1830.] Mr. URBAN, On Bishop Sumner's Vicarage, Mere, Wilts, A haps, in our times, the June 24. MONG the most prominent, perto oppose Calvinistic heresy, is one who has since become a prelate; I mean Bishop BIRD SUMNER [of Chester]. This author, in his "Apostolic Preaching," has laudably swelled the list of anti-Calvinistic writers, but candour compels me to own, magnis excidit ausis." Though he has used his utmost endeavours, it is clear that he is unable fully to grapple with the question. He is impar congressus. Bishop Bird Sumner has certainly added nothing new to the able refutations of the predestination heresy already extant. The best of his arguments are from BishopTOMLINE; some are inconclusive, some incorrect, while others are altogether lost sight of—by the judicious use of which he could have hurled the unscriptural fabric of fatalisin down from its imaginary axis, never to rise again. That election " is national, and not individual; that it implies in Scripture election to the grace of the Gospel, to the means of salvation, and not to final salvation, is not an original idea of the writer's: it has been ably proved by writers antecedent to Bishop Bird Sumner. The objection of the case of Esau and Jacob is, unfortunately, put more strongly than it is combated-a great violation this of rhetoric. At this point of his argument, it is amusing to observe how the good Bishop, as Horace would say, "laborat ;" or, as Cicero would still more expressively have said, aqua hæret." He sticks fast. Like Frankenstein he trembles at the object of his own creation; and at length discards the subject as if he knew not what to make of it. He has vanquished himself. Never was there a more perfect stale-mate. Bishop Bird Sumner has awkwardly and in an unscholarlike way managed the passage, which Calvinists, more triumphantly than truly, call "the golden chain of election." (Rom. viii. 29 and 30). He should have shown that idókat means, not ultimate glorification, but that kind and degree which Christians enjoy on earth; being glorified in their head, Jesus Christ, and receiving the blessings of the Spirit. He should have shown that ἐδικαίωσε should be referred, not to final justification, but to a state of pardon and present favour; as 1 Cor. vi. 11, where "justified" is used with reference to Apostolic Preaching." 13 baptism, and not at all to final justification; κι ἀπελούσασθε, ἡγιάσθητε. He should have shown that the verbs are all in the past tense: and that since glorified," the highest link in the ascending chain of verbs, is an aorist, and joined with three other words, all having an allusion to past events, the passage fails altogether in promoting the Calvinistic hypothesis, since it cannot, merely to coincide with that bypothesis, be made to look forward instead of backward. Finally, he should have given us the passage with a paraphrastic reading, agreeably to the preceding solution, in some such mode as this: Those to whom it was fore-ordained by God that the Gospel should be made known, He has now actually called; and those whom He has called He has justified, (i. e. placed in a state of justification by baptism), and those whom He has justified he has glorified by His grace, and all the other privileges of the Gospel Covenant." Bishop Bird Sumner, at p. 39, quotes some passages from the New Testament, which he thinks "convey the idea of appointment" [on God's part, and consequently that they appear to favour predestination]. Now, as a scholar and divine, Bishop Bird Sumner, one would suppose, might have known that it is the translation only of those passages, and not the passages themselves, that come within the Calvinistic obliquity of vision. For example: the Bishop quotes "The Lord added to the Church such as should be saved." If it be intended that this addition to the Church being made by " the Lord," favours Calvinism, the argument is contemptible; for " every other good and perfect gift is of the Lord :" and if it be contended that the words "such as should be saved" implies a personal election to salvation, it betrays a blameable carelessness as to the Greek, where the expression owlouévous being a participle of the present and imperfect indicative mood, cannot imply anything prospective or decreed to be: and, instead of being translated "such as should be saved," ought to have been translated" such as were saved"-that is, such as were placed by baptism, faith, and repentance, in an incipient state of salvation; which, as a réλos,was, subsequently, to be "worked out." The next quotation adduced by Bishop Bird Sumner is," As many as were ordained to eternal life, believed." Now, 14 On Bishop Sumner's "Apostolic Preaching." he might have known, and should have explained, that relaμévos does not, in the Greek, presuppose anything like an absolute decree, or any decree at all, but simply "disposed” or “ prepared ;' i. e. they were disposed in their minds for the reception of the Gospel, by the preaching of Paul and Barnabas. Besides, the Bishop, by adhering implicitly to the English, has falsely placed the punctuation; and thereby added to the supposed Calvinistic tone of the passage. The English version stands as if the Greek passage had stood in this construing order-relatμévoi eis (wny