Jesus might, without meaning any reflection upon him, and only expressing the tenderest concern, say that he was beside himself, and did not consider the consequence of exerting himself as he did. Mr. Palmer also thought that this story is a proof that Jesus was much respected by his brethren, though at first they did not declare themselves his disciples.

Sorry I am that this is all I am able to recollect of what my very able assistant in this work intended for it. Considering how much he did execute, while he was able, let others be excited to follow his example, and supply his place. Also, let us, who remain in the same field, double our diligence, that his loss may be the less sensibly felt; and let us pray that the Lord of the harvest would send more such able and faithful labourers into his harvest.

As many of our readers will be desirous of knowing some particulars of the life of Mr. Palmer, I shall take this opportunity of informing them, that he was a native of Norwich, born in the year 1742; that at the age of fourteen he was put under the care of Dr. Harwood, at Congleton in Cheshire, and at seventeen began his academical studies at Warrington, where he continued five years. In the latter part of this period, I was one of his tutors, and can testify that he was distinguished by his good behaviour, diligence, and ingenuity.

His only settlement as a minister was at Macclesfield in Cheshire, where he continued fifteen years. There he married a daughter of Mr. Heald, of that place, and she lived with him ten years. In 1777, he married, for his second wife, the eldest daughter of the Rev. Mr. White, of Derby, by whom he had a daughter, now in the third year of her age. He removed to Birmingham in 1779, where he had no regular employment as a minister, but was always ready to assist any of his friends.

Beside the services Mr. Palmer rendered to the Christian world in the Repository, under the signatures of Christophilos, Symmachus, and Erasmus, in the last volumes, and of G. H. in the three first,* he wrote a letter addressed to myself, and which is printed in the introduction to my Harmony of the Gospels [1780]; and was the author of the four following publications: 1." Free Remarks on a Sermon entitled, The Requisition of Subscription to the Thirtynine Articles and Liturgy of the Church of England not inconsistent with Christian Liberty,' &c. in a Letter to the Author, by A Friend to Religious Liberty. Printed for J. Johnson, 1772." This, of all his publications, did not bear his name.

2. "A Letter to Dr. Balguy, on the Subject of his Charge, &c., with a Postscript relative to certain Observations contained in the Charge respecting the Dissenters and Toleration." 1773.

3. "A new Scheme of Short Hand; being an Improvement upon Mr. Byrom's Universal English Short Hand." 1774.

4. "An Examination of Thelyphthora, † on the Subject of Marriage." 1781.

All these works shew marks of great ingenuity; and on the

* See Theol. Repos. I. p. 396; II. pp. 188, 466.

+ A Defence of Polygamy, by Rev. Martin Madan.

subject of religious liberty, he expressed himself with great spirit and animation.

Both Mr. Palmer, and my intimate friend Mr. Alexander, * (who was likewise of Birmingham,) were cut off in the midst, or rather at the beginning, of their greatest usefulness. This appears to me to be one of the greatest difficulties in the plan of Providence; though I have no doubt but that we shall some time hence see it, as well as every thing else, to have been right. One obvious and useful inference from it is, that we should lose no part of that time which we see to be so very uncertain.

J. PRIESTLEY.

No. III.

OF THE DIFFERENT SENSES IN WHICH A SUBSCRIPTION TO THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES HAS BEEN VINDICATED BY DIVINES OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

(See supra, pp. 95, 242.)

AN ingenious friend of mine having taken the pains to collect an account of all the senses in which the subscription of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England has been vindicated, and as it may amuse my readers to see them, I shall subjoin them as an Appendix to these Letters. † He has annexed the authorities for each; but as I hope he will himself make some publication on the subject, I shall omit them, and content myself with the bare list.

The Articles have been subscribed,

I. In the sense of the imposers.

II. In the sense of the compilers.

III. In their strict, obvious, and literal meaning.

IV. In any sense which the words will bear, consistently with the subscriber's interpretation of scripture.

V. As articles of peace.

VI. As true in general, and sufficiently so for their intention, though not true in every particular proposition.

VII. As far as they are agreeable to the word of God.

VIII. As far as they are fundamental articles of faith, necessary to salvation.

IX. On the authority of others.

X. In any sense which approved doctors of the church have affixed to them.

XI. As mere forms of admission into an office.

To these I may add,

XII. That of Mr. Paley, who maintains that any person may subscribe the Articles who does not belong to any of the three classes

* See Vol. I. Memoirs, 32.

