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day; I am equally disposed to admit that, in the cases where this was done, it was without the privity of his Grace.-Respecting the emptying of the pond; a better course cannot be pursued than to let the documents speak for themselves; but among those documents I think the correspondence between Mr. Agutter and the parish clerk must appear, particularly as the latter is the supposed original source of my information: and I must again in candour observe, that the circumstance of the letter received by Mr. Agutter, and purporting to be written by Mr. Mansell, though in point of fact it was not written by him, is a substantive fact which cannot be suppressed. In the papers last communicated, an explanation of that circumstance, whether satisfactory or not, is contained. Mr. Agutter also wrote two letters, at the interval of about six weeks or two months between them, to Mr. Mansell, the first of which was unnoticed. As these letters are at Woburn, I will thank you for a copy of them. The answer, of course, I can command. As it does not appear whether Mr. Mansell denies, in toto, the conversation which is stated to have taken place between Mr. A. and him in 1797, I think he should be interrogated on that subject. With regard to myself, I trust it will appear that, considering the manner in which I received the information on which my statement was founded, I did not rashly make that statement: indeed I should never have been disposed to publish one word respecting the late Duke of Bedford, if I had not felt that the unqualified eulogies which were passed upon him had a tendency to corrupt the public sentiment by holding forth as a perfect character a nobleman who, whatever his excellencies might be, was known to be deficient in his attendance on public worship.

I am, Sir,

Your most obedient servant,
JOHN BOWLES

I need not apprise you, Sir, that I suppressed my statement on the topics in question, when I knew that it was controverted; and, accordingly, the note respecting the payment of labourers on Sundays and the emptying of the pond was omitted in my last edi

tion.

William Adam, Esq. Lincoln's Inn.

SIR,

Tavistock, 29th October, 1803.

WHEN I saw you at the Quarter Sessions in Surry, early in this month, I told you that I had received your letter of the 20th of August, and that I would write to you soon. It reached me in Scotland in September, but constant employment then and since has made it impossible for me to reply to it till now.

It has all along been the anxious wish of the Duke of Bedford, that the vindication of his Brother's character from the charge of irreligion, which you made against him, should be conducted with the utmost temper and decorum, and that the greatest candour should be shewn in obtaining and communicating the fullest informatión on

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the subject. Accordingly when it appeared from your letter of the 10th of May last, that you considered the allegation in the paper which I transmitted to you for publication as not warranting a positive retractation (because it amounted only to a general declaration of the Duke's Agents "at the time," that no such occurrence as emptying the fish-pond on Sunday took place, and that it might have taken place previous to their employment), I immediately answered, that although I considered the refutation to be as precise as the charge, yet if you would state to me the time at which it was alleged to have. taken place, I would, by examining to that date, render the refutation complete. To this I never received a direct answer from you, and I only discovered the date by your mentioning THE YEAR 1797 incidentally: this enabled me to examine various persons who had been employed by the Duke of Bedford in that year. I transmitted their narratives to you in a letter of the 15th of August; by which it appears that I did not confine my examination to the year 1797, but carried it back to a period long antecedent and brought it down to a period long subsequent. I took upon me without hesitation the burthen of proving the negative of your assertion, which was, "that some "hundreds of labourers had been employed in emptying the great "pond at the Abbey on a Sunday;" and I have proved beyond all question, that the assertion published by you is utterly void of foundation.

Having thus satisfied the only doubt suggested by you in your letter of the 10th of May, I considered myself as entitled to call upon you for a publication of the statement which I sent to you in April.

It appears however, by your letter of the 25th of August, that you decline to adopt that plain and simple mode of contradicting the slander, and that you wish to accompany it with explanatory matter to vindicate the publication.

That proposal cannot be adopted, nor is it possible to acquiesce in the representation which you have made in your letter of the 20th of August.

First---As to the repair of the church of Woburn by the late Duke of Bedford (which was unfit for the reception of a congregation), in which repair he had provided for his own attendance; it is a fact, which proves his sense of religion and his intention to attend public worship.

Secondly---As to the payment of labourers on Sunday; you say that you admit where that was done it was without the Duke's knowledge, but the documents which I transmitted to you prove that it was not done at all.

Thirdly---As to the emptying of the pond; I proposed in my letter of the 15th of August, that the documents should speak for themselves; and if you will refer to that letter, you will find that I proposed that Mr. Agutter's two letters and Mr. Mansell's answer should form part of the publication. It was unnecessary therefore for you to ask me to send copies, and improper to treat the subject as if that were your suggestion and not my offer.

