that the liberal-minded Bishop Law did not appear in our behalf, the cause assigned was, "the unpleasantness of being brow-beaten by so many of the same station, when his aid would be ineffectual." On coming to town at that time and waiting on Archbishop Cornwallis, that prelate, so inferior in every episcopal qualification, greeted him with a sneer: "I suppose your Lordship is come to assist Dissenting endeavours." Bishop Shipley was then one of the bench, but did not come forward as the friend of liberality, though afterwards he obtained that honour. SIR, the I for the JOSEPH CORNISH. Lancashire, account of a Chapel at Allostock, near Northwich, in Cheshire, with the cireumstances of which, probably, some of your Correspondents are informed, It appears that in the year 1742, Dr. Samuel Eaton was the pastor, who was succeeded by the Rev. William Turner and the Rev. John Holland. The Congregational Magazine adds, "the ministers who have followed Dr. Eaton were probably Arians or Antitrinitarians," with the exception of the present pastor, Mr. Glover, who is represented as an Arminian Baptist and far advanced in years, preaching only once a month. It appears that an estate of 27 acres of land, situated at Rainow, two miles from Macclesfield, was bequeathed by the Rev. Samuel Garside, for the officiating minister of this Chapel for ever." "But this bequest," says the Magazine," has experienced the common fate of posthumous benevolence, and is not enjoyed by the party for whom it was designed." The case of the Chapel just mentioned is so analogous to many others in this part of the country, that I hope no apology is requisite for alluding to the subject, as I am not aware that any steps are taking to preserve our old Presbyterian chapels from the fate that seems to await them. Since the extinction of the Presbytery in these counties, no body has existed with authority to take up the cause of falling congregations; and however we may object to the powers with which ecele siastical associations have sometimes been armed, or have assumed, I am much inclined to think, that what may be termed the rational classes of Dissenters, have fallen lamentably into the other extreme, leaving our weaker churches to struggle on as they may, or altogether to perish, for want of the friendly support and protection which can only be effectually given by an associated body. With these views, I cannot but regret the failure of the late laudable attempt to establish a Unitarian Association of the counties of Lancashire and Cheshire, which would have been competent not only to have taken up the cause of several expiring churches, but would have been a powerful auxiliary to the Unitarian Fund. Surely no one can doubt of the absolute necessity of union in that, in this instance, exertion is misplaced and unnecessary? As I am an advocate for active measures, I am glad to find that the subject of an Association is not dropped. I certainly should have been better pleased, had the friends of the measure persevered at once in their original plan, but much ought to be sacrificed to conciliate all parties; and I trust the Committee appointed at the late Annual Meeting at Warrington, will enter upon some plan for immediately carrying into execution what so many of their brethren have long wished for. In no part of the kingdom is there a wider uncultivated field than is presented by our manufacturing districts for popular preaching; and when it is considered that several missionaries have offered their services in the Unitarian cause, I think the friends to divine truth can scarcely acquit themselves of culpable neglect if they longer defer to avail themselves of the means before them for disseminating the genuine doctrines of the gospel. SIR, A. B. C. July 25, 1820. AMONG the various remarce ve casioned by Mr. Fox's discourse on the Duties of Christians towards Deists," I was not a little surprised by the assertion of Hylas (p. 212,) that "of all men, Unitarians have the greatest reason to complain of this Sermon," in which he discovers “ tendency to confirm and justify the charge, that a natural and close alli ance subsists between Unitarians and Unbelievers." I hope Unitarians will never deem it unnatural to form an alliance, as close as the fair pursuit of a common object may require, with unbelievers or misbelievers of any description, who may be willing to join them with the laudable design of contributing "to let the oppressed go free and to break every yoke." A very opposite design appears to have been attributed to Unitarians, on a late memorable occasion. Mr. Gurney, whom "the Society for the Suppression of Vice" retained to prosecute Mr. Carlile, seemed to connect the Unitarians with the promoters of that prosecution, in his reported speech at Guildhall, on the 16th of October last. Mr. Carlile pleaded, not legally indeed, yet not unfairly, as argumentum ad homines, that the Trinity being confessedly an essential article of the religion esta blished and enforced by the State, Mr. Smith's Bill, which released from penalties the impugners of the Trinity, had virtually repealed the Blasphemy Act. To this line of defence, Mr. Gurney is reported to have replied, "In the Act of William and Mary, which exists now in full