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portionate insignificance of those nice and minor points on which they separate, and actually or seemingly differ. Your readers should be informed, that C. E's letter and the reply to it were reviewed in the Monthly Repository, XVI. 46; but that I have reason to believe few of either have got into circulation, such Friends as are booksellers in London having, I am informed, thought fit to decline selling both the one and the other.

Should you insert this communication, I hope Mr. Alexander of Yarmouth, the printer of the first letter, will soon send some copies to Hunter's or Eaton's for sale, in order to

counteract almost as effectual a mode

of suppressing inquiry within the pale of a small Society, as was ever adopted by the Church of Rome in the plenitude of her power, and in the darkest period of her priestly domination. It was with great pleasure I heard Wm. Allen, a minister amongst Friends, at the Annual Meeting of the British and Foreign School Society

terfuges, such a perversion of common sense, derogatory alike to reason and to And it is in this light that I revelation. view the reply to thine, which, however plausible it may appear to superficial minds, is as deficient in sound argument as it is in scriptural authority for its mandatory advice.

That the grand and simple doctrines of genuine Christianity will ultimately triumph over the distorted, inferential and unscriptural creed of Trinitarianism, is my firm belief, and I entirely acquiesce with thee in the opinion that truth must finally conquer.

In conclusion, I request thy acceptance of my sincere acknowledgments for thy endeavour to promote (what I conceive to be) the true interests of our Society, by thy attempt "to rouse the spirit of inquiry where it is dorinant, and to counteract the support which the sanction of a grave assembly might give I am,

to error."

With sentiments of sincere esteem, Thy Friend,

4 Mo. 1822.

on the 16th inst., eloquently and im- To Charles Elcock, Yarmouth. pressively advocate far different and truly liberal principles.

BEREUS.

ESTEEMED FRIEND, Having lately had an opportunity of perusing thy "Letter to the Young Men and Women of the Society of Friends, on the Yearly Meeting Epistle for 1820," I conceive that I could not better discharge my duty as a junior member of the Society of Friends, than by thus addressing thee. And though personally unacquainted with thee, a coincidence of opinion will, I trust, be deemed a sufficient apology for this intrusion upon thy attention. The perusal of thy dispassionate, firm and intelligent address, has been the source of the most pleasurable anticipations. It has convinced me that the spirit of inquiry is diffusing its genial influence, and dispelling the crude, unscriptural and unconstitutional doctrines of modern orthodoxy, as adopted by many of the active members of our So

ciety.

To discourage investigation, to insist upon the limited nature of our faculties, and to hold up implicit faith and blind obedience, as "honourable prudence," is only what might be expected from the advocate of a weak cause. And weak indeed must that cause be, that for its defence has recourse to such futile sub

SIR,

I R

Evesham, June 25, 1822. BEG leave to offer a few remarks in reply to a letter in your last Repository, [p. 271,] intended to persuade your readers"that the publication of Penn's Sandy Foundation Shaken by Unitarians, without taking the least notice of his Vindication," as if such were the fact, "is at once disingenuous and unjust." The writer also with equal truth asserts, that "there are in the Unitarian Preface" to that work, "two instances of an entire want of candour in the author." These severe charges, confidently as they are advanced, may be easily refuted. The first is, that the author does not notice Penn's letter to Lord Arlington; by whose warrant he was imprisoned, and of which letter the Editor certainly cannot say he was "ignorant." And he might have conclusively proved from it, that Penn was as indisposed to recant, and to when he wrote that letter, though at avow doctrines "totally opposite" that time a close prisoner in the Tower of London, for publishing the Sandy Foundation Shaken, as when he sent word about the same time to his ac

Penn's" Sandy Foundation.”

cuser, the Bishop of London, that he never would recant, "though his prison should be his grave."

The other alleged instance of "an entire want of candour," is a charge not only unfounded, but it also completely disproves the writer's other accusation, of "disingenuous and unjust" conduct, by testifying to your readers, that the said Apology is expressly noticed in that preface. The editor has even described it, p. vii., as obviously favourable "to the Sabellian hypothesis;" which constitutes its nearest approach to reputedly orthodox doctrines. He has also noticed Penn's eulogy on Socinus, in reply to a charge of "being a Socinian." This could not be designed for " a recantation;" and five years after this, Penn declared that Thomas Firmin, who said he had retracted, was "shamefully mistaken.” See the Sequel to my Appeal, pp. 47-52; or Penn's Works, II. 453. Whence, then, these groundless, injurious and contradictory accusations? It cannot be amiss for the "intelligent" writer calmly to inquire.

