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REVIEW.

"Still pleased to praise, yet not afraid to blame."-POPE.

ART. I.-A Letter to the Rev. Dr.
Milner, occasioned by some Pas-
sages contained in his Book, enti-
tled,
"The End of Religious Con-
troversy." By the late Rev. S.
Parr, LL.D. London: printed for
Mawman. 1825. 8vo. pp. 60.
ART. II. Dr. Milner's Parting
Word to Dr. Grier. With a Brief
Notice of Dr. S. Parr's Posthu-
mous Letter to Dr. Milner. Lon
don: printed, &c., by Keating and
Brown. 1825. 8vo. pp. 49.

THE

It

HE former of these pamphlets is edited by the late Dr. Parr's grandson, the Rev. John Lynes, of Elmley Lovett, near Worcester. was originally written for the Gentleman's Magazine; but "after-thoughts enlarged its dimensions, and other reasons, unnecessary to detail, prevented its publication in that form. The design of publishing it, however, was never abandoned, and three different copies, each left more finished than the other, demonstrate the author's zeal and his intentions.”

Many of our readers may be aware that Dr. Milner, in his "End of Religious Controversy," had, more than once, taken occasion to intiinate, and even allege, that Bishop Hallifax died a Catholic. The statement naturally excited wonder among those who knew and valued the departed prelate. Accordingly, the main object of Dr. Parr's Letter is to refute the charge: this design he has executed firmly and courteously; and if there are any individuals whom the reasoning in his tract fails to convince, we can refer them, without anxiety or hesitation, to the documents in the Appendix.

Of Dr. Parr's pamphlet nearly the first twenty-seven pages are little relative to the matter in dispute. In those pages he extracts from " the End of Religious Controversy," a number of propositions, some of which

*It is, after all, not such as Dr. Parr himself would have laid before the world.

are wild and monstrous, others misplaced, and most untenable. Occasionally, however, he stops to animadvert upon his quotations: and we shall produce one stricture of this kind, which is eminently marked by Pp. 16, pertinency and acuteness.

17.

The Vicar Apostolic having, with much triumph, declared, that "it is an absurdity to talk of the Church or Society of Protestants, because the term Protestant expresses nothing positive, much less any union or association among them," Dr. Parr submits to him the following questions:

"Where, perhaps you will be asked by some of my brethren, lies the abWhere, permit surdity of talking of a church, or society of Protestants ? me to ask you, is the contradiction either If one term in the ideas or the terms? Protestant distinctly and unequivocally expresses one idea, the protestation of those who protest against the Catholic Church,* how does it follow that another term, be it church or society, does not as unequivocally and as distinctly express another idea, namely, the union or association of those who thus protest When you, Sir, among themselves?

have the goodness to assist my dullness, I shall be ready to forgive your positiveness, and to applaud your sagacity."

of

"the

In three several pages End of Religious Controversy," Dr. Milner has spoken of Bishop Hallifax as dying a Catholic. At first, indeed, (Part i. p. 77,) he qualifies this statement by the word probably. Nevertheless, he repeats it afterwards without any modification, a practice not uncommon with some polemics, and deserving of severe reproof. With a moderation of temper and a correctness of judgment which are extremely admirable, Dr. Parr contents himself with pointing out the utter improbability of the allegation. From Bi

+ See Mosheim's account of the term, Eccl. Hist., [Maclaine,] IV. 73, 74 (ed, 1782).

shop Hallifax's personal and public character, from the prelate's writings, from the circumstance of Dr. Milner's informant being anonymous, from the silence of near relations and official attendants, he argues effectually and satisfactorily to the conclusion, that the statement is unfounded.

