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Christian or whatsoever, they will house him, prepare him extraordinary fare and look to his mule, without taking of one asper. But these precise Mahometans will neither eat nor drink with a Christian, only minister to his wants; and when he hath done, break the earthen dishes wherein he was fed as defiled." Sandys' Travels, 7th Ed. p. 166.

This may be called an example of "orthodoxy and charity united" among Mahometans. Among Christians, I fear, it has been too casy to observe them sadly disjoined. An instance as remarkable as any that occurs to me is to be found in " a Code of laws made in the dominion of Newhaven at its first settlement,' in 1637. These legislators were puritans, driven by persecution from the old world*, who no sooner found a refuge in the new than they claimed in their turn a right to persecute. They thus unhappily furnished a "church and king" persecutor with the best apology he could desire for the act of uniformity and the severities by which it was enforced. These legislators, of

"The parts I speak of are the most renowned countries and kingdoms, once the seats of most glorious and triumphant empires, the theatres of valour and heroical actions, the soils enriched with all earthly felicities; the places where nature hath produced her wonderful works, where arts and sciences have been invented and perfected, where wisdom, virtue, policy and civility have been planted, have flourished; and lastly where God himself did place his own commonwealth, gave laws and oracles, inspired his prophets, sent angels to converse with men; above all, where the Son of God descended to become man, where he honoured the earth with his beautiful steps, wrought the work of our redemption, triumphed over death, and ascended into glory. Which countries, once so glorious and famous for their happy estate, are now, through vice and ingratitude, become the most deplored spectacles of extreme misery; the wild beasts of mankind having broken in upon them, and rooted out all civility, and the pride of a stern and barbarous tyrant possessing the thrones of ancient and just dominion. Those rich lands at this present remain waste and overgrown with bushes, receptacles of wild beasts, of thieves and murderers, large territories dispeopled or thinly inhabited, good cities made desolate, sumptuous buildings become ruins, no light of learning permitted, nor virtue cherished; violence and rapine insulting over all, and leaving no security save to an abject mind and unlooked on poverty. Which calamities of their's, so great and deserved, are to the rest of the world as threatening instructions." Sandys' Dedication to the Prince, afterwards King Charles I.

*The peopling of this and two of the neighbouring colonies was "owing chiefly to the puritan ministers, who being silenced at home, repaired to New England that they might enjoy liberty of conscience; and drew after them vast numbers of their friends and favourers." Gordon's Amer. Rev. (1. 35.) See also Neal's New England, Ch. 2d, passim. (Ed. 2. 1. 50). Milton in his Treatise " Of Reformation in England, written to a Friend" in 1641, about 20 years after the first emigration to New England, says, "What numbers of faithful and free-born Englishmen and good christians have been constrained to forsake their dearest home, their friends and kindred, whom nothing but the wide ocean and the savage desarts of America could hide and shelter from the fury of the bishops? O Sir, if we could but see the shape of our dear mother England, as poets are wont to give a personal form to what they please, how would she appear, think ye, but in a mourning weed, with ashes upon her head and tears abundantly flowing from her eyes to behold so many of her children exposed at once and thrust from things of dearest necessity." (Milton's Prose Works, Fol. 1698. i. 266.)

undoubted orthodoxy, were also scrupulously attentive to sabbatical observances. In the just-mentioned code called the Blue Laws, are the following remarkable enactments, sanctioned by rigorous penalties :

"No food or lodging shall be afforded to a Quaker, Adamite, or other heretic.

"If any person turns Quaker, he shall be banished and not suffered to return upon pain of death.

"No one shall run on the sabbath day or walk in his garden or elsewhere, except reverently to and from meeting.

"No one shall travel, cook victuals, make beds, sweep house, cut hair, or shave on the sabbath day.

"No woman shall kiss her child on the sabbath or fasting day." (Fenwick's Gen. Hist. of Connecticut quoted in M. Rev. 66. 256.)

