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I beg leave farther to afk Mr. G. one or two questions with a particular reference to this fubject. Is it not within his knowledge, that fome of the Calviniflic Diffenters have recently learnt, from connections in France, that their opinions are gaining ground fast in the French army? and is it not within his knowledge that many of the faine tefcription earnestly hope that a republic, will eventually be eftablished in connection with the fame religious principles in this kingdom?

P. S. I found my claim to the ground I have taken the liberty to occupy at the outlet of my letter on G.'s own words. "It may however be urged that several amongst the orthodox Dissenters have been active and ftrenuous in political concerns I am forry that it is true in fome instances, but I maintain they are very few compared with the body of the orthodox Diffenters:" and upon his remarks relative to Mr. Boucher's Difcourfes. The inftances I have adduced are not selected from the young, and inexperienced; the minilter cannot be much less than eighty years of age, and his hearer, fhould apprehend, certainly not lels than threefcore winters W. A.

worn."

To the Editor.

SIR,

THE

HERE appeared, fome time fince, in that ingenious vehicle of infidelity, called the Monthly Magazine, a paper which roundly denied that the Scriptures of the Old Teftament difcovered any trace of perfonal plurality in the Godhead. I fent to the publifher a demonftration of the falfehood of that affertion; but my pains might have been spared. The only notice taken of the refutation, was a bint upon the cover of the next number, that the Monthly Magazine was not defigned to become a vehicle of theoJogical controverty. You will probably agree, that the inference to be drawn from thefe premifes is, that any thing derogatory to Christianity was acceptable, but that arguments in defence of it. were inadmiffible to that Magazine.

It gives me much pleasure that I am able to contraft with the above, the conduct you have purfued, relative to the cenfures that have been paffed, in your publication, on the exertions of Diffenters in village preaching. By your impartial admiflion of arguments on each fide of the question, I hope your readers will be enabled to poffefs themfelves of the ground upon which it really ftands. I defire nothing more than that they fhould know the truthy and act accordingly. I have delayed replying to the papers inferted in your miscellaneous department for February, partly becaufe E thought almost every thing advanced in them had been precluded by my former letters; and partly because I expected to have feet, in your last number, fomething additional that might have demanded my attention. Being difappointed in this refpect, I trouble you again at prefent, under the apprehention that a longer delay would be liable to mifinterpretation.

I decline

1 decline entering the lifts with fuch an antagonift as the writer" of that virulent letter (P. 214,) of your fecond volume. He has faved me the trouble and degradation of fuch a contest, by exposing, the weaknefs of his caufe in a manner that is acceffible to the comprehenfion, I imagine, of all your readers. In order to ftigmatize Proteftant Diffenters with ditaffection to the British government, he is under the neceflity of lifting into their umber, indi-, viduals who have published their contempt of all revealed religion, and of all focial worthip. I am only forry, that he should have been the occafion of introducing into the inder of your former volume, fo ftriking an inconfiftency as the following; Godwin, a Diffenting Minifter, P. 632."" Godwin declares no perfon in bis right fenfes will frequent places of public worship, r. 91." What I faid to you, Sir, in my first letter, which I did not then expect to fee in print, I now beg leave to fay to all your readers; PROTES

TANT DISSENTERS ARE NOT INFIDELS NOR DESPISERS OF PUBLIC

WORSHIP. It is only by their attendance on public worship that the law recognizes them as Dilenters; and it tolerates them only upon their profeffing themselves to be Chriftians and Proteftants, and that they believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, as commonly received among Proteftant churches, to contain the revealed, will of God, and that they receive the fame as the rule of their doctrine and practice. Stat. 19 Geo. IIL. cap. 44. If there be perfons who once were Diffenters, but who now are infidels, to them the Diffenters inay, with the ftricteft propriety, apply the language of the Apostle:. They went not from us, but they were not of us: for if they had been of us, they would, no doubt, have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be anade manifeft, that they were not all of us."., 1-John ii, 19.

