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gave them credit, that no encroach ment on liberty is intended. (P. 283.) But if it be meant to be said or implied by such a charge, that I ought not, in endeavouring to oppose the revival of this practice, to bring to light and exposure its ghostly pretensions and spiritual impostures-things which always were its accompaniments, when it meant any thing, and things which will be, more or less, its accompaniments, whenever it shall have acquired a sufficient degree of consistence and countenance-I must be allowed to say, that I care not how many such charges are brought against me. I still feel myself at perfect liberty to put in array, in any form I may think proper, all the unchristian practices and assumptions which ever attended this unauthorized ceremony, ad posterorum terrorem, or any other good and useful purpose. While it affords me great pleasure to bear my feeble testimony to the propriety, strength and pertinence of the arguments and observations of R. A. M., (pp. 280—282,) and to express my surprise that their striking feebleness has not been in any particular instance pointed out, I take this opportunity to observe, that he does not appear to me rightly to perceive how the admission of an unauthorized practice into a Christian society or societies, is, in fact and operation, an encroachment on Christian liberty. He says, "Every society has a right to make regulations for its own government, and to adopt whatever customs or ceremonies may seem fit to the members of that society. * The yoke may be grievous, but it is selfimposed, and there can be no reason of complaint." What! has a Christian society a right to introduce ceremonies which are not authorized by the Christian institute? But they are all, on all sides, agreed. Yes, all agree to introduce or continue an unchristian ceremony, an unauthorized custom. And so it has been agreed from age to age in almost all the churches. But surely the Unitarian Church will not consent to any such agreement. But "there can be no reason of complaint." Suppose there be one person, or a few persons, in the society, who should be wiser than their teacher and the moλ, who agree to impose the yoke and be

convinced that the thing imposed is foreign to the pure elements of Christianity, has he or they no reason to complain? Have they not the right to complain, and to be heard too, that the unauthorized practice imposed is an unchristian imposition? What signifies it who are the persons imposing?-the imposition is the same. I observe, in concluding the present communication, which want of time prevents me at present from extending, that in answering Mr. Baker's defence of Ordination Services, my notion of delicacy did not suffer me to conceal my real name; and that if Spectator really entertained" feelings" or "prejudices similar" to mine, he would, in a controversy like the present, either have appeared without disguise, or have been still content to remain a spectator. In my next, I shall consider what have been advanced on the score of utility and scriptural authority in favour of Ordinations, and hope in a moderate compass to comprise probably all I shall ever advance on the subject. If the subject be of sufficient importance, and your readers be not already tired of it, it is time for others to shew their opinion. In mine I am certainly fully confirmed, without any abatement of good-will towards my opponent, and without a wish to sound my own triumph or proclaim the feebleness of the opposite party's arguments: for is it not fit to commit the decision of the question to the tribunal to which we have appealed?

WILLIAM JOHNS.

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ni præconio dignissimus Exemplaria Græca et Latina quorum juvenis fuerat perstudiosus, senex in deliciis habebat. Sui seculi mathematicorum clarissimis parem indubitanter dixeris. Multa quæ accuratè, copiosè, cogi tatèque scripserat prelo dedit; et in communem fructum attulit. Articulos fidei, qui dicuntur, in minimum rereduxit. Deum Unum, ens entium, omnium patrem, Christo duce, sanctissimè adoravit. Quam immortalitatem toto pectore cupierat placida lenique senectute, et integrâ mente consecutus est, Anno Domini 1824, ætat. suæ 93. Vale, Vir Optime! Amice vale carissime! et siqua rerum humanarum tibi sit adhuc conscientia, monimentum quod in tui memoriam, tui etiam in mortuis observantissimus Robertus Fellowes, ponendum curavit solitâ benevolentiâ tuearis.

