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The subject may at least be submit ted to the consideration of our late advocate Mr. Smith, by those who, from situation, have access to him; since, when there shall be any probability of success, no person is better qualified to bring it forward and pursue it to its completion.

In the meat time, as these are only introductory hints, it may continue to be the subject of friendly and peaceable discussion among Protestant Dissenters in general, and this particularly in your valuable Repository; to which, Mr. Editor, no one more ardently wishes a still increasing circulation and still greater success, than

Sir, your constant Reader,
A Member of the Kent and Sussex
Unitarian Association.

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Rise,

Some Account of Cheynell's Growth and Danger of Socinianisme."

F Cheynell and his pamphlets we promised some account in the Memoirs of Chillingworth (ix. 211). We proceed to fulfil the promise.

Cheynell's name is preserved chiefly by its being conjoined with that of the great man above-mentioned; for, as Dr. Johnson remarks, " there is always this advantage in contending with illustrious adversaries that the combatant is equally immortalized by conquest or defeat.' This remark introduces the life of Cheynell by Johnson; first printed in a periodical work, intitled The Student, 1751, and since collected into Johnson's Works, 8vo. Vol. xii. p. 190, &c.

Francis Cheynell was born in 1608 at Oxford, where his father practised physic. He himself entered the University at that place very early; be came a probationer and then a fellow of Merton College: took the degree of Master of Arts, was admitted to orders, and held a curacy near Oxford, together with his fellowship. He grew into notice 1641, when he attempted to take his degree of Bachelor of Divinity, but was denied his grace for disputing concerning predestination, contrary to the King's injunctions. In the subsequent convulsions of the state, Cheynell declared for the Parliament and Presbytery, embraced the Covenant, was made one of the Assembly of Divines and frequently preached before the Parliament, by whose ordinance he was put into possession of the valuable

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living of Petworth in Sussex. He attended the Earl of Essex, in one at least of his campaigns, and is said to have displayed great personal courage. In 1616, he was sent down on an evangelical mission to Oxford, whither also he went in the character of Visitor, in 1647; in which capacity he shewed more zeal than moderation, some of his own decrees and acts tending to his instatement in the Margaret professorship, and the presidentship of St. John's College. He manifested conscientiousness in refusing the engagement to Cromwell, and in resigning in consequence these lucrative preferments. On his resignation, he withdrew to his living of Petworth, where he continued till the Restoration, when he was ejected. After his deprivation, he lived at a small village near Chichester, upon a paternal estate, till his death, which happened in 1C65.

It is singular that Johnson should have written the life of so zealous a Presbyterian; and still more singular that he should have written it with much coolness and with an evident respect for the hero of his tale. Palmer, indeed, says [Noncon. Mem. 2d. ed. Vol. iii. p. 325.〕 that the “ narra tive is a satire both upon Dr. Cheynell and the times," and this petulant remark is extracted, without censure, into the last edition of Neal's History of Puritans (iv. 420). The reader will probably judge that no great tenderness was due to the author of "The Rise, Growth and Danger of Socinianisme" and of" Chillingworthi Novissima." Dr. Kippis says truly and justly, "Cheynell's conduct was replete with bigotry. He was one of those violent Presbyterians and Calvinists of the last age, who knew but little of the true principles of toleration and candour." (Biog. Britt. Vol. iii. p. 517. c. 2.)

An apology is made by Calamy for Cheynell's violence on the ground of his occasional insanity; but what apology can be made for his party, who encouraged his mad bigotry, whilst it served their purposes? It is very convenient to an intolerant sect to have an advocate with an irregular mind like Cheynell's; they profit by his insane abuse, and when its ferocity draws down shame and contempt, the plea of non compos mentis is put forth as a shield for the reviler and his abettors.

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66 as a

Church, in the city of Amsterdam. Meaning to sell his books by auction, Dr. Pierson gives a Catalogue Raisonné of them, which he announces perpetual Vade Mecum, for young clergymen and students in divinity." While we lament the necessity which drives a learned man to part with his books, we cannot but censure the vanity, the want of judgment and the indelicate puffing which appear in the pages of the catalogue.