Your correfpondent X. writes in a manner much more becoming 2 gentleman and a Chriftian than the former; but I think, that, if he turns back to my first letter, he will find, that it does not cons tain the principal pofitions which he controverts. I never afferted that the religious meetings in villages were held for the purpose of attaching people to Government" . 217. I firmly believe that they have a tendency to render the populace peaceable and useful fubjects, under any form of civil government; but the purport of my letter was to maintain that thefe meetings were held purely for religious purposes, and were by no means defigned, or adapted, to propagate fedition. Refpecting intercellion for the parochial clergy, I did not affert it to be made generally, or throughout the kingdom, at the village meetings; not that I knew it to be otherwife, but because I had not fufficient information to ferve for the ground for fuch an affertion I poke exprefsly, of the religious meetings in my own neigbbourbood, that is, in Buckinghamshire and Bedfordthire; at feveral of which I have been a perfonal witness of the fact; and at many others, I know, from ample teftimony, that the fame interceffion is ufually made. Your correfpondent has alfo inferted the word only (P. 215) in making a quotation, where I had not used it; but I imagine this to have been inadvertently, and it rather obfcures,

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than

than changes, the meaning of the fentence. I still affirm, that, fo far as my knowledge extends, it is chiefly in villages where no clergyman refides, and in hamlets, which have no parochial place of worship, that the Diffenters have lately begun to preach; and that they avoid places which are bleifed with pious and zealous clergymen, By the latter, I do not mean thofe gentlemen, however refpectable otherwife, who generally omit, in their public miniftrations, the important doctrines of the atonement of Chrift, and the renovating work of the Holy Ghoft. But I know not a tingle inftance of Diffenters recently intruding themselves into a parish, were these truths, which they judge to be effential to the falvation of finners, are clearly and ufually inforced in the church. I could produce ftriking facts of a conduct directly the reverfe, if there were room, or occafion, for alledging them.

The cafe of the Reverend J. Martin is cited by X, in fuppport of the political cenfures paffed upon Diffenters; but I think it is not in point. I highly esteem Mr. M. but his declaration at Broad Street was furely ill-judged. When he bad-intimated to his hearers, that he believed fome of them would join the French, if they landed; he reduced them to the dilemma, of either acquiefcing filently in the charge, or publicly refenting it. They adopted the latter; and all that it proves is, that they were unwilling to be thought difaffested to the government under which they live.

If your correfpondent B. M. apprehends, that I defired the truth of his ftatement, as to the number of places lately regiftered, and the poverty of the attendants, he mistakes my defign. All that I meant to oppose, is the conclufion, that he drew from these facts, compared with the former proceedings of the Jacobites, who were the most violent enemies of Proteftant Diffenters at the commencement of this century. This analogy, corroborated only by a preconceived opinion of Diffenters which I think erroneous, feems to me fcarcely admiffible, even as prefumptive evidence. My judge ment of the defigns and conduct of Proteftant Diffenters in the diocefe of Salisbury, is formed upon my perfonal knowledge of feveral Minifters who refide there; and especially upon the printed teftimony of my excellent friend Mr. Kingsbury, at Southampton, whofe integrity and loyalty I believe to be unimpeachable, and who cannot be ignorant of what is done by his neighbouring Brethren. As to the declarations in the concluding paragraph of my first letter, I beg the favour of B. M. to difprove the truth of any one of them. I am ready to name a bundred places, where the conduct is invariably pursued.

Permit me, in clofing, to exprefs my hearty acquiefcence in the fentiment, expreffed in your first number, that the department, in which you review the reviewers, is the most useful, and moft necefs fary part of your plan. The excellent remarks of Metellus, by which t was introduced, might justly have precluded thofe cens fures of Proteftant Diffenters, which have arifen from clailing among them profeffed unbelievers of Scripture. Recommend ing the attention of all your readers, to the obfervations of Metel

Jus

fus on a paffage in the Monthly Review, in Pp. 317, and 439, of your firit volume; and hoping that none of your learned cor refpondents will be regardless of the Latin adages prefixed to that branch of your work, in P. 53.

I am, Sir, your well-wisher,

On a late Charge of Jacobinical Principles against

lege, Cambridge.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ANTI-JACOBIN REVIEW.

SIR,

mean account.

the

G.

Col.

