accuses Modern Unitarians, with rather regarding the vicious with pity than indignation. Can any man otherwise regard them, who believes that they will suffer much more than they enjoy by their crimes, whatever be the ultimate result of such sufferings? He who thus believes, must believe, that he who injures another, injures himself much more, and consequently is an object of the deepest compassion. He who would not suffer death, rather than inflict it, is not a practical Unitarian This was surely the doctrine of Priestley, and this is the doctrine of the Rev. Dr. Smith, in his late work. Men at their ease, with all their natural wants supplied, are apt to express great indignation at the conduct of others, in opposite circumstances, but their circumstances being changed, might alter their feelings, and indignation might become pity. As vice leads to misery, let it not be forgotten, that it originates in misery. Pain, of oue sort or other, is the source of all vice. No one who is happy, can voluntarily injure another. Dr. Smith justly resolves all vice, in its origin, to want, weakness and error. Can any one shew that this is false? It was a saying of Mr. Bradbury, who was not a Modern Unitarian, when he saw any one carried to execution, there should Bradbury have been carried if it had not been for the grace of God; and there was as much true philosophy, as religion in that saying.There is many a man, who passes through life, in the midst of enjoyments, all called innocent, with the full approbation of his own mind, and a high character for goodness, as being free from maliguity, and, from his abundance, in a certain degree beneficient. But let it not be forgotten, that all moral differences in character, are resolvable into the degree of self-denial, voluntarily imposed by the individual for the good of others, or a sense of duty. By this let every man try himself! And then let him regard the vicious, with pity or with indignation. Bad morals grow not from the Unitarian doctrine, and an Old Unitarian, in this particular, brings an accusation, that is, perhaps, not disgraceful to his more Modern Bre thren. A. R. I SIR, Clapton, July 3, 1817. HAVE just had great pleasure in reading Dr. Toulmin's edition of Neal's History of the Puritans, and have sent you a note by the editor, as being particularly applicable to the present times. It refers to what Mr. Neal very justly calls, the "mad insurrection" of Thomas Venner, and a small number of enthusiasts, who expected "a fifth universal monarchy under the personal reign of King Jesus upon earth, and that the saints were to take the kingdom themselves." I take this opportunity to recommend the above work, more particularly the notes of the late venerable and excellent editor, to your correspondent "Au Old Unitarian" [p. 284]; he will there see that Dr. T., though an old, very pious, and I believe in every respect, most exemplary Unitarian minister, was as great a lover of, and advocate for liberty, as any of the Modern Unitarians. If a man may not be a good Unitarian Christian, and yet a firm supporter of civil and religious freedom, we are of all sects the most unfortunate; and I much wish that your Correspondent had taken an opportunity to recommend his own slavish principles, without bringing such gross charges against those who differ from him. "It plainly appeared on the examination of these insurgents, that they had entered into no plot with any other conspirators. The whole transaction was the unquestionable effect of the religious frenzy of a few individuals. Yet it was the origin of a national burthen felt to this day. At the Council, on the morning after the insurrection was quelled, the Duke of York availed himself of the opportunity to push his arbitary measures. On the pretext, that so extravagant an attempt could not have arisen from the rashness of one man, but was the result of a plot formed by all the sectaries and fanatics to overthrow the present government, he moved to suspend at such an alarming crisis, the disbanding of General Monk's regiment of foot,' which had the guard of Whitehall; and was, by order of Parliament, to have been disbanded the next day. Through different causes the motion was adopted, and a letter was sent to the king to request him to approve and confirm the resolution of the Council, and to appoint the continuance of the regiment till further order. To this the king consented; and as the rumours of fresh conspiracies were industriously kept up, those troops were continued and augmented, and a way was prepared for the gradual establishment of a standing army, under the name of guards. This should be a memento to future ages, how they credit the reports of plots and conspiracies thrown out by a minister, unless the evidence of their existence be brought forward. The cry of conspiracies has been frequently nothing more than the chimera of fear, or the invention of a wicked policy to carry the schemes of ambition and despotism.