April 4, 1822.

HE references in your last Num

in England, have reminded me of a design to offer you a MS., never printed, which has been long in my possession. It is a copy and, I believe, a very correct one, of a speech delivered 30 years ago, at a general meeting in London, consisting of Delegates from the Dissenters in the country, united with a committee from the deputies, to concert measures for renewing their application to Parliament for a repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts.

The speaker was a delegate from a large county, abounding with Dissenters, who were, almost exclusively, Calvinistic. The question discussed was, the propriety of addressing Dr. Priestley and the Dissenters at Birmingham, on occasion of the Riots. The result of the discussion was "An Address of the Deputies and Delegates of the Dissenters in England to the Sufferers in the Riot at Birmingham." This address, dated Feb. 1, 1792, which is to be found in the Appendix to Dr. Priestley's Appeal, contains the following paragraph:

"While, however, as sustaining one common character, we are anxious to pay this sincere tribute of affectionate and fra

ternal sympathy to all our injured brethren, we are persuaded that we shall gratify alike your feelings and our own, when, waving our various speculative, and especially our theological differences, we desire to express our peculiar concern on the account of that distinguished individual whom the rancour of this cruel per

secution selected as the first victim of its

rage. Deeply convinced of the importance of truth, we unite in admiring the ardour which he has ever discovered in the pursuit of it; as freemen, we applaud his unremitted exertions in the great cause of civil and religious liberty; as friends to literature, we are proud of our alliance with a name so justly celebrated as that of Dr. Priestley; and we pray the Almighty Disposer of events long to continue to us and to the world, a life which science and virtue have contributed to render illustrious." [See Priestley's Works, XIX. 568.]

The society mentioned at the con

clusion of the speech was that in Bartlett's Buildings, composed, exclusively, of members of the Church of England. These had very lately convened a special meeting for the purpose of resolving, that their church

lature be prevailed upon to grant the solicited repeal. SEXAGENARIUS.

Speech, in 1792, on a proposed Address to Dr Priestley.

MR. CHAIRMAN,

I believe I cannot serve the Dissen

ters of, who sent me to this committee, more acceptably than by supporting this motion; because, though they hold, in general, religious opinions very opposite to those of Dr. Priestley, yet they understand the difference between polemical distinctions and those principles upon which Dissenters are, or should be united.

It is, Sir, a master-piece of craft with our enemies, after uniting us all by penalties and civil disabilities, to endeavour to divide us upon theological questions; and I think one principal good effect of the addresses proposed, and especially of that to Dr. Priestley, will be to counteract such designs. For when the representatives of the Dissenters of England, persons holding such various opinions, has suffered for his adherence to their agree to shew respect to a man who general rights, they declare to the world, that though there are questions on which men who think for themselves must continue to disagree, there are also principles upon which they will be united, while the legislature shall join them together by oppressive statutes and unjust restrictions; and, at the same time, such a measure may tend to encourage some of our wellmeaning but more prejudiced brethren, to study the principles of civil and religious liberty, even in the writings of Dr. Priestley.

I esteem that gentleman as exemplary in his character as a Christian as he is distinguished in the walks of science, and I hope I shall never be ashamed to profess such an opinion of such a man; but were Dr. Priestley a deist in principle and a libertine in practice, we might with the greatest propriety send him an address, if he

had suffered for his attachment to our civil interests, and especially for his exertions respecting the Test Laws; and that this has been the case I believe no person can easily deny, who reads with any attention the history of our modern Vandals, the savages of Birmingham.

Sir, I always understood that Dr. Priestley had clearly defined and ably defended the principles of our dissent, but it has been said that his later writings have prejudiced the cause of the Dissenters in Parliament, and the objection to an address upon this ground was stated with all possible force on a former occasion, by a gentleman (Mr. Fuller) to whose years and experience I would pay every respect consistent with my own freedom of sentiments; but I think, upon re-consideration, justice and candour will incline that gentleman to admit, that the offence taken by the House of Commons to the writings of Dr. Priestley appeared but in two instances in one it arose from a misunderstanding, about which it is difficult to be serious; and in the other, from one of the most flagrant violations of honour and decorum which can disgrace the intercourse between man and man. Every gentleman will suppose that I refer to the alarms of an hon. Baronet upon finding a few grains of metaphorical gunpowder in a pamphlet of Dr. Priestley's, and to the fraud committed by a person or persons unknown, on one of his prefaces, which was dissected in the most injurious manner, and so gave occasion to a splendid philippic against those three monstrous evils-Innovation, Dr. Priestley and the Dissenters. But if instead of consulting the comments of prejudiced men, or the partial selections of his enemies, we examine the spirit and tendency of Dr. Priestley's writings, I believe we shall find that he has no idea of supporting his most favourite opinions by any force but the force of argument; and in proof of this I refer with confidence to his Sermon on the Test Laws, his Letters to the Inhabitants of Birmingham and the Tracts published with them, and, indeed, to any of his works which shall be read in their connexion, and not selected for the purpose of a party.

