Mechanism; an Allegory. acquisitions, in advancing their own improvements, and in training up new operators upon the same plan. But as time advanced, many began to shew symptoms of their former propensity, to consult fancy and to follow its wayward dictates, rather thu heir understandings, in adhering to the plain course which had been pointed out to them. Not content with the gracious intelligence which they had received, they were fond of mingling certain imaginary discoveries of their own with it; and even sometimes conceited themselves that these fancies, for their obscurity and inconsistency plainly shew that they were no other than fancies, were the immediate suggestions of the genius himself. This was a kind of lazy amusement, which they found easier than a well directed application of their powers in substantiating and circulating the genuine intelligence, and applying its principles to practice, which was a work of considerable though salutary exertion. These vain imaginations soon began to affect the minds of the operators, like a mist and darkness, obscuring the light of heaven. Amid the gathering mist, the genius, and the distinguished operator whose machine he had re-constructed, and who was now pursuing his employment in the most gloriously beneficial manner, became absolutely confounded in the view of the gazing multitude. And even the invisible influence of the nius seemed occasionally to assume the appearance of a third person distinct from the genius himself. With these phenomena some were mightily pleased; and so much was this strange confused phenomenon preferred to a distinct view of the genius, and of this deserving object of his beneficence, each in his proper person, character and relations, that it soon came to be regarded as the height of presumption to attempt the latter; and nothing would do, but every body must use a contradictory, or at least an unintelligible assemblage of words, in describing the mystic representation in which they gloried. It was moreover reported from some ancient legends, that the machines possessed an inherent vital activity; that it was only the ge 389 outward case, or visible frame work which would be broken and dissolved, and that though after this their movements would be imperceptible, yet that they would be more efficient than ever. Uniting with this notion the figurative idea of a fiery trial↑ contained in the instructions, they fancied they continually saw, in the mist in sented more particularly to the rude uncultivated mind, particularly in dreams and reveries. What is the whole history of ghosts, but the detail of the workings of its fancies for realities? And what is the the "untutored" imagination, mistaking doctrine of the separate existence of the vital functions have ceased, and man is soul or percipient principle, after that the "returned to his dust," but the same creature of the imagination, attempted to be realized by metaphysical refinements, but which in fact eludes the grasp of reason, and by refining vanishes into a nonentity, devoid of all those properties, which are essential to our very idea of existence? Can there be any two opinions more op posed to each other, than that of the Psalmist, that in the very day in which man ceases to breathe his thoughts perish, and that of Psychologists, that the soul "will never die!" Does not Christianity "bring life and immortality to light," by that the soul remains untouched by the "abolishing death," not by representing fatal stroke? By forgetting that the same fate "befalleth the sons of men which befalleth beasts," that "all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again," have not dead men been represented." us gods" "usurping or sharing the throne of the Creator, or as demons" and "fiends incarnate" destined to a state of endless burnings? While the Scriptures constantly hold forth the doctrine that man is dust, and that Jehovah is the only living and true God," who at his appointed day will raise all men up from the "dust of death" into which they are sunk to the "glorious light of renewed "life;" how have mankind been troubled with mere phantoms of life and immortality and with "chimeras dire," while biblical truth in its simplicity has been in a great degree hidden from their eyes! Who can doubt the beneficent desigus of that God who after wiping away sin by death, its "finishing" stroke, at length proclaims an universal abolition of this "king of terrors" and brings life" and immortality to light; and yet further "adversary" reveals to us that our great sin, with his angels, death and his atteudants, shall be cast into the lake of destruction? which they were enveloped, many of the former machines throwing out incessant vollies of liquid fire and brimstone on their respective operators. Many others they imagined as instantaneously and automatically, on their separation from their visible exterior, shedding the most beneficial influences, and that in such superabundance, that the overplus gradually accumulated into a large stock, under the care of certain managers, who made a lucrative trade, by placing it in portions duly estimated, to