+ To Dr. Horsley, &c.

of men originally intended to be excluded from the Church by them, viz. Papists, Puritans and Anabaptists.*

XIII. I have heard another sense of subscription maintained in conversation by two eminent Divines of the Church of England, viz. that any person may subscribe the Articles of the Church whose faith is that of the members of the Church, though it should be different from that which is expressed in the Articles.†

XIV. Lastly, I was informed by an anonymous letter from Oxford, that many persons think themselves justified in subscribing the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, though they do not believe them, because it is well known to those who receive their subscriptions, that they do not, and therefore they say they deceive nobody.

I do not in this place make any remarks on this, or any other of the Articles above-mentioned. Many, and painful ones, must occur to any person of honour and reflection.

I shall conclude with observing that, if subscription to the Thirtynine Articles be considered as a thing of any consequence, the heads of the church or the legislature should declare in what sense it is to be understood. For it is evident that, according to some of the above-mentioned senses, it amounts to no subscription at all. It has even been maintained in print, that what a clergyman says in the desk is not to be considered as his own words, but only those of the legislature, of which he is the mouth, and which he is paid for pronouncing; and that he is at liberty to preach the very reverse of the doctrine of the Common Prayer-book in the pulpit. But if subscription be of no use, it certainly ought not to be required; as it only excludes scrupulous aud conscientious men. If the church have any regard for the purity of its faith, something will be done in this very serious business.

Had all our bishops since the Revolution been as intelligent and conscientious as the excellent Bishop Burnet, this grievance of Subscription to Articles of Faith would not have remained unredressed. What he says on the subject in the Conclusion of his History is so much to my purpose, that I shall subjoin the whole paragraph.

"The requiring subscriptions to the Thirty-nine Articles is a great imposition. I believe them all myself; but as those about Original Sin and Predestination might be expressed more unexceptionably, so I think it is a better way to let such matters continue to be still the standard of doctrine, with some few corrections, and to censure those who teach any contrary tenets; than to oblige all that serve in the church to subscribe them. The greater part subscribe without ever examining them; and others do it because they must do it, though they can hardly satisfy their consciences about some things in them. Churches and societies are much better secured by laws than by subscriptions. It is a more reasonable, as well as a more easy method of government." §

* See supra, p. 520.

They were both Arians on the principle of Dr. Clarke, and supposed that to be the faith of the generality of the clergy. (P.) See supra, p. 278, Note *.

§ O. T. fol. II. p. 634. See p. 693.

No. IV.

ADDITIONAL REMARKS ON THE SUBJECT OF SUBSCRIPTION. * (See supra, p. 244.)

To what I have written on the subject of subscription, I would add that, judging by appearances, the clergy are now made to subscribe to what it is impossible that many of them can be acquainted with, and what, I will venture to say, they would all condemn if they were.

In Article XXXVI. they are made to assert, that "the book of consecration of the archbishops, &c., lately set forth in the time of Edward the VI.-doth contain all things necessary to such consecration and ordering; neither hath it any thing that of itself is superstitious and ungodly. And therefore whosoever are consecrated, & ordered, according to the rites of that book, since the second year of the aforenamed King Edward unto this time, or hereafter shall be consecrated, or ordered, according to the same rites, we decree all such to be rightly, orderly, and lawfully, conse crated and ordered."

It should seem, therefore, that it was the first edition of this book, printed A. D. 1549, that is even now asserted to contain nothing superstitious; and it is said that no copy of this edition is to be found in the libraries of Oxford or Cambridge, or in the British Museum: but by favour of the Rev. Mr. Josiah Thompson,† whose property it is, I have one now in my possession, as it was formerly [1771] in that of Dr. Furneaux, who gave an account of it. +

In this book the oath of supremacy, to be taken by the person ordained, contains a solemn promise, to observe all the acts of parliament that were then made, or to be made, " in derogation of the authority of the Bishop of Rome, and in corroboration of the king's power, as head of the church;" concluding with "so helpe me God, all saintes, and the holy Evangelist."§

If, therefore, this be the edition approved of by Article XXXVI., the clergy who subscribe it do, in fact, declare their approbation of any acts of parliament that may ever be made on the subjects above specified; and, that there is nothing superstitious in swearing by the saints, and the holy Evangelist, whichever of the four

was meant.