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SIR,

Shepton, near Craven, Sept. 26, 1825. INCE I last had the honour of addressing you from Durham,(p. 474,) I have been residing for a few weeks at Grassington, in Yorkshire, a small mining town in the district of Craven. The inhabitants are in general either Wesleian Methodists or Independents, and the only places of worship there are the two chapels belonging to the above denominations, and till within the last six months no doctrines have for some years been preached in Grassington but those of Arminius and Calvin; but of late the orthodox inhabitants have been much disturbed by the presence of Mr. Finch, a respectable individual from the neighbourhood of Manchester, whose zeal in the propagation of truth and in opposing the progress of error cannot be too warmly applauded, who has occasionally paid them a visit, and circulated amongst them a number of small pamphlets written by a notorious heretic of the name of Wright, and which (horrid to relate!) deny the truth of the received opinion of the Atonement and Deity of our Saviour, make very free with the Devil, (for whom both the Independents and Methodists have an especial liking,) contend that three cannot be one and one cannot be three, and also limit the duration of the punishment that will hereafter be inflicted on the wick ed, thereby aiming a deadly blow at

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the Calvinistic, comfortable doctrine of eternal damnation. The circulation of these pamphlets has, I am happy to say, been attended with a partial success, and some from the perusal of them have been induced to renounce the errors of Polytheisin and to embrace the purer faith of Unitarianism, while to others of the orthodox creed they have given great offence, so much so, indeed, that the pulpits of both chapels now resound solely with abuse of the infidel Socinians!

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On Sunday, Sept. 25, I attended the afternoon service at the Meetinghouse of the Independents, who have for some time past been without a regular minister, their late pastor, the Rev. Robert Aspinall, a gentleman whom I am proud to acknowledge as a friend, and in whose character are united the accomplished scholar and the charitable Christian, having removed to Bury to take the charge of a congregation there. Since Mr, A.'s departure, the pulpit has been regularly supplied by boys from the Independent school at Idle, Bradford, and on the afternoon in question the service was performed by one of the Students, whose name, out of compassion to himself and his friends, I shall keep sub umbra. This person who spoke a Tim-Bobbin sort of a dialect, having no doubt the fear of Mr. Finch's heretical books before his eyes, amused his hearers by preaching a furious discourse of half-anhour's length against the Unitarians, whom in the height of his charity he denominated Socinians, and moreover informed his congregation could not be saved; so that by his logic we must understand that Milton, Newton, Locke, Priestley, Blackburne, Lindsey, Bishop Hoadley, &c., are in eternal punishment, merely because they could not so far renounce their reason as to believe that three are one and one is three!

Our young minister in his dis course, which was very learned and most admirably adapted to the comprehension of miners, (after a great deal of rigmarole about Roman em perors, Peruvian mines, burning of widows, alligators of the Ganges, priests of Brama, and martyrs,) with the utmost gravity and composure told his flock, that the Uni

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tarians rejected a great part of the Scriptures, and as evidence of his assertion said, that they considered the passages "God shall raise up a prophet like unto me," and the one in Isaiah," Unto us a child is born," as spurious," and that many (many!) of our learned men had said so, but that divines more learned than they had examined the passages, and produced a mass of evidence that could not be got over"! Now, Sir, I challenge this young man to produce a solitary work written by a Unitarian wherein the two scriptural quotations above are pronounced "He cannot do it; I defy spurious." him he is aware what he said is a falsehood, a barefaced fabrication, a calumny as unfounded as it was illiberal. What pity that evil speaking, lying and slandering, do not form a qualification for a bishoprick! For then might this worthy disciple of the burner of good Servetus, this mild enforcer of Christian principles, this promising youth who is worthy of the patronage of Doctor Burgess himself, have been promoted to the see of Canterbury. I once heard a notorious shooter with the long bow say, that when a man did utter a falsehood he might as well tell a thumper at once. I hope our censor will pay particular attention to this remark, and when he next has occasion to say what is untrue respecting our tenets, to tell his congregations that the infidel Socinians disbelieve the Bible altogether, read instead of it the Edda or the Koran, and use a liturgy consisting of extracts from the History of Jack the Giant Killer or the Memoirs of Harriette Wilson. He will be about as near the truth in saying this, as be was when he talked about the " spurious" passages.

