things, and, speaking with reverence, even sacred terms to sacred doctrines, because words and terms may be mistaken, but doctrines, that is those which are obvious and truly fundamental, change not; though we arrive at the knowledge of them by different stages, and in different degrees. Morcover, we may observe, that in this sublime illustration of the re sublime and important argument for the truth of the gospel, and for a future state of retribution, from the actual resurrection of its great Author and Head. Having, therefore, first stated the fact, partly, from his own experience, he proceeds to shew the absurd consequences of the contrary supposition. If we have indeed followed" cunningly devised fables," and have no real grounds for what we as-surrection, the apostle does not appear sert, if we have preached only an to glance at the natural arguments ideal Saviour, who was neither raised for a future state, which stand upon from the dead himself, nor had any their own proper ground; but merely power to raise his followers; if the shews the inconsistency of an external gospel be nothing but a solemn impo- profession of the gospel, without a besition; then, in this case, you have lief in this grand fundamental, the rehitherto been wretchedly deceived, surrection of Christ, and the conse"our preaching," as the apostles of quent resurrection of his disciples, in Christ, "is vain, and your faith is their proper order, and then of the also vain," and those who have been whole race of mankind and he deeither baptized into the belief of a licately insinuates, that their foolish risen Christ, if he be indeed finally doubts arose, not from want of suffidead, or who are "fallen asleep in cient evidence, but from bad comhim," are baptized in vain; and have pany. "Be not deceived, evil comdied, as far as their hope was thus munications corrupt good manners." founded only, in the possession of a Furthermore, we may observe revain and fruitless expectation. Fur- specting this position, "No resurrecther, you must consider us, in this tion of the body, no future state," view, as "false witnesses for God," that, as the Almighty cannot be supcontending with “wild beasts” (wick- posed to be limited to means, nor a ed men) and exposing ourselves to a separate state proved an impossibility, daily death and continual persecution, if the belief of an after life be a dictate to no manner of purpose: nay, the of reason, and revelation assures us idea is little better than atheistical, of a resurrection of the body, or of a and you may, in this case, almost body, which, by some law to us unadopt the maxim of the Sensualists, known, may be justly considered as "let us eat and drink for to-morrow springing from the ruins of the former we die!" But, be assured, we have one; if personal identity be nothing not preached an ideal Saviour, for but a restoration to the san now is he indeed " risen from the sciousness, in whatever vehicle that dead, and become the first fruits of consciousness may reside; then, the them that slept." Perhaps, this may doctrine of a future state, in every not be the exact sense of the apostle; view, remains upon the most durable but whatever it be, of one thing we basis; we are, as just observed, to may be assured, that if, as we con- consider the resurrection of our Lord, tend, the gospel was not intended to as an additional fact, and most inteset aside our natural notions of the resting assurance of this great event, Deity, but to exalt and confirm them; and the general resurrection, as the if, from things known and appre- grand and decisive means of its conhended, we are to rise to the con- summation, templation of things unknown, and partly incomprehensible; so it is impossible that the apostle could contradict his own reasonings, elsewhere, and that we must not wrest things "hard to be understood," to hasty or improper meanings, but interpret them by those which are plain and unequivocal, agreeably to the nature of things, and "the analogy of the faith." Words must ever bend to same con We are to distinguish also between the doctrine of a future state, simply considered, and the doctrine of eternal life and yet Dr. Balguy bath observed, that as the former "is morally certain from the light of nature, so is the perpetuity of it probable." And Dr. Duchal, that there can be only three reasons assigned why good men, if once put into the possession of a future life, should not continue there for ever, in a progressive state of improvement: namely, "either that they should fall from their allegiance; or be annihilated by the Deity, when most conformed to his own image; or that there should not be room enough for them in the creation." The first is morally impossible; the second would represent the Deity in a capricious light; the last is manifestly absurd. Nevertheless, reason, though it may hope for, and expect a reward, can lay no claim to eternal life. An age or two of perfect happiness would be an ample compensation in the eye of reason for threescore years and ten, not of absolute misery; for that, blessed be God, is no man's portion; but of a mixed and changeable state. Accordingly, the New Testament exhibits the doctrine of futurity, with respect to the righteous in two views; first, as having the nature of a reward, according to their works, and the improvement of their talents; and secondly, as a free gift, through Jesus Christ, and the restoration to a forfeited inheritance. And this appears to be the sense of that passage of St. Paul to Timothy, where he says, that our Saviour hath "abolished death and brought life and immortality to light by the gospel." He did not present an object to the minds of men of which they were altogether ignorant; but he hath poured fresh light and evidence upon a solemn and important truth; exhibited it to their admiring view in the brightest and most indelible characters; confirmed it by the most stupendous miracles; ratified it in his own blood; proved it by his resurrection from the dead; and stamped it with immortality! "Thanks be unto God, for this unspeakable gift!" As to the doctrine of the fall, and the restoration by Christ, however Christians may interpret them, the disciple of nature being supposed ig. norant of both, (any farther than as the present state of the moral world may lead him to some notion of the former;) can be influenced by neither. He is therefore