the credit of those debits had become formidable. It is somewhat extraordinary that such a superabundance of beneficial effects should be accumulated in cireum stances where so little could be seen doing, when the operators instead of pursuing their employment, agreeably to their instructions, occupied so much of their time in gazing and wondering, while the remaining portions of it were applied to those servile occupations about the inferior movements of their machines, by which they might best gratify the pampered appetites of these managers and their friends and dependants, who in their turn like drones in a hive were eagerly absorbing all the real produce on which they set any value, and occasionally entertaining the operators with phantasmagoria, which served only to bewilder their minds and palsy their hands from useful activity. part, of having brought a groundless insinnation against Count Zinzendorf, but because my evidence, for an obvious reason, is not producible in a work designed for general readers. Yet I cannot suffer your respectable correspondent, who is scarcely anonymous to me, to remain longer without some reply. I assure him that I have no desire to think unfavourably of Count Zinzendorf, my exceptions to whose charac ter rest entirely on the highly impro per tendency of passages quoted from his alleged Hynins and Sermons. If your correspondent will examine them, especially from p. 55-68 of the Candid Narrative, he must, I think, agree with me as to this tendency. Those passages, indeed, exhibit a shameless intrusion on the most sacred privacies of life and a violation of decency, in language and allusion, scarcely ever equalled, certainly never exceeded, under a Christian profession, and which the decorum of heathens might serve to condemn. Even of the Spectators, Dr. Watts complained that they now and then, though rarely, introduce a sentence that would raise a blush in the face of strict virtue." He also commended Tillotson for having proposed the omission of some " parts of the Bible," on the ground of decorum, in the public lessons of the church." What would Watts or Til lotson have thought of the phraseology attributed to the Christian hynins and sermons of Count Zinzendorf? Yet Cicero has shewn that a man need not be a Christian to expres himself justly on this subject. Many of your readers will recollect the pas sage to which I refer, near the end of the first book de Officiis. He is guarding his son against the sophistry of the cynics and the stoics whom he terms cynical.* Their theory Count Zinzendorf, if fairly quoted, seems to have adopted, how correct soever may have been his own practice. Dr. Jortin, who was no calum niator, describes the Count, judging Thus the genius and his instructions were almost wholly lost sight of. His distinguishing powers were absurdly distributed among worn out and broken machines of his own construction. And the writing which contained his instructions was carelessly thrown aside and buried amid ridiculous tales about the phantasmagoria; or if occasionally brought forward by the managers, to whose sole care it was consigned, so murdered in the reading, so dressed up in unintelligible phraseology, or so broken into bits and scraps and intermingled with foreign matter, that it scarcely served any other purpose than that of promoting the delusions, and supporting si qui fuerunt stoici pene cynici, qui reprethe ascendancy of these pretenders. [To be concluded in the next No.] * "Nec vero audiendi sunt cyniei, auf hendunt, et irrident, quod ea quæ turpis - re non sunt, verbis flagitiosa dicamus; illa autem qua turpia sint nominibus appellemus suis.Nes autem naturam sequamur, et ab omni quod abhorret, ab ipsa oculorum, autiumque comprobatione fugiamus." M. 7. Cic. de Ufficiis, &c. 18mo. 1609. p. 52. Mr. Rutt on Count Zinzendorf. probably only from the impure tendency of his alleged writings, as "one of the vilest of men;" yet I am not unwilling, however inexplicable, to attribute to him that singular hypocrisy, a heart and life of purity, with an occasional phraseology, too gross to be repeated in decent society. tive as Your correspondent, however, considers the author of the Candid Narraby no means to be implicitly relied on." From the years elapsed since his publication in 1755, that author has probably long had a claim to the justice included in the trite maxim de mortuis nil nisi verum. As true I am disposed to receive whatever J. F. B. can allege against Mr. Rimius, on his own knowledge, but that I apprehend cannot go back far enough to settle the question. Cer tainly no author ever more deserved exposure if he misquoted Count Zinzendorf, yet no one ever laid himself more open to detection. Mr. Rimius has constantly referred to the number and page of the Count's published sermons and to the numbers and verses of the hymns for every passage introduced. Of these passages he has always given the professed German original and added an English translation, a task which he ought to have performed correctly from his knowledge of both languages. as Yet these quotations thus connected with minute references to "the