were, bigotedly, blighted; though ters,' (p. 511, 1. 23, a fundo;) the world became so eminently for, I suspect that thereto hangs benefited, by his disappointment; a tale, which he may be able to while the erebic councils of Cal. reveal. What does he mean by vin gave an apotheosis to the im- approved? Who are the ap molated Spaniard, obtained him provers? Are Quaker speakers, a celebrity in the world, greater after all we have heard of the than the discovery of the circula- necessity of their being inspired, tion of the blood, towards which only like the preachers in other he was thought to be verging, has sects and hierarchies? Are they since yielded to our Harvey. subjected to consecrations and I believe, though, that Amicus, ordinations [the approvals] of in his unity of sentiment with men ? If so, then, are not George Harrison, (in the last their [approved] ministers, boná number, pp. 511, 12, 13.) on fide, what they have always so the subject of the Friends com- strongly declaimed against, viz. ing forward, as advocates for tol- men-made ministers ? eration, religious liberty, &c. is away from pure Quakerisin; though he be, pretty evidently, a professor, under that name. When clude the mistaken Lord Sidmouth With a feeling of respect towards the well-meaning Amicus and to his eulogised friend, conI. made the attempt to unchristian- Dr. Aikin, on his Biographical Dictionary. ise our laws, on religious meetings, by forbidding, virtually, the twos and threes from gathering together, many worthy characters wondered that the Quakers did of the Repository a letter respect not petition like the other sects, ing the suspension of the biograagainst that outrageous measure phical work in which I have been of inexpressible insolence. If the long engaged, I request your inQuakers had petitioned any au- sertion of a brief reply. Were it thority upon earth, on such a necessary, I could easily state the subject, they would, ostensibly, causes of the long delay in the have abandoned that devotion completion of this work, from which characterises them; which, which it would clearly appear in fact, distinguishes them from that the fault has not lain with every other sect. If they were, the writers, who have always now, to unite in support of Chris- been ready to deliver copy before topher Wyvill and other enlight it was demanded. It is more saened legislators, I think it would tisfactory, that I am able now to be a similar departure from their inform the public, that the Eighth pure principle, of resting only on Volume will immediately go to Divine support. If I am mistaken press, and that there is every rea in this opinion, I hope Amicus, son to expect that no further delay in a future number, may be able will occur in the publication of to set me right. the remainder.. But the burden of the present address is, to call on him, to ex. plain his term approved minis I am, Sir, Your most obedient servant, REVIEW. "Still pleased to praise, yet not afraid to blame." POPE. We understand and hope that the volume before us, is the completion of the labours of these adventurous gentlemen in a field which they ought never to have entered: the arrangement is that of the preceding volumes. ART. I. History of Dissenters, that account, the motives of an from the Revolution in 1688, to opponent, to depreciate his services the year 1808. In four volumes. and attainments, and to inflame By David Bogue and James the passions of mankind against Bennett. Vol. IV. London. Wil. his name and character. liams, &c. &c. pp. 512. 1812. In conducting our Review de. partment, we trust that we have not been unmindful of its motto: our praises, we believe, have been cheerful; our censures, fearless, though reluctant. For the most part, indeed, the works submitted From p. 1-106, a sketch is to our attention, have merited given of the lives of eminent and received our general, if not Christians, of the state of religion our unqualified, approbation. The in England, of eminent men in most signal exception has been Scotland, of religion in Ireland furnished by the present publica. and of religion in America, durtion. This History (so it is called) ing the second period of the histruth and duty have constrained tory*. The remainder of the us to brand with the strongest re- volume, treats of the third period, probation. Mean, vulgar and de. from the accession of George the fective in the composition, intem. Third, to the year 1808. perate and bitter, beyond most In the first chapter we have contemporary writings, in its an account of new sects which spirit, it carries with it its own have arisen during the present antidote, as to every intelligent reign. These, according to our and discerning reader, and can authors, are only the Sandema. mislead only those unreflecting nians and the Swedenborgians. It is fashionable with a certain class and illiterate partizans who consider the self-assuming orthodoxy of persons to mourn over the re of the day as