• Inserted in the Preface to Familiar Letters, 1790.

† A Baptist Minister who died a few years since at Clapham.

In the second edition of his "Letters to Mr. Justice Blackstone," Note, pp. 89, 93. (P.)

§ See pp. 8, 9. At the end of this edition is,

RICHARDUS GRAFTON typographus Regis excudebat Mense Martij

A. MD,XLIX.

Cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum." (P.)

"The oath of supremacy made by the bishops when they did homage to Henry VIII.,-had not the clause in which they swear to acts that shall be made.” Furneaux, pp. 93, 94, Note.

This is probably a misprint for evangelists. The form of an oath in the Roman Pontifical, published at Venice, in 1710, is Sic me Deus adjuvet, et hæc sancta Dei VOL, XIX,

2 M

It is true that "the Act of Uniformity of Charles II. enacts, that all subscription to the Articles shall be construed and taken to extend unto the book of Charles II. in such sort and manner as the same did heretofore extend unto the book of Edward VI."* But if the approbation of both the books was not intended, why does the Article, as now subscribed, make any mention of the book of Edward VI.? If the subscription does not extend to this also, why is it not struck out, and that of Charles II. put in its place?

It appears, however,† that an act of parliament was made in 1552, to authorize a new Common Prayer-book, according to some alterations that had been agreed on the year before, and to this was annexed the form of making bishops, priests, and deacons, but without the intimation of any alteration being then made in this office. If these objectionable passages were then left out, it will not be so evident that every thing in the former edition is now to be approved, though persons consecrated according to it be declared to be rightly consecrated. It certainly behoves all who subscribe the Thirty-nine Articles to inform themselves how the case really stands.

How dangerous and ensnaring a thing is this business of subscription, and how little care has been taken by the legislature to prevent even uncertainty with respect to it! I mention this circumstance in order to apprize those who have subscribed, but especially those who intend to subscribe, of their situation; that they may satisfy themselves what it is that their subscription really implies. I mean those who wish to subscribe bonâ fide, and not with any of the fourteen miserable subterfuges which I have enumerated at the close of my Defences of Unitarianism for the years 1788 and 1789,+ which imply no belief in any of the Articles. To such it must be a matter of perfect indifference what is implied in any of them. They are ready, for the same emolument, to subscribe any thing, even unseen. For what signifies seeing or reading the Articles, if, after all, they are to be subscribed without being believed?

evangelia. (P. 55 and other places.) So help me God, and these his holy gospels. I have not observed in it any swearing by the saints. (P.)

"It is observable, that Bishop Hooper, who is often mentioned as refusing to be consecrated on account of the Popish vestments, objected likewise to taking the oath of supremacy above-mentioned, required by the book of Edward, on account of the clause which concludes, So helpe me God, all sainctes, &c., which he thought superstitious and impious; and he argued the point before the King and Council so much to the satisfaction of that pious and sensible young Prince, that he struck out the words with his own hand. (Burnet's Hist. of Reform. III. pp. 202, 203, 751.) Accordingly we find, that in the next edition of the ordinal, which came out by authority of parliament in the year 1552, the oath concludes thus: So helpe me God through Jesus Christ. Being excused from swearing in the superstitious form to which he objected, Hooper was consecrated, the matter relating to the vestments being compromised. Fox's Acts and Monuments, II. p. 120, edit. 1684, and especially the Latin edition, or the quotation from it in Pierce's Vindication of the Dissenters, p. 30." Furneaux, p. 93, Note. On Fox's" Latin edition," see Vol. X. p. 242, Note ||

* Furneaux, p. 90, Note.

+ From Bishop Burnet's "History of the Reformation," II. p. 189. (P.) ↑ See supra, pp. 527, 528.