force, there is a passage stating that he who denies that the Old and New Testaments are of divine authority, shall be subject to certain pains and penalties. The de and Mary exists now in full force.' Yet "those who solicited the indulgence," while they could only act for themselves exclusively with any chance of success, had neither a design to encourage, nor a disposition to approve the late prosecutions; but were among the first to regret, while they relied on the omnipotence of divine truth, that Unbelievers were not allowed with impunity to assail the religion of the Bible, not only with argument, but even with misrepresentation and ridieule, should they be disposed thus to injure their own reputation as sober disputants. It appears, then, that "of all men, Unitarians have the greatest reason to approve of this Sermon," and that they would indeed "have the greatest reason to complain" had no one of their number been found promptly to bear in their behalf a testimony against persecution. Should any of your readers still doubt whether the prosecution of Mr. Carlile be a species of which persecution is the genus, I wish they would inform us, according to their nomenclature, on what page of history, ancient or modern, persecution can be found. GAMALIEL. Remarks of an Unitarian Traveller. No. I. SIR, Y employment will not lead you fendant declares that the whole Act M to expect from me any logical has been repealed, whereas it is evident, beyond doubt, that but one line upon the subject of the Trinity has been withdrawn. The new Act, then, tacitly re-enacts all the rest of the former statute; for it shews that the latter had undergone thorough consideration, and the plain meaning of the former is equally the design of those who solicited and those who granted the indulgence." I copy this passage from the Morn ing Chronicle of Oct. 16, which agrees with the Times of the same date. From the word design, connected with thorough consideration, a reader would, I think, be likely to conclude that the Unitarians had shewn them selves ready to make a common cause with Mr. Gurney's clients, considering their own relief as the only proper relaxation of the statute, and quite satisfied that with such an exception in their favour, "the Act of William reasoning. I am in trade, and perform my own journeys. This leads me to see a variety of persons and places. On these I am accustomed to make my remarks, not with a design to find fault, but to put down what I think may be useful to myself or to my children, when I am dead. Some of my observations have been communieated to friends, whose partiality led them to believe they might serve our common cause. With this wish they are sent; and if you judge them worthy of a place in your theological Repository, they are at your service. If the plan I have pursued were followed by other Travellers, you would have many Correspondents who could give you better means than are now possessed for determining the question,-Is Unitarianism increasing or decreasing? A general spirit of inquiry is increasing ; a greater readiness to hear what we have to say exists; and the very bit terness shewn by the bigoted proceeds from a fear that our principles should be known; for if known, they cannot refute them. But there is another cause: the length the seceders have gone in the doctrines they have taught, has alarmed many of the orthodox. Moral preaching and enforcing the duties of Christians, were beginning to be more common before the direction given to public opinion by Carlile, and his base effort to rank Unitarians with himself. The tide will turn; and though the depression of trade and the difficulties of the nation are against us, truth is gaining ground among individuals. It shews its progress slowly in bodies. Indeed, it is rather surprising, except in large towns, that Unitarian societies should be formed, if we consider the difficulties that attend those who join them. Besides being every where spoken against," in many places the means of support would be taken from those who would prefer worshiping with us, if they dared to attend with us. This opposition is not less strong among Dissenters than among members of the Establishment. With the latter, it seems to me consistent; in the former, a departure from their own principles, and a violation of that right, the right of private judgment, on which alone our Dissent can be justified. If we follow truth, it is of little consequence whether the numbers who avow themselves Unitarians are for or against us, The Bible is for us, and with this weapon I am content. Human authority is to me, in matters of religion, like the kite that used to please me when a boy, with this difference-the kite flies against, authority goes with, the wind. I was brought up in the belief that Christ was the only head of his church, though my Calvinistic education did not allow me to think he died for all. Having told you my education, you will not wonder at some of the habits I still retain. Though I have long given up the belief in Five Points as necessary to salvation, I still feel a great reverence for some of the practices my mother and grandmother taught me early to observe. Among these are the strict observance of the Lord's-day, a frequent