alwvov, whereas the punctuation of the Greek should place it in the following construing order-irisevσav eis (wn aivov; it should be so distinguished by the commas, as that is why may connect with the verb, not the participle, thus: ἐπίςευσαν, ὅσοι ἦσαν τελαλμένοι, eis (wn'v alwvov; that is, as many of them as were prepared, [or collected together, for the Hebrew of Exod. xxix. 33, is rendered by some rarloμai, and by the LXX. ouvάyw] believed in [or professed their belief in] everlasting life. Viewed thus, Bishop Bird Sumner's idea of the Calvinistic aspect of this passage appears not well founded. In the next quotation which the Bishop adduces, his fears of a Calvinistic construction would make it appear that he was only an English reader of the scriptures, or that he thought the clergy, whom he addresses, such. He quotes from Jude thus: "Certain men had crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained unto this condemnation." He would have helped our anti-Calvinistic cause much more, had he, instead of abiding by the received version, shown, as is attempted in the passages above explained, its utter in correctness. Taxas #goyeygauμéros is incorrectly translated before ordained." Now the Bishop seems to think, from his citation of this passage, that the doom of these persons had been of old written in the book of fate; whereas πάλαι προγεγραμμένοι refers only to the punishment of such characters having been predicted of old in the scriptures. Really, writers should be more cautious. One regrets to find a man of Bishop Bird Sumner's abilities treating of prescience and predestination as synonyms (p. 39). Much of the error on this subject has arisen from this very confusion of terms. [July, The Calvinistic errors do not require the dull, prosing, abstract reasoning Bishop Bird Sumner has adopted; but a critical and learned exposure of texts which have been divorced from their contexts, and dragged into the service of irrespective decrees and other irrational and unscriptural follies, which set the Word of God at variance with the Word of God. His style betrays a want of that critical nicety, without which no man will combat either Calvinists or Unitarians successfully. His diction abounds in carelessnesses like these passim: He talks of resting on a reliance, p. 3; of a superiority of one part of the service above the other, P. 4; and of being bound by an obliother tautologies remind one of the exgation, p. 30. These and numerous pression used by the other Bishop Sumner [of Winchester], in one of his Charges "the lucre of gain": and this again reminds me of the man who thought the calmness of a walk by crepuscular twilight tended to smooth the rough asperities of life! Bishop Bird Sumner gravely quotes Baxter (p. 6,7, 8), who, in a ridiculous passage, in which he talks of congregations being full, and calls inns and alehouses families, enlarges on the delightfulness of "100 families singing psalms and repeating sermons in the streets of a country town on Sundays!!" Does Bishop Bird Sumner really wish to see such results flow from a zealous and able discharge of the clerical duties? Bishop Bird Sumner quotes and extols Mr. Wilberforce. Yours, &c. Mr. URBAN, OFFER S. H. CASSAN. May 10. explain a further portion of one of the Prophets, who has much engaged my attention lately. In this, the assurance, too strong and plain to be mistaken, that Jerusalem is to be occupied again by the scattered of Israel, the prediction of another siege, and of the prowess of the Jews, who have long ceased to be a military people, their eventual conviction that it was really the Lord of Life whom their ancestors nailed to the cross, and their grief on the discovery, are topics which, I trust, may render this essay interesting, however feeble and imperfect the execution. Yours, &c. S. W. 1880.] Zechariah, c. XII.-Carvings at Chatsworth. Shall prompt each tongue to cry," The Lord On Him we trust. The Lord of Hosts our God." Jerusalem's firm chiefs, then like a fire Kindled beneath some forest in parch'd autumn, Or as a torch blazing midst summer sheaves, In David as their King, and Israel's sons Outpouring on my people, will to prayer The King Messiah died! The land shall Of Levi, and from Shimei in later days 15 Mr. URBAN, Bakewell, June 18. THE compiler of the third vol. of Murray's Family Library, containing Lives of British Painters, Sculptors, &c., in the sketch he has given of Grinling Gibbons, has endeavoured to impress that this artist was the presiding genius, and had the direction of all the carving executed at Chatsworth, and that Samuel Watson was only a subordinate workman in that elegant work. I think it but due to my grandfather's memory to publish the following account of agreements and other documents in my possession, and which I trust are not unworthy of a record in the Gentleman's Magazine. $ First, by agreement dated Sept. 9th, 1692, with the Earl of Devonshire, Samuel Watson, with two others, executed the ornaments in limetree-wood, for the great chamber, the dead game over the chimney-piece being by Watson's own hand, whose bill for the same, also in my possession, amounts to 1331. 