left to the book of nature, and to the help of grace, that heavenly gift, proceeding from "the Father of Lights," which, except in its miraculous operations, is not confined to any particular dispensation; but enlighteneth every man that com eth into the world." Nor, (unless invincible ignorance be a crime) are such persons to be considered in the language of some, as only "in the state of malefactors condemned to death, looking for the day of execution ;"* but, on the contrary, as “prisouers of hope, with earnest expectation waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God, and that glorious liberty into which, from the present bondage of corruption, they shall hereafter be delivered." Rom. viii. With respect to the Patriarchs and the Jews, though the law, considered as a particular covenant, was chiefly confined in its promises to temporal blessings, by which, among other things, it is distinguished from the gospel, which is established " upon better promises;" yet we find the belief of a future state, except as to a particular sect, general among them. We cannot reasonably suppose, that by their usual and favourite phrase, the "being gathered to their fathers" the ancient patriarchs meant only, that their ashes would be mingled together; they expected, no doubt, a happy meeting in a great assembly of departed souls, wherever, or whenever that might be! Certainly, independent of particular revelations and communion with superior beings, they could reason, at least as well as the Roman Orator, who in strains almost evangelical, hath left upon record his testimony to this solemn and important truth. "O præclarum diem! quum in illud animorum con. cilium, cœtumque, proficiscar; et quum ex hac turba, et colluvione discedam!" The history of the first transgressor, which they received by oral tradition, or by written evidence; and the mysterious promise then vouchsafed of a future recovery and restoration, would inspire them with hope and confidence, and assure them of the divine favour and protection, if not wanting to themselves; the translations of Enoch and Elijah, in different periods, would also be a standing evidence to their contemporaries and their successors, of the certainty of a future existence; we find frequent references to this doctrine in the Old Testament; and our Saviour hath determined the question beyond a doubt. "That the dead * Hallett versus Grove, 1731. 702 Mr. Cogan on the Mythology of " Armageddon." are raised," (or shall be, which is all one in the eye of Deity) "even Moses shewed at the bush ;" how?"When he calleth the Lord, the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob; for he is not a God of the dead,” (between him, and the finally dead, there can be no relation)" but the God of the living; for all live to him." St. Paul, likewise, hath fully established this point, in the 11th chapter to the Hebrews. To conclude, natural religion, is the sun under a cloud; the Jewish dispensation is the sun under a brighter, cloud, with occasional manifestations of his radiant orb; the gospel is the sun in bright and unclouded splendour: but it is the sume sun which enlightens us, under every dispensation, though with different degrees of glory. Or if you say the light of nature, compared with that of the gospel, is but as a twinkling taper, compared with that glorious luminary; still the light and heat of the former are of the same nature and essence with that of the latter. "Nature, employed in her allotted place, Is handmaid to the purposes of grace." It appears, therefore, that to defend Christianity at the expense of natural religion, is to run before we are called. It is to pull down with one hand, what we profess to build with the other; or to place ourselves somewhat in the condition of Sisyphus, whom the ancient poets represent, as continually labouring to force a prodigious stone up a steep hill, which ever revolves upon him with redoubled weight. SIR, UPON Walthamstow, Nov. 13, 1815. PON reading the extracts from Mr. Townsend's Armageddon in your last, (pp. 649-652) I could not help conceiving a wish that its merit as a poem might recommend it to an extensive circulation, as it seems under the guise of poetic imagery to present a just view of the horrors and absurdities of a system, which is infinitely more absurd and horrible than any other extravagance which the human mind has yet conceived. The perusal of such a work may perhaps have the happy effect of terrifying into their senses some of those who have been terrified out of them, and by presenting their creed before them your reviewer, I have very little to infinite evil, leaves no room for degrees of criminality in human actions. It is system which, consistently enough with itself, but in direct defiance of the scripture doctrine of retribution, makes something altogether independent of moral rectitude the ground of salvation, and which can send one man triumphing to glory from the scaffold, and calmly leave another who has endeavoured to exemplify every Christian virtue (unless a change not of character, gentle reader, but of views and reliance should take place) to be "whelm'd in stormy gulphs of rolling fire!!* SIR, E. COGAN Nov. 12, 1815. HE communications from your Transatlantic correspondent. (p. 657) are highly gratifying. I trust there will be frequent occasion to repeat them, and that the land which afforded Priestley an assylum will be largely recompensed by the wide diffusion and happy influence of those scriptural principles, which animated the labours of his life, supported his mind under great afflictions and sustained him in the expectation of death. Give me leave, however, to plead with your correspondent for mercy, or rather justice to the memory of Calvin, whom, like many on this side the mighty water, he represents as a murderer (p. 658, c. 2) for having procured the death of ́Ser vetus. We too justly describe war as murder, yet when the soldier, Seeking the bubble reputation, Even in the cannon's mouth, cuts down every thing human which stands in his way, we forbear to brand as a murderer either a leader or a follower in those bloody adventures. Thus persecution may be aptly defined murder, yet to the persecutor we cannot justly impute those motives of sordid interest or cruel re Αδε τινες ανοιγονται πυλαι βαθειαι, και ποταμοί πυρὸς ὁμου και ζυγος απορρωγες αναπεταννυνται, και σκότος