reading of the Scriptures, instructing children by catechising them, and attending family prayer. I wish these were more observed by Unitarians; then we should not be so often charged with indifference to the means for promoting devotion. While we shun the gloom, we should still cherish the spirit of genuine religion. Till our ministers shall follow the plan of a Field or a Holland or a Carpenter, we shall not build up our young as we ought; nor shall we prepare the way for laymen acting the part of priests in their families, and in their neighbourhood, when new societies are to be formed, or old ones are without a supply. It is greatly to be lamented, that such friends to our cause as Mr. Thos. Fr, have not regular service in the places where they live. This would awaken inquiry, encourage public worship, give to the lower classes the opportunity of attending our forms of worship, and enable the well-disposed to have Sunday-schools, and to promote other benevolent plans, which, for want of co-operation, are now omitted. Fellowship Funds are admirably fitted to prepare for general union. Vestrylibraries, religious tract societies and conferences will follow. As you, Mr. Editor, recommend the Christian Tract Society, I will take the liberty of mentioning an improvement in its management. Its tracts are too long. They are more fitted for scholars than learners. They suit those who have a deal of time, not those who can only snatch a few minutes, and are then off again. Let us take a hint from others. The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, and the Bristol Tract Society, have short, pithy pieces. These are laid in shop windows, and in places most frequented. It costs little to have a few to give away to persons who may read them. We want something of this kind. If the Committee of the Christian Tract Society would consider this hint, they might easily get such pieces as would obtain general circulation. I will shew you that I can follow the advice I give, and not occupy more of the time of your readers at present. In my next, I will send you some observations made in my Essex journey, which is through Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridge, and Herts. On each of these you will have the opinions of an UNITARIAN TRAVELLER. 473) REVIEW. "Still pleased to praise, yet not afraid to blame."-POPE. ART. I.-A Course of Lectures, containing a Description and Systematic Arrangement of the Several Branches of Divinity: accompanied with an Account both of the Principal Authors, and of the Progress which has been made at different Periods in Theological Learning. By Herbert Marsh, D. D. F. R. S. and F. A. S., Lord Bishop of Peterborough, and Margaret Professor of Divinity. Part V. On the Authenticity of the New Testament. Cambridge, printed. Sold there by Deightons, and in London by Rivingtons. 1820. 8vo. pp. 94. WE VE are happy that this Prelate comes again before the public in the character of Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge. Although the subject of the Fifth Part of his Lectures may be considered as not admitting any great novelty of information and remark, we cannot but be gratified by his luminous arrangement of his thoughts, by the perspicuity and vigour of his style, and by several traces of a powerful and discriminating mind, To those who are beginning, and to them who feel a desire of reviewing their theological studies, his labours will be highly useful. "The authenticity and credibility of the Bible," form the third of the seven branches of the system of divinity adopted in his Lectures. "And it is hardly possible," he says, "that these important questions should be examined at a period more seasonable than the present, when every effort has been made to shake the fabric of Christianity to its very basis." Previously to his entrance on the proof of the authenticity of the writings of the New Testament, he deems it necessary to give a definition of the term authentic." This word he uses "in the confined sense in which many English and most foreign writers use it:" he pronounces a book authentic that was composed "by the author to whom it is ascribed." It will naturally be asked, whether Bishop Marsh has good reasons for thus departing from the language of some preceding advo cates for revelation? On the one hand, the correct employment and application of terms are essential to the success of our researches after truth, and of our diffusion of it: on the other, no changes should here be introduced which are not manifestly improvements. A late excellent Prelate* stated "the difference between the genuineness and the authenticity of a book" as follows: "a genuine book is that which was written by the person whose name it bears, as the author of it; an authentic book is that which relates matters of fact, as they really happened." This distinction, we believe, approves itself to many of his readers. So far as it extends, we find it convenient and intelligible; yet the second part of it is limited to historical, and does not comprehend epistolary and several other writings. Authenticity, in the sense in which Dr. Watson defined it, cannot be predicated of epistles, unless they record matters of fact, and record them with correctness. tion of this term includes, on the Now the Margaret Professor's definicontrary, those books of every class that were written by the persons whose names they respectively bear, as the authors of them. To this definition, therefore, we give the preference: its the citation of a passage from an early accuracy will perhaps be confirmed by Christian writer. Tertulliant speaks of the "authenthe letters" of the apostles. It has been a difficult task to ascertain what he means by this expression: evi * Apology for the Bible, by R. Watson, D.D., &c., Bishop of Landaff, (3rd ed.,) p. 33, and Dr. Maltby's Illustrations, &c., (1802,) pp. 1, 2. + De Præscrip. cap. xxxvi. 