-Secret History of the Court and Reign of Charles II. Vol. I. p. 346-7. Editor." Vol. IV. p 320. T. H. JANSON. P.S. Your Correspondent, Cantabrigiensis, [p. 346,] has fallen into a very general error, in attributing the stanzas on Madame Lavalette's conjugal virtue, to Lord Byron; they were written by a friend of mine, who is one of the Society of Friends, and were sent by him to the Examiner, signed with his initials B. B. it is curious that they are placed in most of the editions of Lord Byron's Poems. B. B. once published an anonymous volume under the title of Metrical Effusions, with a Dedicatory Sonnet to Mr. Roscoe, which is, I believe, now out of print; and he is at this time publishing a quarto volume of Poems, of which a very limited number will be printed, price One Guinea: if Cantab. or any of your readers are desirous of seeing more of his poetry, I shall be happy to forward any names to him as subscribers. SIR, YOUR March 26, 1817. OUR Correspondent, A. B. C. [p. 96,] inquires, "why should that degree of credit be extended to the historiaus of Jesus, who, we know, were frequently reproved by him for their gross and inadequate apprehension of the nature of the Messiah, and the quality of his dispensation, which is withheld from all other historians" (with respect to supposed miracles) ? That the miracles to which the evangelical historians bear witness, differ from the doubtful and superstitious tales of cures of the king's evil, &c. in their nature, degree of publicity, and other circumstances, seems a waste of time and ink to shew this has been done by Campbell, in his reply to Hume. The gross apprehension of the Messiah's character and office, was common to the evangelists and to the more learned and enlightened Jews: this argument against their competency therefore fails to the ground. These natural misconceptions, in which the wisest scribes partook, cannot affect their evidence as to what they saw and handled, if they were honest men. That they were honest men, is proved by the very objection of your Correspondent-that they were reproved by Jesus for their gross and temporal uotions: for the knowledge that they were so comes from their own candid statement. If we believe the testimony of these honest men, we must believe that the facts which they relate were matters of notoriety. The apostles appeal openly to the senses and recollections of the people: "Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know." Christiauity was promulgated by preaching. The gospel histories were successively composed amidst contemporaries, who might have contradicted their story. The records were read in Christian societies as registers of publicly received facts. Paul was not one of those who were reproved for grossness of apprehension; he was a learned man, invested with authority, prejudiced against the Christians; yet he became a Christian and a zealous apostle. Luke, his secretary, was not one of the reproved historians; yet Luke records in the Acts miracles equally striking with those which Matthew recorded, or which Peter dictated to Mark. In attestation of the facts thus preached and thus recorded, the evangelists and apostles, and Jewish and Gentile converts, braved shame, persecution and death. Is this common testimony? An indirect evidence to the miraculous agency of Jesus is afforded by the early corruption of his religion, which ascribes to him a superhuman nature. The Gnostics, with their celestial pre-existent spirit and phantom humanity; the Cerinthians, with their incorporation of the celestial and human natures; the ancient Platonizing fathers, with their incarnate second God, bear witness to something extraordinary, and out of the course of nature in the acts of Jesus. The Jewish converts, familiar with the signs wrought of old by Moses and other prophets, and with the ascension of Elijah, continued Unitarians like the apostles before them; but the Gentiles were ready to exclaim "Deus, Deus ille!" This is unaccountable on the hypothesis of mere moral reformation; it is unaccountable on any other theory, than that of actual signs and wonders performed through Jesus in the sight of men, by the finger of God. Your Correspondent quotes Luke ix. 49, as a proof that the power of working cures was common to others, and was therefore no evidence of a direct communication from God to Jesus. The reference is unhappy. "Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name." It was on an appeal to the name of Jesus, accompanied, no doubt, with faith in him as the Christ, that God poured out his energy in the healing of lunacy. To call Newton a messenger from God, seems little better than playing upon words. What is meant by a messenger from God, is an immediate and extraordinary messenger: and the only test of a divine commission is, a power to suspend the ordinary laws of nature by the working of miracles. But it is asked, why such a supernatural exertion of power should have been necessary? And it is urged, that if the doctrines of Jesus were true, truth is its own evidence, and needs no proof. This position is contradicted by all human experience. Mankind are not disposed to embrace truth. In despite of philosophy, they are not even agreed as to "what is truth." If Jesus be only a moralist and reformer, raised up, like Socrates, in the ordinary course of God's providence, what is to render his precepts obligatory? They who acknowledge the supernatural character of his mission, however they may differ as to its design, or as to the person of the messenger, agree in their submission to the gospel laws of morality, because they conceive them to have a divine