makes the restoration of the wicked an impossibility. If this cannot be done, if the final happiness of all men be a probable expectation, and a fair inference from "many very plain declarations of Scripture," I think it follows that the passages which seem to assert it ought to be taken in their obvious sense. There is, as to them, no good reason why universal terms should have a limited meaning, but every guarantee which can rationally be demanded, for their retaining their natural and most extensive signification. SIR, W. J. FOX. Dublin, 10th April, 1817. I BEG leave through the medium of your Repository to call the attention of the public to what I consider will be an indelible stain on the character of the British nation, if they suffer the subscription for erecting a monument to Mr. Locke to remain longer in its present state. It was originally intended when £1000 should be raised to purchase the block of marble. For some years the subscription has remained at about £700: let the present subscribers deposit half the amount of their former subscriptions, or purchase a smaller block of marble which may now be had at a reasonable rate. The are perennius `monumentum will perpetuate the name of the man-but it is a disgrace to the British name that a statue to commemorate the man who in these latter ages first taught us how to reason and to think, has not been long since erected. J. H. Review of the Letter to W. Smith, Esq. M. P. from R. Southey, Esq. (From a Correspondent.) THIS HIS letter is written in consequence of some expressions uttered in Parliament by Mr. Smith, which Mr. Southey thinks of slanderous import. It appears that certain societies with some of the members of which Mr. Smith was acquainted, and of whoin he had a favourable opinion, were accused in Parliament of the worst designs; and Mr. Sinith willing to shew that some who had held opinions of the same nature as those imputed to his friends, were by his opponents esteemed good men, produced the Poem called "Wat Tyler" in proof of this, and in the heat of his feelings thus excited, applied the term RENEGADE to the au thor of Wat Tyler, and quoted some violent expressions in a paper in the Quarterly Review, ascribed, without contradiction, to Mr. Southey. In this letter Mr. Southey avows himself the writer of Wat Tyler, and very satis factorily accounts for the change of his political opinions. That Mr. Southey is, and has been from his earliest youth, a most excellent moral cha racter, of great benevolence of feeling and the strictest integrity, we firmly believe, and we see nothing either wrong or surprising in his change of opinion. He values himself highly upon the purity of his niorals, and we believe with reason; but, perhaps, his censure of others expressed and implied is too severe. Married at twenty-two to a most attentive and affectionate woman, willing to live with him in absolute retirement," he has been greatly favoured and exempted from many temptations; and although, until the days of Mr. Malthus, this conduct was ever esteemed virtuous and excellent, yet we trust that it is not of a character so exalted as that FEW examples of it are to be found. In married life we believe infidelity on either side to be very uncommon, and we think. Mr. Southey is not authorized by implica tion to involve ALL the opposers of government or the administration, in the indiscriminate charge of abandoned vice and impurity. Mr. Smith, ton, has lived in the bosom of his family" with an unsullied character, another favoured individual, and thousands and tens of thousands, both of the 66 opponents of government and of its supporters, are entitled to the same praise. We see nothing in political opinions, which exclusively entitle their holders to the censure of vice, or the praise of virtue, and this apparent bias we cannot approve. Mr. Southey deliberately writes “slanderer" upon the forehead of Mr. Smith, but we think with very little reason. The term RENEGADE is often used, without any intention to convey its most malignant meaning, as indeed all words are. How common is it to call a man a deserter, when it is meant merely to say that he has changed sides, without any implication of the worst motives, or even any mental reference to his motives at all? RENEGADE may be a term of Spanish origin, and Mr. Southey, as a master of that language, inay be able to affix to it a very malignant signification; still, we have no notion that it is never used in any other sense, or was indeed on this occasion; but was merely meant to convey the charge of a change of opinion, or associates, without any charge of moral turpitude. We think then that if Mr. Smith is never guilty of a greater crime than the loose application of this term to Mr. Southey, he may recline without remorse on a dying pillow. We think too, that Mr. Southey speaks rather from the effervescence of his mind, when he calls Mr. Smith a SLANDERER, than from any impression of deep depravity that he conceives to rest on