Sir, it has long been esteemed the honour and happiness of our country, that while a man thinks what he pleases, he may say what he thinks, and I cannot allow myself to apologize for that manly freedom with which Dr. Priestley declares and discusses all his opinions; and, indeed, this is not a country fit for a freeman to live in, if he cannot deliver his opinion upon any question, political or religious, if he cannot say what he thinks about the doctrine, the discipline, or the establishment of any church in the world. And on this subject it ought to be remembered how we have been accustomed to admire the bold spirit of the Reformers who, in no very gentle language, impeached the opinions and practices which had been established for ages through all the nations of Europe; and at this day, that respectable body of men, the Quakers, are esteemed the most peaceable of citizens, though they profess to discover the features of the harlot of Babylon, even within the pale of the Church of England.

And pray, Sir, who are the persons that shall object to our addressing Dr. Priestley? Will the Dissenters blame us for shewing respect to one of their ablest advocates, or shall our enemies accuse us of inconsistency, and say that we go out of our province; they who called together a society formed expressly for the propagation of the Gospel, to decide upon a question of civil right?

I beg pardon, Sir, for having taken up any of your time, but without saying a few words on this subject I could not satisfy my own feelings, or do justice to my friends the Dissenters of

who have the warmest attachment to the cause of civil and religious liberty, and, though they differ from him in almost every thing else, esteem Dr. Priestley as one of its ablest defenders.

SIR,

I PERCEIVE by Mr. Frend's Let

ter (XVI. pp. 646, 647) to Mr. Belsham, that the latter gentleman has, in a discourse delivered at Warrington, maintained" that the efforts of learned men to reconcile the Mosaical cosmogony to philosophical truth, have been preposterous in the

extreme, and have exposed revelation and its advocates to the scoffs of unbelievers. It would be far better to give up the point as untenable. The author, as we have seen, is right in his theology, but erroneous in his philosophy." And that Mr. Belsham is not satisfied with Mr. Frend's able reply to his objections, I perceive by his reply. Without having the least pretence to the learning or acquirements of either of those gentlemen, I hope it will not be considered as presumption on my part to attempt investigating the truth of this opinion of Mr. B.; an opinion which, on my mind, if established, would have very important results as to the truth of a revealed religion.

Moses appears to me to have been raised up by the providence of God, to preserve the knowledge of and reverence to the Universal Creator, that, in the light of the nation of Israel, all nations might see the folly and wickedness of worshiping the creature instead of the Creator. If, therefore, Mr. Belsham could establish the truth of the above proposition concerning the philosophy of Moses, I should think that I had strong grounds for doubting the truth of his theology.

The first objection of Mr. Belsham to the philosophy of Moses appears to be, that Moses believed that light might exist in the absence of the sun; and every smuggler believes this with Moses; for if he has a choice of weather for his deed of darkness, he chooses a night when the moon is absent and the wind blows, the agitation of the aerial fluid in the absence of the solar light or its reflection from the lunar orb, giving as much as he wants to perform his deeds, without being sufficient to make his occupation dangerous. Mr. Frend has well reasoned this point, and it would have been well for the defence of his proposition had Mr. B. replied to him.

But Mr. Belsham has, before he can establish his proposition, first to prove that Moses says any thing about the creation of the light, or the sun, as it respects the order of time in which either was created. I do not wonder at a careless reader supposing that he has, but I do wonder at Mr. Belsham having any such idea. Prejudiced men, cabalists, as Mr. B. calls them, such as Mr. Hutchinson, Mr.