sanction. They who question their divine authority, are not so unanimous in admitting their self-evident truth. Some cavil at their want of philosophical precision; others at their justness or fitness. Truth then is not its own evidence. The writer's scepticism seems founded on an idea that the object of Christ's mission was to teach morals. The Christian covenant was prepared from the very infancy of the world; announced by prophets; and hailed with triumph by those who "saw the day of Christ," which had been appointed "before Abraham was." What was this day of Christ? What were these prophecies, aud wherefore this exultation? That a reformer was to arise? That a new system of morals was to be promulgated? Incredulus odi. Jesus, indeed, taught the love of God and man; but he taught more: he confirmed the free pardon of "his God and our God," his "Father and our Father," on the condition of “our ceasing to do evil and learning to do well." If he had not divine authority for this joyful message, what is its value? Does it demand assent by intrinsic truth and fitness? Will such an assurance, proceeding from a sage and benevolent moralist, supply a balm to remorse, or an opiate to despair? But neither was this the grand object of Christ's mission. It is said, that Jesus taught none but natural doctrines. Is the resurrection of the dead a natural doctrine? Jesus was sent to lay down his life that he might receive it again. He was sent to reveal the stupendous mystery that the grave should yield up its dead. Was not a supernatural interference of Deity necessary for such an object as this? But, it may be said, we knew that the soul was immortal; Plato knew it; Deists recognise it: on what proof? All the phenomena of our nature are against it. The natural immortality of the soul-the very existence of a soul at all independent of the corporeal organization of man, is mere hypothesis: it rests on conjectural philosophy; it stands on heathen inventions; it is disowned by Scripture. "Dust THOU art, and unto dust shalt THOU return:" but "the dead shall be raised incorrupti ble, and we shall be changed." This is the Bible immortality, and this Jesus revealed. How could he reveal it, but from direct intercourse with God? How could it be proved, but by his own resurrection? If the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus be true, we must accept the evidence for Jesus himself having also raised the dead by the power of God directly imparted to him. If it be not true, we shall lie in the grave; death is an eternal sleep; and immortality the dream of poets and the romance of philosophers. If Jesus were "the best and wisest of men," it must be believed that he had direct communication with God, for he himself declares so. If he declared so falsely, he was an impostor; and although he might be the wisest, he could not be the best of men. The ascribing the cures of Christ to any other means than supernatural agency, whether magical, as with the ancient sceptics, or medical, as with the mo dern, constitutes the blasphemy against the holy spirit. SIR, C. A. E. April 21, 1817. see also many depraved characters of whose possible correction and amend. ment there is a moral certainty, were occasion allowed and proper means applied: yet they are cut off from life. There is in fact no character so depraved, as that a philosopher would be hardy enough to pronounce the depravity incurable. Is it credible that our Maker, who saw us before we were formed in the womb, would deny his creatures those means of amelioration hereafter, which the circumstances in which they were placed denied them here? But is not the justice of the Creator, no less than his benevolence, impeached, by either hypothesis of eternal conscious pain, or lingering annihilation? Man is the work of God's hands. In creating him, he foresaw that he would err; yet he created him. In foreseeing the existence of moral evil he therefore willed it. Even on the ignorant supposition of a personal evil being, derived from the allegorical language of Scripture, moral evil could only exist by God's permission; and this is equivalent to his will. Isaiah, however, speaks of God from authority, as the creator of evil as well as good "A CONSTANT READ beneficent I 101,] does not seem aware, that vengeance, as it respects God, can only be used in accommodation to human speech and comprehension; so resentment, repentance, and many other terms. As to his question, "are not all punishments vindictive?" answer decidedly, no.-Does a father punish his children from a spirit of vengeance? Such a father is accountable for this indulgence of his evil passions. A good father punishes to reform. God is said to pity us, "as a father pitieth his own children." Eternal torment, as "Constant Reader" acknowleges, does not consist with the attribute of benevolence: but neither could annihilation answer any other end but that of vengeance, and vengeance is inconsistent with the character of a father. The dealings of Providence with respect to criminals in this life, and the peculiarities of human character strengthen the probability that future punishment is remedial. Such is the tendency of all the penal consequences attached to vice and immorality in the present world. We pensations of his providence. “I make peace and create