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a piece with the authorized calendar of the church another year. To the Universities and the Stationers Com→ pany is confided the printing of almanacks; and, however this privilege has been trenched on of late years, I am sorry to see an university deviating from the rule of the established church. The calendar of the Scottish Liturgy, drawn up, I presume, under the inspection of Abp. Laud, presents the names of several of the ancient saints of that kingdom.

I am, Gentlemen,

Jan. 3, 1805. ·

Your's, &c.

PETAVIUS,

TO THE EDITORS OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCHMAN'S

G

GENTLEMEN,

MAGAZINE.

IVE me leave to tell you, that you have exhibited a wonderful proof of your Liberality in printing Mr. Evanson's letter, (called in the running title Reply to the Rev. E. P.) in your last number. I honestly declare, that I dislike such instances of Liberality. What, am I to feather the arrow of my enemy? Am I to assist him in letting off his blunderbuss? This savours more of Folly, saving your Editorial Honours' gravity, than liberality.-Is Mr. Evanson, the notorious ex-minister of Tewkesbury, to be permitted to preserve his vapid letter, by wrapping it in the sheets of your Magazine, is his Caput Mortuum to be embalmed by the contact of Orthodox Divinity? It must not be. Either my scissars shall cut it out of your Miscellany, and for base uses; or my pen shall stigmatize it, as it ought to be marked with characters of reprobation. Has the man no fear of the statute before his eyes, which (the 9th and 10th of W. III.) besides incapacitation for divers civil offices, denounces three years imprisonment against those who deny any of the Persons of the Trinity to be God: And is your orthodox (a word this writer endeavours to bring into contempt, p. 433.) your orthodox publication to circulate the exploded Doctrines of Socinianism? I aver that there is not a syllable in his letter which has not been refuted over and over again. I doubt not but some of your

readers

readers will give him the satisfaction of seeing his silly arguments refuted afresh. Does a Socinian charge a Christian with Blasphemy, or with Idolatry? monstrous arrogance! shall one who" denies the Lord who bought him," bring a railing accusation of blasphemy against one who maintains the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, and believes in the Deity of the SON OF GOD, who said, "I AND MY FATHER ARE ONE?" The Jews knew that this expression claimed an equality with God. What the Jews saw, this blind Socinian cannot discern. The Jews put our Lord to death for asserting his Godhead;this benighted and bewildered arguer will not admit that he ever pretended to the character of Deity. Idolatry! Is it idolatry to acknowledge him to be THE LORD, whom "all the angels of God are commanded to WORSHIP. But this would-be Martyr, refers us to the book of the Revelation of St. John the Divine; in the awful obscurities of which, he would willingly envelope his own absurdity. "Tell me, (saith St. Paul in a certain place) ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?" To this unhappy man I would say, " tell me thou that appealest to the Book of Revelation, dost thou not believe what that book saith In the Revelation, the SON OF GOD is introduced as saying of himself—" I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the Ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty." "I cannot forbear recording it, (says Dr. Doddridge) that this text has done more than any other in the Bible, towards preventing me from giving. into that scheme, which would make our Lord Jesus Christ no more than a deified creature." What What says the man who idolizes his own fancy, and sets it up against the affirmation of Holy Writ, to this passage in the Regelation, and to this note of the meek and learned Dod dridge? And again, "I am the first and the last, I AM HE THAT LIVETH AND WAS DEAD, AND BEHOLD I AM ALIVE FOR EVERMORE AMEN: and have the keys of hell and death." What says our Socinian to this passage in the Revelation? Or to this," the Lamb shall overcome them for he is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords? Or to this" He was clothed in a vesture dipped in blood, and his name is called THE WORD OF GOD **** and he hath on his vesture and on his thigh, a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS?" Wall this serve to shew who he is that elsewhere is

called

called the Logos?-Is it possible this poor man can have read this following passage in the Revelation, and withhold the honour due unto THE SON OF GOD" worthy is THE LAMB THAT WAS SLAIN to receive power, and riches and wisdom, and strength and honour, and glory and blessing; * * ** blessing, honour, glory, and power be unto him that sitteth on the throne, and UNTO THE LAMB for ever and ever?" Doth not this announce to hin, that the FATHER AND the SON ARE CO-EQUAL, and must be worshipped and glorified together?

The obscurity of the Revelation affords no hidingplace to him who would subtract from the Majesty of THE SON OF GOD; "all men must honour the Son even as they honour the FATHER." There is no darkness. nor shadow of death" in the Revelation, where the dishonourers of the SoN may hide themselves.