a compensation for cent increase of sects and sectathe want of knowledge and talent, ries. The evil, however, does of fidelity and candour. It is not not appear to be quite so extensive because the creed of Mr. Bogue as is apprehended: and the fact and Mr. Bennett differs from ours that we make these animadversions on them, in their capacity of his. torians of the Dissenters: for although we, too, have our sentiments, our partialities and, it may be, our prejudices, we have never judged it necessary to arraign, on the accession of his present Majesty. "affords some consolation" to Messrs. Bogue and Bennett, who observe with pain "the diversities of human opinion" perpetually adding to the number of divisions *From the death of Queen Anne to in the Christian world. (106). Af. sion from the established church, ter all, the catalogue might have the attack made by Mr. Graham been enlarged by the notice of on the principle of all ecclesiasti Joanna Southcott and her adher- cal establishments, and many mients, who, we believe, are not minor and local controversies, beforgotten in the later editions of a tween clergymen and Dissenting well-known Sketch of Religious ministers, on schism, village Denominations. preaching, &c. But their narra. The state of religious liberty tive is defective and incorrect. during the reign of our venerable To the name of Mr. Lindsey Sovereign, is the subject of the should have been added Dr. Disnext chapter. Many topics have ney's, Mr. Harries's, &c. The dehere presented themselves to our fence of the Dissenters by Mr. historians: such as-the diminish. Hinton, of Oxford, against Dr. ed favour possessed at court by the Tatham, ought to have been reDissenters-its causes and its con- corded: and the historians should sequences the events which led have known that Mr. Wakefield, immediately to American indepen- not having been beneficed, had dence the clerical petition in no living to surrender. 1772-that of the Dissenting mi- The next section of the third nisters in the same and in the fol. chapter, sketches the Arminian lowing year-its success in 1779 controversy: its progress in Hol. --the proceedings in Parliament land, France and England, is, in for the relief of the Roman Catho. general, touched but slightly by lics the Protestant association- these joint historians, who are the riots in 1780 -the Catholic more minute, however, concernbill of 1791-the applications to ing the recent agitation of it by the legislature for the repeal of the several followers of Whitfield the Corporation and Test Acts- and Wesley. To ascertain the Lord Stanhope's motion for abol. sense of scripture on the points ishing the ecclesiastical penal code involved in this dispute, is an ob -Mr. Fox's for rescinding the ject of much importance: yet the laws against Antitrinitarians-the question has in common been treatFrench Revolution-the contro- ed metaphysically rather than versies provoked by Mr. Burke- theologically. the Birmingham riots-and the A section is employed in a hissystem of espionnage and alarm tory of what the authors are pleaswhich followed. ed to denominate the Socinian In the third chapter a view is controversy. professed to be given of contro- They are not so ill-informed as versies in which Dissenters were to be ignorant that between the engaged. That respecting non- sentiments of Lælius and Faustus conformity takes the lead. The Socinus, on the one hand, and of authors glance upon Dr. Priest. the persons styling themselves ley's exertions in the contest, the Unitarians, on the other, there is discussion between the Dean of a marked distinction. In fact, Gloucester (Tucker) and Dr. Kip- moreover, the term Unitarian pis, Mr. Lindsey's resignation of has long been applied by the his living, Mr. Wakefield's seces. ablest writers among Trinitarians to those who believe in the simple unity of God and humanity of Christ, those, in a word, whose sentiments of Christian doctrine are most remote from the popular Messrs. and established faith. Bogue and Bennett and their ad. mirers, must be sadly deficient in candour, in judgment and in impartiality, if they cannot affix as distinct and precise an idea to the name Unitarian as to the epithets orthodox and evangelical. Their substitution therefore of Socinian, is arbitrary, invidious, delusive and unjust. better educated, than formerly; In the first section of the sixth chapter we have the lucubrations of the authors on the number and rank of Dissenters. During this reign nouconformity has added to In a history of nonconformists what may be called its population, their seminaries for the ministry though, perhaps, it cannot boast are prominent objects: and to so many affluent professors as at these the historians devote a chap. an earlier period; a change which ter. The College at Homerton, we are far from lamenting. The which, by a very equivocal and speculations of the two historians awkward compliment, they style on the causes of the increase