"

effect, to dishonour "the worthy name by which they are called." As to "the Arians," (p. vi.,)“ who are in a very dangerous mistake," he is for calling for the word to convince them, but not for the sword to destroy them;" because "fire and faggot, fines and imprisonments, are the engines of hell and Rome, but tend nothing to convince any one of the truth as it is in Jesus, who never suffered the least injury to be done to any that rejected his doctrine, except the Gadarenes, who preferred their hogs to heaven; and, therefore, he justly suffered the Devil to take possession of them, but did no harm to these vile wretches themselves." In this spirit once argued St. Athanasius; and it were well could he gain the attention of those Christian persecutors, who heard unmoved the dictates of truth and freedom from Hume and the late lamented Ricardo. "The Devil," says the orthodox Saint, when suffering under Arian persecution, "does therefore use violence, because he has a bad cause, and the truth is not in him. Jesus Christ, on the contrary, uses only exhortations, because his cause is good." (See "A Sermon, on Jan. 30, 1732," in Gordon's Tracts, 1751, II. p. 294, Lardner, IV. 281, 282, IX. 212.) Lactantius, as quoted by Lardner, thus concisely settles the question: "Nec potest aut veritas cum vi, aut justitia cum crudelitate conjungi," a decision which may teach us what the Christianity must be, to which a persecutor can successfully appeal as part and parcel of the law of England;" whether that oracular dictum proceed from a Hale or a Jeffries, a Bailey or a Best.

To return, once more, to the author of the MS. and the "Country Gentleman," of whom I wish any of your readers may give a further account. Both the disputants appear to have held a common faith in a supposed natural religion, on which so many pages had been expended, till the necessity of revelation became very fairly a question. Thus, as Dr. Ellis well observes in his "Knowledge of Divine Things," (1771, p. 12,) "a zeal for natural theology had well nigh destroyed all religion, and Dr. Clarke fell a sacrifice to Tindal by the very weapons he had put into his hands."

I quoted in p. 326, col. 2, President Edwards, as providing for the elect in heaven, as “a relish of their own enjoyments," the sight of their nearest and dearest connexions on earth, writhing in the indescribable torments of their eternal damnation. I have since found that the President was thus anticipated by a divine of the Church of Scotland :—

"No pity shall then be shewn to them from their nearest relations. The godly wife shall applaud the justice of the judge, in the condemnation of her ungodly husband: the godly husband shall say amen to the dannation of her who lay in his bosom: the godly parents shall say Hallelujah, at the passing of the sentence against their ungodly child: and the godly child shall from his heart approve the damnation of his wicked parents, the father who begat him, and the mother who bore him."

Mr. Thomas Boston, who died minister of Etterick, in 1732, is the author of this description, in his celebrated Calvinistic treatise the Fourfold State. (State IV. Head IV. Sec. 9.) Well might my friend Dr. Southwood Smith (from whose Illustra tions, p. 381, I have quoted the passage) say of such theologians as Boston and Edwards, that "there are persons in whom system has so completely subdued the feelings of humanity, that they have brought themselves to view this horrid picture with a steady gaze, to contemplate it with complacency, nay, even to affirm that it is beautiful and glorious."

A description of hell-torments is, I suspect, among the sober-minded of those who believe in the endless misery of the non-elect, no longer a favourite topic as it used to be when that awful subject was treated from the pulpit and the press with horrible minuteness and a most presumptuous confidence. Yet even of those rash intruders on futurity, very few probably can be found, who proposed, like Boston and Edwards, to consummate the bliss of heaven by a contemplation of the torments of hell; and those torments hopelessly endured, perhaps, by

"husband, father, wife, And all the dear companions of our life.” In the same page 326, according to a favourite distinction of the mode

They never should be saved;"

Though Bishop Burnet, in his Exposition, would prepare the 17th Article for an Arminian subscription ex animo, because "it does not make any mention of reprobation; no not in a hint." Calvin understood this subject better, and maintains the rigorous consistency of his horribile decretum against the moderates of his day; deciding, at the same time, that the non-elect will comprise a large majority of the human race, a decision, against which humanity has revolted in the gentle bosoms of many followers of Calvin, though it was worthy of a Christian persecutor who could conscientiously betray his correspondent Servetus into a prison, glory in his destruction, and insult his memory. Calvin thus writes :

"Multi, ac si invidiam a Deo repellere vellent, electionem ita fatentur, ut negent quemquam reprobari; sed inscitè nimis, et pueriliter. Quan do ipsa electio, nisi reprobationi opposita, non staret. Dicetur segregare Deus quos adoptat in salutem: fortuitò alios adipisci, vel sua industria acquirere, quod sola electio paucis confert, plusquam insulsè dicetur. Quos ergo Deus præterit, reprobat: neque alia de causa nisi quòd ab hæreditate quam filiis suis prædestinat, illos vult excludere." Instit. L. iii. C. xxxiii. S. 1.

