Semple's "History of the Virginia Baptists," Edwards's "History of the Pennsylvania Baptists," Benedict's "History of the American Baptists," and the Annual Reports of the "General Convention*."

The above brief account of the American Baptists was communicated to me by a learned and highly respectable minister and professor in an American college, who says, respecting it," As I have taken it almost entirely from standard American works, that are by me, I think it may be depended upon as authentic."

HUTCHINSONIANS.

NAME, AND HISTORY OF THE FOUNDER.

THE religious party that bears this name have never formed themselves into a distinct society, but are the followers or admirers of John Hutchinson, Esq., a learned and respectable layman, who was born at Spennythorn, in Yorkshire, in 1674. Mr. Hutchinson received a private education, which, however, was liberal and excellent; and at the age of nineteen he became steward to a gentleman, in which capacity he afterwards served the Duke of Somerset.

. Having a great taste for natural history and mineralogy, he improved the opportunities which the superintendency of several tin and coal mines afforded him, and made a large collection of fossils, which he put into the hands of Dr. Woodward the physician, with observations for him to digest and publish. The Doctor, however, is said to have deceived Mr. Hutchinson with fair promises, and never to have begun the work, which induced the latter to rely on his own pen. He therefore quitted the Duke's service, who, being at that time Master of the Horse to King George I. made him his riding surveyor-a sinecure place, worth 2007. a year, with a good house in the Mews. The Duke also gave him the next presentation to the living of Sutton, in Sussex, which Mr. H. bestowed on his friend Mr. Julius Bate, a zealous defender of his doctrines.

In 1724 he published the first part of that curious work, his "Moses's Principia," in which he ridiculed Dr. Wood

This large and noble collection was afterwards bequeathed by Dr. Woodward to the University of Cambridge.

ward's "Natural History of the Earth," and exploded the doctrine of gravitation established in Sir Isaac Newton's "Principia." In the second part of this work, published in 1727, he maintained, in opposition to the Newtonian system, that a plenum was the principle of Scripture philosophy; and that this readily effects what the "Newtonians, in their vain imaginations, create a vacuum to produce." In this work he also intimated, that the idea of the Trinity is to be taken from the grand agents in the natural system-fire, light, and spirit;— which, it is said, so forcibly struck Dr. S. Clarke, that he requested to have an interview with Mr. Hutchinson on the subject; but the proposal was declined.

It appears that Mr. Hutchinson had a considerable knowledge of mechanics; for, in 1712, he invented a time-keeper for the discovery of the longitude, which was approved by Sir I. Newton. And Mr. Whiston, in one of his tracts, has borne respectable testimony to his abilities.

From the time that be published the second part of his "Principia," be continued to publish a volume every year or two, till his death; and a correct and elegant edition of his works, including the MSS. which he left unpublished, was published in 1748, in 12 vols. Svo., entitled, "The Philosophical and Theological Works of the late truly learned John Hutchinson, Esq." by Julius Bate, Rector of Sutton, in Sussex, and Robert Spearman, late of Corpus Christi College, Oxford,

On the Monday before his death, Dr. Mead urged Mr. Hutchinson to be bled; saying, pleasantly, "I will soon send you to Moses," meaning his studies. This, however, Mr. Hutchinson understood in the literal sense, or "Abraham's bosom;" and answered in a muttering tone, "I believe, Doctor, you will:" and he was so much displeased, that he dismissed him for another physician, but died a few days after, in 1737.

DISTINGUISHING Tenets.

Mr. Hutchinson, who was a good Hebraist and an ingenious Biblical scholar, thought that the Hebrew Scriptures comprize a complete system of natural philosophy, theology, and religion. So bigh an opinion did he entertain of the Hebrew, as a language of ideas, that he thought the Almighty must have employed it to communicate every species of knowledge, human and divine; and that, accordingly, every species of knowledge is to be found in the Old Testament; and both he and his followers laid a great stress on the evidence of Hebrew etymology. With Origen, and other eminent commentators, he asserted that the Scriptures are not to be

understood and interpreted in a literal, but in a typical sense, and according to the radical import of the Hebrew expressions; that even the historical parts, and particularly those relating to the Jewish ceremonies and Levitical Law, were to be considered in this light;-and he also asserted, that, agreeably to this mode of interpretation, the Hebrew Scriptures would be found to testify amply concerning the nature and offices of Jesus Christ.

His plan was no doubt new, and out of the common line; no less indeed, than to find natural philosophy in the Bible, where hitherto it had been thought no such thing was to be met with, or ever intended. And upon that popular hypothesiss contrived to account for and excuse the palpable contradictions between the current language of Scripture, and the now received and applauded system of philosophy, it had been objected, by the numerous tribes of free-thinkers, "that if the penmen of the Bible were mistaken in natural things, they might be so in spiritual; or, if the God of nature had inspired them in the one, he would have also done so in the other." This triumphant attack upon the infallibility of the Scriptures put our bold undertaker upon searching them in a manner different from what had hitherto been attempted, and induced him to try, whether the true and genuine sense of the original Hebrew, when fairly construed, without regard to any hypothesis ancient or modern, would not also be the true philosophy, and stand the test of every experiment and observation truly made.