writings of the Count himself," and therefore peculiarly exposed to detection,, are left unimpeached, as to text and version, both by the German historian Crantz and his English translator La-Trobe, while your correspond ent, without detecting a single forgery or mis-translation, describes the "representations of a Rimius" 66 malignant and deceptive," and his book, now rarely to be met with, as long since consigned to merited oblivion.", He adds, whether on his own knowledge or the representations of others does not appear, that Rimius's "translations are often inaccurate, by no means -presenting the genuine meaning of the original, frequently eliciting meanings and hints which the text does not warrant, or at least does not require." Does your worthy corre spondent consider such a charge as requiring no proof, only assertion, not even a single reference?, 1 confess I. differ from him, but will here leave 391 that difference to the judgment of our readers. I have been greatly misunderstood by J. F. B. if he regarded ine as charging the indiscretions of Count Zinzendorf on the Moravians of our time. They possess, I doubt not, the decorum and Christian consistency to avoid, though not yet the magna ninity publicly to explode them. To their conduct, as a community, I willingly add the testimony of an ratimate acquaintance, who like your correspondent was educated and passed his early life among them, but who has long left their society. He has often assured me, to use his own words, that if they are charged as a sect with any practices, contra bonos mores, the charge is unfounded. Dr. Gill and other writers, to whom J. F. B. refers, who have adopted an amatory style in religion, have very little if any connexion with this subject, Other Christians differ from them not because their phraseology, excusing some rare inadvertence, violates decorum, but because even the pure and becoming language of human passion appears ill adapted to subjects so serious as the faith and hope of the gospel. Thus when Watts in his juvenile "Meditation in a Grove," sings "I'll carve our passion on the bark, And ev'ry wounded tree Shall drop and bear some mystic mark That Jesus dy'd for me," he may be supposed, I think justly, to degrade his subject, by expressing in a style of pastoral fondness, his reliance on the author and finisher of our faith, yet he cannot be fairly charged with an offence against decorum. Nor would any thing besides the taste and judgment of Count Zinzendorf have been brought into question, had he been content to describe a Christian's connexion with his Saviour as in the following verse quoted from his 33d hymn, in The Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists Compared, 1754, vol. 1, pt. 2, p. 5: "Chicken blessed, and caressed, Little Bee, on Jesu's breast From the hurry And the flurry Of the earth thou'rt now at rest." I would give your correspondent every satisfaction in my power, but I am not aware that I ought to trouble him or any of your readers further on the disagreeable subject which has been very unexpectedly forced on any attention. I still think that it was my duty to guard the memories of such men as Watts and Doddridge from the imputation of an unqualified approbation of Count Zinzendorf. A nobleman exchanging the luxury of a court for the labours of a missionary, whatever be his creed or his ritual, presents an interesting character. Yet if the Count really made the representations attributed to his Hymns and Sermons, I know not how to discover in that character the sober-mindedness becoming a Christian, or a disposition to seek after "virtue and praise" in the manner recommended by an apostle. If, on the other hand, the Count has. been wronged, as J. F. B. supposes, by forgeries and mis-translations, no man ever left behind him in the world friends and followers more strangely regardless of his just reputation. I remain Sir, Your's, J. T. RUTT. P. S. I take this opportunity of requesting any of your readers who design to encourage the publication of Priestley's Theological Works by their subscriptions, to subscribe direcily, as from present appearances the publication must be delayed much longer than I wished or intended, or the early promoters of the design had reason to expect. Opinions of the Early Quakers. IN N looking over the "Athenian Oracle," a work published above a century ago, I was struck with a curious passage relating to the Quakers, which may serve to shew what idea prevailed at that time respecting their religious sentiments, and will in part confirm the observations of several of your correspondents that their original opinions were pretty far removed from modern orthodoxy.