I have two reasons in writing this letter; the first is, that you and your numerous readers may be aware of the unfair means to which Trinitarians resort in opposing our doctrines, which cannot be assailed by any other mode; and the second is, that Mr. Vint, the Theological Tutor of Idle Academy, may know what sort of discourses some of his students make when absent from his institution.-In conclusion, Sir, I have real pleasure in informing you that all this beating of the "pulpit drum ecclesiastic" is at

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burton's strictures on the historian of the Puritans.

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(35) Vol. I. 574. [492. T.] cannot lightly admit that Neal has misunderstood Hooker, or argued inconsequentially from his principles, or confounded the abuse with the proper use of church-power. Even if he have erred on all these points, it is an error of judginent, not of will. Dr. Toulmin, in his note, observes, that the ceremonies, &c., of the national religious establishment were not fixed by the church, but constitute part of the statute law of the land.

(36) 575. [492. T.] The remarks under the foregoing article, will apply to the present. Who shall decide when and where the true religion may be found? Is the magistrate to teach us the genuine doctrine of Christ?

(37) Ib. [Ib. T.] This stricture of Warburton's, is to the same effect with the two last, and admits of nearly the same answer. The laws of a Christian Church should be those which are either contained in the Christian Scriptures, or plainly agreeable to the spirit of them. (38) 579. [496. T. Here the prelate's coarse language is levelled at Fuller, whose fidelity, however, he cannot with success impeach.

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(39) 581. [498. T.] I am no advocate for the theology of the Puritans of the age of Elizabeth: Neal styles the Lambeth articles" high propositions," but does his duty in recording them.

(40) 583. [500. T.] The annotator aims his ridicule at what he calls

the Puritan principle, that "whatever was Popish was false." Extremes produce extremes: yet good subjects and Protestants had reason to dread both the tenets and the discipline of that system.

(41) 584. [501. T.] What evidence is there that while under oppression the Puritans persecuted; or, if they did, was not persecution the vice of the age? The statement is almost a contradiction in terms.

(42) Ib. [Ib. T.] Warburton's imagination, or rather his violent prejudice, sets a phantom before his eyes: he sees persecution in the Puritans, at a time when it did not exist among them; and he assumes without and against evidence that they abused the articles, because they were Lambeth articles. The conduct of these men, whatever it was, Neal lays ingenuously before his readers.

(43) 587. [504. T.] I believe that in this case of Darrel there was delusion, but no imposture. That age was less enlightened on the subject of dæmoniacal possessions than the present, which has witnessed, however, scenes nearly as disgraceful. Would Darrel have needlessly exposed himself to the sufferings which he underwent ? Of his hypocrisy no proof exists. Even since the days of Warburton, some divines, and those of the Church of England, have made pretensions to exorcism.

(44) 589. [505. T.] The prelate accuses Neal of quoting a "weak speech." Surely, the quotation illustrates the historian's fairness!

(45) 589. [506. T.] This annotator takes every opportunity of delivering it as his opinion that the Puritans wished for an establishment of their own. He infers thus much from the slenderest premises: yet, even were his inference well supported, no charge is brought home to Neal, but to the memory of those whose opinions and vicissitudes he records.

(46) 594. [510. T.] Neal having said that most of the first Reformers were of Erastian principles, the prelate adds some notices respecting Erastus' famous book De Excommunicatione: the information we receive as correct and not uninteresting; though it is little relevant to Warburton's main object.

(47, 48) Vol. II. Preface x. xi. [xvi.

T.] What I had to remark on these articles, has been anticipated by Dr. Toulmin, who says, "It should be mentioned to the honour of Bishop Warburton, who was an advocate for a test, though not a sacramental test, that to this proposal, that Dissenters should be exempted from all pains and penalties for not serving their country in offices of trust, he gave his hearty assent, by adding in the margin, ' Most certainly!

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(49) History. 3. [3, 4. T.] I transcribe Dr. Toulmin's note: "Bishop Warburton censures Mr. Neal for not giving here the provocation which the King had received from— what he styles the villainous and tyrannical usage of the Kirk of Scotland to him.' On this censure it may be observed, that had Mr. Neal gone into the detail of the treatment the King had met with from the Scots clergy, besides the long digression into which it would have led him, it would not have eventually saved the reputation of the King. For Mr. Neal must have related the causes of that behaviour. It arose from their jealousy, and their fears of his disposition to crush them and their religion: founded on facts delivered to them by the English ministry, and from his favouring and employing known Papists. The violation of his solemn reiterated declarations, when he became King of England, shewed how just were those suspicions, and prove him to have been a dissembler. To these remarks it may be added, what provocation constrained him to give the public thanks and promise with which he left Scotland ?""