EV VERY fpecies of mifdemeanour owes the complexion of its guilt fo much to the circumftances which attend it, that we may fairly fay, a charge of Jacobinical principles against one of our moit diftinguifhed colleges, at a time like the prefent, is a charge of no Such are the fentiments which a late report of a certain fecret committee has awakened in every mind, that the idea of a feminary of education, which has always been looked upon as one of very firft in this country, having been for feveral years paft in the habits of fetting the moft pernicious examples to our rifing generation, at an age in which the impreffions they receive are of the deepest con fequence, muft have filled every well-thinking perfon with a degree of horror. At the fame time that a fociety, which fucceffive generations have been taught to confider with the highest gratitude and admiration, which has afforded its foftering protection to fome of the greatest ornaments of our history, as well as of our own day; and lattly, which is rich, almost beyond example, in the endowments of royal munificence, fhould, at a time when every exertion is requifite for the fupport of good order in civil fociety, be found capable of fuch an example, bears certainly upon the face of it a very paradoxical appearance.

It is, at any rate, an inconteftible faft, that, in a volume lately offered for publication, and which is evidently the production of no contemptible fcribbler, fuch a charge has been moft vehemently urged in a long and very eloquent note. The tidings of an attempt like this, of courfe, fpecdily reached the Society; who, encouraged, as it is faid, by the words of Lord Kenyon, even truth may be a libel, threatened a profecution, and thus ftopped the fale of the book till the offenfive paffage was cancelled. How far they acted with propriety upon this occafion, it is not my prefent intention to enquire; fuffice it for me, as A FRIEND TO TRUTH, and a lover of my king, my country, and its conftitution, to fay that I was one of the fortimate few who obtained a copy of the book in its original form, and that, from the most difinteretted love to fociety, I am determined, by your permiffion, to examine into the validity of the charge; and te endeavour to fhew whether the College in queftion, may still be entrufted with the care of our fons, or whether, as we have been

G4

taught

taught by this writer to fuppofe, we are to confider it as a deteftable Jacobinical College, where the rifing generation fee the most pernicious examples, in the adoption and conduct of those very perfons whom they are taught to respect and imitate-examples which may make the age to come even more rueful of the confequences than that in which we live.

After a few remarks on the conduct of the Society to a particular gentleman, we are told," Alas! vain is the fearch for equity amid the party-intrigues of thofe Spruce, antiquated democrats, with which this Society is fo well stocked. Long had their fpirit lain dormant, from the want of a proper opportunity to display itfelf; 'till at last, fortunately, a pamphlet was published in Cambridge, which called loudly for a profecution of the Author, by the betterdifpofed members of the University. Upon the occafion of this trial

we relate the circumstance with a degree of horror-two most con fpicuous men in the Society, totally unmindful of the reputation of that very inftitution which raised and feeds them, had the audacity to fit, in the eyes of the whole Univerfity and of the world, on the fame feat with the defendant, as abettors of his caufe; and to prompt him with every contemptible equivoque and quibble, which would occur to their distorted fancies, in extenuation of the moft glaring and fhameful expreffions, And, what is even more remarkable-in a Society confifting of fixty fellows and a mafter, three only could be found who would join in the profecution; when the rest of the Univerfity, hardly larger in collection than this Society of itself, produced TWENTY-FOUR! No fooner was fuch a declaration of principles thus publicly made, than the junior Sheridan and Erskine, the patriot fon of Earl Derby with his adherent Hornbys, and a copious lift of like-affected Irish, flocked to this ftandard of inftruction. The examples they faw they followed with complacency, the very air they breathed was a grateful democratic medium, the very temple in which they knelt was frequently prophaned with noify Jacobinical harangues, the grateful effervefcence of youthful warmth and youth. ful fancy; and thus a neft of Jacobins was built in the nobleft foun dation of one of our princely Univerfities, where, in fatal parental affection, are cherished the infant brood."

In his expreffion, Spruce, antiquated democrats, the writer is evidently a copy ift of the celebrated author of the PURSUITS OF LITERATURE, who, in a note in one of his late editions, applied thefe very words to the members of the fame Society,

Refpecting the conduct of the two perfons alluded to on the occafion of Mr. Frend's trial, I confefs it has always appeared to me to be open to confiderable cenfure. It is true, thefe gentlemen had been for many years in habits of intimacy with Mr. Frend, and therefore, we are told, it was an amiable weakness, if a weakness at all, to endeavour to ferve him in a feafon of need. But let me afk, was not the friendship which they owed to this College, infinitely fuperior to that which any individual could claim from them-and ought not every fentiment toward fuch an individual, however warm, to have

been

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