of society," &c. Who have suspected this? Who are suspected? Where are the proofs? No man should have whispered such a suspicion without being disposed and able to answer these questions. At such a time as the present, he who could give such a hint should have been prepared to volunteer as an informer and a witness. Better at once to drag the culprits, if such there be, from the chapel to the Court of Justice, than to expose a whole sect to the evils of dark and undefined accusation. Who knows what ministers some inay think are here intended? Who knows but that local circumstances may give a point to these inuendoes by which the character, usefulness, comforts, and prospects of a respectable man may be destroyed, and his personal liberty endangered?

And this is done by one whose "Christianity admits of no connexion with politics!" Sir, I am no friend to the use of physical force, but I love civil and religious liberty, and have not learned, like your Correspondent, by misapplying Scripture, to change the epistles of Paul into the Gospel according to Hobbes. How amusing his aversion to Bonaparte, to whom, in certain circumstances, his concluding political Christian principle would have made him his as well as your "most humble servant!" Censures on a fallen or a banished man come ungraciously from one who is avowedly slavish upon principle. Should their fortunes change, he would of course change also, secing that "Christianity admits of no connexion with politics, except that it enjoins that every soul be subject unto the higher powers." Were Bonaparte crowned to-morrow in Westminster Abbey, he would therefore be a loyal subject. Were Peter Porcupine to cut the Regent's throat and instal himself in St. James's, he would be dutiful and obedient.

"And if in Downing Street Old Nick should revel

England's prime minister, then bless the

Devil!"

However favourable such a maxim may be to the peaceable lives of its admirers, doubts will arise in the minds of some about its tendency to produce all godliness and honesty.

It is wholly out of my power to ascertain the object of the Old Unitarian's letter, or to account for the irritation and suspicion which pervade it; but I am satisfied that, as to what is most important in it, his assertions may be denied and his inferences disproved.

IF

W. J. FOX.

Letter from Mr. Fry to a Calvinistic
Minister, on his want of Charity.
MR. EDITOR, May 19, 1817.
F the following letter, written on
occasion of personally witnessing
one of those specimens of bigoted
harshness against Anti-Trinitarians,
not unfrequent in the present day
among some religious sects, shall ap-
pear suitable to the design of your
useful publication, perhaps its inser-
tion will not be displeasing to some
of your readers, at least to such of
them as have had their ears assailed
with the like demonstrations of de-
termined hostility. It may be proper
to observe that no answer to it has
been received, though a week has
elapsed since it was sent. Whether
this omission is to be ascribed to an
idea in the mind of the minister to
whom the letter was addressed, that
the remonstrance of an Unitarian on
such a subject was not worthy of a
reply; or to his feeling that the re-
prehended though common outrage
against charity and decorum could
not be justified, and that therefore he
could not answer me without making
some apology, which would be too
grating to his orthodoxy, I cannot
determine. But having been informed
that some remarks on my observations
are to appear in one of the magazines
devoted to the interests of Calvinistic
tenets, I am induced to solicit the
insertion of my letter in the Monthly
R. F.
Repository.

Letter addressed to the Rev. T. W.
Kidderminster, May 12, 1817.

SIR,

Last evening I attended the service at the Old Meeting, under an expectation of hearing Mr. B, with whom I have been long acquainted, in which I was disappointed; and feeling aggrieved by a part of your discourse, I scarcely know how to refrain from expressing to you my dissatisfaction. I do not complain of

what you advanced concerning the
necessity of Christ's coming to judge
the world for the purpose of testifying
his eternal Deity, because you have
an unquestionable right to deliver
doctrinal sentiments which you be
lieve to be true and important; though
I conceive such a representation to be
inconsistent and at variance with the
Holy Scriptures, which declare this
great office to be sustained by him in
consequence of his designation to it,
or by the appointment of the supreme
authority of his God and Father.
What I complain of is, your placing
those of your fellow-christians who
disbelieve the Deity of our Saviour,
upon a level with the worst rejectors
of revealed religion, by using the fol-
lowing expressions, when speaking of
the enemies of true piety who must
receive condemnation in the last day:
"Some there are who deny the Deity
of Christ, some trample upon his
blood, and some despise the whole
system of his divine revelation." This
statement to me appears very disin-
genuous, as it imports a refusal to
admit those to be numbered among
the disciples of our Lord who differ
from yourself on this disputed point,
the Deity of Christ; and it has an in-
jurious tendency on the minds of the
hearers, especially the more ignorant
sort, even to inspire them with si-
milar illiberality. Such rash language
indicates, what you would probably
feel some reluctance more plainly to
avow, that you are conscious of having
formed an infallible judgment re-
specting a doctrine which has been a
subject of controversy among wise
and good men in various ages. To
this I may add, that it is preposterous
to associate the deniers of Christ's
Deity with despising infidels, because
those who believe that he is in every
respect dependent upon the only true
God, the Creator of heaven and earth,
regularly assemble together for divine
worship according to the Christian
revelation, and to hear its truths and
precepts dispensed. So that they
must either believe in the divine
mission of Christ, and consequently
esteem the Gospel as true and divine,
or be mere hypocrites in their reli-
gious profession; the latter of which
can hardly be your deliberate opinion
of them, especially if you consider the
able defences of Christianity which