evil: I, the Lord, do all these things." xlv. 7. May we not then, with reverence and humility, inquire, whether it is just to have created man in the first instance liable to error? Or, in the second, to consider him, when erring, as an object of vengeance? Is the justice of the Creator reconcileable either with the theory of everlasting misery, or of painful destruction? From abstract reasoning we are, however, referred to Scripture. . The passages and terms referred to, are by no means conclusive; they are at most ambiguous. The original word for torment and punishment, means in its primitive sense, a touch-stone; and implies therefore question, search, corrective suffering. As to the word rendered everlasting, it is limited or extended by the word in connexion with it, and is sometimes used in the same sentence to designate measured and infinite duration : the punishment may therefore be for a period of ages, the life for ages without end. As to the "second death," a phrase which, it must be observed, cannot by any figure be made to express an eternity of living torment, it does certainly seem to justify the doctrine of extinction of being: but to make the parallel complete, as the first death is followed by a resurrection, so should the second death be followed by restitution to life. "The worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched," do not necessarily imply either eternal conscious torment, or lingering annihilation. This allusion to the cast-out carcases of malefactors, and to the fire in the valley of Hinnom, for the consuming refuse of the city of Jerusalem, may imply that the instruments of salutary wrath will not cease their agency, till their purpose be effected: and this purpose may be, not the destruction of the being of the wicked, but only of their sinful natures. The declaration of Jesus, " every one shall be salted with fire," seems to contain a reference to purifying chastisement. The parable of the adversary (a plaintiff) dragging the debtor before the judge, by whom he is cast into prison, may illustrate this question. It is said, "Verily, thou shalt not come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing." I cannot regard this parable as conveying only a rule of life, or a lesson of worldly prudence. It seems to me an evident allegory of our relations with God: and the adversary at law is the emblematic evil one, or sin, who is represented as having a suit against us at the bar of the Almighty Judge. If this be so, the final restitution is at once proved. If this interpretation be rejected, we may still contend that if definite punishment be not absolutely expressed in Scripture, it may be inferred from it. God's mercy is said "to endure for ever:" he is said "not to keep his anger for ever:" he is said "in judgment to remember mercy:" and finally, it is said, that "God is love." These declarations cannot be true, if eternal torment be true: but can they be true, even on the mitigated hypothesis of destruction? It is well observed, by Hartley, that the Jewish nation appears to be a type of the general human race. With the Jews the angry visitations of Providence are clearly remedial. The prophesied restoration of the dispersed tribes of Israel may prefigure the restitution of the reformed wicked. E. Principles of Government. [In these times of political degeneracy, we esteem it a duty to use our influence to awaken men's minds to the true principles of government, and therefore insert the following admirable passage from Stonehouse's series of Letters, entitled, Universal Restitution further Defended, printed at Bristol, in 1768, Let. VII. It contains a compendium of Mr. Locke's Treatise on Government. The author is replying to an argument for the necessity of the doctrine of reprobation from the destination of the mighty men who are doomed in the book of Revelation to be mightily tormented. ED.] TOW as to the expression mighty NOW men, we shall fix its import upon this very principle, as follows, 1 Cor. xi. 3, "Christ is the head of every man;" but, whereas men are fallen or apostate creatures, and therefore subject to vicious appetites and passions, which will prompt them to fall foul on, and oppress each other; their Lord has authorized them to form themselves into societies, or associations, for their mutual protection from injuries foreign and domestic: and the men chosen of them, and constituted from among their brethren to be administers to this their protection, are called mighty: they are mighty in that they are supported by the united force of the whole society, occasionally contributed, with a view to preserve to the society, who are their constituents, the free use of their rights, liberties, and prerogatives, and the uninterrupted enjoyment of the products of their labours. And I dare assert, that in this appointment, they are justly and innocently mighty. But you object, that the mighty men of whom I speak are invested with their authority from God and that these are so, is also true. It being insisted upon by us that every people and nation, even all whom the blood of Christ has purchased, are Christ's absolute property, and to be considered as his vassals or peculium; and that this vassalage is not partial, but, by the exactest law of justice, absolute, unlimited, and without ex |