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"In this very Apology," adds the writer, "are to be found these unequivocal expressions." They follow p. 272, but are taken not from that work, but from an Apology," published several years after, "for the Principles and Practices of the Quakers," yet not quite correctly. And though the Editor truly declared in his preface, that he was "not acquainted with a more manly and able vindication in that peculiarly fanatical age, of the pure Unitarian doctrine, than the Sandy Foundation Shaken," the writer is much mistaken in concluding, that "then it necessarily follows that the Apology is a recantation;" or that it is "in direct opposition to the principles which constitute Unitarianism." To prove these positions it is necessary to shew, which the writer has not even attempted, that Penn's Apology for his former work contains a "disavowal of his former sentiments," and that this very Apology asserts principles which are "in direct opposition" to the doctrine of one only true and living God, who is described in the Scriptures as "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" such as the doctrine of "the Trinity of distinct and sepa、

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rate persons in the unity of essence," or of some other plurality of persons in the Deity, neither of which can I find that Penn, since he became a Dissenter, ever acknowledged. Sabellius and his followers, in the third century, ascribed "eternal Deity" to Christ, as expressly as William Penn ever did, and yet they were always justly deemed Unitarians.

In the page preceding that from which the extract supposed to be so "unequivocal" was selected, Penn challenges his Trinitarian opponent to adduce one scripture that has directed him to such a phrase as distinct person, or that says, I and my Father are two, instead of 'I and my Father are one. 2ndly. If he will but bring me one piece of antiquity for the first two hundred years, that used any such expression. 3rdly. And if he can deny that the Popish schoolmen-were the grandfathers and promoters of such like monstrous terms and uncouth phrases, I will be contented to take the shame upon me of denying proper, apt and significant phrases.

"But till then I will tell him, that if the Son of God did purchase our salvation distinctly from the Father, the Father was not concerned in our salvation, but Christ only. And if he did so purchase it as God the Son, (distinct from the Father,) then God the Son (by his principles) cannot be the same with God the Father; and all the earth, with all their idle sophisms and metaphysical quiddities, shall never be able to withstand the conclusion to be two Gods; otherwise, if the purchase was by God the Son, then God the Father was concerned as well as God the Son, because the same God. If not, then either Christ's Godhead was not concerned in the purchase, or there must be two Gods; so that which he calls a personality distinct from the essence, could not do it, and if the divine essence did it, then the Father and Spirit did it as well as the Son, because the same individual, eternal essence." Penn's Works, II. 65.

About two years after this "Apology for the Principles of the Quakers" was published, Penn addressed a letter to Dr. Collenges, a clergyman who had attempted to shew, what ignorance puts man under the state of

damnation, and what knowledge is necessary to life eternal." A solitary passage from this letter is laid before your readers in the same page as the one I have above endeavoured to elucidate, by adducing its context. I must do the same in this case, in order that Penn's letter may more fairly and fully "speak for itself" the real sentiments of the writer. "The matter insisted upon, relating chiefly to us on this occasion," says Penn, was, "that we, in common with Socinians, do not believe Christ to be the eternal Son of God, and I am brought in proof of the charge. The Sandy Foundation Shaken touched not upon this, but Trinity, separate personality, &c. I have two things to do; first, to shew I expressed nothing that divested Christ of his divinity; next, declare my true meaning and faith in

the matter.

"I am to suppose that when any adversary goes about to prove his charge against me out of my own book, he takes that which is most to his purpose. Now let us see what thou hast taken out of that book, so evidently demonstrating the truth of thy assertion. I find nothing more to thy purpose than this; that I deny a Trinity of separate Persons in the Godhead. Ergo, what? Ergo, William Penn denies Christ to be the only true God; or that Christ, the Son of God, is from everlasting to everlasting, God. Did ever man yet hear such argumentation? Doth Dr. Collenges know logic no better? But (which is more condemnable in a minister) hath he learnt charity so ill? Are not Trinity and Personality one thing, and Christ's being the eternal Son of God another? Must I therefore necessarily deny his Divinity, because I justly reject the Popish School Personality? This savours of such weakness or disingenuity, as can never stand with the credit of so great a scribe to be guilty of. Hast thou never read of Paulus Samosatensis, that denied the divinity of Christ, and Macedonius, that oppugned the deity of the Holy Ghost? And dost thou in good earnest think they were one in judgment with Sabellius, that only rejected the imaginary personality of those times; who at the same instant owned and confessed to the eternity and Godhead of Christ Jesus our

Lord? It is manifest, then, that though I may deny the Trinity of separate Persons in one Godhead, yet I do not consequentially deny the deity of Jesus Christ." Penn's Works, I. 165.