-In answer to the question "may not a Quaker expect happiness after this life?" it is said "we are sure that many, or most of them, have held very dangerous and detestable opinions. They generally speak contemptibly of the Bible, and will by no means allow it to be God's word: they have turned it into an odd sort of a jejune allegory, even the high and most sacred truths therein con tained, and have spoken not very honourably of our Saviour, and almost generally deny the trinity, and many, if not all, embrace the other Socinian dream of the soul's sleeping till the resurrection. Besides they use neither of the sacra ments, and if our most authentic accounts don't impose upon us, were at their first appearance in England commonly actuated by a worse spirit than that they pretend to. These 'tis hard to hope well of, nor can we sce how with any manner of propriety they can be called Christians." But if there be any of them who have left their first principles, and are degene rated into Christianity (we ask pardon for the harshness of the expression) and grown more religious, as well as more mannerly, there may be more hopes of them." In the same work the following question is asked, and to my mind not satisfactorily answered: should any of your correspondents think proper to give an opinion on the subject, I shall feel highly gratified, conceiving it to be one well worthy of the serious attention of professing Christians, and a fit subject for discussion in the Monthly Repository. The question is as follows, Our jurors that try in cases of life and death are obliged to be (or at least to tell the court that they are) all of one mind, before they can give or the court receive their verdict; and it being but reasonable to suppose that it may so happen that one or more of the twelve may dissent from the major part, as being of deeper judgment, &c. or by building upon false notions, which yet he believes, and cannot be persuaded otherwise, but that they are the truth, &c. In short we'll suppose him to act according to his conscience, whether otherwise he be in the right or no, and then query, how must such a man act, so as to keep a good conscience towards God and man, so as not to be guilty of the blood of the prisoner, as well as of perjury, if he bring him in guilty and he is not," &c. &c. I shall feel obliged by your insertion of the above, And remain, Sir, Your constant Reader, T. R. S. P. S. It will greatly oblige several of your readers, if Mr. Rees will inform them through the medium of the Repository what progress he has made in his proposed "History of Foreign Learned Ministers.-Assembly of Divines. Unitarians" (see M. Repos. Vol. VI. p. 105,) or whether he has abandoned it altogether; also, whether the Racovian Catechism, which he was sometime ago said to be preparing for the press, has been published or not, as I do not recollect seeing it advertised.* Unitarian Baptists in the City of York. SIR, WE beg leave through the medium of your valuable Miscellany to lay before our Unitarian brethren the case of the Unitarian Baptists in the city of York, confident of their disposition to assist us in the laudable undertaking of propagating primitive Christianity, and removing those misconceptions which originated in the dark ages of heathen and popish superstition. We have laboured upwards of thirty years, under considerable disadvantage, in this great cause for want of suitable accomodation and a central situation; we have at length met with the object of our wishes. A chapel in the centre of York now occupied by the Independents was to be disposed of by public auction; we made an offer for it, the consequence was it became ours for the sum of three hundred pounds, one hundred of which was paid on the 2nd February last as a deposit, which we borrowed upon interest, the remaining two hundred pounds are to be paid on the 2nd November next, at which time possession will be given. The chapel is well fitted up with pews and gallery, and will seat upwards of four hundred people. The sum able to raise amongst our own friends is sixty pounds; we hope our Unitarian brethren will not think the sum too small, considering our pecuniary circumstances, as we are all labouring people, so that with the sum of sixty pounds already subscribed, and twenty pounds which the Committee of the Unitarian Fund has been pleased to bestow upon us, making a total of eighty pounds, there will remain a debt of two hundred and twenty pounds upon the chapel, besides other necessary expences incident to the purchase of such property: this debt will be felt by us as a great incun we are For an answer to the latter question, our correspondent is referred to the notice in our last No. p. 369. aa 393 SIR, June 25, 1816. AT the late meeting of the friends to the Unitarian Academy I understood with much satisfaction that the provision for communicating classical knowledge to the students was likely to be extended. I hope these will attend to a duty now much ne students when they become ministers glected, and occupy that talent by which they may be distinguished from the unlearned. The latter respectable and highly useful class of Christian teachers would well employ any leisure they could command, in comparing different English translations, and thus forming one which appeared to them to give the best connected sense of scripture. But as to learned ministers, by their general practice of adopting King James's Bible, do they not contribute, in a high degree, from the pulpit and the press, to preserve and increase a superstitions regard for that version which is the |