Fourthly---Mr. Mansell, in the account which I sent you on the 15th of August, denies, in toto, the conversation with Mir, Agutter ;-

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he says, "he never said to any one that the late Duke of Bedford em ployed hundreds of labourers in emptying the great pond at the "Abbey on a Sunday;" and he gives his reason for this, viz. "that no such fact ever existed; and that he never could have said so, be"cause it was not true, and whoever said so is a villain for bringing his 66 name up with so infamous a falsehood.”

As you thought Mr. Mansell's letter to Mr. Agutter contained internal evidence, from its diction, that it was not Mansell's, and therefore to be discredited, I thought it right to take the very words that he used; I see no reason after this for interrogating him farther, but I have no doubt that he is ready to state what he knows and recollects to any person who may wish to interrogate him.

Fifthly---I cannot admit that the manner in which you received the information on which your statement is founded, justified you in the publishing it.

The principle upon which I controvert this assertion, cannot be better illustrated than by this very case.

Upon the hearsay of Mr. Agutter you publish, as facts, matter to make good your charge---" that the late Duke of Bedford not only "disregarded the observances of religion himself, but was the means "of preventing many others from keeping the Sabbath holy;" and when that hearsay is probed to the quick, and the most anxious examination gone into respecting it, there appears to have been no foundation for it upon earth.

Can there, then, be a doubt of the statement having been rashly made, when it rested upon mere hearsay? and should it not be readily retracted when it is disproved?

Lastly---As to the motive for your publication, it cannot be taken into consideration here; the only object of my communication with you, was to vindicate the Duke of Bedford's reputation from the aspersion cast upon it in your pamphlet, and in other publications, which have continued to circulate what you began; and if you decline, after all, to authorise the contradiction by publishing the plain statement and proofs with which I have supplied you, I shall, agreeably to my former letters, lay the whole before the public.

With respect to your having omitted the note in your last edition, I do not think that sufficient, or indeed of any avail. It is impossible to remove the impression except by your simple and unmixed retraction, or by an exhibition of the proof by which the matter both in your note and in the text of your pamphlet is disproved.

I am, Sir,

Your obedient humble Servant,
WILLIAM ADAM.

John Bowles, Esq. Office of Commissioners of Dutch Claims, Broad-street.

SIR,

Dulwich Common, November 2, 1803.

I HAVE recently been favoured with two letters from you; in the first of which you decline the proposal contained in my letter of the 20th of last August, to publish the documents with which you had

furnished

furnished me on the subject of our correspondence, together with a statement of the manner in which I received the information which appeared in my pamphlet. Instead of acceding to the offer, you require from me the publication of the above-mentioned documents unaccompanied with any observations of my own; and you intimate that if I do not comply with this requisition, you will lay the whole before the public. Now, Sir, as my proposal was calculated to give the character of the late Duke the full benefit of your investigation, and at the same time to do justice to myself, I cannot consent to bring the matter forward in any other way. If you think proper to do so, Į must claim a right to reply as I may see occasion.

I am, Sir,

William Adam, Esq.

Lincoln's Inn.

Your obedient servant,

JOHN BOWLES.

IN

REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE CHURCHMAN's REMEMBRANCER, &c.
Continued from p. 325.

N our extracts from the chapters of the NECESSARY DOCTRINE written by Archbishop Cranmer on FREE WILL, JUSTIFICATION, AND GOOD WORKS, we shewed how decidedly contrary were his opinions to the rigid doctrines of Calvin. A strong additional proof of this is, that "Calvin, understanding King Edward's design of prosecuting the Reformation here, wrote to Cranmer, offering his assistance; but the Archbishop knew the man,' says Heylin, and refused the offer.' While for the mild and amiable Melancthon he had an high veneration; for Melancthon, who with his own hand, expunged the article de Electione out of a rescript of Calvin's.”

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The 3d section "confirms the sense of the 17th article, as to its containing a caveat against the rigid doctrine, and the abuses too naturally following from it, by an extract from the REFORMATIO LEGUM, of the chapter DE PREDESTINATIONE: and a stronger proof of the Anti-Calvinistic sentiments of our reformers could hardly be alleged. They condemn as an HERESY the notions of absclute irrespective predestination, and clearly evince that such were not the sentiments of our church, by the strong language which they use in the EPILOGUS to this division, DE HERESIBUS of the Reformatio Legum; in which they conjure, in the most solemn manner, all persons to avoid falling into these most pestilent opinions; and call upon the governors in church and state to extirpate them entirely out of the kingdom. But for the very valuable matter contained in this third section we must refer to the tract itself, as it would suffer by abridgment, and our limits will not allow us to insert it at full length.

