and a closer comparison of them with the plain tenor of Scripture doctrines, together with the exercise of a little more of that charity which "hopeth all things," to remove from the minds of professing Christians generally, much of that prejudice which still exists against Unitarianism, and the doctrines they hold. Should this paper tend in any degree to produce that effect, and excite a spirit of inquiry after genuine Chris not make the virtuous happy, we can at least yield them respect and admiration. On the question of the selfishness of single persons, both male and female, I will simply declare my experience, and that is, that they have been found by me, the most generous and benevolent of human beings. A MARRIED MAN. July 19, 1821. tian truth, it will be a great gratifica- On Mr. Hume's Political Inconsis tion to SIR, RELLAW. Y YOUR Correspondent, Mr. Cornish, in your last Number, (pp. 390, 391) has pointed out the propriety of moral restraint in Dissenting Ministers, as their incomes are in general small. Now, where to draw the line of strict duty, in this most difficult and most important of all questions, is, perhaps, impossible to know. But any early marriages, if avoidable, certainly ought to be discouraged, and the industry of the young should be stimulated by the prospect of marriage and easy circumstances in somewhat more advanced life. But although this question is dif ficult, there is one thing connected with it which is very easy, and that is the monstrous and outrageous custom of laughing at old maids and bachelors. That those who have led a more intellectual life, should be even ridiculed by the more sensual, shocks every moral feeling. Chastity, and even celibacy, is so excellent in society, that a marked respect should be paid to it; and I fear the reformers did not view this subject correctly. Besides, single men have been the most useful and the most illustrious of their kind, and so have single women too, in every age of the world. Find we amongst the married men, names more illustrious than those of Pascal, Fenelon, Newton, Barrow, Leighton, Latimer, Lardner, Watts, Fothergill, Hume, Spinoza, Adam Smith, and ten thousand more? The sensual call single men and women selfish-as if marriage were ever contracted from a pure sense of duty; as if sensual pleasure were not purely selfish! If we cannot improve in our morals, we may improve in our reasoning; and if we can tency as an Historian. "Though our historian, from his desire of placing the princes of the House of Stuart in a favourable point of view, frequently palliates the most exceptionable parts of their conduct; yet it is but justice to him to acknowledge, that there favourable to the general interests of are sundry passages in his history highly liberty, and the common rights of mankind." TOWERS. FEW of these passages, contrasted with others of a different A character, I shall lay before the readers of the Monthly Repository, who will hence perceive that Mr. Hume's most objectionable statements are refuted by himself, and that " we have little reason to applaud our author for his consistency.' Speaking of Charles I., he says, "The king had, in some instances, stretched his prerogative beyond its just bounds; and, aided by the church, liberties and privileges of the nation."* had well nigh put an end to all the This, assuredly, is no exaggerated statement; within a few pages, however, the same historian remarks, "All Europe stood astonished to see a nation, so turbulent and unruly, who, for some doubtful encroachments on their privileges, had dethroned and murdered an excellent prince, descended from subdued and reduced to slavery." a long line of monarchs, now at last trial of Algernon Sidney, observes, Mr. Hume, in his narrative of the "In ransacking the prisoner's closet, found; in which he had maintained some discourses on government were principles, favourable indeed to liberty, but such as the best and most dutiful subjects in all ages have been known to embrace; the original contract, the source of power from a consent of the people, the lawfulness of resisting tyrants, the preference of liberty to the government of a single person." To this representation, who that deserves the name of an Englishman can object? It is the representation, nevertheless, of an historian, who stigmatizes certain writings of "Rapin Thoyras, Locke, Sidney, Hoadly," &c. as "compositions the most despicable both for style and matter"! † sion of both." Truth and justice In the ridicule 'which, according to Mr. Hume, such an opinion merits, my readers will perhaps be content to share, together with individuals who have diligently studied the history of the English constitution. Let me refer, in particular, to Bishop Hurd's excellent dialogue on the subject: and I more gladly make this reference, because justice has not always been done to the Prelate's consistency as a political writer. Dr. What shall we finally pronounce of "he was a N. Of Charles II. this writer acknowledges that he was negligent of the interests of the nation, careless of its glory, averse to its religion, jealous of its liberty, lavish of its treasure."