His editors tell us, that the event answered his expectations; for, say they, he found upon examination, "That the Hebrew Scriptures no where ascribe motion to the body of the sun, nor fixedness to the earth;-that they describe the created system to be a plenum, without any vacuum at all; and reject the assistance of gravitation, attraction, or any such occult qualities, for performing the stated operations of nature, which are carried on by the mechanism of the heavens, in their three-fold condition of fire, light, and spirit or air, the material agents set to work at the beginning:-that the heavens, thus framed by Almighty Wisdom, are an instituted emblem and visible substitute of Jehovah-Aleim, the Eternal Three, the co-equal and co-adorable Trinity in Unity :-that the unity of substance in the heavens points out the unity of essence, and the distinction of conditions, the personality in Deity, without confounding the persons or dividing the substance; and that, from their being made emblems, they are called in Hebrew Shemim, the names, representatives,

or substitutes; expressing by their names, that they are emblems, and by their conditions or offices, what it is they are emblems of."

Thus, according to Mr. Hutchinson and his followers, there exists an alliance between philosophy and divinity; or, rather, these two are but one and the same science. And the philosophy of the Bible they assert to be " a chamber of imagery," where the eternal Godhead is set before us as Three in One, in a most apt and suitable emblem: which emblem, they moreover add, was designed of God for the purpose of making himself, as well as his wonderful plan of redemption, known to his creatures.

Mr. Hutchinson not only maintained that no language, except the Hebrew, is capable of describing the essence and personality of Jehovah, but he likewise found that the Hebrew Scriptures had some capital words, which, he thought, had not been duly considered and understood, and which he has proved, or endeavoured to prove, contain in their radical meaning the greatest and most comfortable truths. Thus, the word Elohim, which we call "God," he reads Aleim; translates it," the Covenanters and Juratores;" supposes it has an allusion to the Three Persons entering into covenant for the redemption of man; and refers it to the oath or conditional execration by which the eternal covenant of grace among the Persons in Jehovah was and is confirmed. The word Berith, which our translation renders" covenant," and upon which is built the favourite doctrine of mutual covenants between God and man, between Creator and creature, yea, as matters now stand, between King and rebel, he construes to signify, "He or that which purifies;" and, so, the Purifier, or purification, for (not with) man. The cherubim, which have been understood to be "angels placed as a guard to deter Adam from breaking into Eden again," he explains to have been an hierogly phic of Divine construction, or a sacred image, to describe, as far as figures could go, the Aleim and man taken in, or Humanity united to Deity. And so he treats of several other words of similar, though not quite so solemn, import. From all which he drew this conclusion; "That all the rites and ceremonies of the Jewish dispensation were so many delineations of Christ, in what he was to be, to do, and to suffer; and that the early Jews knew them to be types of his actions and sufferings, and, by performing them as such, were in so far Christians, both in faith and practice *." The cherubim,

* Mr. Skinner's "Ecclesiastical History of Scotland," vol. ii. p. 673, &c.

and the glory around them, with the Divine presence in them, his followers maintain to have been not only emblematical figures, representing the Persons of the ever-blessed" Trinity, as engaged in covenant for the redemption of man, but also, that they were intended "to keep or preserve the way of the tree of life,—to shew man the way to life eternal, and keep him from losing or departing from it."

That Melchizedec was an eminent type of Christ, there can be little doubt; but that he was actually the Second Person of the Trinity in a human form, is a tenet of the Hutchinsonians, though not quite peculiar to them *.

"The air," Mr. Hutchinson supposes, "exists in three conditions, fire, light, and spirit; the two latter are the finer and grosser parts of the air in motion: from the earth to the sun, the air is finer and finer, till it becomes pure light near the confines of the sun, and fire in the orb of the sun, or solar focus. From the earth towards the circumference of this system, in which he includes the fixed stars, the air becomes grosser and grosser, till it becomes stagnant; in which condition it is at the utmost verge of this system; from whence (in his opinion) the expression of outer darkness,' and 'blackness of darkness,' used in the New Testament, seems to be taken."

From such Scriptural premises Mr. Hutchinson draws the conclusion, that there is not only an alliance between philosophy and divinity, but that the Bible furnishes us with an idea of the personality in the Divine Essence, under the names andactions of the material substance of the heavens, in its three conditions of fire, light, and air; each Person of the Eternal Essence acting the same part in the spiritual, which each condition of the material substance does in the natural economy. These are some of the principal outlines of this author's doctrines, which, being at first published in separate pieces, were not much taken notice of, but when collected together, and given out to the public in one view, became in a short time the subject of much dispute, and of various entertainment, according to the various tastes of those who looked into them. And, though none of the bishops openly approved of them at first, yet as they passed no censure or prohibition upon them, several eminent divines, both of the Church and among the Dissenters, patronized them, and employed their pens, either in explaining and illustrating them, or in vindi

See a learned dissertation, attempting to prove this, in the first volume of Mr. Holloway's "Originals."