so unpardonable, that all hands were united against that unhappy man; and he found at length, that he had much better have violated all God's commandments, than have interpreted some passages of Scripture differently from his brethren. The Nonconformists accused him, the Conformists condemned him, the Secular power was called in, and the cause ended in an imprisonment and a very great fine; two methods of conviction about which the gospel is silent." No Trinitarian could have sincerely indited some of these sentences. "The Dedication is supposed to have been written by Hoadley," according to the Biog. Dict. 1784. XI. 568, though I know not on what authority. T IGNOTUS. SIR, Bromley, July 6th, 1817. HE series of papers entitled "Gleanings, or Selections and Reflections, made in a course of general reading," commencing in Jan. 1809, have since formed a very interesting part of your literary journal. They comprise a great variety of extracts from a large number of authors, on curious or important subjects, and frequently with appropriate observa tions. Among these, at p. 595, of your last volume, one is given from No. 23, of the Athenian Mercury, principally respecting the Quakers. From this passage, in connexion with other "facts," it is shewn "that the Quakers of a century ago were accounted and described as Unitarians." Without attempting to controvert this well-established fact, "a member of that society," who informs you he has "endeavoured to obtain a correct knowledge of its principles, by a perusal of its publications, is of opinion that its early members were not Uni tarians,” and in p. 346, of your last number, expresses his "surprise" at what he calls "an attempt to prove" that they “were." He thinks" that such an opinion is not founded in truth;" and, therefore, in order to "set the question at rest," he gives more than twenty "extracts from the writings of its early, and most approved members," which he supposes "clearly and unequivocally prove that they believed in the Divinity or Deity of Jesus Christ, although" he admits at the same time that "they rejected the idea of three distinct and separate persons" in the Deity," and also the term Trinity," by which that “ idea” is intended to be conveyed, “as not to be found in the Sacred Writings." By what other appellative he would designate the belief of the early Quakers in the strict Unity of God he does not say. If they rejected, as he allows they did, both the name and the idea of a distinction of persons in the One Supreme, they cannot surely in his judgment be properly considered as Trinitarians. Nor will any of the passages he has adduced prove their title to the reputedly orthodox name, under any of its various modifications. But he tells us that " Penn's Sandy Foundation Shaken, on a review of the circumstances under which it was composed," appears to him "to have been written on the negative side of the question only," and that "William Penn himself, about five years after, asserts that this was the case." This is a mistake. In reference to that work, its author has said no such thing. At the preceding disputation he and George Whitehead also were, no doubt, very decidedly "engaged in the negative, concerning the common doctrine of distinct and separate personality," because the question at issue, between them and their Trinitarian opponents was," whether they owned One Godhead, subsisting in three distinct and separate persons," which it appears they “denied—as a doctrine no where scriptural." Works. Vol. I. p. 251. Your readers should know that the person spoken of in the 12th Extract, as becoming so intimate with Penn and Whitehead on this occasion, was Thomas Firmin, a man with whose highly estimable character many of them are acquainted. I shall therefore give Penn's account of this transaction more entire, than it is given in this extract, and I should be much gratified to see Firmin's also, which perhaps some of your readers may be able to furnish. After saying that "He and some others fell into great intimacy" with them, Peun adds, "Who but we in his and their thoughts? at what time they were not quite discovered by us: but pulling off their masks, at last we found them to have been the followers of J. Biddle, in that which is commonly called the Socinian way; and that their peculiar regard to us came from an implicit vindication of one of their principles, [the one above-mentioned] for which we came under the scandal and odium of Socinians: pulpits rang how the Quakers had unmasked themselves on that occasion; and their warm disputes, in our defence, did not a little strengthen the common reports that went of us, and me in particular. When my book, intituled the Sandy Foundation Shaken, came out, it being a farther detection of what we [the Quakers] call errors, and it happening that Socinians did the same, as if I was a rank Socinian, (who had never read any one Socinian book in all my life, if looked into one at that time) so, these men," &c. as given by your Correspondent. Hence it is plain, that near five years after the termination of Penn's imprisonment in the Tower of London for publishing this work, he openly avowed, on behalf of the Quakers, the doctrines it maintains, and a rejection of those it holds up as erroneous, although he was con. scious of the