— The admission is less astonishing than the manner in which Mr. Hume attempts to qualify it: for he adds, "Yet may all these enormities, if fairly and candidly examined, be imputed, in a great measure, to the indolence of his temper; a fault which, however unfortunate in a monarch, it is impossible for us to regard with great severity. In a paragraph, which al-AM emboldened to address you on most instantly follows, the historian intimates, that Charles II. had an "appetite for power:" and he confesses that this monarch's "attachment to France, after all the pains which we have taken, by inquiry and conjecture, to fathom it, contains still something mysterious and inexplicable." What ever mystery existed on the subject, has been completely solved. § Concerning James II. Mr. Hume asks, "What was wanting to make him an excellent sovereign? A due regard and affection to the religion and constitution of his country. The sincerity of this prince (a virtue on which he highly valued himself) has been much questioned in those reiterated promises which he had made of preserving the liberties and religion of the nation. It must be confessed, that his reign was almost one continued inva On Irish Protestant Dissent. the above important subject, from having observed the lively interest you take in Transmarine Unitarianism. A part of Irish Protestant Dissent comes under that head, and perhaps the persons holding the opinion that the "Lord their God is one Lord," might be granted the benefit of some consideration and inquiry, if not on the just ground that aid should be first afforded at home, let it be, because the history of religious feeling in Ireland would, if drawn from different pens, be a curious document in your journal. More inperatively I would require, if it is of importance that a school of religious freedom should flourish in this island, if an altar, from whence the flame of * History, &c. VIII. 306. The question is well considered, and satisfactorily determined, in Mon. Repos. III. 460-162, and in Extracts from the Diary of a Lover of Literature, (1816,) p. 71. It were to be wished, however, that the animated Postscript in the original edition of the Dialogues (1759) had been retained in the subsequent impressions. § Boswell's Life of Johnson, (ed. 3,) IV. 202. truth will burst forth on the zealous, if a sanctuary where the gathering of God's people will encourage the timid, if a rallying place for the bold few who are rebels against the tyranny of mind, is of any value; encourage the spirit that exists amongst us, but which is held only by them that are scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen:" in fact, we want unity in act, we possess it in spirit. Let English Unitarians lend their aid to bring these divergent rays to a focus, and the light will be glorious like the glory of heaven; for now, though truth sitteth on many like fire, yet they are not "all with one accord in one place." To enliven the languid course of Irish Dissent, to change into running waters the dull stream of ignorant supineness, which in its lazy, lethean tide is stealing away the very memory of Christian honesty and independence, send us English Missionaries; let them be men fearing God, and not fearing man; let them not have their love of God with respect of persons; let them be bold enough to say, with the independent apostles Peter and John to the rulers of the people and the elders of Israel, even though they should straitly threaten them, that they speak henceforth to no man in this name, "We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard; and whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye." Ireland is ripe for an extensive reform on the subject of religion; but active leaders are wanted, the harvest truly is rich, but the labourers are few; send ye labourers into the vineyard. I believe the Unitarian College at York has sent Missionaries beyond the seas, bearing the good news of the uncorrupted gospel; I would inform that body, that their zeal and charity would be as necessary in Ireland, and they would have a speedier return of satisfaction in witnessing the fruits of their labours. It may startle some of our gentle Irish Presbyterians to hear of their church being deficient in teachers, when some very small con gregations are afforded two pastors, to perform duties by no means equal to those executed by a majority of curates in the Church of England. It is not the number of pastors, but the kind, that requires improvement amongst us. Our stated clergy are not at all calcu lated for the purposes to which a missionary is designed; we have a royal grant to pay our ministry, this in part makes them independent of personal exertion, and, moreover, binds Irish Dissent to the State, making it “a part and parcel" of the civil establishment