Mr. Smith. There runs, however, through this letter, a spirit of censure and contempt which we think is not entitled to praise. As to Mr. Smith's knowing nothing, but from COMMON report, who was the author of the article in the Quarterly Review, we cannot agree with Mr. Southey. Evidence of such a fact is not difficult to be obtained, and in the presence of some external evidence, INTERNAL evidence in the works of so voluminous a writer as Mr. Southey will turn the scale. Mr. Smith believed he had sufficient evidence of this production being Mr. Southey's-and there is a bitter spirit in this article. He who calls his opponents "the greatest of SCOUNDRELS," has little reason to criticise with severity the language used by others. In this letter, Mr. Brougham is classed with the Roman Tribune Clodius, with what colour of justice we know not. At a time when the commerce of the sexes was not strictly guarded by public opinion, this unhappy Tribune was the scandal of his age. Licentious, adulterous, incestuous, a profaner of the mysteries, a murderer, the enemy of all excellence, the burner of the House of Cicero, he directed all his power to purposes of the most depraved selfishness. Is no less than all this the character of Mr. Brougham? Is this the equity of the amiable and benevolent Poet Laureate? flow detestable is party feeling, if such excellence as that of Mr. Southey, is capable of thus feeling its infla ence? Should it be proved that Mr. Brougham is as pure in morals as the Duke of Wellington, or even the amiable (for such he was) Lord Nelson, the two favourites of Mr. Southey, it will require all the elo quence of Mr. Southey to reconcile his writings either to truth or de cency! If all the advocates of administra tion were happy moralists, and all its opponents corrupt and impure, Mị. Southey's severity were not only justifiable but meritorious; but if this be not the fact, there should be more discrimination in his censure. Why he sneers at the Unitarians, (except it is on supposition of their bad morals) we cannot tell-for this is the same author, who declares in his memoirs of Kirk White, in the spirit of true integrity, that he then entertained opinions concerning the Christian institute, in direct opposition to that amiable youth. The opinions of Mr. White were those of the Church of England; what then, were those of Mr. Southey? Is Mr. Southey's rage against the opposers of administration capable of fixing his hatred against Unitarians? Perhaps every sect of Christians should be humble when they speak of their morality, but the Unitarians are not below others in moral rank. The Lardners, the Hartleys, the Newtons, are not inferior in morals to the Lauds, the Waterlands, or the Southeys. "Let another praise thee and not thine own lips." How many thousands, who have no view to the opinions or biographical dictionaries of remote ages, have lived with unsullied character in the bosom of their families, more thankful for the favour of heaven, which preserved them in virtue, than boastful of their own invulnerable purity! The language of the publican has often been theirs, in the midst of all their excellence, "Lord be merciful to me a sinner !" There may, however, be such as "need no repentance," and Mr. Southey may be one of them. But when we see the pious humility of our Lardner, who was as pure as Mr. Southey, without the same protecting circumstances, we cannot but be struck with the difference of their mental character. If this letter had been purely political we should not have noticed if: in reference to character and morals SIR, Mr. Smith and Mr. Southey, if We conclude with one remark, that whoever caused the publication of the beautiful poein of Wat Tyler, without consent of the author, is entitled to a very different ceusure, than either Mr. Southey or Mr. Smith. A. R. SIR, May 1, 1817. N the short notice of the affair of 1579992148 April 22, 1817. ** FI were not to send a reply to the letter of your Correspondent, T. H: Janson, (p. 160), my silence might be misunderstood. I was not called aware that what I called a few queries were any thing but what I them; and I wish that I had not (for it was unintentional, mere in"thrown some disavoluntary error) couragement in the way of their being answered." I certainly did intend however to throw much discouragement in the way of crude thoughts and loose remarks being sent to the Monthly Repository as replies to my queries. If this intention or the manner of expressing it has given offence and called forth sarcasm, the effect undesignedly produced can only serve to prove how easy it is to offend and how difficult it is to please. I was not aware that many hundred volumes have been written on the subjects comprised in my queries, and shall be obliged to your Correspondent if he will take an opportunity of mentioning the name of three hundreds of such volumes; for I know not of a single book that professedly discusses some of the questions which I sent for insertion in your