The part of this letter selected for your readers, (p. 272,) directly follows the above passage. From the whole of the letter it appears, that Penn rejected the doctrine of the Trinity, and that he held that of the divinity of Christ in the same sense as he conceived that Sabellius did; the accusation against whose followers, previous to the Council of Nice, according to Novatius, was, that they," the Sabellians, make too much of the divinity of the Son, when they say it is that of the Father, extending his honour beyond bounds. They dare to make him not the Son, but God the Father himself" And again, "They acknowledge the divinity of Christ in too boundless and unrestrained a manner." Ch. xxiii. The same writer also says, "The Son, to whom divinity is communicated, is, indeed, God; but God the Father of all is deservedly God of all, and the origin of his Son, whom he begat Lord." Ch. xxxi.; or, History of early Opinions concerning Christ, by Dr. Priestley, I. 47, 48.

In later times, since the doctrine of the co-equality and co-eternity of the three supposed persons in the Trinity has been a professed article of faith in many Christian churches, those who are known to reject the notion of any distinction of persons in the Deity, and yet continue to use such seemingly orthodox language as the foregoing, are generally understood as asserting only the divinity of the Father dwelling in Christ, and acting by him, as Unitarian Christians also do.

What else, indeed, can such persons mean? And what definite ideas can they annex to the terms they use? That such was in substance William Penn's meaning, when he used the strongest expressions of that kind he ever adopted after quitting the Church of England, I have no doubt; and especially when I consider how forcibly a man of such piety, sterling integrity and good sense, must otherwise have been impressed with the sacred obligation of expressly recanting the doctrines he had so clearly and definitely asserted as sound and scriptural in his Sandy Foundation

Penn's "Sandy Foundation."

Shaken, one of the most able vindications of genuine Unitarianism which had ever appeared in the English language.

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Of its author, the letter you have inserted says, "One characteristic stamps both his life and writings, that of being led and guided by the spirit of Christ." May I then ask, if this stamps" all his "writings," how it happened that he should ever have occasion to give forth "a recantation," as this writer imagines he did? And if so, whether any "subsequent declaration of his principles" could remove "from him every possible imputation of holding Unitarian doc trines" before his supposed recantation? The work so written, describes Penn's "views and intentions" much too clearly to be readily mistaken by any unprejudiced reader. In short, it asserts that doctrine as plainly as any work that ever was written. It is therefore no wonder that its attentive perusal, by even a prejudiced reader, should not shake the foundation of that truth for which William Penn was both an able and a faithful,” but not an infallible, "advocate."

Reserving any thing more I may have occasion to add in his defence till a future time, (should you insert this letter, already too long,)

I am, With best wishes, yours sincerely, THOMAS FOSTER.

IN

7 Month, 1822.

RESPECTED FRIEND, N the Repository of 5 month last, (pp. 271-273,) there was a letter on Penn's Sandy Foundation Shaken, in which the writer says, "Whatever constructions individuals may have put upon that pamphlet, entirely opposite to W. Penn's views and intentions, his subsequent declaration of his principles, and his public vindication of them in a work entitled, Innocency with her Open Face,' removes from him every possible imputation of holding Unitarian doctrine."

I am at a loss to conceive how any impartial and candid inquirer after truth, could arrive at such a conclusion, after carefully perusing the Sandy Foundation Shaken, in which Wm. Penn so ably refutes "those so generally believed and applauded doc

469

trines of one God, subsisting in three distinct and separate persons, &c. &c., from the authority of Scripture testimonies and right reason."