or the Dissenting Oxford, passes first the diminution of particular bodies of nonconformists, are character. in review. To this succeeds the Academy at Hoxton-its former istically incorrect. To magnify and its present state;-then the the congregationalists, and depre New College at Hackney, another ciate the Presbyterians, as much in Well Street in the same village, as possible, is, visibly, their aim: the institution which once subsisted and this goodly purpose they keep with signal prosperity at Daventry in view through their representa and which is now conducted at tions, in the following sections, of Wymondley in Hertfordshire that the labours and the support of at Warrington and York, the ministers, of the public services Baptist College at Bristol, the and associations of Dissenters and academies at Exeter and in the, of the inward state of religion in West, and those in the North of this part of the community. England, &c. A delineation follows of the present state of education for the ministry among Dissenters. It is evidently the aim of the writers to establish two propositions; the one, that more students are educated for the pastoral office in the nonconformist churches, and now 1 We discover the same gross partiality in the biography which this volume contains, after the manner of its precursors. Though the selection is not injudicious, yet, in the hands of the authors, the history given of Presbyterian ministers is often caluminy, that of Independent or Calvinistic Baptist preachers, almost indiscrumni. nate eulogium. There is a short chapter on the state of religion in the world, that Whole paragraphs, and even is, in England, in Scotland, in Ire- chapters, are composed in a manland and beyond the British em. ner which would disgrace a stu pire! And the work closes with dent of but one year's standing. a picture, such as this pair of his- As the penury of a language occatorians can draw, of the influence sions writers in it to employ harsh of dissent on true religion, on sa images and figures, so the same cred literature, on public morals, effect is often produced by a man's on civil and religious liberty and want either of clear ideas or of on national prosperity. method in arranging them: and As it is not the business of re. this is the situation, this the cha. viewers to make out a list of errata racter, of Messrs. Boguc and for the publications which come Bennett. Their information also before them, we shall but just ob- concerning persons and events, is serve that the volume presents frequently defective or erroneous: numerous examples of typograph. and in the judgments which they ical carelessness and inelegance. pass upon some of them they exIt was, no doubt, the duty of the hibit a deplorable supineness or authors to superintend with dili- imbecility of mind. gence the printing of their work: The Honourable Mr. Boyle they yet, glaringly inaccurate them- entitle, 42, Sir Robert Boyle. selves on points of more impor. Dr. Warner, 187, they confound tance, they could not be so sen- with Dr. Warren. They are sible as some of their readers are mistaken in supposing that Mr. -to the defects in its mechanical Merivale, 271, was one of the execution. ministers of a congregation at ExThe style continues to betray eter. The Christian name of the two different pens, and, with few late Mr. Kenrick of that city, was : exceptions, is not less faulty than Timothy, not Thomas, 273. Mr. that of the foregoing volumes,-is Pierce's surname is still misspelt either ludicrously inflated or ex- [it should be Peirce]. We sustremely low and coarse. pect that the Mr. Hiot spoken of, 282, as a tutor at Warrington, *The following are instances in point: was really Mr. Holt. Of Dr. 4. was honoured to produce (had the Taylor of Norwich, ib. we are honour of producing). 32. "Some satisfied that he was no Racovian, might have foreseen that two geniuses," &c. (viz. Mr. and Mrs. Rowe. 37. "insatiable cupidity" (thirst for money. world, excited unutterable anguish," &c. 43. "It could now no longer be said Ib. " to put the great clock of Europe that the history of Dissenters was that back five hundred years," 214. "the of religion" [Surely they must mean the diffusion of the gospel in the rural parts history of Dissenters exclusively]. 69. (the country places) of the kingdom," This was the ground which had Mr. 227. "the same perverse logicds [which] Erskine and his colleagues occupied in would make," &c. 278. "Three gentletheir secession, would have conciliated men of Rotherham, Joshua, Joseph and to them," &c. 114. "Sandeman blew Thomas Walker, deserve honourable away with his northern blast the impure mention the former [the first)," &c. mist," &c. 166. " the noncons" (noncon- 319. "bid [bade] him and his adheformists). 201. "the riveis of blood rents," &c. 346. " the Methodist has which were shed, and the miseries which taken to" [adopted]. And see pp. 284, - were extended far and wide through the 319, &c. &c. |