On the Remission of Sin. ledge, and training private characters for becoming public benefactors at Manchester, has encouraged me to address you on a subject that may, through a divine blessing, be useful. I have lately been at Clifton. The secession of a Reverend Gentleman from the Established Church naturally afforded matter for conversation. Among other topics was, the opportunity thus furnished for opening a place of worship, in which a reformed Liturgy might be used. I do not consider myself competent to argue the question, which on the whole is best, extempore prayer or a printed form; but I know from experience, that those who have long been accustomed to a Liturgy do not derive the same comforts, from the minister delivering a prayer, however pious, however ap propriate, they would have done, had they been able to have accompanied him with the fixed attention a printed form excites, Far be it from my intention to detract from the admirable method in which the religious services are conducted at Lewin's Mead. I cannot sufficiently praise the zeal, the piety and the judgment shewn by the pastors of that congregation. It is not to oppose, it is to strengthen their hands that this letter is written. I do not know what are their ideas on the use of Liturgies. Nor have I any information, whether the gentleman who has joined the Unitarians would like either to reside in Bristol, or to undertake the formation of a religious society resembling that in Essex Street. I purely narrate the subjects that interested my mind when conversing with those who knew the respectability of his character, the importance of his connexions and the want of a place of worship where those persons might assemble who are dissatisfied with the Liturgy of the Established Church, and do not like to unite where extempore prayer is carried on. Many such I believe visit Clifton, and many others would join if a proper attempt were made for combining devotion with fervour, instruction with liberality, and truth with freedom of investigation. I am not acquainted with the wealthy among the Bristol Dissenters; I know nothing of the inclination of the lower classes there, nor of the immediate 211 connexions of the Reverend Gentleman to whom I have before referred, except from report that they are highly respectable, or I should have been anxious whilst in the neighbourhood to have inquired, whether there might not some steps be taken for making the attempt I have suggested. It occurred to me that, through the medium of your Repository, the subject might meet the eye and awaken the attention of those who might be competent to determine the expediency of the measure I have proposed. If good is effected, my design is answered; if nothing follows, I shall have acted as my conscience directed. SIR, I. P. Torquay, Whist died for our sins," E are taught in Scripture that that "we have redemption, that is, remission of sins by his blood," that we are reconciled to God by the death of his Son," and many other expressions are used of similar import. That words like these convey something very interesting and remarkable must be admitted by all, and there is a plainness and simplicity about them which might seem to preclude much diversity of opinion in regard to their interpretation. Yet we know that the fact is very different, and that there are few parts of scripture doctrine about which Christians are more divided. All must allow that we may learn from them as much as this, that the end for which our Lord died was that sins might be forgiven; and, on the other hand, that the forgiveness of sins was in some sense dependent on his death. The only question, therefore, is, in what way our Lord's death promoted this end; in what way the forgiveness of sins depended on his death. Unitarians in general seem disposed to understand the matter in this way: That the death of Jesus Christ was a strong testimony to the truth of his doctrine, and a powerful incitement to repentance and virtue; that, therefore, so far as men are convinced by it of the truth of his religion, and in this way led by it to repentance and virtue; since forgiveness of sins is promised to these, it becomes the means or cause of forgiveness. In the same sense, of course, every powerful advocate of the cause of truth and righteousness, nay the Bible itself, or any other book which is efficacious in awakening sinners to repentance, may be said to effect our redemption, and be a propitiation for our sins. In this view the death of Christ has only an indirect or remote connexion with the forgiveness of sins, not an immediate one. It is thus: The death of Christ promotes repentance, repentance will procure forgiveness, and thus the death of Christ procures forgiveness. Moreover, according to this view, no man owes his pardon to the death of Christ, in any other light than as the occasion of that repentance and amendment which have immediately procured that pardon. If I mistake not, this is a fair representation of the prevailing opinion of Unitarians on this subject. In proceeding to consider the justness of this opinion, I may first observe, that it must be allowed that it is quite true as far as it goes: I mean, that the death of Christ does in part procure forgiveness through the means of producing repentance, to which it is so powerful an incentive. But is not this too limited a view of its efficacy, and has it not a more direct and immediate connexion with the forgive ness of sins? Is it only in consideration of the repentance which in any case it has actually wrought in us, that we can be said to have forgiveness through the death of Christ? Now, if we consider what the Scriptures say on this subject, we may observe generally, that the connexion which they mention is immediate and direct, and neither do the sacred writers explain their meaning in the way we are considering, nor does their language bear to be so explained without a degree of violence. The best way to be sensible of this, is to consider