In the fourth section are produced the testimonies of the Bishops Hooper and Latimer against the rigid doctrine of the gospellers, and the ill use they too naturally made of it.

Bishop Hooper published his DECLARATION OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS in 1549, and subscribed the articles, as Bishop of Gloucester, in 1552. That his subscription was such as his conscience clearly admitted, may well be concluded from his eager struggle against the vestments, which he thought he could not lawfully use, as savoring of Popish superstition. In this work he professedly encounters the opinions of the Gospellers of his days, and answers their arguments; and from it we shall adduce one extract, as it illucidates a passage of Scripture (Rom. ix. 13.) which Calvin uses to confirm his doctrine of absolute predestination and reprobation, and which his followers lay much stress upon.

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"Again, after shewing that Adam's sin extended to all and every of his posterity, so did the promise of grace in Christ generally appertain as well to every and singular of Adain's posterity as to Adani: thus asserting universal redemption through Christ, he goes on to explain himself as follows, "Further sainte "Paule doth by collation of Adam and Christ, sinne and grace, thus interpret God's promise, and maketh not Christ inferiour to Adam, nor grace unto "sinne. If all then shall be saved, what is to be said of those that saint Peter speaketh of, THAT SHALL PERISH FOR THEIR FALSE DOCTRINE. And likewise Christ saith, THAT THE GATE IS STRAIGHT THAT LEADETH TO LIFE, AND FEW ENTER. Thus the scripture answereth: that the promise of grace appertaineth to everie sort of men in the world, and comprehendeth them all, howbeit within certaine limits and bounds, the which if men neglect or pass over, they exclude themselves from the promise in Christ: as Cain was no more excluded, till he excluded himselfe, than Abel; Saule than David; "Judas than Peter, † Esau than Jacob: by the § scripture it seemeth that the sentence of God was given to save the one, and to damne the other, before "the one loved God, or the other hated God. Howbeit these thretnings of "God against Esau, if he had not of his wilfull malice excluded himself from the promise of grace, should no more have hindered his salvation, than God's threatnings against | Ninivie, which notwithstanding that God said should "be destroid within forty daies, stood a great time after, and did penance: "Esau was circumcised and presented unto the church of God by his father Isaac in all externall ceremonies as well as Jacob, and that his life and conver"versation was not as agreeable unto justice and equitie, as Jacob's; the sen"tence of God unto Rebecca was not the fault, but his owne malice, for there is " mentioned nothing at all in that place, that Esau was disherited of eternal life, "but that he should be inferior to his brother Jacob in this world, which pro"phesie was fulfilled in their posterities, and not the persons themselves. Of this acceptation of the one, and reprobation of the other, concerning the "mise of the earth, speaketh Malachie the prophet, as the beginning of his "book declareth, speaking in this wise. I HAVE LOVED YOU (SAITH THE LORD) 66 AND YOU SAJE: WHEREIN HAST THOU LOVED Us? God answereth: WAS NOT ESAU JACOB'S BROTHER? (SAITH THE LORD) NOTWITHSTANDING, I LOVED JACOB AND HATED ESAU. Wherein hated God Esau? the prophet sheweth: I HAVE MADE HIS POSSESSION THAT WAS THE MOUNT SEIR DESOLAT, AS A DESERT OR WILDERNESS OF DRAGONS: the which happened in the time of Nabuchodonosor. Wherein he loved Jacob, the text declareth. God "tranferred the right and title that apperteineth unto Esau the elder brother to * Jacob the younger. Likewise the land that was promised unto † Abraham and

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* Rom. v. 15.

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2 Pet. ii. 1. 5.

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See above, p. 4. a quotation from Calvin's Institutes, lib. iii. cap. 22. sect. 11. here he makes use of this instance of Esau and Jacob to confirm his doctrine of bsolute predestination and reprobation, which Hooper here clears up,

Mai. i. 2. 3.-Rom. ix. 13.
++ Gen.xxv 23. and xxvi. 23. 29.

Jonas i. 2.

*

Mal. i. 2. 3.

"Isaac,

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