odium, himself and his friends thereby incurred, as it happened" that Socinians did the same." Nor did he then or afterwards so far as I know, ever admit that the Apology for that work was in any degree a "Retraction." I am aware he professed his belief in "the Divinity and even in the Deity of Christ," both before and after its publication, but it seems to me always in such a sense, as appeared to him perfectly consistent with the tenour of the Sandy Founda tion Shaken. And I will venture to say, that whatever real or apparent inconsistency can be pointed out between this work and its Apology, or between the for mer and any other part of his writings, I am fully persuaded a similar, and as great a degree of real or apparent in consistency, may be discovered be tween different parts of his works intituled, "The Guide Mistaken or Temporizing Rebuked," which was certainly published, and he says "read" by his friend Thomas Firmin " before the Sandy Foundation was thought of." And what is in my mind of much more importance as to a successful vindication of William Penn's since rity, in professing through life to en tertain such apparently opposite opinions, he published the former work at a time when he had just made almost as great sacrifices to religious principle, as any man, not called upon to become a martyr at a stake, ever evinced. From this work the 10th extract "from Friends' Writings" is made. It refers to twelve queries, the last of which is, "Whether it were not more suitable to truth and Scripture record, to avoid all dark conceits, schoolmen's quidolities and vain janglings, and to believe That God was, and is in Christ (who is in us except we be reprobates) reconciling the world, or men unto himself." The eleven others are equally distant from any leaning towards reputed orthodoxy, it can therefore have been only upon the Sabellian hypothesis, or the in-dwelling scheme as it is sometimes called, that William Penn used such language concerning Jesus Christ, as he has subjoined to these queries. Nor can any other construction be, I think, justly affixed to the 11th extract from his Tract, intituled "Innocency with her Open Face," which was written while he was a close prisoner under an arbitrary warrant from a Secretary of State. He complains, it is true, in the paragraph which follows the 12th extract, that his "Christian reputation hath been unworthily traduced, by several persons, posting out their books against him, whilst a close prisoner." But these authors were, he tells us, "beating the air and fighting with their own shadows, in supposing what he never thought, much less writ of, to be the intention of his book." He adds, "As for my being a Socinian, I must confess 1 have read of one Socinus, of a noble family in Italy, who, about the year 1574, being a young man, did voluntarily abandon the glories, pleasures and honours of the great Duke of Tuscany's Court at Florence and became a perpetual exile for his conscience, whose parts, wisdom, gravity and just behaviour made him the most famous with the Polonian and Transylvanian churches; but I was never baptized into his name, and therefore deny that reproachful epithet; and if in any thing I acknowledge the verity of his doctrine, it is for the truth's sake, of which, in many things, he had a clearer prospect than most of his contemporaries; "but not therefore a Socinian, any more than a son of the English Church, whilst esteemed a Quaker, because I justify many of her principles, since the Reformation, against the Roman Church." Vol. I. p. 268. In the Traet from which the 13th extract is taken, Penn gives the follow. ing explanation of the sense in which the early Quakers understood, Rom. ix. 5, and coufessed Christ to be “God over all.” He there says, "We acknowledge Christ in his double ap. pearance, as in the flesh, of the seed of Abraham, so in the spirit, as he is God over all, blessed for ever. Wherein," adds he, "is a full confession both to him as a blessed Person, and as a divine principle of light and life in the soul; the want of which necessary and evident distinction, occasions our adversaries frequent mistakes about our belief and application of the Scriptures of truth, concerning Christ in that twofold capacity." Penn's ideas of Christ personally considered, as expressed in the same page were, that he was "properly and truly the son of man on earth, and is now as truly the son of man in glory," not God over all, but the first born from the dead, "as the head of our manhood, which shall also be glorified, if we receive him into our hearts, as the true light that leads in the way of life eternal, and continue in well-doing to the end." Works. Vol. II. p. 785. And in another work of Penn's, intitled "The Christian Quaker, and his divine testimony stated and vindicated, from Scripture, reason and authority," Works. Vol. I. p. 541; he says, "There are not two lights, lifes, natures or spirits in God. He is one for ever in himself, and his light one in kind, however variously he may have declared himself or manifested it, at sundry times of the world. His truth is one, his way one, and his rest one for ever." I intended to have briefly noticed the context of the extracts from Barclay, Claridge, Sewel, and those from the Yearly Meeting Epistles, but fearing I have