M ( 722 ) REVIEW. "Still pleased to praise, yet not afraid to blame."-PorE. ART. I.-The History and Antiquities of Dissenting Churches, &c. [Concluded from p. 677.] ANY of the ejected ministers were men of solid and extensive learning. Some of them possessed very valuable libraries. That belonging to Dr. Lazarus Seaman, the first pastor of the Presbyterian Church, in Silver Street, now extinct, who died in 1695, was sold by auction after his death, and produced seven hundred pounds, a very considerable sum in that day. This is said to have been the first library that was sold by auction in England. A catalogue of it is preserved in the Museum of the Baptist Academy at Bristol, (III. 12.) Dr. Thomas Jacomb, the colleague of Dr. Seaman, at Silver Street, possessed "an incomparable library of the most valuable books, in every branch of learning." On his death, which took place in 1687, his books were brought to the hammer, and produced thirteen hundred pounds. (III. 19.) The celebrated Dr. Thomas Manton, who was pastor of a Presbyterian congregation, gathered by himself in Bridges Street, Covent Garden, and who died in 1677, "had a fine collection of books, which sold for a considerable sum after his death. Amongst them was the noble Paris edition of the Councils, in thirty volumes, folio, which the bookseller offered him for sixty pounds, or his Sermons on the 119th Psalm; but finding it too great an interruption to his other work, to transcribe these discourses, he chose rather to pay him the money." (III. 562.) A history of the libraries of the Bartholomew Confessors would illustrate their characters, and we apprehend furnish affecting proofs of the distress into which many of them were plunged. Mr. Wilson passes a high and deserved encomium upon Dr. Toulmin's edition of Neal's History of the Puritans (III. 99, 100). This, as well as the former editions has now become scarce and sells at a very high price. A person, competent to the undertaking, might render great service to the Dissenters, and gain no small reputation, by a new edition, with such improvements as the great number of recent publications on English history would enable him to make. Such a work would, we cannot doubt, be countenanced, if not taken in hand by the more respectable booksellers. Mr. Wilson has the requisite knowledge of the subject, and we are inclined to hope that we might rely upon his impartiality. In the latter part of the history of the place of worship in Silver Street, which has been transformed into a Methodist chapel, Mr. Wilson makes some spirited remarks upon Dissenting Pluralist ministers (III. 124, 125). The poverty of the Dissenters alone prevents the instances of ecclesiastical polygamy being more common amongst them. Some recent events shew that congregations would secure each a portion of the services of some of the more popular evangelical ministers, if they were wealthy enough to procure them by a suitable offer. The Independent congregation at Haberdashers' Hall is said to have been formed by a church that met, in the days when lords were voted useless and bishops a nuisance, first in the House of Peers and afterwards in Westminster Abbey. Several of Cromwell's lords and members of parliament, and two at least of the judges that sat on Charles I. and condemned him to the block, were amongst its members (III. 148—150). One of the earliest ministers here was Theophilus Gale, M. A. the author of "The Court of the Gentiles,” who is amongst the greatest literary ornaments of the Nonconformists. He was born in 1628, and died in 1678, having lived long enough to establish a lasting reputation, but too short a period to execute all the works that he had plauned and his friends expected for the promotion of sacred learning: Our author has drawn up a judicious and interesting account of this distinguished scholar (III. 161-168). In the list of the pastors of this same congregation are the respected names also of John and Thomas Rowe, father and son: the latter is well known to have been the tutor of Dr. Watts. He had many other pupils who rose to eminence. His death was Review-Wilson's Dissenting Churches. sudden and untimely, in the year 1705, and the 49th of his age. Amidst some common place reflections upon this occurrence, Mr. Wilson relieves the reader by relating that Mr. Grove published a sermon, on the fear of death, in which the subject was treated in so masterly a manner, that a person of considerable rank in the learned world declared, that after reading it he could have laid down his head and died with as much satis faction as he had ever done any thing in his life (III. 17!). We have an interesting account (III. 185-190), of the meeting-house in Monkwell Street, the first that was built after the fire of London, 1666, and probably the oldest in London. Here, however, the author has been betrayed by his prejudices into a very impertinent remark. He says, of this place, "at present the number of pews greatly exceeds that of the hearers, who are so few that the ends of public worship seem scarcely answered by their meeting together." Has Mr. Wilson then authority to determine the exact number of persons in a congregation that make public worship effectual? He may perhaps have heard of high sanction