Miscel lany: I know not of any book in which a single chapter may be found having any reference to some of my queries. The writings of that "ingenious speculator William Godwin,” are nearly as foreign (for any praetical purpose) to the points which I proposed, as the remarks of your Correspondent. was willing to hope that some of your readers who have studied the nature of political principles, institu tions, &c. might be induced to give the results of their inquiries and reflections in the shape of axioms, as a foundation and beginning of the most desirable of all desiderata, a true system of political science, a system of political science that shall make the well-being of the commonwealth the aim and end of all its deliberations and determinations-that shall make social happiness the rule and measure of all social excellence, of all national wealth, greatness, power and glory. It is easy to talk of parliamentary, if pare corruption being the original sin of all our political evils, as liamentary reform could of itself rectify all, political wrongs and remedy all. existing calamities; but the origin of all social complaints must be deeper in the social constitution, than either the quacks or the most skilful political physicians have generally per ceived and confessed. Parliamentary reform might (and I think would) cure Old England of galloping consumption; but most old constitutions have a complication of diseases which cannot be eradicated from the system, because the medicine which removes one only aggravates another. In this case the patient cannot expect complete recovery, but must resign to death in hope of a blessed resurrec tion. The masterly dissector (in the opinion of the person writing this) of human nature and human society, concerning whom your Correspondent inquires, is Mandeville, author of the Fable of the Bees. If all readers derive as much benefit from the above work as I think I have derived, they will speak as highly of the author. But of opinion and taste, &c, there is no absolute standard. If I thought that this notice of Mandeville would by any accident come under the eye of Dr. Malthus, I would request of him as a special favour that he would point out a few of those dexterous misnomers in which he says the reason ing consists by which the author of the Fable of the Bees supports his shocking system. I cannot believe that Dr. Malthus would join the common hue and ery against an unpopular author, the better to escape popular clamour himself; yet though in consequence of the foregoing heavy censure I took up the Fable of the Bees for the very purpose of examining its dexterous misnomers in support of a shocking system, I have not been very successful in detecting that worst kind of verbal deceptions which consist in specious misnomers. J. GILCHRIST. Christian Equality A Discourse, &'c. BUT (Concluded from p. 209.) UT the most formidable obstacle to gospel-equality, and the widest aberration from the principles laid down by the Apostle in our text, remains yet to be noticed. "I say," says he, through the grace given unto me," in virtue of the commission I have received to preach the unsearchable riches of him who was "meek and lowly in heart," "who came not be ministered unto but to minister," and who, by example, precept and prohibition, discountenanced among his disciples every thing that looked like an affectation of pre-eminence and superiority,-I say, “to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think;" and, reckoning himself together with the rest, he declares, "we are every one members one of another." Nevertheless, from a period very shortly subsequent to that in which Paul wrote, down to the present, there has been an order of men in the Church claiming distinctive titles, exclusive privileges and dictatorial powers. It would be both tedious and invidious to enter at any length upon a detail of the mischiefs and corruptions which have disturbed and defaced the pure institutions of the gospel, and in which men of this description have been the principal agents: they are sufficiently known to all who have the slightest acquaintance with history, civil or ecclesiastical. Neither do I intend any thing personal; my business is only with the nature of the powers they exercise, and which is known at once by an inspection of their respective constitutions. these, under the collective, but misapplied title of the Church, they are authorized to decree rites and cere monies; to determine controversies of faith and cases of conscience; to be stewards of the mysteries of God; to have the custody of the keys of the kingdom of heaven, that is to say, the power of admission or exclusion; to retain and remit sins; to inflict and remove censures; to pronounce and revoke sentence of excommunication; to give validity to ordinances; and, as it appears in practice, and as we have repeatedly experienced too, as members of courts of judicature, and decide upon the orthodoxy or heterodoxy of the opinions, not only