But the Appendix is by far the most valuable and important part of this pamphlet; inasmuch as we find the question of fact here disposed of in a manner perfectly decisive. On Feb. 9, of the present year, the Rev. B. F. Hallifax, son of the former Bishop of that name, and resident at Batchcott, near Ludlow, addressed to Dr. Milner a letter, in which it is asked, with due respect, on what grounds the probability of the above cited statement rests; and in which it is declared, on the authority of those who attended the prelate during his illness and at his death, that "no expression escaped his lips, from which it could be inferred or supposed any change had taken place in his mind with respect to the Church of England." By Dr. Milner this letter was acknowledged and this inquiry was answered. The Vicar Apostolic speaks of " a certain Catholic" who had access to the Bishop in his illness, and who, it seems, was made the depositary of his avowal of a change of faith. Unfortunately, nevertheless, "both the parties alluded to having long since quitted this world, it is not possible to bring the matter to any thing like evidence; but," adds Dr. Milner, 66 as I spoke of the fact barely as probable, I may be allowed to retain my opinion on the known credibility of my informants." With such a reply Mr. Hallifax, as we might well suppose, was not satisfied:

he wrote therefore a second letter to the Vicar Apostolic, and requested to receive from him such names and dates and other circumstantial intelligence as might serve either to verify or to disprove his former allegation. Here the correspondence of these two gentlemen ended.

It is remarkable enough that in Dr. Parr's Letter the names Houdly and Hallifax are misspelled [Hoadley and Halifax].

In a postscript to "a Parting Word to the Rev. Richard Grier, D.D.," &c., Dr. Milner resumes the subject: he now employs four pages in a notice of Dr. Parr's posthumous tract and of Mr. Hallifax's second letter; that letter he most unjustifiably designates as "a fishing letter," and contents himself with again expressing what he calls his probable opinion, while he studiously withholds from us any further means of estimating the measure of its probability.

Under these circumstances, we must pronounce Dr. Parr's and Mr. Hailifax's victory complete, and must treat the statement in respect of the late Bishop of St. Asaph's change of religious belief as a wanton calumny. Let our readers judge for themselves, of Dr. Milner's conduct as a dispu tant, a logician and an ecclesiastic.

But we confound not the communion to which he belongs with individual members and ministers of it: we distinguish, too, between doctrines that we deem unscriptural and civil rights, that ought, in wisdom and in equity, to be without delay and without reserve extended. Cordially do we adopt the words of the late venerable author of the posthumous Letter, and avow ourselves (p. 35) unfeigned "well-wishers to the petitions which English and Irish Roman Catholics have presented to Parliament, in order to obtain relief from certain galling restraints and insulting exclusions.”

N.

ART. III-A Treatise of Christian Doctrine, compiled from the Holy Scriptures alone. By John Milton.

(Continued from p. 692.)

OUR object in resuming this work Rohiton's is to lay before our

readers his thoughts upon some other important subjects; not that we adopt all his opinions, but that, being his, they are worthy of being known.

Discarding the doctrine of the Trinity, Milton gave up of course the popular notion concerning the Holy Spirit. Like some of the elder Unitarians, he believed in the personality of the Spirit, and attributed to him an exalted nature."-inasmuch as he is a minister of God, and therefore a

creature, was created or produced of the substance of God, not by a natural necessity, but by the free-will of the agent, probably before the foundations of the world were laid, but later than the Son, and far inferior to him." P. 171. He anticipates (p. 167) Dr. Samuel Clarke's interpretation of the Baptismal form, Matt. xxviii. 19: “Qur eternal salvation is owing to the Father, our redemption to the Son, and our sanctification to the Spirit. The power of the Father is inherent in himself, that of the Son and Spirit is received from the Father," &c.

The work of creation, properly so called, is assigned by Milton to Christ. He had no prepossession for the scheme of Socinus. he by whom all things were made both in heaven and earth, even the angels themselves, he who in the beginning was the Word, and God with God, and although not supreme, yet the first-born of every creature, must necessarily have existed previous to his incarnation, whatever subtilties may have been invented to evade this conclusion by those who contend for the merely human nature of Christ." Pp. 298, 299.

Milton held the doctrine of Atonement, nearly as it is now held by Calvinists. He thus defines the humiliation of the Redeemer: "The Humiliation of Christ is that State in which under his character of God-man he voluntarily submitted himself to the Divine Justice, as well in Life as in Death, for the purpose of undergoing all things requisite to accomplish our redemption." P. 316. He considers Christ to have been a proper sacrifice "both in his divine and human nature," and "slain in the whole of his nature." The following definition is orthodox enough on this point to satisfy a synod of "Westminster Divines :" "The satisfaction of Christ is the Complete Reparation made by him in his two-fold capacity of God and Man, by the fulfilment of the Law and payment of the required price for all mankind." P. 322. The heresy of general redemption appears in the last clause of the quotation; but with this doctrine, Milton united that of the special operations of the Holy Spirit on the minds of individuals, which he regarded as necessary to the

production of saving faith. See Chap. XVIII. and XX.