being given to the meeting together of "two or three" in the name of Christ. A sarcastic reader might ask whether he would have been better pleased if he had been obliged to record that Presbyterian congregations were much more numerous than they really are? In the present instance he is, we believe, mistaken in point of fact. The congregation at Monkwell Street is accustomed to take the lead, and to set an example that is scarcely ever equalled, in congregational collections, which is a presumption that the place is not quite deserted; and we are informed that the congregation has been of late years on the increase. That the actual number of members and hearers is matter of surprize when the talents and character of the present minister are taken into account, we readily acknowledge, and we will add that it is not creditable to the Presbyterian body that an unfriendly observer The same reflection occurs with regard to two other heretical places, Princes Street, Westminster (IV. 58), and St. Thomas's, Southwark (IV. 295). 723 should be able, with any semblance of justice, to taunt them with the paucity of attendants at their oldest place of worship, and on one of their inost able and eloquent preachers. Thomas Doolittle, M. A. one of the Bartholemew sufferers, was the first minister at Monkwell Street, the meeting-house being, indeed, of his own erection. In the "troublous times" in which he lived it was not likely that he should escape persecution: the following extract shews the dangers to which he was exposed and the temper of the age, both for good and for evil. "A king's messnger, with a company of the trained bands, cane at midaight to seize Mr. Doolittle in his house; but while they were breaking open the door, he got over the wall to a neighbour's house, and made his escape. He purposed to have preached the next morning, but was prevailed upon to forbear; and the minister who supplied his place, narrowly escaped being taken. For while in his sermon, a company of soldiers came into the meetinghouse, and the officer who led them cried aloud to the minister, I command you in the king's name to come down.' The minister answered, I command you in the name of the King of kings, not to disturb his worship, but let me go on.' Upon which the officer bade his men fire. The minister, undaunted, clapt his hand upon his breast, and said, 'Shoot, if you please, you can only kill the body, and after that can do no more.' Upon which, the people being all in an uproar, and the assembly breaking up, the minister got away in the crowd, unobserved, and without burt. After this, Mr. Doolittle was absent from home for some weeks, and on Lord's-days, guards were set before the meeting-house, to prevent the worship of God being carried on there. At length the justices came, and had the pulpit pulled down, and the doors fastened, with the king's broad arrow set upon themr. The place being convenient, was soon after used as a chapel for the Lord Mayor, without any allowance to the owner. Thus liberty and property were invaded by tyrants, and Christ's faithful servants, by the heat of persecution, driven into corners."-III. 193, 194. We cannot refrain from quoting an extraordinary relation of a rhetorical "The minister above alluded to, was Mr. Thomas Sare, the ejected minister of Redford, in Gloucestershire, concerning whose history no particulars are preserved." 724 Review-Wilson's Dissenting Churches. artifice practised by Mr. Doolittle for the sake of winning a soul. “Being engaged in the ustal service on a certain occasion, when he had finished his prayer, he looked around upon the congregation, and observed a young man just shut into one of the pews, who discovered much uneasiness in that situation, and seemed to wish to go out again. Mr. Doolittle feeling a peculiar desire to detain him, hit upon the following expedient. Turning towards one of the members of his church, who sat in the gallery, he asked him this question aloud, Brother, do you repent of your coming to Christ?' No, Sir, (he replied), I never was happy till then; I only repent that I did not come to him sooner.' Mr. Doolittle then turned towards the opposite gallery, and addressed himself to an aged member in the same manner. 'Brother, do you repent that you came to Christ?' No, Sir, (said he) I have known the Lord from my youth up." He then looked down upon the young man, whose attention was fully engaged, and fixing his eyes upon him, said, Young man, are you willing to come to Christ?' This unexpected address from the pulpit, exciting the observation of all the people, so affected him, that he sat down and hid his face. The person who sat next him encouraged him to rise and answer the question. Mr. Doolittle repeated it, Young man are you willing to come to Christ?' With a tremulous voice, he replied, 'Yes, Sir. But when, Sir?' added the minister, in a solemn and loud tone. He mildly answered, Now, Sir.' Then stay (said he) and hear the word of the Lord, which you will find in 2 Cor. vi. 2. Behold now is the accepted time; behold now is the day of salvation. By this sermon God touched the heart of the young man. He came into the vestry, after service, dis solved in tears. That unwillingness to stay, which he had discovered, was occasioned