how peculiar the language is which is used concerning Christ, and how different from any that is applied to any other prophet or preacher. "Christ died for our sins, for the remission of our sins." It is to me a violent straining of language to say, this means only that he died to convince us of the truth, or to move us to repentance. But especially, the frequent illustration of the death of the Lord, by allusion to the sacrifices, is inconsistent with this interpretation, inasmuch as the pardons which the sacrifices procured, followed immediately on the performance of them, and was obviously independent of any change of mind previously wrought, by the rite, upon the worshiper. So far, then, as the efficacy of our Lord's death has any analogy with that of sacrifices, it must be immediate, and not dependant on the repentance which it may have been the means of producing. In what way then does the death of Christ lead to the remission of sins? This is not a necessary inquiry, neither can we find any formal answer to it in the Scripture. We there find the immediate connexion between these two things strongly, repeatedly and variously asserted, and brought forward as a great and prominent truth of the Gospel. We see that it was that way of reconciliation which it pleased the Father to appoint, and we have general views given us of the intention of that appointment in such words as these: "That God might be just and yet the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.". It is also said, "He gave himself for us, that he might purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works." Here no doubt we see the general objects, in its tendency to promote which, the efficacy of the death of Christ, as a propitiation for sins, consisted. Its tendency to promote a just sense of the Divine authority, and a deep and lasting repentance in those whose sins are forgiven, we may thus presume to be the principal grounds of its propitiatory virtue: but yet this virtue is something very different from that of a testimony to the truth, or a pattern of righteousness. They may be said to procure remission of sins indirectly, through the means of such repentance as they may have occasioned; but this immediately, as a consideration influencing the mind of God, and that in regard to the repentance and holiness, which, in a more extensive view, it is calculated to promote and ensure. It is rather as a security for the future, than as the cause of what is past, that it has this efficacy. I have thus endeavoured to shew, that the death of Christ was something beyond a testimony to the truth, or an example of righteousness; that it was truly a propitiation for sins; that Pope's Imitation Epitaphs. is, that it was appointed by God, as what would be, besides the repentance of the sinner, a proper provision or preparation for forgiveness. I hope I shall not be thought to imply that any thing was wanting to give efficacy to repentance. Far from it; but he who forgives the penitent may certainly prescribe the terms and mode of reconciliation. That I have advanced nothing in favour of the doctrine of satisfaction by vicarious punishment, is, I trust, evident. To conclude, let me use this illustration: A father has many children, all of whom but one have joined in an act of disobedience, and, moreover, ill-treated the dutiful child for his singularity: they become sorry for their fault; but the father prescribes, as the condition of forgiveness, that the dutiful child shall solicit pardon for the others. If, Sir, you should favour these remarks with insertion, I hope shortly to send you a few more on the practical importance of these views. To such of your readers as amuse themselves with conjectures on the imitations and resemblances discovered in the English poets, I beg leave to point out the probable original of that line in Pope's epitaph "On the Hon. Simon Harcourt:" "Or gave his father grief, but when he died." Among the resemblances mentioned by Mr. Wakefield, in his "Observations on Pope," (p. 124,) is the following, which" Hackett (II. 15) quotes from Montfaucon : LUCIA JULIA PRISCA, 213 age," as I find it in "A New View of London," 1708, p. 389. It is, however, probable that a passage, which had not occurred to Mr. Wakefield, was Pope's original. It forms part of an epitaph "in the Church of Great Wychingham, in Norfolk," on Jane, the wife of Oliver Le Neve, who died in 1704. She is said never to have grieved her husband or her friends, except by dying. quæ viro, suisque omnibus, Non unquam erat, nisi moriendo gravis." I quote these lines from Le Neve's Monumenta Anglicana, (p. 85,) published in 1717, and probably well known to Pope in 1720, when he wrote the epitaph on his friend Harcourt. In the same volume (p. 68) is another epitaph worthy of being transcribed, as excelling the common strain of such compositions. It also serves to shew, how even Christians, when under the pressure of the weightiest sorrows of mortality, are disposed, as if they credited "the fam'd fields of Heathenish bliss," to dwell with fond affection on the fancied occupations of a supposed separate state, (on which supposition there is, strictly speaking, no death, but an uninterrupted and improving life,) instead of trusting, like Paul, that "the dead shall live," because Jesus died and rose again. In Clapham Church, near Bedford, in Pthisis utrisque fuit fatalis. These lines, which might have been written if the Christian doctrine of a resurrection had never been promulgated, may be thus literally translated: Near this silent urn are deposited the dear remains of Ursula, a daugh ter who died in her tender age. While living, she was a fair resemblance of her father, in person and disposition. A consumption was fatal to both. Yet dry thy tears, twice-widowed mother; for she now beholds her father, who is with God, and shines triumphant in the divine company of more than 10,000 celestial virgins.