some of them have produced. Without doubt your mind is fully persuaded that the doctrine for which you are so strenuous, of Christ's having a proper equality with the Father, is explicitly taught in the sacred writings, and you value it highly as being essential to your doctrinal system. But it is not unworthy of any Christian to maintain his sentiments with charity for those who differ, as they have a right to judge for themselves, and may have substantial reasons for their dissent. However confident you may be of the truth and importance of this notion, I am equally persuaded that it has no real foundation in the word of God, but that it is a corruption derived from popery.

In your present temper it is not likely that you will deign to enter a place of worship used by Unitarians; perhaps you may disdain to peruse any of their treatises in vindication of their principles; but I will venture to assert that in either case you would not meet with an instance of an Unitarian's so dishonouring himself and degrading his religion, as invidiously to unite descriptions which have no kind of analogy. But supposing that on any occasion you had heard one of that sect, in his over-heated zeal for his opinions, arrange the deniers of the sole Deity of the God and Father of Jesus Christ, or Trinitarians, in the same lists with Deists, scoffing infidels, and tramplers on the blood of the Mediator, what would you have thought and felt? You would no doubt pronounce this to be a species of bigotry of which the avower ought to be ashamed. Reflect on your manner of classing characters, which perhaps may be too familiar, and recollect that persons who have other views of the Christian doctrine than those which you profess, may have equal sensibility with yourself; as much integrity of heart and uprightness of life as you may be known to possess; as sincere and strong an attachment to what they conceive to be divine truth; and as earnest a concern to witness the prevalence of their principles as you can entertain-though the credulity of mankind with regard to unscriptural and unintelligible mysteries, and their deeply-rooted prejudices in favour of what is sanctioned by worldly authority and pomp,

may forbid their having equal success. Wishing that in future a spirit of Christian candour may have a due restraint upon your zeal, and render your labours in the Gospel of our common Master more worthy of ge neral acceptance, and of cordial approbation, I am, Sir,

Your obedient Servant,

RICHARD FRY.

SIR, Stourbridge, May 5, 1817.

OUR Correspondent from this Y vicinity Op. the

that no designed misrepresentation or accidental error occurred in the biographical memoir inserted in your publication for January last, relative to the late Rev. B. Carpenter. At the very time when he is represented as resuming the pastoral charge (Oct. 12, 1806), he was officiating as a supply during a vacancy; and at the close of his discourse on the morning of that day, delivered an address to the congregation which contains the following passage, alluding to an invitation which had been sent to him on the 10th September preceding:

"I think it better not to give a decisive answer to it at present, but only to engage to supply this congregation in person or by proxy till Christmas." This plan was adopted. Mr. Carpenter and Mr. Ward officiated during the remainder of the quarter. The vacancy was prolonged till the end of the first quarter of 1807, during which Mr. Carpenter and Mr. Scott performed the services as supplies, and became stated pastors from March 25th of that year.

This statement not only agrees with facts well known to all whom they concern, but is engraved on the monument erected to the memory of Mr. Carpenter.

L

W. S.

Repository, a few lines respecting the state of the work, and what time may possibly elapse before its appearance.

Allow me also to make an inquiry after Dr. Lloyd's proposed pamphlet on the Greek Article, as connected with the Deity of Christ. Are the Unitarians to be gratified by its pub. lication?

G. B.

"whether it (the body), increases or decreases; whether it preserves all its members or is mutilated of them all, the rational principle is not injured, but in many instances strengthened by the loss of limbs; all proving the complete distinction between body and mind."