by the strict injunction of his father, who threatened, that if ever he went to hear the fanatics, he would turn him out of doors. Having now heard, and unable to conceal the feelings of his mind, he was afraid to meet his father. Mr. Doolittle sat down, and wrote an affectionate letter to him, which had so good an effect, that both father and mother came to hear for themselves. The Lord graciously met with them both; and father, mother, and son, were together received with universal joy, into that church."III. 198, 199. There are some mistakes in the incidental account of the congregation at Newington Green (III. 215). Mr. (now Dr.) Lindsay did not resign his office of afternoon preacher so early as 1803, nor till two years after that period; and the place was not " shut up" on his resignation. Mr. Barbauld was then morning preacher, and Mr. Thomas Rees was chosen for the afternoon. When Mr. Barbauld resigned, Mr. Rees undertook the morn ing service, and the afternoon service was dropped. On Mr. Rees's removal to St. Thomas's in the Borough, Mr. Gilchrist became morning preacher, and still continues to exercise that office along with the pastorship of the General Baptist afternoon congre gation at Worship Street. The history of" Paul's Alley, Barbican, General Baptist, extinct," includes memoirs of the three most eminent men whom the General Baptists have had in their denomination, viz. John Gale, Joseph Burroughs, and Dr. James Foster. The life of the last preacher was before given; those of Burroughs and of Gale here inserted are drawn up in a truly liberal spirit. In the list of the Works of Burroughs there is mentioned, "A Latin Discourse on the Holiness of Places, from Isaiah lxvi. 1-3; delivered at the annual meeting of the Dissenting Ministers at Dr. Williams's Library, Red Cross Street." Was it formerly the custom for the London Ministers to have annually a concio ad clerum? Why was it dropped? We can couceive that it would be of great use to revive the custom. The three Denominations might select in turn one of the ablest elders of the body to deliver a discourse on some one of the many points in which they have an equal interest. The true Dissenting principle would thus be kept alive; and the yearly meeting would be much more interesting and attractive than it now is, being convened for the sole purpose of passing resolutions which are matters of course, and which every one knows beforehand and expects.Mr. Wilson has given a good engraving of Mr. Burroughs from a painting in the Red Cross Street Library. (III. 228 et seq.) Paul's Alley was given up by the General Baptists in 1777, on the erection of the new meeting-house in Worship Street, and fell into the hands of the Sandemanians, of whose tenets and of whose leaders, John Glas and Robert Sandeman, there is a good account (IIL 261 et seq.). The pecu Review-Wilson's Dissenting Churches." liar Sandemanian tenet is well expressed in the epitaph on the tombstone of Sandeman, who died at Daubury, in the United States of America, 1771, aged 53 years, viz. "That the bare work of Jesus Christ, without a deed or thought on the part of man, is sufficient to present the chief of sinners spotless before God." If any thing be necessary in explanation, it is only that the simple belief of this truth is saving faith. With this notion the Sandemanians unite many of the ceremonies and customs of the primitive church, and a most rigid and formidable discipline. We have mention (III. 289), of Mr. William Manning, who in the beginning of the last century was minister of a nonconformist church at Peasenhall, in the county of Suffolk or Norfolk, and who was distinguished in his day for his zeal on what Mr. Wilson calls "the Socinian side of the question." He is said to have been instrumental in changing the views of Mr. Emlyn, whilst that celebrated Unitarian confessor was minis ter at Leostoff. Can any of our readers refer us to any further account of Mr. Manning? The history of William Jenkyn, M. A. is a striking exemplification of the baseness and cruelty of the reign of Charles the Second. This gentleman had been always a royalist, and had nearly perished with Christopher Love in the undertaking, 1651, to bring in Prince Charles. The prince was at length brought in and the noted Bartholomew Act followed, by which Jenkyn with hundreds of others was thrown out of the church, and exposed at times to unrelenting persecution. He was cast into Newgate, September 2, 1684, for assembling with other friends to spend a day in prayer, and for refusing the Oxford oath of passive obedience and non-resistance. At this time he was in an ill state of health, and his physicians represented to the king that his life was in danger from close imprisonment: nothing could move Charles's iron heart; he replied sternly, "Jenkyn shall be a prisoner as long as he lives." The threat was fulfilled, and the confinement made more rigorous than ever; insomuch that he was not suffered to pray with his own daughter who went to ask his blessing. As was intended, he died in Newgate, where, 723 as he said a little before his death, a man might be as effectually murdered as at Tyburn. This event took place January 19, 1685. The martyr, as he is truly styled in the inscription on his