- From the phrase, bis vidua mater, it appears that Ursula was an only child. Many of your readers will recollect how the author of the Pleasures of Memory describes a widowed mother, pensively musing over her sleeping infant till Oft she lifts the veil to trace The father's features in the daughter's face." Having been led back into the 17th century, I take the liberty of adding a poetical effusion on the destruction of a Dutch fleet, in 1653, during the war between England and Holland. The lines appear in a journal of "several proceedings of Parliament," published weekly, with the imprimatur of "Hen. Scobell, Clerk of the Parliament." Articles of intelligence are occasionally introduced. One of these is an account of "a violent tempest," on the coast of Holland, Nov. 4, 1653, upon which occasion these verses were written," in the true spirit of an age which ventured, with remarkable confidence, to interpret the dispensations of Providence: "In Belgas de clede calamitosa eorum classi, viventorum et tempestatis marina impetu, nuper illata, in qua (ut ajunt) multæ naves Bellicæ et hominum millia naufragio periêre. "Carmen Duodechastichon. "Væ vobis Belgæ, si contrà militat æther, Angligenumque Deus, ventus et ocea nus. Quid stratagema valet ? Quid gens? Quid bellica classis? Si contra Christum, Christi columque gregem. Ah revocate gradum Batavi! desistite bello, Angliades non sunt gens inimica togæ. Pro Christo pugnant, ut Christus monte Sionis Regnet apud Gentes, et ruat urbs Babylon. Pandite tunc oculos Belgæ, vestigia coli Cernite, sit Castris, pax pietasque redux. Ne Deus omnipotens vobis malefacta rependat, Et pereat refragis, spesque salusque poli. Augustinus Wingfieldus, Parliamenti Membrum. Hon. Mrs. Monk.-An Old Dissenter Mr. Bew. I have preserved, as you will perceive, what the former translator lost, the author's Angligenum Deus, a too common presumption, claiming the "Father of all the families of the earth" as peculiarly, if not exclusively, the God of Britain, which, according to the fond nationality of Watts, in his version of the 67th Psalm, is, or, at least, is to be, celebrated to "the creation's utmost bound," as the Almighty's "chosen isle," and "the favourite land.” Give me leave to remark, on the "Verses composed by a Lady," (XVI. 733,) that, though probably new to most of your readers, (as they must be interesting to all,) they are not very modern, for the ingenious authoress has been more than a century in her grave. I find those lines in Cibber's (Shield's)" Lives of the Poets," (1753, III. 201,) and there attributed to "the Hon. Mrs. Monk," daughter of Mr. Locke's friend, the justly celebrated Lord Molesworth, who thus describes her accomplishments, in a prefatory dedication to her "Poems and Translations," published in 1716, under the title of Marinda: "In a remote country retirement, without omitting the daily care due to a large family, she not only perfectly acquired the several languages here made use of, (Latin, Italian, Spanish and French,) but the good morals and principles contained in those books, so as to put them in practice, as well during her life and languishing sickness, as at the hour of her death; in short, she died, not only like a Christian, but a Roman lady, and so became at once the object of the grief and comfort of her relations. I loved her more," adds Lord Molesworth, as a parent's highest commendation, "because she deserved it, than because she was mine." (Cibber, III. 201.) I should not have expected that "An Old Dissenter," (p. 158,) would have considered it as correct, under an anonymous signature, and without justifying his censure by a single example, to represent Dr. Toulmin, "an industrious collector of anecdotes," from whose pen we have derived so much interesting contemporaneous biography, as too ready to record as facts unauthenticated reports." As to the report, in question, I can safely affirm, 215 from distinct recollection, that there had then existed, for several years, a very common opinion, however entertained, that there were "tame Dissenters," ready to barter their rights for the smiles of a court. Among these " the Rev. Mr. Marten," who, I remember, was said to have had a friendly visit from Bishop Horsley, was conspicuous; though, I understood that "the other receivers and distributors of the regium donum money" had been either supplanted by Mr. Marten, or had declined to act with him, rather than that they had encouraged his courtly propensities. I trust, however, that "An Old Dissenter," unless he can be more explicit, will not persuade your readers, or, on reflection, satisfy himself, that Dr. Toulmin was eminently credulous, though his well-known candid temper might sometimes indulge to excess the charity that "thinketh no evil." I take this opportunity of offering you another letter, which also remained in MS. among Mr. Wakefield's papers in 1804, because the writer was then living. Mr. George Bew was for some years Secretary of the Manchester Society, and, if I am not mistaken, a Lecturer in the Manchester College, now removed to York. I find by a friend's obliging information, in 1820," that he died at Kendal some time ago," and that "there is no printed notice of him." One of your correspondents can, probably, supply the deficiency. In Mr. Wakefield, referring to Mr. Bew's Letter, (Mem. I. 269,) says, that his Essay on the Origin of Alphabetical Characters was "read to the Society at two successive meetings, published in the second volume of their Memoirs," and "inserted in the New Annual Register for 1795, and the Encyclopædia Britannica." this Essay, which appeared in both editions of his Memoirs, Mr. Wakefield maintains, contrary to the more common notion, that letters were an immediate divine communication. This opinion, which is well known to have been Dr. Winder's, (On Knowledge, 1756, II. 30...55,) I find maintained, in 1726, in an anonymous "Essay upon Literature;-proving that the Two Tables written by the Finger of God in Mount Sinai was the first Writing in the World." It is also |