already trespassed too far on the patience of your readers in general on " a purely historical question," of little interest to them, I will now conclude with Penn's exhortation in the Preface to this work, "to the noble Bereans" of VOL. XII. 3Q 66 the age in which he lived, to examine "The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ augment your desire after truth, give you clearer discerning ofthe truth, and enable you more readily to receive, and with greater resolution to maintain the truth." Uniting cordially in these good wishes for all your readers, 1 am, &c. T. F. Letter to Rev. J. Rowe, of Bristol, from Dr. Stock, upon the latter embracing Trinitarianism. [The following letter is no longer private: two different copies have been sent to us, one in print: we insert it into the Monthly Repository, willing that the Trinitarians should have the benefit of the utmost publicity that we are able to give it. En.] Clifton, MY DEAR SIR, Nov. 6, 1816. SCARCELY know in what terms to begin this letter, or how to communicate to you the object of it, yet I am anxious to be the first to convey to you the intelligence, because I am unwilling that it should reach you, unattended by those expressions of personal regard and respect, by which I could wish that it should be accompanied. It will surprise you to be told, that it is become with me, a matter of absolute duty to withdraw myself from henceforth, from the Lewin's Mead Society. Yes, my dear Sir, such is the fact. In the month of July last, my professional attendance was required for the Rev. John Vernon, the Baptist minister of Downend, who was then on a visit to a friend in Bristol. I found him very ill, so much so, that his other medical attendant and myself, had judged it necessary that he should suspend all his public labours, After attending him here, two or three days, he removed to Downend, where I have since continued to see him about once a week. He felt it a dutyto endea ner. vour to lead me to reconsider my religious opinions; and at length with much delicacy and timidity led to the subject. I felt fully confident of their truth, and did not on my part, shun the investigation. For some weeks his efforts did not produce the smallest effects; and it required all the affectionate patience of his character, to ́induce me to look upon the arguments on his side, as even worth examining. This spirit of levity, however, was at length subdued and restrained, by the affectionate earnestness of his manNow and then he produced a passage of Scripture which puzzled me exceedingly. But as I was always distrustful, I scarcely every allowed any weight to it, till after I had coolly examined it at home. I began how ever, sometimes, to consider whether it were not possible that his observations might contain some truth, and of course was led to examine them with more care and impartiality. It is necessary here to state, that my letter to Dr. Carpenter, though drawn up some little time before, was dispatched about this period. I advert to this circumstance, because it makes a curious, though I fear not an uncommon feature in the human mind. I must, however, make the avowal, that it was precisely about the interval that occurred between the preparation and the dispatch of the letter alluded to, and of that to you, and the second to Dr. Estlin, that the doubts above stated, now and then, at rare intervals, would force themselves upon my mind-such, however, was my hostility to the sentiments to which these doubts pointed, that I resisted every suspicion of the kind; I treated it as a mere delusion of the imagination. I felt ashamed even to have yielded to such suggestions for a moment, and when Mr. Bright pointed out to me a strong passage in the address to Dr. Carpenter, as if he thought that it might be softened a little, I persisted in retaining it. In fact, I seemed to seek in the strength of the terms that I made use of, to deepen my own convictions of my previous opinions. The letters were sent and the respective answers received; still my weekly visits to Mr. Vernon were continued, I still investigated the subject with increasing earnestness, yet I was unaltered; and even when Mr. Bright read the history of the proceedings to the congregation, I felt no regret at my share in them, but on the contrary, rejoiced in anticipating the future triumph of Unitarianism. Here, however, my triumph ceased. Almost immediately after, my doubts returned with tenfold force, I read, I was perplexed, often very often, I wished that I had not begun the inquiry. I prayed for illumination, but I found my mind daily becoming more and more unsettled. I have now lying before me a sheet of paper, on which I wrote down some of my thoughts of this period, while under their more immediate pressure, as if to relieve my mind, by thus indulging them, for they were disclosed to no human ear. I copy from them this passage, "If the attainment of truth be not the result, I am sure that the state of mind in which I have been for some time past, is not to be envied." I think that it was about this time that you returned home; when I advanced to shake hands with you, after the close of the service, you may remember that you observed to me, "Why, Doctor, you look pale!"