of their own party, but of others who belong not to their communion, nor recogniza their authority. These are indeed high prerogatives, and the question instantly presents itself from whence are they derived? Now, although many will be disposed to deny that most of the ordinary powers with which the immediate successors of Jesus were-invested, and which were necessary in the infancy of the Church, have any specific applicability, or those By of an extraordinary kind any existence in these its maturer periods, yet these points have been settled by the clergy themselves to their own satisfaction: they have, in many material instances, identified their office with that of the apostles, and, by virtue of the imposition of hands, have transmitted their privileges and faculties entire from one generation to another, thus constituting themselves a corporation, with spiritual jurisdiction and perpetual succession. Now it cannot but appear wonderful, that in a country where there is so great, so just and so general a jealousy of the least encroachment upon civil rights, such an invasion of those which ought to be yet more highly prized, should meet with so little opposition, or rather with so tame an acquiescence. Certain it is, that if a self-created aristocracy were to start up among us, and assume such an unwarrantable supremacy over our temporal concerns as the clergy do over our faith, every hand and every voice would be instantly raised for its subversion. It is, how ever, of little consequence from what quarter ecclesiastical authority is derived, or supposed to be derived, whe ther divine, apostolical or popular, if it confer upon its possessors, and all they say or do the attribute of sacred, and give them that lordship over God's heritage which the apostles themselves disclaimed. And with whatever tranquillity we may hear the heinous charge of confederacy with Satan, or the solemn sentence of heresy from such a tribunal, we cannot but observe and regret so total a departure from the precept and spirit of our text, and wish that the duties of the ministerial department were better understood, and the meekness and gentleness of Christ nore closely copied. By no means let me be thought to cast indiscriminate reflections, or to insinuate that humility, charity, benevolence, the love of liberty and every Christian virtue, may not or do not adorn and dignify the pastoral office among all religious persuasions; but I believe there can be no question whether those things upon which I have animadverted, have not a natural tendency to make men think of themselves more highly than they ought to think, to foster many of those dispositions which the Apostle so pointedly condemns, and must therefore be, on the whole, unfriendly to the progress and effect of the pure and unadulterated religion of Christ. That the privileges of the order might be guarded from invasion, there was an obvious necessity for the utmost caution as to those who should be admitted to a participation of them. Accordingly we see that in many seminaries of education for the ministry, one of the earliest lessons inculcated is a dutiful attachment to the systems and articles of faith which are deemed fundamental laws of the institution, and a departure from which would incur no less a penalty than expulsion.* To these it is frequently required of the From the North American Review.➡ Mr. Loring D. Dewey has published a Discourse delivered before a private society of the students of the Theological Seminary in New York, of which he was a member. It is the principal object of this Discourse to show that being justified, in the language of the New Testament, means being pardoned. This heinous proceeding of the young gentleman was the occasion of the following letter. New York, 12th March, 1816. To Mr. LORING D. DEWEY. SIR.IT is matter of grief to us, that any of our pupils whom we have been endeavouring to lead into the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus, should turn away from the holy commandment delivered unto him. This, misguided youth, is your own case. The doctrines which you have avowed in your Discourse submitted to us, and in your conversation with us relative cally subversive of the whole gospel scheme thereto, are so deeply erroneous, so radiand so ruinous to the souls of men, that they cannot be tolerated in the seminary. under our care. It shall not here be so much as questioned, no not for an hour, whether attacks upon the essential parts of our Redeemer's work, are to be permitted in any shape or upon any pretence whatever. We are therefore under the afflicting necessity of informing you, that your connexion with our seminary ceases from this day. You will consider the present decision as peremptory, and not to be altered, unless: it shall please God to give you a sounder mind, and enable you to recover yourself out of the snare of the devil. That such may be your happiness is our heart's desire, and prayer for you. J. M. MASON, Principal Th. Sem. |