These judaizing Christians seem never to have considered the divine declaration" I will have mercy and not sacrifice," nor to have remembered that "the sabbath was made for man and not man for the sabbath." Their persecuting spirit has long ago passed away from the land of freedom. A very honourable exception to it appeared even in their own age. It is thus mentioned in Gordon's "History of the American Revolution."

"Mr. Roger Williams (pastor of the church at Salem, but expelled on account of the Antinomian disputes,) justly claims the honour of having been the first legislator in the world in its latter ages, who ef. fectually provided for, and established a free, full, and absolute liberty of conscience. This was the chief cause that united the inhabitants of Rhode Island and those of Providence, and made them one people, and one colony. The foundation principle on which this colony was first settled was, that every man who submits peaceably to the civil authority, may peaceably worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience without molestation.' When the colony was applied to in 1656 by the four united colonies to join them in taking effectual methods to suppress the Quakers, and prevent their pernicious doctrines being propagated in the country;' the assembly returned for answer, we shall strictly adhere to the foundation principle on which this colony was first settled.'" Gordon, (1. 37).

6

Wishing you success in your laudable attempts to advance the interests of truth and freedom,

Pontale, July 5, 1807.

I am Sir, yours,

I.O.U.

Neal attributes to Mr. Williams, amidst some theological eccentricities, the following "large and generous principle of toleration:" that, the magistrate had nothing to do with matters of the first table, but only the second, that therefore there should be a general and unlimited toleration for all religions, and to puni h men for matters of conscience was persecution." Neal's New England, 2d Ed. L. 158.

489

THE INQUIRER. NO. IV.

1. Dr. Chandler's Notes on the Bible.-2. Dr. Toulmin, Author of "An Essay on the Eternity of the World."3. Dr. Watts's and Dr. Whitby's Last Thoughts.-4. Milton's quotation of Lord Bacon, and his keeping a School at Greenwich.-5. Mr. Cappe's "Critical Dissertations."6. Hebrew Vowel Points.

SIR,

I.

To the Editor of the Monthty Repository.

It is well known, I apprehend, that the learned Dr. Chandler left, in his interleaved bible, a large number of critical notes, chiefly in Latin; drawn up in the manner of Raphelius, Bos, Elsner, and other writers of that kind; and that this bible was purchased, for a small consideration, by Dr. Amory, Mr. Farmer, Dr. Furneaux, Dr. Price, Dr. Savage and Dr. Kippis, with an intention of committing them to the press. In the Protestant Dissenters' Magazine, for June, 1794, p. 260, we are told, that as there was, then, little probability of the "Notes" being published, it was the purpose of Dr. Kippis, the only surviving proprietor, to deposit the bible in Dr. WILLIAMS'S LIBRARY.

:

Query Was this Manuscript deposited there? If not, the gentleman, with whom Dr. and Mrs. Kippis's Executor, the late Mr. Lewis resided, can, probably, give some account of them. Can no plan for the publication of these NOTES be devised? Is there no Mecœnas among the friends to Biblical Criticism to patronize the publication, and to set on foot a spirited subscription to indemnify the press? The eminent learning of the author, and the valuable specimen which he has given of his application of it to the elucidation of the scriptures, in his posthumous commentary on some of Paul's Epistles, cannot but raise high expectations of the merit and utility of those notes, and create in the lovers of sacred literature an earnest desire that they could be recovered and given from the press. It is much to be regretted, if through Mr. Lewis's emigration to America* they be lost, or are lying in a library, covered with dust and the of worms.

prey

SIR,

II.

To the Editor of the Monthly Repository.

T.

In the preface to Dr. Priestley's "Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever, Part 2," there are some remarks upon an "Essay on the Eternity of the World," by Dr. Toulmin. Now I should be much

* Where he died, soon after his arrival, of the yellow fever. E.D.

obliged to any of your readers who would take the trouble to inform me who this gentleman was; not that I attach any importance to the Essay, but that the author may not be confounded with a person of the same name, who succeeds Dr. Priestley at Birmingham and appears to have been a correspondent, and sometimes I believe, a controver tist of the Doctor's.

SIR,

III.

To the Editor of the Monthly Repository.