Under the article (No. 918), "Friestley's History of the Corruptions of Christianity, is the following Note:

"This book was burnt by the hands of the common hangman, in the city of Dort, Province of Holland, Anno 1785-a piece of intelligence communicated by me to Dr. Priestley, in the Hotel, where I lodged in Birmingham, in a conversation I had the pleasure of having with that extraordinary man, a few weeks after that event. Having asked me with much earnest ness, how he would be received in Holland, were he to appear there, I told him, I did not exactly know how they might treat the original, but that he himself might be able to determine that point, when I had told him that he had been burnt in effigy at Dort, a few weeks before I left Holland-a person's writings being often received as a picture of his mind, the burning of his Corruptions might be easily considered as burning him. self in effigy. He deplored our ignorance and blindness.---A greater philanthropist I never met with.-Should the Refutation of Calvinism ever find its way to Dort, that celebrated In. quisition for Arminianism, I am apt to think it would share the same fate with Priestley's "Corruptions of Christianity," and that Jack Ketch would make much shorter work with it than the Drs. E. Williams and Thomas Scott." (p. 111.)

The Bishop of Lincoln's book, here alluded to, appears to have disturbed Dr. Peirson's mind exceedingly, when he was preparing his catalogue for his auctioneers, who must somewhat wonder at the theological comments tacked to some of the articles.

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History of the Civil Wars of France," described in my last paper, forming together a suitable introduction to the "Henriade." The author remarks that "we have in every art more rules than examples, for men are more fond of teaching than able to perform.” He adds, that "there are more commentators than poets, and many writers who could not make two verses, have overcharged us with voluminous treatises of poetry." In his opinion, "'tis no wonder if such lawgivers, unequal to the burthen which they took upon themselves, have embroiled the states which they intended to regulate." P. 37.

The Essayist treats the critics very freely through the succeeding pages, and concisely decides that “ an Epic Poem ought to be grounded upon judgment, and embellished by imagination," and that "what belongs to good sense belongs to all the natious of the world." P. 40. Of Homer and Virgil he says, "we should be their admirers not their slaves," and that "our just respect for the ancients proves a mere superstition, if it betrays us into a rash contempt of our neighbours and countrymen," for " ought not to do such an injury to nature as to shut our eyes to all the beauties that her hands pour around us in order to look back fixedly on her former productions." P. 46. He mentions the subjects now at the command of an epic poet, but which were unknown to the ancients, "the invention of gunpowder, the compass, printing," and "so many arts besides new emerged into the world," which "have altered the face of the universe." P. 45.

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Proceeding to describe "the epic writers in their respective countries from Homer down to Milton," Voltaire professes that he can "but faintly touch the first lines of their pictures," and modestly requests the reader to look with some indulgence on the diction of this Essay, and pardon the failings of one, who has learned English but one year, of one who has drawn most of his observations from books written in England, and who pays to the country but part of what he owes to her." P. 47.

I reluctantly pass over the series of epic poets, before Milton, yet, I apprehend, I cannot render this paper more interesting than by quoting, almost entire, the Critique on our coun

tryman, "the last in Europe who wrote an Epic Poem;" Voltaire's "intention being not to descant on the many who have contended for the prize, but to speak only of the very few who have gained it in their respective countries." P. 103.

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would speak, I believe they would speak as they do in Milton.'' I have often admired how barren the subject appears, and how fruitful it grows under his hands.

"The Paradise Lost' is the only poem wherein are to he found, in a "MILTON, as he was travelling perfect degree, that uniformity which through Italy, in his youth, saw at satisfies the mind, and that variety Florence, a comedy called Adamo,' which pleases the imagination: all writ by one Andreino, a player, and its Episodes being necessary lines dedicated to Mary de Medicis, Queen which aim at the centre of a perfect of France. The subject of the play circle. Where is the nation who would was the Fall of Man;' the actors, not be pleased with the interview of God, the Devils, the Angels, Adam, Adam and the angel? With the Eve, the serpent, death, and the seven mountain of vision, with the bold mortal sius. That topic so improper strokes which make up the relentfor a drama, but so suitable to the less, undaunted, and sly character of absurd genius of the Italian stage, (as Satan? But, above all, with that it was at that time,) was handled in a sublime wisdom which Milton exerts, manner entirely conformable to the whenever he dares to describe God, extravagance of the design. The scene and to make him speak? He seems opens with a Chorus of Angels and indeed to draw the picture of the a Cherubim thus speaks for the rest: Almighty as like as human nature can 'Let the rainbow be the fiddle-stick_reach to, through the mortal dust in of the fiddle of the heavens, let the planets be the notes of our musick, let time beat carefully the measure, and the winds make the sharps,' &c. Thus the play begins, and every scene rises above the first in profusion of impertinence. Milton pierced through the absurdity of that performance to the hidden majesty of the subject, which being altogether unfit for the stage, yet might be (for the genius of Milton, and for his only) the foundation of an epick poem. He took from that ridiculous trifle the first hint of the noblest work, which human imagination hath ever attempted, and which he executed more than twenty years after.