-Pale I was, I have no doubt, for my mind was full of thoughts, that chased each other like a troubled sea; and your return (and the vivid recollection of the letter which it created) had not tended to calm the agitation. In addition to this, I had been in the habit of pursuing the inquiry night after night, to a very late hour. Such continued to be the state of my mind during the latter end of September, and the whole of October. Towards the end of the latter month, the evidence of the doctrines which I had hitherto so strenuously opposed, seemed progressively to increase; but it was not till this very week that conviction came, and that my mind, unhesitatingly and thankfully, accepted the Supreme Divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, of Atonement and Reconciliation by his precious blood; and of the Divinity and Personality of the Holy Spirit. I do not, my dear Sir, say it by way of commending my earnestness in the inquiry, but I say it in justice to the opinions I have embraced, that since this investigation begun I have regularly gone through the New Testament as far as the Epistle to the Hebrews. The gospel of John I have read through twice, that not only every text, which has been differently interpreted, occurring in this large portion of the New Testament, but also all those referred to in the controversial volumes mentioned below, were carefully compared with the original, with the Improved Version, with Mr. Belsham's explanation in his "Calm Inquiry," and frequently with Dr. Carpenter's "Unitarianism the Doctrine of the Gospel," and that the References to the Psalms and the Prophetical Scriptures, which occur in the Testameat or the writings alluded to, were also examined in Dr. Priestley's "Notes on the Scriptures," for I am not possessed of, nor have I even seen (with I think one exception, in which Dr. Campbell's Annotations on Matt. xxii. 41. et seq. were shewn me,) one orthodox commentary on the Scriptures. The controversial books on that side, which I have used in this inquiry are Mr. Wardlaw's two books; Simpson's "Plea for the Deity of Jesus," (of which, at this very moment, not even a third part is cut open); Dr. Lawrence's "Critical Reflections," &c. on the Unitarian Version, (on which I will pause to observe, that they first settled my mind, as to the authenticity of the introductory chapters of St. Matthew and St. Luke); a Sermon on the Atonement by Mr. Hull; "Six Letters by Dr. Pye Smith to Mr. Belsham ;" and Notes taken down from two Sermons preached by Mr. (I believe now Dr.) Chalmers, of Glasgow, on the following texts: Psalm lxxxv. 10, " Mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other;" and Romans viii. 7, "Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Yet these few helps to the better understanding of the Holy Scriptures (though counteracted by the volumes above cited, by long association, by frequent reference to other Unitarian volumes in my collection, and by the various arguments on that side, which memory was constantly suggesting) have alternately led me to the conclusions above stated. But I should grossly belie my own heart, and should think myself guilty of odious ingratitude to the "Father of lights, from whom cometh down every good and every perfect gift;" if I did not avow my convictions, that to these means the teaching of his Holy Spirit has been superadded; for I can in his presence affirm, that during the latter part of the inquiry, more particularly, the Scriptures of truth were never opened by me without profound and fervent prayer for illumination, and almost always with reference to our Lord's promise in Luke xi. 13, “If ye then being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" Indeed, my dear Sir and friend, I was in earnest: a change so awful, so unexpected, I may add, so improbable, which, four months ago only, I should myself have said was impossible, has deeply and solemnly impressed my mind. That I must encounter much ridicule in consequence of this change, I fully expect; I am sure that I well deserve it, for no person would have broken out more loudly against such an alteration in the views of another than myself, nor ought I to omit to add, that my excellent friend Mr. Vernon, while I was communicating to him the conviction that I had received and my expectation of being ridiculed for such a change, observed to me, "that I certainly must expect it, but he hoped that I was also prepared to forgive it." I trust I shall be enabled to do so. Upon reviewing this last sentence, my dear Sir, I feel myself bound to say that in stating this, I hope not to be understood as anticipating any thing of this kind from you, or from your venerable colleague. No! however you may pity my delusion, I feel assured that you will do justice to my motives. My dear Sir, I have extended this letter to a much greater length than I had any expectation of doing when I began it; I began it with alluding to my regard and my respect for you will it be deemed inconsistent with either, if I venture to conclude it with a most affectionate wish and prayer, that you and yours, and all who are near and dear to you, may receive every earthly blessing, and may be brought to the knowledge of the truth? I feel it to be my duty to include this, and I shall stand excused. And oh! how much is that wish enkindled, when I recollect the |