Mr. Evanson thinks that "the completion of certain tremendous predictions in the glorious coming of Christ, cannot be 50 or 60 years distant." God knoweth when that time shall arrive; and the Revelation assuredly speaketh of his coming" Behold he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him; [and they also which degraded him to the level of one of the sons of Adam, as though he had enjoyed no pre-existent State of Glory with his Father before the world was.] and all the kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him: even so. Amen."

A word more and I have done. Mr. E. P. seems to regard Mr. Evanson (vol. 5, p. 110) as a sort of a Martyr to his principles, and as if he laid down his preferment, because he did not approve of the doctrines of the church. Gentlemen, he quitted his perpetual curacy with as bad a grace as could be. He tried many miserable expedients to keep his parish, and hug his heresy at the same time. He gave direction to his parish-clerk in reciting the Nicene creed, particularly, to go on without waiting for his first repeating its component articles. The clerk and the congregation used to repeat the creed in the simplicity of their hearts; whilst the conscientious Mr. Evanson proceeded snuffling and hemming, making a noise, but uttering no intelligible words. At last, the worthy Town-Clerk of Tewkesbury, (a relation of the Drapier family) found out the trick, and exposed the unsanctified mummer; and it was in consequence of the vigorous measures adopted by this ORTHODOX lawyer,

and

and through fear solely, that the worthy Mr. Evanson at last gave up his church, having long before given up his principles. So much I thought I would say of the exminister of Tewkesbury, who, because he has himself lost cast would make Pariahs of us all; like the fox who had lost his tail, he would have us all mutilated.-Forgive honest indignation in, gentlemen, your fast and decided friend, JONATHAN DRAPIER.

Jan. 2, 1805.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCHMAN'S

SIR,

YOU

MAGAZINE.

OUR valuable correspondent, Mr. Pearson, in the appendix to his visitation sermon preached at Nottingham, April 28, 1804, p. 45, declines stating his reasons for thinking that Luke xxi. 24, does not militate against his opinion, though it is the text which "seems most strongly" so to do.

He is afraid lest stating his reasons should carry him too far; but perhaps he might be prevailed upon to give some general idea of those reasons, in your useful Miscellany, if he knew that he would thereby gratify the wishes of

Dec. 14, 1804.

A CONSTANT READER.

EXTRACTS.

SUMMARY OF THE GOSPEL PLAN, from the Bishop of Lincoln's Sermon at the yearly Meeting of the Charity Children, May 31, 1805.

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T is equally easy to all ranks and conditions of men to comprehend that God made our first parents upright and happy-that by right of his sovereign power as their Creator he imposed upon them one command, as the test of their obedience and the mark of their dependance

that

that they violated this command, and thereby incurred the displeasure of God-that in consequence of this disobedience they were deprived of the happiness they had hitherto enjoyed, and became subject to toil, pain, sin; misery, and death-that they transmitted their nature thus changed, depraved and corrupted to their posterity that the whole human race by partaking of this sinful nature, and by the actual commission of sin, were the objects of God's wrath and liable to punishment-that it pleased God at the moment he passed judgment upon our first parents to remember mercy, and to promise, in obscure terms, a future Redeemer of mankind, that he renewed this promise repeatedly, and gradually gave clearer intimations of his gracious design-that as a preparatory step he selected from the nations of the earth a peculiar people, to whom he prescribed rules of religious worship, and laws for their civil government-that by the mouth of his prophets, whom he raised up from time to time among his chosen people, he declared the personal dignity of the Saviour of the world; pointed out the family from which he should be descended; foretold the place where he should be born; the time of his appearance; the circumstances of his birth; the nature of the instructions he should deliver, and of the miracles he should perform; the reception he should meet with during his ministry; the insults and sufferings he should endure; his resurrection from the dead; his ascension into heaven, and the future progress of his religion, that all these predicted circumstances took place in Jesus Christ and in Him alone that consequently he was the promised Redeemer of mankind-that the religion which he taught must be true-that his doctrines ought to be believed that his precepts ought to be obeyed-that the terms of salvation which he proposed must be accepted, or the punishment which he denounced must be undergone. These are the great and leading truths of the merciful scheme of redemption through Jesus Christ, and when stated in their native simplicity they require no depth of thought to comprehend them, no length of labour to investigate them. Would to God it were as easy to make men practise the duties of Christianity, which constitute that degree of holiness without which no man shall see God, as it is to make them believe these articles of faith which are necessary for eternal salvation. The difficulty lies in puriVol. VIII. Churchm. Mag. Jan. 1805. H fying

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