Parkhurst, &c. &c., persons who suppose that when the Deity is, in Gen. i. 1, represented as creating the world, that he not only formed the world, but formed it out of nothing,-that they should so believe is not surprising, but that Mr. Belsham should so believe is, at least to me, a matter of great surprise. If Ovid ever read the Book of Genesis, as every one who reads the first book of his Metamorphoses will think he had, he did not so read the language of Moses, for he says, «While yet not earth nor sea their place

possest,

Nor that cerulean canopy which hangs O'ershadowing all, each undistinguish'd lay,

And one dead form all nature's features bore,

Unshapely, rude, and chaos justly nam'd."

The word, to create, no where signifies to form something out of nothing, but to form that which before existed, into something more perfect and beautiful than it was before. Thus God is said to create man from the dust of the earth; to create the family of Israel into a nation; to create the desolated Jerusalem into a glorious city, the joy of the earth. When, therefore, Moses says, that "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," he does not say more than that in bringing into being the present order of terrestial nature, "in the first place, or at first," for it may justly be rendered either way, "God formed the earth and its atmosphere."

The second verse proves this to be no forced construction of the passage, and that Moses from the beginning to the end of this chapter, was only describing the creation of the earth, and of the celestial orrery of which it forms a part. He says, "The earth was chaotic and hollow, and stagnation on the face of the deep," or, in the language of Ovid,

«Together struggling laid, each element Confusion strange begat. Sol had not

yet

Whirl'd thro' the blue expanse his burning car;

Nor Luna lighted yet her burning lamp, Nor fed with waning light her borrow'd rays."

I have a better opinion of Mr. Belsham's candour than to suppose that, for the sake of supporting an opinion

hastily given, he would impute ideas to Moses which, from his writings, do not appear to have entered his mind, and which no part of his after-language will give support to, without straining it from its plain and obvious meaning.

Mr. Belsham will, doubtless, rest his proposition chiefly on the 3rd verse- Let there be light, and there was light," compared with the 14th verse. But I need not tell Mr. Belsham that the word 78, in this place, does not necessarily mean light; that the same word was applied to the city of Ur, or rather Aur, of the Chaldees, because there they worshiped the Deity under the emblem of fire; that the Prophet Isaiah, xxvii. 11, xxxi. 9, and in other places, uses it for fire, and that here it might be, and, to do Moses philosophical justice, ought to be, so rendered; and by so rendering it, the systems of the Neptunists and Vulcanists of Geology would gain a grand step from sacred history towards the true knowledge of the structure of this globe, by shewing, from the writings of Moses, that the present organic structure of this earth was the produce of the united action of fire and water.

But, says Mr. Belsham, when Moses "adds, that God made a firmament in the midst of the waters, and thus divided the waters under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament, it is plain enough to a reader who has no hypothesis to support, that, in the author's idea, the firmament possesses solidity sufficient to sustain the weight of half the waters." And “ this firmament" here spoken of, Mr. B. says, whether the word be used in Hebrew, Greek, Latin or English, signifies "the celestial hemisphere." And on this, I think, Mr. B. seems chiefly to rest his own hypothesis. As each of the other three languages are descending generations from the parent Hebrew in which Moses wrote, the examination of this language alone will be sufficient, I should think, to determine this subject.

Moses introduces the subject he was writing upon by stating what it was-the earth and its atmosphere. He then proceeds to inform his readers of the state in which the earth was, and then of the means by which

God first reduced it by volcanic fire out of confusion into order. He then very properly proceeds to shew how the stagnated atmosphere was set in motion, and the effect which it produced. And here, I think, lies Mr. Belsham's next great error.

Moses does expressly say, that the earth was not only a chaos on its surface, but that it was also hollow, and that in the midst of this chaos, he says, "Let there be a firmament." Mr. B. says, that in all these languages its meaning is the celestial hemisphere. Taylor, in his Concordance, observes on this word yp, that it is applied to beating upon, stamping upon, spreading dirt abroad. "To beat a mass of metal into a broad piece with a hammer; hence it is applied to God's spreading out or extending far and wide the surface of the earth when he created it." The word used by Moses, yp, is not a substantive, and, therefore, is not a thing but a cause, an expansion; a cause which, acting upon the airs, will produce the effect intended, to set the dark, stagnated, damp vapours in motion, and, pressing from the midst of the waters to the internal shell of the earth, compress and harden it, and separate the internal waters from those which were external.