"What Milton so boldly undertook, he performed with a superior strength of judgment, and with an imagination productive of beauties not dreamed of before him. The meanness (if there is any) of some parts of the subject, is lost in the immensity of the poetical invention. There is something above the reach of human forces to have attempted the creation without bombast, to have described the gluttony and curiosity of a woman without flatness, to have brought probability and reason amidst the hurry of imaginary things, belonging to another world, and as far remote from the limits of our notions, as they are from our earth; in short, to force the reader to say, ' if God, if the angels, if Satan

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which we are clouded.

"The Heathens always, the Jews often, and our Christian priests sometimes, represent God as a tyrant infinitely powerful. But the God of Milton is always a Creator, a Father, and a Judge; nor is his vengeance jarring with his mercy, nor his predeterminations repugnant to the liberty of man. These are the pictures which lift up indeed the soul of the reader. Milton, in that point, as well as in many others, is as far above the ancient poets as the Christian religion is above the Heathen fables.

"But he hath especially an indisputable claim to the unanimous admiration of mankind, when he descends from those high flights to the natural description of human things. It is observable that in all other poems love is represented as a vice, in Milton only 'tis a virtue. The pictures he draws of it are naked as the persons he speaks of, and as venerable. He removes with a chaste band, the veil which covers every where else the enjoyments of that passion. There is softuess, tenderness, and warmth without lasciviousness. transports himself and us into that state of innocent happiness in which Adam and Eve continued for a short time. He soars not above human, but above corrupt nature; and as there is no instance of such love, there is none of such poetry.

The poet

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Book-Worm. No. XVIII.

"It is an easy at a pleasant task to take notice of the many beauties of Milton, which I call universal. But 'tis a ticklish undertaking to point out what would be reputed a fault in any other country.

"Milton breaks the thread of his narration in two manners. The first consists of two or three kinds of prologues, which he premises at the beginning of some books. In one place he expatiates upon his own blindness; in another he compares his subject, and prefers it to that of the Iliad, and to the common topics of war, which were thought, before him, the only subject fit for epic poetry; and he adds, that he hopes to soar as high as all his predecessors, unless the cold climate of England damps his wings. His other way of interrupting his narration, is by some observations which he intersperses now and then, upon some great incident, or some interesting circumstance. Of that kind is his digression on love in the fourth Book. Whatever hypocrites austerely talk Defaming as impure, what God declares Pure, and commands to some, leaves free [to all, Our Maker bids increase; who bids ab[stain But our destroyer, foe to God and men? Hail wedded love, &c.

"As to the first of these two heads, I cannot but own that an author is generally guilty of an unpardonable self-love when he lays aside his subject to descant on his own person: but that human frailty is to be forgiven in Milton; nay, I am pleased with it. He gratifies the curiosity it raises in me about his person. When I admire the author I desire to know something of the man; and he whom all readers would be glad to know, is allowed to speak of himself. But this, however, is a very dangerous example for a genius of an inferior order and is only to be justified by success.

"As to the second point I am so far from looking on that liberty as a fault, that I think it to be a great beauty. For if morality is the aim of poetry, I do not apprehend why the poet should be forbidden to intersperse his descriptions with moral sentences and useful reflections, provided he scatters them with a sparing hand, and in proper places, either when he wants personages to utter those thoughts, or when their character

does not permit them to speak in the behalf of virtue.

"I will not dwell upon some small errors of Milton, which are obvious to every reader; I mean some few contradictions and those frequent glances at the Heathen Mythology: which fault, by the bye, is so much the more inexcusable in him by his having premised in his first book that those divinities were but devils worshipped under different names, which ought to have been a sufficient caution to him not to speak of the rape of Proserpine, of the wedding of Juno and Jupiter, &c. as matters of fact. I lay aside likewise his preposterous and awkward jests, his puns, his too familiar expressions, so inconsistent with the elevation of his genius, and of his subject.