W -n, near Taunton, SIR, May 9, 1817. OOKING some time since into your Tenth Volume, I observed in the Repository for November, 1815, a prospectus of a Greek and English Lexicon, by the Rev. John Jones. Having several times ordered the work, and the bookseller repeatedly receiving for answer that it is not yet published; give me leave to request of that gentleman, by means of the

This is an argument frequently produced for the distinct nature and indestructibleness of the human soul: but I should not have expected to see it produced by so philosophical an observer of natural history as your Correspondent. The mutilation of the limbs affects not the rational principle any more than their decay by old age; for the plain reason that the rational principle is not there. How then does this fact prove a complete distinction between body and mind? The seat of the sentient principle is the brain: ifthe brain continue sound, the faculties are sound even to extreme old age and in the hour of death; if the brain lose its healthful fibre, the faculties are prematurely enfeebled: if the brain be seriously injured, as by the concussion of a blow, the rational principle is injured, and madness or idiocy ensues. The inference to be drawn is directly opposite to the conclusion drawn by your Correspondent.

His

As N. argues the point on philosophical grounds, I make no use of the arguments which may be drawn from Scripture against this hypothesis of a vital principle distinct from man's physical organization. position that " organization alone is a mere machine wholly void of all sensation," merely begs the question: which is, whether Almighty power has not impressed this organized matter with a principle of vitality and a thinking faculty?

This point is, I think, proved, no less philosophically than scripturally, by Dr. Priestley, in his " Disquisitions on Matter and Spirit:" where also may be seen a defence of the form and properties of that, which your Correspondent, in conformity with the popular physics, calls "inert matter."

MY

On Vitality.

E.

May 10th, 1817. Y former letter on this subject, [p. 210], went to shew, that throughout all nature, every living body with whose origin we are acquainted, received its heing by a two-fold instrumentality, and, that being ab origine of a two-fold nature, and so continuing through life, the death and dissolution of the body did not necessarily involve in it a destruction of the vital animating principle. The purport of my present letter will be to shew from nature, marked distinctions between the body and the vital principle which animates it, the conclusion from which evidence must necessarily be, that it is the animating principle or mind, and not the organized body, which constitutes the man.

The commencement of all animated existence, whether animal or vegetable, is so infinitely minute to the human eye, as to be wholly incapable of human observation; yet to whatsoever magnitude the being may attain in the oak, the chesnut, the elephant or the mammoth, the whole is but the enlargement of this invisible atom, and of course but an addendum of liquid or solid matter accumulated by the organic secretions of the animated being. In animal bodies, these are in a proportion of about one-sixth solid materials to five-sixths of liquid, and in vegetables of about threefourths solid to one-fourth liquid, and even the small proportion of solid animalization is but accidental and transient, being at first gelatinous, and naturally tending after death, to enter into the putrefactive fermentation and dissolve and pass away in aerial and liquid forms, to unite with its native elements, again to form other substances for fresh animation. All these transitory, solid, and liquid substances, must be necessarily con sidered as no part of vitality. Their

union attains to the firmness of maturity; it decreases also to the imbecility of age. It cannot stand still at any one moment of existence without corrupting; the accessions by the secretion of the day push off the external particles formerly secreted as worse than useless, when they have ceased to give vigour and strength. How different is the animating principle; this inhabitant of the house of clay continues through life! It is this gives identity to the body, always at home; it recollects the endearments and afflictions of childhood, the follies and gaities of youth, the reasonings and anxieties of manhood, and the sound determinations from the experience of age. The loss of an eye or an ear, an arm or a leg, even a total dismemberment, whilst the vital organs are preserved, instead of reducing its powers have given strength to its energy, and enabled it to overcome, by its more powerful exertions, that tendency to decomposition which had begun in the body before such dismemberment had taken place.

Observe the opposite actions of body and of mind. By a slow and certain progress the body attains to maturity, and by an equally markedout process it goes on progressively to decay. During the whole of this period, physiologists observe, that there is an unceasing strife between the vital power and the powers that govern inauimate bodies. In health the contest is successful on the part of vitality: in disease it is doubtful. In death the contest is ended; vitality is no longer able by its exertions to controul the mechanical and chymical laws of nature, though during life it had modified, influenced and altered their effects. After full maturity has taken place on the body by a complete developement of the germ, as strength increases in the midst of this contest till corporeal maturity, from that period, for a long time, perhaps insensibly, weakness commences and keeps increasing, till the corporeal functions are stopped for ever. Not so the mind: equally helpless with the body in infancy, it soon commences to add knowledge to consciousness, and through the longest life keeps constantly increasing in its powers of determination or