I know that Mr. Belsham, if he is not convinced by me, will call this cabalistic, and a mystery of a Hebrew root. As no argument is contained in outlandish names, they will carry no more weight with me, nor indeed so much, as Calvinistic, Methodistic, &c. I shall require something more; I shall require to know why Moses leaves his first subject to introduce one quite distinct from it? Why he ceases to treat on the earth and its atmosphere, to introduce the sun, moon and stars, and not only the atmospheres in which they revolve, but the vast immensity of what Mr. Belsham calls "celestial hemisphere"?

Mr. Belsham, indeed, intends further to support his proposition by Moses's account of the deluge, and it is but fair he should, if it will aid his assertion, saying, "that in the idea of Moses, the firmament possessed solidity sufficient to sustain the weight of half the waters: which interpretation is confirmed by the account which the same writer gives of the immense

fall of rain which produced the deluge. Gen. vii. 11, 12: "The windows," or, as it is in the margin, the flood-gates "of heaven were opened, and the rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights."

I will not say, that, solely owing to having a system to support, for I do not believe that Mr. Belsham is any ways interested in supporting a system, but that having made up his mind to a system, Mr. B. certainly does take the varied expression of the causes of Moses, as though they were but one cause, and that one was the collection of water which rested on the "celestial hemisphere." But the language of Moses states not one single cause, but two distinct causes. 1. "The fountains of the great deep were broken up." 2. "The windows of heaven were opened." And, 3. An effect which followed those causes -“And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights." The first word, DD, invariably signifies fountains, springs, or wells, (Ps. lxxxvii. 7, Isa. xli. 18, 2 Chron. xxxii. 4, Prov. v. 16, &c. &c.,) and not floodgates. The next important word in this consideration is n, here rendered deep,-"the fountains of the great deep were broken up." If Mr. B. is as candid as I suppose him to be, he must confess that this great deep can have nothing to do with the celestial hemisphere. In Gen. xlix. 25, this word evidently must mean the vast abyss beneath the surface of the earth, and it becomes a candid opponent to shew why, as used by the same author, it should not so signify here; and if it so does, it destroys the whole evidence on which Mr. B.'s hypothesis rests.

The next cause of the deluge, Moses says, was, 'n na781, "And the windows of heaven were opened." The word n here used, appears to be the word from which the Arab nations derive their title from their habit of plunder, and lying, like beasts of prey, in holes and dens, ready to dart upon the unwary passengers. The locust, from the same cause, is called by the same naine. And for the same reason, holes, dens, caves, and such places as have vast internal recesses communicating with the bowels of the earth, are so called. The other word, pw, in this place

VOL. XVII.

2 H

and in Gen. i. 1. and in a vast many other places, signifies the airs or heavens, and the place should be rendered, the caverns of the airs were opened, i. e. these caverns being unstopped, and the atmosphere forced in, the waters within the earth were driven out through the springs or fountains of the vast internal abyss, and caused the deluge. And thus owing to this additional quantity of water upon the earth, there was an increase of vapour, which descended for forty days and nights in incessant rain.

But in all this account we do not find any thing about a firmament, or of the firmament being a solid arch, capable of containing a sufficiency of waters to drown the globe. This is not the hypothesis of Moses: it may be the supposition of a man who has only read the Bible in the English language, but it is to me surprising that it should be the faith of a Hebrew scholar and a Christian.

Mr. Belsham, also, seems to consider the philosophy of Moses to determine the sun and moon to be fixed, as lamps, in the solid firmament, and that Moses regarded the stars as ornamental spangles in the firmament. It is evident, from this conception of Mr. Bealshm's, that he considers Moses as supposing that the sun, moon and stars were the creative work of the fourth day. But I would here again observe, that Moses was not writing upon the creation of the whole system, of which the sun is the centre, nor was he writing on the formation of any thing out of nothing. But he was writing upon the reducing the chaotic mass of earth and water into this our beautiful globe, with its surrounding atmosphere. To have here introduced the creation of the sun, moon and stars, would have been foreign to his subject. No where in the whole of the Scriptures is the word n, here used by Moses, put for the body of the sun. Whenever this is spoken of, it is under the name on, the burner; and where its effects are mentioned, it is under the name wow, solar light. Mr. Belsham should, therefore, have shewn why Moses should here have used this word, to have supported his idea of the opinion of Moses on this subject. If Mr. B. will again examine the 14th,