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To come to more essential points and more liable to be debated, I dare affirm, that the contrivance of the Pandemonium would have been entirely disapproved of by criticks like Boileau, Racine, &c. That seat built for the parliament of the devils seems very preposterous since Satan hath summoned them altogether and harrangued them just before in an ample field. The council was necessary, but where it was to be held 'twas very indifferent. The poet seems to delight in building his Pandemonium in Doric order, with frieze and cornice, and a roof of gold. Such a contrivance favours more of the wild fancy of our Father le Moine than of the serious spirit of Milton. But when afterwards the devils turn dwarfs to fill their places in the house, as if it was impracticable to build a room large enough to contain them in their natural size; it is an idle story which would match the most extravagant tales. And to crown all, Satan, and the chief lords preserving their own monstrous forms while the rabble of the devils shrink into pigmies heightens the ridicule of the whole contrivance to an unexpressible degree. Methinks the true criterion for discerning what is really ridiculous in an epick poem is to examine if the same thing would not fit exactly the mockheroick. Then I dare say that nothing is so adapted to that ludicrous way of writing as the metamorphoses of the devils into dwarfs.

"The fiction of death and sin, seems to have in it some great beauties and

to the orthodox doctrine of the atonement:

God does not forgive sin without a plenary satisfaction to his justice.

This plenary satisfaction he receives from the death of Christ, as a substitute.

Christ fulfils the law for us, as well as suffers in our place.

All the sins of believers are actually imputed to Christ.

The perfect righteousness of Christ, active as well as passive, is actually imputed to believers.

God does not properly forgive sin, but receives a price equivalent to the damage of the trespass.

On this scheme, the several expressions, the merits of Christ, satisfaction to divine justice, imputed righteousness, imputed guilt, substitution, the wrath of God, with perhaps some others, are by no means to be understood in any figurative meaning, but properly and literally. Such is the truly orthodox doctrine of the atonement.

Some, unwilling to give up the doctrine altogether, have proposed notions of it different from the above; but those schemes (as they have been called) are neither truly orthodox, nor

the good times in which we live) he has partly, and BUT partly accomplished. The following comes the nearest to a definition or statement of any thing I could find: "The great atonement for the sins of mankind, was to be effected by the sacrifice of Christ, undergoing for the restoration of men to the favour of God, that death, which had been denounced against sin, and which he suffered in like manner as if the sins of men had been actually transferred to him, &c." He likewise calls the death of Christ. at different times, expiatory, vicarious, propitiatory, &c. &c.

It being my only object in this communication to state the truly orthodox doctrine of the atonement, in the manner in which it has been really represented by its advocates, that in the discussion of it, its true notion may be kept clearly in view, I shall now conclude with sincerely wishing, that this subject may be dispassionately and fully considered in the future Numbers of the Repository.

SIR,

I am, Sir, Yours, &c.

W. J.

Jan. 24, 1815. was with great pleasure that I

very intelligible, and the reception, read the notice, given in your last which they have experienced in the Christian world, does not entitle them to much notice. It should appear that the object of the proposers of such schemes was, by giving up what is evidently absurd and unscriptural in the orthodox notion of the atonement, to retain the semblance of orthodoxy, and to discover a key for understanding the sacrificial terms which are used by the writers of the New Tes

tament.

It will perhaps be observed that in the above account of the atonement, no notice has been taken of Dr. Magee, the great modern champion of this doctrine. But the fact is, that I could not fix on any passage where he gives a plain statement or definition of the doctrine. Whoever will look into Dr. Magee's book for plain statements on this, or indeed any other subject of controversy, will look there in vain; but, to boot, he will discover, that Doctor William Magee, Senior Fellow of Trinity College, and Professor of Mathematics in the University of Dublin, and now Dean of Cork, had a very different object in view, which (let him devoutly thank

Number, that the doctrine of Atonement was to be brought under consideration in the ensuing volume, hoping that a calm and fair discussion of it will be the means of ascertaining the truth in respect to a point which has been so long and so warmly debated. It must strike every attentive 'reader, that the word itself is used only once in the New Testament (namely, Rom. v. 11); and that, even in this passage, in the margin of some of the larger Bibles, the word "reconciliation" seems to be recommended as more proper. The original is precisely the same with that which is translated in this very manner in 2 Cor. v. 18, 19. And the verb, from which it is immediately derived, is translated "reconcile, reconciling, reconciled," in Rom. v. 10, 1 Cor. vii. 11, 2 Cor. v. 18-20, as similar ones are in 1 Sam. xxix. 4. (Sept.) Matt. v.24, Eph. ii 16, Col. i. 20, 21. The verb itself is a compound one. And it is observed, by the author of A Treatise on Universal Salvation (generally supposed to be Dr. Chauncey) that it properly signifies "to re-change, or

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