of government. Most of our meeting-houses maintain an establishment, the weight of which brings the expenditure so close on the income, as to prevent our being independent in property, and pecuniary dependence soon extends itself to the mind. Under these circumstances we cannot afford to give offence. Now our Saviour says, that many will be offended for his sake; but here we carry the apostolic charge, "be courteous," in high opposition to the freedom wherewith Christ hath made us free. But what takes away the manly character from Irish Dissent, is the entire nonentity of the what is in other churches doctrinal teaching. Our meetings contain all the grades of opinion, from Bishop Magee's high orthodoxy to Mr. Belsham's low heterodoxy; in consequence, our ministers are expected, if they preach doctrinally at all, to give sermons of so serpentine a nature, as to insinuate themselves into the likings of all these religious varieties: the result is, that where Unitarianism among us resists, in a minister, the overpowering temptations to Latitudinarianism which surround it, the teacher who, if independent, would fearlessly give it to us, is gagged by the objections of the orthodox and semi-orthodox, which, aided by the policy, peacefulness and unproselyting disposition of Irish Humanitarians, wrap up religion in a napkin, and mere nothing is preached to us all the year round. This cautious coldness, this guarded watchfulness, to prevent the public from discovering that many Dissenters are Unitarians in Ireland, pervades our whole polity, the effect of which is, that our children are not catechised in their own meeting, and premiums, gilt Bibles, general examinations, the Lord Bishop's notice of hoth parents and children, &c., are doing for our youthful members what timidity and fashion have done for many of the elder ones. Neither can the disputed points of scripture be commented on or explained in our pulpits; so that, in fact, unless Irish Dissenters can be supposed to be born with the innate ideas of religion, as far as their clergy dare to act, Seneca might have been a Christian of such a kind; cold morals and general doctrines being all that even the more alert of them communicate to their flocks. Now while this contempt or fear of proper activity is indulged in, the Established Church party of Presbyterians, those who would wish to keep our meeting-houses still what they have been this number of years, namely, chapels of ease to the Church of England, presume to attribute to the tacit Unitarianism which is amongst us, a decline in our congregations.It is true we have less holyday and lady Christians at our worship than we had when we pleased every body and pleased nobody; even the report of things unseen has shocked the ignorance and prejudice of many who came to Presbyterian meetings, because they never heard any thing that gave offence, and the service being short, they were out in time to walk; but these are all we have lost. I fearlessly assert, that private communication and English tracts, with the virtuous avowal of Uni#tarian sentiments by one "Israelite indeed, in whom there was no guile," has saved a church that would, in all probability, have amalgamated with the national establishment. But if the meetings had declined, could any one want a reason for it, with so many obvious ones? Is it not wonderful how they have not fallen before the host of enemies? We, ourselves, first as foes by a disgraceful supineness, would not even attempt a combat with a church possessed of the influence of fashion, power, and every popular attraction, add to which, the recently-acquired energy into which that unwieldy corporation has been whipped by the galling activity of its surest foe, the Methodist establishment. Presbyterians do not believe Presbyterianism capable of such a contest; or if they do, they shun and decry controversy, because they would rather religion should bring peace than a sword. But it is only crying peace, peace, where there is no peace, to thein who think gold cannot bear the fire and will not bring it to the furnace. Thus we not only do not make converts, but we lose our own members, not to every wind of doctrine, but to every frown of power, every blandishment of fashion. With these facts before me, I believe our regular clergy are not the instruments calculated for establishing flourishing Dissenting churches; zeal would be their ruin, because it is their wisdom to be neither hot nor cold on any doctrine distinguishing Dissenters from the Church they dissent from. And can any principle or body live by chance? At the present state of religious inquiry and religious zeal, shall we be the only ignorant, the only careless? No, no, religion is a warfare; send us then leaders who will fight the good fight. And now as to a provident mode of performing this business, a lecturer who would be partly supported for one year by the Unitarian Fund, might be appointed to lecture in Cork on one evening in the week, the