I AM informed that there is a book extant, entitled "Dr. Watts's Last Thoughts." I should be much obliged to any of your readers if they can inform me through the medium of your Repository, how far the Doctor in this publication renounced his former opinions on doctrinal points.

"Whitby's Last Thoughts," though not so scarce as Dr. Watts's, I have never met with; do not these books merit the attention of the Unitarian Society? When men of considerable talents, men whose lives have been devoted to the attainment of religious knowledge, and whose conduct through life has been marked by the piety and uprightness of a Christian; when men of this description, in the near pros pect of another world, abjure opinions, which through life they have zealously maintained, the change to the searcher after religious truth, cannot be unimportant, and to those Christians whose doctrines they adopt, it must prove a source of the most solid satisfaction. Wishing to see some particulars of one or both of these publications, I am, Sir, yours, &c.

Nottingham.

IV.

To the Editor of the Monthly Repository.
SIR,

D.

GIVE me leave on a page of your next" Inquirer," to ask any of your readers who may be conversant with the works of Lord Bacon to what part of them Milton referred in the following passage of his " Animadversions upon the Remonstrant's Defence against Smectymnuus," published 1641.

Having mentioned what "defaming invectives have lately flown abroad against the subjects of Scotland, and our poor expulsed brethren of New England, the prelates rather applauding than shewing any dislike,” the author adds, "this hath been everso, insomuch, that Sir Francis Bacon, in one of his discourses, complains of the bishops' uneven hand over these pamphlets, contining those against bishops to darkness, but licensing those against puritans, to be uttered openly, though with the greater mischief of leading into contempt the exercise of religion in the person of sundry preachers, and disgracing the higher matter in the meaner person." (Milton's Works, Fol. 1698.. p. 141.)

I lately read in Jacob's "Poetical Register" (8vo. 1723. 1. 184.) that after the Restoration, by the lenity of King Charles II. Milton was suffered to keep a school at Greenwich." This biographical collector, as is too common, gives no authorities. Should any of your readers have met with such a passage elsewhere, I shall thank them to communicate it. It must have been unknown to Toland who wrote the life prefixed to the edition of Milton above quoted. Bishop Newton makes no mention of such a circumstance; nor Johnson, who remarks" a kind of respect is, perhaps unconsciously, paid to this great man by his biographers: every house in which he resides is historically mentioned, as if it were an injury to neglect naming any place that he honoured by his presence." The story appears also inconsistent with the accounts which Mr. Hayley has collected. I am, Sir, yours,

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MILTONIUS.

To the Editor of the Monthly Repository.

I AM a constant reader of your valuable and well conducted Re pository, and trust that as it is the only liberal periodical work for theological discussion, its merits will be truly appreciated by the friends of truth and free inquiry. Under that division of your work styled, "The Inquirer," I beg by your permission tostate, that though I am somewhat advanced in years and have been brought up in the belief of orthodox opinions, I have upon mature reflection embraced the Unitarian doctrines, being fully convinced that they are the genuine doctrines of the New Testament. I have read the works of many of your most approved authors with great satisfaction, and I trust with some improvement. I have lately met with the "Critical Dissertations" of the late Rev. Newcome Cappe, of York, a work which I think has great claims to attention for the originality of the thinking, learning and patience of research which it discovers; and the person who can without emotion read the "Memoir" prefixed by his pious and affectionate widow, must have a heart made of very different materials from mine.

The dissertations on the "Proem of John," the "Idea of Judaism," the "Discourse with Nicodemus," &c. &c. excel, as I think, all that I have hitherto seen on these subjects, and I cannot but express my astonishment, that they are so little known, or so little noticed by learned Unitarians. I confess myself not sufficiently qualified to judge of their merits as a whole; some of them may be thought rather tedious or fanciful but I am not critic enough to decide.

The dissertation on the meaning of the terms" Kingdom of God," &c. appears to throw much new light,not only on the phraseology of scripture, but also on the mission of Christ, its ends and objects; and I should feel much obliged by any of your learned or better informed correspon

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