tomb, was aged 72 years. His friends buried him with great honour in Bunhill Fields; his remains being attended thither by at least one hundred and fifty coaches. His daughter who was a high-spirited woman, gave mourning rings at her father's funeral, with this motto: Mr. William Jenkyn, murdered in Newgate. A nobleman having heard of his happy release said to the king, "May it please your majesty, Jenkyn has got his liberty." Upon which Charles asked with eagerness, Aye! who gave it him?" The nobleman replied, "A greater than your majesty, the King of kings," with which the king seemed greatly struck, and remained silent (III. 328-335). The Non-Jurors" are introduced (III. 358 et seq.), with questionable propriety into a History of Dissenting Churches." They would have esteemed it the lowest degradation to have taken shelter under the Toleration Act. The author shews them no mercy; but he may justly plead that they were on some occasions disposed to be merciless. We are more inclined than he to allow to some of them the praise of integrity and piety as well as of learning. We are indebted to them for some of the best devotional books in the English language. Collier was quite a Puritan in his morals; and few English primates have lived or died more irreproach ably and exemplarily than the deprived Archbishop Sancroft. Some interesting anecdotes are told of his simplicity, frugality, meekness and charity in his village retirement of Scarding. On his death-bed he said to one of his chaplains who had conformed by taking the oaths to the revolution government, "You and I have gone different ways in these late affairs; but I trust heaven's gates are wide enough to receive us both. What I have done, I have done in the integrity of my heart-indeed in the great inte grity of my heart." After some of the preceding strictures we are bound in justice to com mend Mr. Wilson's impartiality in his memoir of Thomas Emlyn, (III. 398 et seq.), which is quite as full as the plan of the History admitted, and not 726 Review.-Wilson's Dissenting Churches. as he still does. And one of his congregation (I was told his name) is gone over to the Camisars, but still keeps his Socinianism. And I have a book generally said to be written by this Emlin since he came over hither, which is reckoned a master-piece of Socinianism. And I know where he lodges, if any body has a mind to speak with him. In the Life of Mr. Thomas Firmin it is told to his honour that he had a design to have a Socinian church or meeting set up in London, and now we see it brought to pass by way of moderation." This furious author's zeal against Socinians must have made him eager to find out, and his wish to bring them into trouble must have disposed him to make public, their true place of assembly. We may conclude, therefore, in the absence of better evidence, that Mr. Emlyn preached at Cutlers' Hall: it was on the south side of Cloak Lane, Upper Thames Street. The account of the "United Brethren" or Moravians (III. 420-426), gives a just and pleasing picture of this once enthusiastic and now declining, but always amiable sect. The article " Essex Street, Unitatarians" (III. 479-491), is entitled to great praise. The anecdote of Mr. Lindsey contained in the following extract is quite new to us; the whole passage will shew Mr. Wilson's candour: "The character and sentiments of Mr. Lindsey are so well known to most of our readers, that they require but little illus tration from our pen. By the admirers of his theological system, the highest eulogium has been passed upon both, and its most strenuous opposers cannot but subscribe to the general excellence of his character. He appears to have set ont in life under strong impressions of the value and importance of the ministerial office, and his conduct as a parish priest, while he had the superintendance of a parish, was truly exemplary. That late excellent minister, Mr. David Simpson, of Macclesfield, as we find in his life, owed his first attention to sacred things, to the care of Mr. Lindsey. Soon after his entrance at St. John's College, he spent part of a vacation at the vicarage of Catterick. Before the visit closed, Mr. Lindsey took occasion to inquire of the young collegian concerning the nature of his studies, and the manner in which he employed his time. From the nature of the reply, he soon perceived that his young visitor had been altogether in attentive to the study of the Sacred Scriptures. After expressing his surprize, Mr. Lindsey, in a very emphatical and pointed address, urged him to turn his attention to his hitherto neglected Bible. His remarks and advice produced a very serious effect upon Mr. Simpson's mind, which was filled with conviction and remorse, and henceforward he became an altered man.❤ This simple anecdote will tell a thousand times stronger in favour of Mr. Lindsey's character, than the most laboured panegyric. If some of our readers should lament the change that afterwards took place in the theological opinions of so exemplary a person, and which went to the full extent of modern Socinianism, they will at the same time admire that noble disinterestedness, and integrity of conduct, which induced him to resign a situation, * "Life of Simpson, apud Theol. Mag, for Nov. 1801." |