The old translator thus gives the sense of Calvin: "Many indeed, as though they would drive away the malice from God, do so grant election, that they deny that any man is reprobate but they do too ignorantly and childishly for as much as election itself could not stand unless it were set contrary to reprobation. God is said to sever them whom he adopteth unto salvation: it should be more than foolishly said that other do either by chance, or by their own endeavour obtain that which only election giveth to a few. Therefore whom God passeth over he rejecteth: and for none other cause, but for that he will exclude them from the inheritance which

I have been very desirous of noticing, before the conclusion of your present volume, a passage (p. 55, col. 1) in the Obituary of Dr. Aikin.

I was the arbitrator chosen by the other party in 1806, and have still a distinct recollection of Dr. Aikin's patient investigation of the subject in dispute, and of the anxiety he discovered to perform the duties, not indeed of an advocate or a partizan, of which he was incapable, on such an occasion, but of an equitable judge such as an arbitrator should always consider himself, however, on commencing an inquiry, he may be, unavoidably, prejudiced in favour of the I well party who appointed him. remember that when the examinations were closed, and we had met to discuss the merits of the question, Dr. Aikin postponed the discussion, that he might re-examine some alleged fact which he apprehended that he had too hastily admitted.

These representations I have considered as becoming my respect for the memory of Dr. Aikin, though quite unnecessary to sustain, either among his acquaintance, or before the world at large, the reputation of his character for just discernment and strict integrity.

J. T. RUTT.

P. S. I can bear testimony to the "eccentricity of character"" of Dr. George Edwards, (p. 179, col. 1,) from the recollection of a conversation I held with him in 1792, in company with some literary and political associates. Yet I suspect that you were misled, in imputing to him that very extraordinary dedication.

Mr. George Edwards, the celebrated naturalist, in 1751, prefixed such a dedication to the fourth volume of his "History of Birds." It is quoted, at length, in Biog. Brit. V. 554, where Dr. Kippis remarks, that it

was without doubt, very piously designed, but that the wisdom of it cannot be commended. Such an assumption," he adds, with his usual sense of propriety, "is too great for any human creature, and the few instances of the kind that have occurred in the history of literature have always been justly disapproved."

SIR,

Portsmouth, December 5, 1823.

THE suggestion of your Reviewer, (p. 659,) that the accuser, who had the power of death, in Heb. ii. 14, was the law, appears to me to lead to a just and rational interpretation of the passage. Of this I was some months ago convinced, by reading Mr. Belsham's most valuable and lucid translation and exposition of Paul's Epistles. He has, I think, in his note on this verse, satisfactorily shewn that THE LAW was the diabolos to which the author referred. Had I not lost the recollection of the admirable paper on verse 16, in the Theological Repository, Vol. V. quoted by Mr. Belsham, I should not, in all probability, have been led to adopt so untenable an interpretation as that of heathenism; at least, beyond the unavoidable haste necessarily attendant on the weekly preparation of the lectures.

When your correspondent N. (p. 573,) made inquiries after Dr. John Collet, of Newbury, I expected that ample information would be afforded him from some of your readers in that town. As that has not been done, permit me to offer an extract from the account given of him by his intimate friend the late Rev. David James, in a Sermon preached at Newbury, May 28, 1780; so that my friend Mr. Rutt (p. 650) must have been misinformed respecting the year of the Doctor's death. The widow of Dr. Collet's brother is still living at Newbury, and is I believe in possession of the Doctor's books and MSS.

RUSSELL SCOTT.

coveries, and by some useful publications which were well received; and

also in an uncle who was for some

years a governor* in two of our settlements in the East Indies, and whose conduct was an honour to his station; he, in early years, imbibed those sentiments of religion and virtue which laid the foundation for the exercise of that probity and goodness for which he was distinguished through his whole life. In his youth he was tractable and orderly, fond of learning, and rapid in his progress in it. The knowledge of the classics and other branches of literature he acquired under Dr. Ward, afterwards professor at Gresham College; and Mr. Weston, who kept an academy at Greenwich. From the place last mentioned, he went to Trinity Hall, Cambridge, in April 1725, to finish his classical education. Some time in the year 1727, he went to Leyden, in Holland, to study under the celebrated Boerhaave, and to qualify himself for the study of physic. After attending the usual course of lectures in that university, and approving himself to his superiors by his application and progress, he took his Doctor's degree on July the fifth, 1731. Quitting Leyden, he visited several cities and towns on the continent: stayed for some time at Paris in order to avail himself of the advantages which that city afforded for improvement in the practical part of dispensing medicine, as he afterwards did in London. Being thus qualified for discharging the duties of a physician, several places were proposed to him by his friends in which his knowledge and skill might be exercised. After some deliberation he fixed upon Newbury, and came here in July 1733, having a few days before been admitted a licentiate by the college of physicians in London. Here he continued from that time till his death, except about six years which he spent at Brentford and Uxbridge. In what manner he has demeaned himself during his residence