On the economy of redemption, Milton is of the same mind as the Remonstrants of Holland. He denies, as we have seen, absolute personal election and, of consequence, final perseverance.

He was a believer in the existence of a race of beings called angels, with a gradation of ranks, dignities and offices; and also in the apostacy of a part of them who since their revolt have been known as devils.

He held the bold doctrine of the homogeneity of man, and of the extinction of the whole man at death.

He received the fall of man in a literal sense, and though he scrupled the phrase "Original Sin," admitted the universal hereditary depravity of the human race.

His opinion on the liberty of divorce for other causes than adultery was well known in his life-time, when also he was suspected of inclining to the lawfulness of polygamy, which he defends in this posthumous Treatise.

A favourite point with Milton is the abolition under the Gospel of the whole Mosaic law: but the Antinomians cannot boast that if now alive he would be a member of the church (late W. Huntington's) in Gray's Inn Lane, for in the ethical part of the Treatise he asserts the merit of good works.

He abandons the Sabbath as a Christian institution, and pronounces the observation of the First Day of the week to be matter of expediency only, and not to be enforced by the civil power.

He rejects the baptism of infants, and maintains the immersion of adult believers: but he does not allot to baptism the first place in the scale of Christian duties (see p. 463); on the contrary, he seems to justify its disuse in certain cases (see pp. 439 and 444), and as far as we know his religious history, his own example was conformable not to the rule but to the exception of baptism.

His view of the Lord's Supper will be generally esteemed a low one: he regarded the ordinance as a rite of memorial and hospitality, and, glancing at the orthodox churches of his day, writes with indignation of the

"numberless absurd speculations which have well nigh converted the Supper of the Lord into a banquet of cannibals." P. 442.

He describes marriage as a purely civil compact, requiring neither priest nor altar.

In church-government he agrees with the Independents; holding that religion is to be protected by the civil magistrate, not forced upon the people, that bishops and elders are the same character in the New Testament, that the right of election to all offices is in the people, and that any believer endowed with the necessary gifts is competent to act as a minister.

Finally, the Milton Creed embraces the resurrection of the same body, the Millenium or Thousand Years' personal reign of Christ upon the earth, the locality of hell and the eternity of punishment.

The form of the Treatise is too scholastic to allow it to be popular, even if the singularity of some of its doctrines would not turn away the people from it. There is a profusion of Scripture, but the succession of a number of texts without comment is tedious. Throughout the whole work Milton appears the grave and even severe divine: he does not once as

sume the politician, nor, unless the description of the angelic hierarchies be an exception, betray the poet. The Treatise is a curiosity that posterity will value: it will be a lasting memorial of the independence and integrity of the author's mind, and its influence will, we calculate, be seen in taking off the edge of the odium ecclesiasticum from what is called heresy.

Mr. Sumner, the Translator, is entitled to high praise. His version is perspicuous and easy, and his notes are chiefly illustrations, and those taken from Milton's acknowledged works. A few, indeed, are of a different description, and are open to criticism. We smile when we find the Prebendary of Canterbury making the apology for Milton's Antitrinitarianism, that he lived before Waterland. But, upon the whole, we admire his forbearance as a Churchman, and heartily thank him for so faithful a fulfilment of the liberal wish of the King, so truly honourable to His Majesty, that this undoubted relic of the great Milton's should be given pure and entire to the world, and also placed by means of a translation in the hands of the British Public.

OBITUARY.

1825, July 9, SAMUEL BROADLEY, Esq., of The Lodge, Bradford, Yorkshire, for many years President of the Northern Education Society, a Dissenting Academical Institution for Students for the Ministry. The liberality and generosity of Mr. Broadley are testified by the following noble legacies:

To the Northern Education So..
ciety; six young men to be sup-
ported by the proceeds
To Superannuated Ministers and
their Widows, the proceeds to
be devoted to their relief under
the direction of the President
and Committee of the above-
named Society.