(50) 19. [18. T.] Neal, it is prebable, would have subscribed to the prelate's opinion of Egerton's speech.

(51) 78. [72. T.] This stricture regards Brightman's prophecy of the speedy overthrow of Episcopal government. "How," asks Warburton, "would the historian have us understand this? As a true prophecy to be fulfilled, or a false prophet confuted?" Toulmin's reply is admirable: "Mr. Neal is to be understood as his author Fuller, from whom he quotes. Neither meant to ascribe to Mr. Brightman a prophetic inspiration, but only to relate his sentiments and apprehensions."

(52) 101. [94, T.] Faithful to his

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(53) 107. [100. T.] In these an(54) Ib. Ib. T.] notations Warburton repeats opinions already delivered by him respecting the doctrinal theology, the discipline and the views of the Puritans. But the prelate's judgment on these things, will not affect the fidelity and credit of our historian.

(55) 115. [107. T.] Bishop Warburton supplies a circumstance omitted by Neal; I mean, the effect of Episcopius' defence in rendering John Hales, as he himself declared, Anticalvinistic. Nevertheless, it does not appear that Hales had been, at any period, the friend of Calvinism.

(56) 118. [110. T.] The prelate takes some language of King James I. as ironical: his construction of it is doubtful, but of no importance to the present subject.

(57) 120. [111. T.] Warburton is not willing to allow the Scots clergy the praise of acting with the caution and temper ascribed to them by the historian. "The bishop," adds Dr. Toulmin, "did not consider that it is not in human nature, any more than it is consistent with wisdom and moderation, to proceed, though injured and provoked, to extremities at first. That the Scots Presbyterian ministers should have great interest with the people was the necessary consequence of their being sufferers for the principles of the kirk and the nation." (58) 121. [112. T.] The words at which our prelate sneers, are, as in some other instances, those of Fuller. "Where," he inquires, was the storm, except in the fanciful author's standish?" Let us hear Neal's Editor. "The storm was in the offence Mr. Selden's doctrine gave the clergy, and the indignation of the court which it

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drew on him." This answer is satisfactory and correct. Seldon, it will be recollected, placed the claim of tithes on law, not on the feeble prop of an imaginary divine right.

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(59) 125. [116. T.] There were two religions established by law in Bohemia." These are the words of Rapin: but, according to Warburton, the matter is stated erroneously; for he tells us that there were not two religions, but one only, administering a single rite in a different way. Toul min's note deserves to be copied; it is as follows:

"This remark would be accurate, if the difference between the two parties had lain only in this point: but this could not be the case between the Catholics and the Hussites; the difference between whom extended to many essential heads; though they were with respect to this matter denominated from one single point. But the Bishop asserts that the fancy of two established religions in one state is an absurdity. But absurdities may exist, and this very absurdity exists, and did exist at the time his Lordship wrote, in Great Britain: in one part of which Episcopacy is the established religion, and in the other (Scotland) Presbyterianism."

Let it be subjoined, that the Editor's conclusion admits of being strengthened by further reasoning and additional examples, and that such reasoning and examples are at hand; though time does not suffer or the subject require them to be produced.

In pursuing the history, I transcribe a memorandum which I made a few years ago:

(1810, Oct. 30.) [122. T.] “They called the place of their settlement by the name of NEW PLYMOUTH.” “Ï learn from the Rev. Mr. Harris, [Dr. T. M. Harris,] of Dorchester, near Boston, N. A., that these settlers soon after their landing met with an Indian who could speak their native language, and who was of great service to them among his tribe. This man had been kidnapped to Europe, and had lived in Great Britain, but afterwards, by some means or other, returned to his own country.-J. K."

The narrative concerning Mr. Robinson and his friends, and his valedictory address to them, are uncom monly instructive and affecting.

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