritheists to them they only convey a reference to that distinction in the Divine Nature, which in English they call persons, but which, in the original

VOL. XX.

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Greek liturgies, was called moçasıç, or subsistence, all of which are terins which please most of their employers without being understood.

If we do not unjustly limit the sense of the term Unitarian, we shall be more likely to preserve it in use; and that from the necessity and conveniency of the case. There is no other name which really embraces and describes the members of our congregations. They like to call us Socinians: but this term is extremely inappropriate, because we not only almost universally disapprove of that religious worship of Christ for which that great man contended, but not a few of us, both people and ministers, entertain more or less of the doctrine of the super-angelic pre-existence of Christ, which is commonly supposed to be entirely denied by those who are Socinians. In the extended sense, therefore, of the term Unitarian, it serves a convenient and necessary use, which is peculiar to itself, and is, therefore, likely to maintain its ground. But if it be allowed to become synonymous with the term Socinian, there is great reason to fear that popular antipathy will succeed in fixing on us that one of the two synonymes for which we have least liking.

I think Mr. Clarke is also right in disclaiming for Unitarians a denial of the divinity of Christ. For myself, as a Unitarian, I earnestly avow my belief that Jesus Christ our Lord was most truly divine; divine in his person, as well as in his doctrine. In declaring thus much, I do not mean to maintain either his proper deity or his personal pre-existence; his own nature I believe to have been properly and truly human; such as our own, sin excepted; but I also believe that in so eminent a sense" he was in the Father and the Father in him," or, in other words, "the word which from the beginning was with God, and was God, had so become flesh in his person," that he was indeed most inconceivably divine, and most justly may be called our divine Master and Saviour. If any should be disposed to regard these distinctions with contempt as a mere quarrel about words, I beg to remind them once more of the important influence of names, in all questions which involve an appeal to popular opinion. And surely, in a

matter like this, we do well to exercise a holy jealousy, and not willingly to submit even to the appearance of lowering the dignity of one whom we so much revere, one iota below what we really intend, and what scriptural truth requires.

Mr. C. deals in certain strictures on the views which Unitarians take of Christ's person. Here I think he is not quite fair; for when a man censures the explanations which others have given of an important subject, he ought to be prepared with some of his own which he deems better. But Mr. C. seems contented to do without any at all, and desirous, by the extraordinary effusion of mysticism in which he indulges, to reduce us all to the same condition as himself. I think he errs in transfusing the mystical obscurity of a few passages of Holy Writ over the whole. Three of the four Gospels, the Acts, and almost the whole of Paul's acknowledged Epistles, speak of Christ in a plain and intelligible way; if in the writings of John and the Epistle to the Hebrews it is somewhat otherwise, we ought in reason to interpret the obscure by the plain, and not to confound the plain by the obscure. A religion of unintelligible dogmas is as unedifying to the heart as it is dreary and desolate to the understanding.

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A dera Quakers, unlike their ancestors, are very cautious of entering into religious controversy, it may be rather gratifying to some of readers to be informed of the circumstances which operated so powerfully on the minds of the Friends of Waterford, as to draw from them the "declaration" of their faith in the divinity and manhood of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ," which appeared in your number for December last. (XIX. 726.)

The Friends in Ireland have been zealous in promoting the education of the labouring classes, and also in the distribution of the Scriptures among them, and the Roman Catholics have opposed both, especially the latter; hence a little bitterness of feeling has been engendered between them. In

addition to this, at a Roman Catholic meeting, wherein those points were discussed, one of their ministers attacked the Quakers, charging the whole Society with fanaticism; in support of which he quoted, from Barclay's Apology, these words :"They" (i. e. the Scriptures) "are and may be esteemed a secondary rule, subordinate to the Spirit, from which they have all their excellency and certainty;" and taking this as a sort of text, he endeavoured to shew, that the imagination of every man, respecting the influences of the Spirit upon his own mind, being thus raised above the Scriptures, would produce fanaticism as its legitimate fruit, and in proof instanced the case of James Nayler, which certainly furnished but too strong a ground for the charge; for this man's conduct was so very extravagant, that Cromwell's Parliament resolved, "That James Nayler, upon the whole matter of fact, is guilty of horrid blasphemy;" also, James Nayler is a grand impostor and seducer of the people." But

"That

*By way of shewing the spirit of the times, I give your readers, by your permission, the Parliament's sentence on "The House having James Nayler : passed these two resolutions on the 8th of December, 1654, the question came daily before it until the 16th, and two divisions took place, when a motion was made that the punishment should be death. This was lost by the majority of 96 to 82, and after much deliberation, the next day the punishment was resolved as follows:

"Resolved, That James Nayler be set on the pillory, with his head in the pillory, in the Palace Yard, Westminster, day next,' (i. e. the following day,) ́ and during the space of two hours on Thursshall be whipped through the streets from Westminster to the Old Exchange, London, and there likewise be set on the pillory, with his head in the pillory for the space of two hours, on Saturday next, in each place wearing a paper containing an inscription of his crimes; and that at the Old Exchange his tongue be bored through with a hot iron, and that he be there also stigmatized in the foreafterwards sent to Bristol, and be conhead with the letter B., and that he be veyed into and through the said city on horseback bare ridged, with his face backward, and there also publicly whipped the next market-day after he comes

this, as the Quaker historian, Wm. Sewel, would say, was a "particular case of odd behaviour," with which the whole body ought not to be charged; and the fact is, they so far disapproved of his conduct that they disunited him from the Society. Á report of the proceedings of this meeting was published in the Waterford Chronicle. The Waterford Mail, of the following week, contained a wellwritten anonymous paper in exculpation of the Quakers, it is supposed by one of their own body, in which the writer is rather severe upon the Roman Catholics. A few days after this appeared, another Catholic meeting was held, and the same minister came forward again with a warm attack upon the Quakers, and adverted to the paper published in the Waterford Mail, but apparently more with a view to turn it to ridicule than confute it by sober reasoning; and in order to convince his hearers that the heresy of the Quakers is the worst of all heresies, both in its kind and degree, he amused his audience with some account of himself and another gentleman having visited a Sunday-school, which is under Quaker patronage, when, on conversing with the governess (also a Quaker) on the religious instruction of the children, they found that she denied the doctrine of the Trinity-of the Divinity of Christ-of the Atonement-and, in short, as he represented it, nearly all the funda mental doctrines of the Christian religion; and the opinions of this Sunday-school governess were, by implication at least, stated to be those of the body collectively. Now, Mr. Editor, I believe it to have been in consequence of the publication of those charges against the Quakers, that a few individuals were induced to publish the "declaration" of the faith of the Society in the "Divinity and Manhood of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,"

thither, and that from thence he be committed to prison in Bridewell, London, and there restrained from the society of all people, and there to labour hard till he shall be released by Parliament, and during that time shall be debarred the use of pen, ink, and paper, and shall have no relief but what he earns by his daily labours.'"

See Joseph Gurney Bevan's Life of James Nayler. Phillips, London. 1800.

before alluded to. It is very clear that the subscribing Friends were well satisfied of the soundness of their faith as therein described; but that their Ronan Catholic antagonists will not consider their "declaration" of the Unity and Supremacy of God, and that he is the only proper object of religious worship, (which the first paragraph clearly implies,) as any conclusive proof of their belief in the Trinity, or in the divinity of Christ, according to the general acceptation of the term, is equally clear.

The "declaration" itself is extracted from a letter of George Fox's to the Governor of Barbadoes, and must therefore be deemed primitive, orthodox Quakerism; and we have the joint testimony of five of the most respectable members of that body in Waterford, that it "continues to be the faith and belief of the Society to the present time.”

In your introduction to the "declaration" you say, that many Unitarians could subscribe to every word of it with perfect good faith; and what of that? The truth is the truth, by whoiscever it is declared, and as George Fox, in his time, would not, so neither will the Irish Quakers of the present day, love the truth the less, because it is professed by those called Unitarians, i. e. if they are those honest men we suppose them, and love it, as they profess, for its own sake.

From the writings of Fox, Penn, Barclay, Pennington, and others of the early Quakers, I must conclude, that, as it respects the Supreme Being, they believed that "but ONE is the Holy God, and God but THAT HOLY ONE,"† and, also, that this one GOD is the only proper object of all adoration and worship, as firmly, and professed it as openly, as those called Unitarians in the present day; and why the modern Quakers, on this side the Irish channel, should be so horrified" as they appear to be at the very name of Unitarianism, whilst their brethren on the other side that narrow channel, and the vast Atlantic, are advocating their primitive principles, must be left for themselves to explain. Perhaps many of them would do well to examine the "foundation" upon which

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* Fox's Journal, p. 358.

+ Penn's Sandy Foundation Shaken.

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As the Editor of a Repository, age, surely those Christians whose

not merely for theological controversy, but for the dissemination of right notions and correct principles upon every subject connected with the happiness of mankind and the wellbeing of society, I beg leave to trouble you with a short statement of an experiment now being made at Lindfield, in the county of Sussex, relative to the education of the poor.

Some benevolent individuals, conceiving that the labour of children might be made to pay for their education, have united and built schoolrooms, at the above place, of sufficient capacity for 200 boys and 200 girls. During one part of the day (from nine to twelve) the children are to be taught reading, writing and arithmetic. In the other part, (from two to five,) the boys will be instructed (in classes) in agricultural labour, when the weather permits, and in some of the most use-** ful mechanical arts; while the girls will be employed in needlework, the duties of the household and dairy, making butter, knitting, straw-plaiting, and, in short, every species of domestic industry that will contribute to make them valuable servants. At the commencement, the parents or friends of each child will pay threepence a week for its education; but the projectors of the undertaking are confident that experience will soon confirm their theory, that the produce of three hours' labour of each child per day, will pay the expenses of the establishment; in which case the weekly charge will altogether cease.