In the Prefatory Advertisement of the folio edition of Penn's Works, 1761, we are informed, "that it was judged expedient, previously to another impression, to review the whole, and to select for publication all such parts of our author's writings as have an immediate tendency to promote the cause of religion in general, containing doctrines in which people of all nations, ranks and conditions are interested without dispute; and such likewise as, at the same time that they contribute to the same great end, the increase of primitive Christianity in life and doctrines, include an apology for the religious principles and practice of the people to whom he was united in profession." In this edition, and also in another, printed in 1782, which has been sanctioned, reviewed and published by the Society of Friends, is inserted the Sandy Foundation Shaken, and, if I mistake not, it is also contained in the edition of Penn's Works now printing. If, then, the Society disapproves of the doctrines insisted upon and logically deduced in this work, for what reason have they "selected" it for publication in preference to others of a controversial nature, which they have omitted?

From this edition I extract the following paragraph, which I believe is not in the "Unitarian edition :" "No one substance can have three distinct subsistences, and preserve its own unity for, granting them the most favourable definition, every subsistence will have its own substance; so that three distinct subsistences or manners of being, will require three distinct substances or beings, consequently three Gods. For if the infinite Godhead subsists in three separate manners or forms, there is not any one of them a perfect and complete subsistence without the other two; so parts and something finite is in God; or if infinite, then three distinct infinite subsistences; and what is this but to assert three Gods, since none is infinite but God? And, on the contrary, there being an inseparability betwixt the substance and its

subsistence, the unity of substance will not admit a trinity of incommunicable or distinct subsistences."(Vide p. 12.)

From this I infer that the "constructions individuals may have put upon that pamphlet," are not "entirely opposite to W. Penn's views and intentions." However "his subsequent declaration of his principles, and his public vindication of them" in another pamphlet, may have lessened the estimation in which he was held as a consistent theologian, they cannot, in my opinion, "remove from him every possible imputation of holding" and teaching" Unitarian doctrine."

SIR,

AMICUS.

WERY discussion that is calcuattention of the friend of genuine piety. I am glad, therefore, to see the subject of Liturgies presented to your readers. Though your correspondent J. P. [pp. 210, 211] has declined entering into an inquiry of the respective advantages of extemporary prayer, and of printed forms, I may be pardoned for mentioning my own, and the experience of many others who have been from infancy accustomed to attend the service of the Established Church. I admit we are incompetent judges, as we cannot compare the benefits to be derived by those who prefer public prayers in which the people take no part, with the devotion that has been excited by using a liturgy, and being a party in the petitions offered at the throne of grace. The power of habit must be granted. On this very ground a strong argument presents itself in favour of printed forms. During an extemporary prayer, children and young persons are not, nay, cannot be interested. They contract an indifference, if not a habit of inconsideration, during that most solemn of religious duties, the address to the Searcher of hearts. But if they had such a composition before them as might lead them to think on what they ought to be engaged in, some good impression might result, at least they would not be called to utter an Amen to what they had not understood, or might not have regarded, because their thoughts were differently em

ployed. I have seen, I have felt the force of this remark, when I have observed my own children, when they have been present at a Dissenting place of worship. Let it not be imagined that I would prevent their attending a Dissenting congregation. By no means. But the inquiry I am pursuing is the best mode of promoting pure and undefiled piety. I have seen much of the world. I have held a military station. It may cause a smile on the countenance of some of your readers to find this confession from one who avows himself a zealous Unitarian. And it will, perhaps, surprise others to learn that mine is far from a solitary instance. But if the plan of many mess-rooms were known, a different conclusion would be drawn

from that which at first may be sug

minds meet, theological, as well as other subjects are introduced; and, besides the various connexions which military men have, and their different ranks and education, they are often less burthened with prejudice, and more open to fair investigation, than many other classes of society. To these causes I attribute it, that very many thinking men, both in the army and the navy, are decided Unitarians. But I have found very few that would join a society in which extemporary prayer was used. Their early habits, their wish not to appear hostile to the Establishment, perhaps also their attachment to the forms, or even dress to which they have been accustomed, indisposes them to join what are termed regular Dissenters. But were a

society like that in Essex Street formed, were the place not destitute of external grace, were the services conducted without the peculiarities attached to Dissenting congregations in general, many who now regularly attend the Established Church, would rejoice in such a mode of addressing the one living and true God. It may, perhaps, be said, Let them come out from among those who worship a Trinity in Unity. Let a little candour be shewn; let mutual indulgence be granted; let a fair trial be made of adopting a scriptural mode of worship that may suit those who do not wish to enter into the speculative discussions that sometimes are delivered

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