To the Yorkshire Itinerant So

£5000

5000

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Oct. 25, in his 77th year, after a few days' illness at Brighton, whither he had gone to attend a religious meeting, the Rev. DAVID BOGUE, D. D., of Gosport. He had been about 50 years pastor of a

church of Protestant Dissenters at Gosport, was one of the first promoters of the London Missionary Society and was Tutor of the Missionary Seminary. He was highly respected in his denomination, as the list of Funeral Sermons for him will sufficiently testify. He pub lished several theological works and many single sermons.

Nov. 21, at Tooting, in the 77th year of his age, Mr. WILLIAM BICKNELL

[Biographical particulars of this excellent man will be given in the next Number.]

Dec. 3, at Bridport, aged 51, CHARLotte Gundry, eldest daughter of the late Joseph Gundry, Esq., Banker, in that place. It would afford a pensive pleasure to review in detail the life of one so estimable, to trace minutely that course, which like the dawning light, shone more and more unto the perfect day. But a brief and very imperfect sketch must suffice. Miss Gundry enjoyed in early life the advantage of judicious maternal instruction and care, and was in early life deprived of this advantage. Educated among Unitarian Dissenters, she happily imbibed along with the opinions which characterize our body, a deep sense of religious obligation, a spirit of fervent, well-regulated piety, and a fixed habit of religious self-controul. The circumstances in which she was placed on attaining to maturity, led her to a free investigation of the most interesting and important topics connected with the Christian faith, and in this way her understanding gained strength by exercise, whilst the system which she had been taught by others, obtained the sanction of her deliberate judgment. Nor did her subsequent life afford any countenance to the notion that speculative inquiries are necessarily injurious to the best and loftiest affections of the heart. Let the friend who had the privilege of claiming that title during the last and best half of her days be heard in testimony of what she was under the domestic roof: "I have been intimate with Miss Gundry," says that friend in a letter written since her death, "for more than a quarter of a century, and about one-fifth of that time she has passed under my roof, either in attending the sick bed of her earliest friend during many periods of great anxiety, or in administering to the comforts of the family by a mild but uniform flow of spirits, and the most rational and useful conversation. Though she disliked levity, she was always cheerful, and occasionally playful. Her temper was of uncom mon sweetness, and I do not recollect for one moment to have seen it ruffled. In all her actions she was guided by a principle of duty, and she has frequently said to me, she hoped she should never live a single day longer than she could be useful." As to her religious profession and social virtues there is little need to appeal to individual testimony. The members of a numerous Christian society who witnessed week after week

her deportment in the house of prayer and her zeal in promoting its best interests in every possible way, and especially in the instruction of the youngthe inhabitants of this town who could not but notice and admire her persevering activity in every appropriate work of benevolence, the poor, the sick, the aged, those whom she sought out in their abodes of want and suffering, and to whom she delighted in administering instruction, sympathy and relief,-all these are ready to rise up and call her blessed. The pure satisfaction arising from the performance of these labours of piety and love, was for years the principal enjoyment which supported our friend under a deeply-rooted malady productive of frequent and intense suffering. It was the will of Heaven that this course of agonizing trial and extraordinary usefulness should at length terminate. The strength of the frame was gradually worn down by the ravages of disease, and it was appointed that the principles which had impelled to duty, should exhibit their power to support and to cheer on the couch of debility and in the chamber of death. To the very last there was extreme bodily suffering, but there were "blessed consolations in distress." Besides "the memory sweet of mercies done," the affectionate attentions of near relatives, and the invaluable society of that earliest friend whom a merciful Providence permitted to assume her own station in the solemn hour which severs earthly ties, there was the realized presence of a heavenly Parent and the humble hope of eternal life, founded on a sure trust in his unpurchased mercy as manifested to the penitent and faithful by his well-beloved Son. Seldom is it the privilege of surviving friends to contemplate a character of so much excellence. Seldom do we behold, as in this instance, in united operation, vigorous understanding with deep sensibility and feminine grace, ardent private affection with comprehensive active benevolence, zeal for a peculiar religious system with complete liberality towards the supporters of opposing systems, a generous readiness to enter into the schemes of the benevolent with a judicious appreciation of their merits and their means, the habit of exercising reason with the culture of devout affection in all its modifications of gratitude, humility, resignation and hope. Those who know what it is to have possessed and to have lost such a friend will not require in this place a minute scrutiny as to the shades which the censorious may detect in the brightest excellence. Human virtue is progressive, and those who are progres

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