This, Sir, is an undertaking worthy of the exertions of the greatest philosopher and of the most ardent philanthropist. To make the peasantry of our country virtuous, by affording them the means of an independent, economical education, to eradicate the root of all evil, ignorance, is an attempt worthy of a Briton, and of a Briton, too, in the nineteenth century.

Happy shall I be if this undertaking

belief is founded wholly on the Scriptures, and whose form of worship is not corrupted by superstitious cere monies, should be most strenuous in the cause of virtue, and most active in their endeavours to ameliorate the general condition of the people, and remove misery, ignorance and sin from the world. May Unitarians, therefore, come forward, on the present occasion, with that zeal which the importance of the subject and the interests of the country so loudly demand, and establish schools, if not in every district, at least in connexion with every chapel belonging to them, that they may be ranked amongst the benefactors of mankind, and the name Unitarian proclaimed as blessed on the earth.

SIR,

JOHN SMITH, Jun.

S the noun, word, in John i. 1,

is in our common Bibles printed with a capital W, and common readers attach additional consequence to it on that very account, may I ask your learned correspondents whether Ayos be in any one ancient Greek MS. written with a capital A ?

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H. C.

Critical Synopsis of the Monthly Re-
pository for August, 1824.
NORRESPONDENCE OF BAX-
CORRESPO
In the spring of
1825, a haunted house attracted the
attention of many inhabitants belong-
ing to a city situated on the Atlantic
shore of the United States. For
several nights in succession, the
strangest knockings were heard at the
doors and windows of a particular
room in the house; the chairs were
removed from their parietal stations,
and huddled together in the centre of
the room; other articles of furniture
were scattered about in wild and pre-
ternatural confusion. The premises

were visited from time to time by multitudes, of whom several procured permission to lodge on different nights in the haunted spot. The result of their experiment invariably confirmed the voraciousness of the reports. Scoffing was exchanged for silence, and unbelief for credulity. One peculiarity belonging to the invisible agent, was, that it never performed its operations by candle-light. Hold the candle for a moment in the entry, and on your return to the room you would find deeds of darkness done to the furniture and bed. Philosophy in vain endeavoured to account for these unusual appearances. The inhabitants of the house were of the Methodist persuasion. The ministers of that denomination assured the public that such circumstances were by no means new, and exhibited several books containing authentic accounts of their former occurrence. No explanation of the mystery has yet been offered; no violent religious effects have been produced; and at the moment I am writing, I cannot tell whether the nocturnal visitant continues or not his impressive, though vague, admonitions.

The Letters of Gilbert Clerke to Baxter are excellent studies for amateur Unitarians. I would suggest to the transcriber a various reading. In the second letter, instead of finishing the third paragraph with "how in solidum?" I would read, "how in solidum, if an Archbishop may controul him?" What follows this, is a new quotation from Cyprian.

A little below, I see no propriety in the citation, Matt. iv. 17, ch. vii. 14, might furnish a kind of an illustration to the writer's argument, Persons more familiar with scripture and with the point in controversy may think of some text apter still.

In paragraph 7, the sentence, But was such a sovereign power, &c., should either be made interrogatory, or a negative particle should be inserted after power.

I like this Gilbert Clerke. He was very shrewd and candid.

Reformation by means of kindness. By which party could this fact have been divulged? By him who had committed the felony or him who had forgiven and concealed it? Though -highly pathetic and impressive, this

anecdote involves some circumstances of a delicate and painful nature which one would almost wish had been confined to the applauding and rewarding bosom of the Deity alone. But the example may be of use. It also makes us revere something in human nature.

Protestant Bigotry in Ireland. Such enactments as are here quoted could probably be no where found in the annals of the present century; hence, may we not infer an advance in the spirit of toleration, however imperceptible in its positive movements? The hour-hand of human improvement frequently surprises us with unexpected positions.

Criticism on Homer, &c. Mr. Evans's hypothesis receives support from the very etymology of the word dag. I should think it likely that on was an early proverbial epithet annexed to dais, and descriptive of the precision with which the act of dividing implied in that substantive was accustomed to be executed. That it bears the meaning of equal partition, instead of epicurean richness, Heyne refers for proof to the Odyss. Y. 281– 283. To derive it from εv, seems very far-fetched.

The fathers might have borrowed the notion of Christ's descent into hell from the classics, if they had not found it already in the Scriptures, 1 Pet. iii. 19. Rosenmüller has anticipated Mr. Evans's idea, but goes further back, and supposes that Peter adopted the vulgar notion of defunct persons descending into the place of departed spirits, and prosecuting the habits and employments to which they had fondly been addicted when alive!

The criticism on Coloss. iv. 1, &c., is very happily appended to the remarks on Homer.

Friendly Correspondence between an Unitarian and a Calvinist.

I apprehend these writers will scarcely ever approach towards a mutual agreement. And the reason seems to be this-they both adopt for the grounds of their reasoning sentiments rather than principles; or, to speak more properly, they permit their principles to be so tinged by the prevailing hues of sentiment which radically belong to their respective characters, that even though, on com

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