266, &c.) on the passage. The note of See Lardner's remarks (Works, 11. Semler, (Tertull. Opera, Tom. II. pp. 45, 46,) is, "non originalia et autographa, ut multi falso intelligebant; sed Græcæ, quia isti alii Latina translatione utebantur, sicut ipse Tertullianus." The interpretation which this Editor denounces of the words authenticæ literæ, has been T dently, however, he did not affix to it the import assigned by Bishop Watson. Had he intended to say that the apostolic epistles are authentic, because they relate matters of fact as they really happened, he would ave said what was totally irrelevant his subject and his reasoning. If this had been his design, it could not be necessary that he should advise those whom he immediately addresses to visit Corinth, or Philippi, or Thessalonica, or Ephesus, or Rome. To the word authentic he probably annexed the idea conveyed in Bishop Marsh's definition. His topic is the testimony of the apostles to the Christian doctrine. For this testimony he refers to their epistles, which might fairly be supposed to exist in an authentic state, uninterpolated and undisputed, among the churches to which they were originally and severally written, and in which they were known to be the productions of the authors to whom they are respectively ascribed. Thus far we agree with Lardner in his construction of the phrase authentire litera. We feel ourselves compelled to dissent from him when he says, that by this phrase we are not to understand "authentic letters or epistles," but scriptures," all the Scriptures of the New Testament. It is true, passages may be found in Tertullian where the word litera has such an acceptation. The sentence before us, however, is connected with others, in which the apostles are specifically mentioned. We therefore presume that the rules of just interpretation, and the whole scope of the African father's argument, will require us to take the term litera in the more restricted sense of letters or epistles. The Margaret Professor, we find, makes the same application which Tertullian does of the epithet "authentic" to the books of Scripture. * At the same time, we have perceived, in the course of our reading, that some re adopted by Mr. Travis and Mr. Nolan, but is rejected by Porson. (Letters to Archdeacon T., &c. pp. 276, 277; Inq. into the Gr. Vulg. p. 115, &c.) * This observation may be confirmed by an appeal to a valuable tract which Bishop Marsh published many years since, and which is entitled "The Authenticity of the Five Books of Moses vindicated." a cent and popular writers employ the two words genuine and authentic indiscriminately and convertibly; practice which it seems expedient to discourage. Perhaps, as the effect of Bishop Marsh's example and arguments, greater precision and correctness may distinguish, in this instance, the language of the next race of theologians. Our author points out very carefully and successfully the influence of an inquiry into the authenticity of the New Testament on the divine origin of Christianity. He arranges the evidence for this authenticity under two heads, the external, “ consisting of the testimony of ancient writers, and the existence of certain early translations," and the internal, "which is drawn from the contents of the books:" the external he now places in the foremost rank, because it is here eminently decisive, and "no preparation is wanted for its reception." "In the disposition of the several parts, of which external evidence consists," he has "ventured to depart from the general practice." For this deviation he offers an apology. "In quoting," says he, ecclesiastical writers, as evidence for the authenticity of the New Testament, it has been usual to begin with the Apostolic Fa thers, or the fathers who were contemporary with the apostles; and thence to proceed to the fathers of the second, third, fourth, and as many following centuries, as appeared expedient for the purpose. But there is a disad vantage attending this chronological arrangement, inasmuch as it exposes the proof of authenticity to various objections at the very outset. nabas and Hermas do not afford the testimony for which they are quoted. Clement of Rome, Ignatius and Polycarp were certainly acquainted with some books of the New Testament; but they have been alleged as evidence for other books, where the quotations produced for that purpose are really insufficient. We cannot, indeed, expect to find in their writings such ample testimony to the books of the New Testament, as we find in the works of later writers. And it is not Bar For example, Paley and Bishop Por teus. |