7s. They were completed in 1693. The trophy, containing the celebrated pen over the door in the southwest corner room, is proved, by several documents in my possession, to be my grandfather's work also. By another agreement, dated Sept. 2, 1701, in the Duke of Devonshire's own hand, on a stamp, and the bill for the work, amounting to 55, he executed (by 1704) the arms in the pediment of the west front. Also, by agreement dated Sept. 28th, 1705, of the same nature, for the carv ing of the north front, (finished 1707), 941. 9s. 4d. Besides these, for which special agreements are in my possession, I have vouchers and settled bills for the following works, namely: 1701-For carving thirteen urns in gritstone, for the top of the house, 84%. 1707-For carving at the cascade, 191. 18s. 1701-For an urn on the altar in the chapel in limetree, 21. 15s. 1701-For carving thirteen mask heads in the lower court, 30%. 1711-For carving on ten vessel ends his Grace's arms, with mantling, for the cellar, 251. &c. &c. Samuel Watson was born at Heanor in Derbyshire, in Dec. 1663, where he died, 31st March, 1715, and was succeeded by his son Henry Watson of Bakewell, who carved the arms in the pediment of the stables at Chatsworth, 16 The last Duchess of Wharton.-Milton. in 1763; and, dying Oct. 24th, 1786, aged 72, was succeeded by his nephew, Samuel Watson's grandson, Your most obedient servant, WHITE WATSON, F.L.S. Statuary and Mineralogist in Bakewell. Mr. URBAN, N the "Memoirs June 19. [July, of Loghkeen, and county of Tipperary, married the only daughter and heiress of Walter Butler of Finlough, a distant branch of the Ormond family, and who at that time possessed an estate of about seven hundred acres in Loghkeen parish, which was settled on Čolonel Comerford's father on his marriage with Miss Butler. This estate afterwards became property of Damer I Grace Philip late Duke of Whats mily, and has, put the death of Lady ton," London, 1731, it is stated that his first wife, who was daughter of Major-General Holmes, dying 14th April, 1726, "the Duke soon fell violently in love with a beautiful young lady at the Spanish Court, who was then maid of honour to the Queen of Spain; she was the daughter of an Irish Colonel in the Spanish service, who being dead, her mother lived upon a pension the King allowed her, so that the personal accomplishments of this lady were all her fortune. Arguments were used by friends of both sides to persuade them against the marriage, but as on one hand the Duke was too much hurried away by his passions to have the least consideration of motives of prudence or conveniency, and Mademoiselle Obern, on the other, being perhaps a little dazzled with the lustre of a ducal title, there was no preventing an alliance which both parties seemed so fond of."—" It was said that the Duke made a sacrifice of his religion for the sake of this match," and it adds, "All the late Duke has left behind him is a deserving though a poor disconsolate widow, who as yet hath made no claim, as I hear of, upon his estate, and consequently is wholly destitute and unprovided for; but as her case deserves pity, it is hoped she will find some resource, but where, or from whom, perhaps she may be at a loss to know, being entirely unacquainted with her husband's affairs or family." It is erroneous to say that the Duke's second wife was named Obern, which, as here spelled, is not an Irish name, and this error is copied by Banks in his "Dormant Peerage." The Duke's second wife was the daughter of John Comerford, who left Ireland sometime about 1688, and entering the Spanish service, he attained the rank of Brigadier or Colonel, and at one period had a very high situation in Madrid. Colonel Comerford's father, who resided on his own estate at Finlough, parish Caroline Damer, devolved on the present Earl of Portarlington. In vol. 36, p. 309, for July 1766, of the Gent. Mag. in an article stating errors in the "Biographia Britannica," p. 191, it says, "the Duchess of Wharton, who is still living, and has been long resident in England, is so far now from being poor and destitute and unprovided for (as indeed she was in 1732), that for some years past she has been enabled to live in a manner suitable to her rank. This the biographer might and ought to have known, instead of transcribing literally an account written above thirty years ago." Perhaps some of your Correspondents can say when and at what time the Duchess of Wharton died, and in what publication her death appears, or if any account is to be had of her father's family, her brother being in 1746 a Colonel in the Spanish service, and another member of the family holding, in 1812, a military situation at Prague. Yours, &c. J. B. IN Mr. URBAN, Blackheath, June 30. N the second volume of the Rev.. Henry J. Todd's edition of "the Works of MILTON," that learned Commentator has introduced in a note the following passage from Spenser's Faery Queen; and observes thereon," that Milton, in his poetical description of DEATH, has pretty evidently borrowed from the same." "But after all came Life, and lastly Death; Death, with most grim and grisly visage seen. Yet is he nought but parting of the breath, I here venture to recite Milton's description of DEATH, from Paradise Lost, book ii. from verse 666 to verse 673. "The other SHAPE, If shape it might be call'd that shape had : none |