εφήπλωται πολυφάντασ του, και χασματα και μυχοι, κακων μυρίων γέμοντες. Plutarch de Superstitione. venge, what the law terms malice prepense, which actuate the murderer. The persecutor is to be regarded as a dupe to that imposing sophistry which persuades him that the end will justify any means, and that he does God service by destroying his workmanship. Calvin betrayed Servetus to the magistrates of Geneva, and gloried in having procured his death, for which an indelible stain attaches to his own name and memory. Yet he was not, I apprehend, the murderer of Servetus. Else Cranmer was the murderer of Joan Bocher, and the Assembly of Divines the murderers, in purpose, of Paul Best, whom they delivered over to the Long Parliament, to be cut off by an ex post facto ordinance, and of solicited the enactment of a sangui Biddle for whose destruction they Socinus too, must, in that case, be regarded as all but the murderer of Davides. nary statute. Allow me to add that we appear to make too much of Calvin's unaccountable objection to the term Trinity. He so uniformly describes God as Three in One that he cannot be seriously charged with inconsistency merely because, for whatever reason, he disapproved the use of a word so convenient as Trinity to express that opinion. ANGLUS. Mare-Street, Hackney, Nov. 1, 1815. SIR, ITH submission to the superior W mind of the Bishop of Lincoln, I must humbly yet firmly maintain, that those clergymen of his lordship's diocese, who have openly avowed their attachment to the British and Foreign Bible Society, deserve the thanks, rather than the censure, of their diocesan. These worthy men subscribe to the 6th Article of the Established Church, "Holy scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation; so that whatsoever is not read therein, or may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of faith; or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation." On this article the structure of the British and Foreign Bible Society rests; every clergyman, therztore, who promotes this institution, dis 704 Defence of the Supporters of the Bible Society. covers by his conduct, what he has ex animo subscribed, that he is a true son of the Church. What would any reasonable man think of the correctness of his judgment, who should assert, that the general circulation of Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights, through the union of Tories and Whigs, would overthrow the British Constitution? And as little can be feared from the circulation of that book (on whose foundation the Church of England professes to be built) by the co-operation of Churchmen and Dissenters. Is it not a subject rather of congratulation than grief, that Christians can unite in the common faith, and thus bless the world with that revelation which both Churchmen and Disssenters believe to be of divine inspiration? Were these Bibles accompanied by commentaries inimical to the Church, then there might be just cause of complaint; but surely the holy scriptures, in merely passing through the hands of a Dissenter, collect no pestiferous materials to poison those who may unhappily thus receive a Bible. If the 66 any man who gives the Bible have creed, or no creed," this does not affect him to whom is given" words whereby he and his house may be saved." Some dissenters are lay-rectors, and others are in the habit of bestowing benefices on clergymen ; yet conscientious men are curates to the one, and men eminently devoted to the national establishment are indebted to the munificence of the other; and his lordship knows one living, at least, in his diocese, the presentation of which was from the hands of a Dissenter. Some of the Dissenting yeomanry in the diocese of Lincoln would be much gratified, if his lordship could carry this system of exclusion into another department of the Church. They say," if we are not to assist the Church in the circulation of the Bible, why not refuse our help altogether. Our Rectors and Vicars make no scruple to take their tythes; nor are they under any apprehension, that, by a regular and constant payment, we shall ruin the establishment. The gold goes pure and sterling into the coffers of the clergymen, uncontaminated by the heretics and schismatics who pay it; and if we did not know the contrary, we should almost be suspicious, that the temporal prosperity of Rectors and Vicars was deemed more important than the circulation of that book which is called the religion of Protestants." Pardon my presumption; but his lordship's scruples remind me of a conscientious old lady who refused to eat some grapes which grew on a vine that was nailed against a Presbyterian meeting-house: yet the grapes were ripe and nutritious; the sun deigned to shine upon them, and brought them to perfection; and God also will bless his own word, whether circulated by a Dissenter or a Churchman, a dissenter from the Church of Rome, or a dissenter from the Church of England. I would ask what parallel can possibly be formed between a society built on the 6th Article of the Church of England, and a conspiracy against the Church; between Dissenters distributing Bibles, and rebels distributing arms? This parallel appears to me as apposite as the citation from Rom. xvi. 7, against those who cause "Salute Andronicus and divisions: Junia, my kinsmen and my fellowprisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me." However, it is certain that his lordship can be supported by precedents, and from an infallible church too, who were decided enemies against the heretics and schismatics of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the fathers and founders of the present Established Church. The selection of a few passages from those periods of ecclesiastical history, may not be inadmissible. "About four and twen ty years (1408) after Dr. Wiclif's death, it was decreed by Archbishop Arundel, in a constitution published in a convocation of the clergy of his province assembled at Oxford, that no one should thereafter translate any text of holy scripture into English by way of a book, a little book, a tract, and that no book, &c. of this kind should be read that was composed lately, in the time of John Wiclif, or since his death."" The celebrated Erasmus also informs us, that when he published his Greek Testament, it met with great "One Colclamour and opposition. lege in the University of Cambridge |