most convenient to his hearers, or on Sunday mornings, from eight till nine o'clock; in Kinsale, where a meeting-house and property belonging to Presbyterians was, though I do not know what has become of them, in the evening of the same day; and in Bandon on some evenings in the week. A moderate subscription, say 10s. per annum, might be paid by all adults who wished to hear him. Another lecturer might take the county of Waterford district, and a third the county of Dublin. They would not have to pay for meetinghouses, for Latitudinarians have at least the virtue of liberality, so that I think the lecturers will get the loan of our houses when unoccupied; if not, public rooms may be had at moderate charges. After a year's exertion, each union would, I think, support its uninister, if he united the popular duties of teaching the children of Unitarians the grounds of their belief; giving the whole counsel of God, and not keeping back. Such exertions ought to maintain young, active men, as well as a North-American or East-Indian Mission, and be as honourable, his emoluments being the testimony of his industry. J. M'CREADY. YOUR Ashford. Kent, SIR, August 8, 1821. YOUR correspondent V. M. H. (p. 218) seems desirous of knowing what became of the parochial registers framed under the government of Oliver Cromwell." To this, as a general question, I can give no satisfactory reply; but I can inform him of the fate of one of them, viz. the register that was then kept in the parish of Bethersden, in Kent. This register, which I have myself seen by favour of the present vicar, is still in the number of the register books of the said parish, and is in a good state of preservation. Its title is as follows: "The Register of all the Marriages, Births, and Burials, within the Parish of Bethersden, since the 29th Day of September, 1653." The first entry, which is that of a birth or christening, bears the date of October, 1653; but from the tenor of the title, as well as from some other internal evidence, it seems likely that the book was not procured till the beginning of the following year, and that all the previous entries were then inserted at once from memorandums. The last entries bear the date of October, 1660. The chasm in the regular register corresponds to these dates, commencing in September, 1653, and terminating in October, 1660. In the chasm there is inserted a memorandum, by the first vicar that was instituted after the Restoration, stating that the temporary register was then in his possession, though previously it had been kept by an officer called the Parish Register. In the entries of marriages, the banns are not said to have been published in the church, but in the public assembly (which was held, as I suppose, in the church) on three Lord's days; and in one case they are said to have been published on three market days. The marriage ceremony was performed for the most part by a Justice; but in one entry it is said to have been performed by the minister of the parish. The above is the only register of this sort that I have ever either seen or heard of, though it is likely that many others are still in existence, and in the custody of the incumbents or churchwardens of the parishes to which they respectively belong. If you should think that this account The first Reception given to the pious and elegant Moralist, Francis Hutcheson, as a Preacher, in his Father's neighbourhood. (From "Stuart's Historical Memoirs of the City of Armagh.") After six years spent in study at Glasgow, he returned to his native country, and preached as a probationer before various congregations, some of which were highly pleased with his eloquent discourses, while others totally disapproved of his doctrines. At Armagh, his father, who laboured under a slight rheumatic affection, deputed him to preach in his place, on a cold and rainy Sunday. About two hours after Francis had left Ballyrea, the rain abated-the sun shone forth-the day became serene and warm-and Dr. Hutcheson, who found his spirits exhilarated by the change, felt anxious to collect the opinions of his congregation on the merits of his favourite son, and proceeded directly to the city. How was he astonished and chagrined when he met almost the whole of his flock coming from the meeting-house, and disgust visible in their countewith strong marks of disappointment nances! One of the elders, a native of Scotland, addressed the surprised and deeply mortified father thus: "We a' feel muckle wae for your mishap, Reverend Sir; but it canna be concealed. Your silly loon, Frank, has fashed a' the congregation wi' his idle cackle; for he has been babbling this oor about a gude and benevolent God, and that the sauls of the Heathens themsels will gang to heaven, if they follow the light o' their ain consciences. Not a word does the daft boy ken, speer or say about the gude auld com tion, original sin, and faith. Hoot fortable doctrines of election, reproba mon, awa' wi' sic a fellow." |