signature, to indulge in a style of censure to which he might, very reasonably, be unwilling to affix his name. Of my conduct respecting the illstarred, or rather the ill-patronized, edition of "Dr. Priestley's Works," this "Original Subscriber thus complains: "I must suppose there are many like myself worn out by the very great length to which the Editor is carrying it, and which, I fear, has in some measure defeated the ends intended by its publication." Now, a principal end was to do honour to Dr. Priestley, by leaving in the world, as an appropriate, and, perhaps, the most durable memorial of his talents, and his worthy occupation of them, a complete and correct edition of his Theological and Miscellaneous Works, with such Notes by the Editor as might connect and illustrate them. I have not designedly added a single page to serve any other purpose; and I can assure "An Original Subscriber," that had I consulted only my pecuniary interest, not one of those notes, by "the very great length" of which he has been "worn out," would have accompanied the text of Dr. Priestley. I am, indeed, aware, though too late, that, neglecting to consult the experienced, I greatly erred as to the extent of the works, and the una voidable exposure to pecuniary loss, in editing, on the terms proposed, such large and closely-printed volumes, especially when from the very marked indifference to the object, generally, though, from my inexperience, very unexpectedly, discovered by the more opulent Unitarians, I could not venture beyond an impression of 250 copies. Nor could I have ventured so far, but for an additional subscription for a number of copies, freely proffered to me by another " Original Subscriber," "a Friend of Dr. Priestley," who would admit of no other designation.

"An Original Subscriber" may probably by this time be satisfied that, were I not still determined to expend something besides time and attention, and the exertion of any suitable talent with which Providence has intrusted me, and to "bear up, and steer right onward" towards the accomplishment of a very favourite projeet, I also should be ready to complain of being " worn out by the very

great length" to which I have already carried what, to speak commercially, cannot fail to be a losing concern.

But "An Original Subscriber," in whatever style of language he may allow himself to require the information, has, unquestionably, a right to be informed how far I expect yet to travel in this pursuit, should life and ability be continued, that he may determine whether he is not too irrecoverably "worn out" to accompany me any further. The Theological Works, (including Vol. I., reserved for the Life and Correspondence,) have extended to XXI. instead of the proposed XVIII. Volumes. The Miscel laneous Works will occupy Two Volumes beyond the Twenty-third, just now issuing from the press. For these works I hastily and very erroneously appropriated about two volumes only,' having never seen several of the articles. To the whole I propose to add a volume containing various Indexes, any additions or corrections which may have occurred to me, or which any friend may supply, and, perhaps, a few short biographical notices of authors mentioned, but not described in the Works. Thus the volumes will unavoidably amount to twenty-six instead of the proposed twenty. After receiving such an unsatisfactory statement as to the " very great length," and no assurance as to time, except that of a determination to devote to an object, the accomplishment of which would yield a gratification such as wealth is too poor to purchase, all the leisure which very uncertain health, certain "cares of this world," and highly incumbent duties will allow, "An Original Subscriber" may probably retract his courteous hint of encouragement to "the Editor," that by giving the required information he "will, perhaps, succeed in getting some of the volumes taken off" the bookseller's "shop-floor."

Leaving, however, "An Original Subscriber" either quite "worn out," or, more happily, convalescent, I would respectfully address myself to the subscribers at large, all of whom are probably to be found among your readers. The works, in their completion, will extend, as now ascertained, so far beyond the original proposals, that any subscriber, to whom such an ex

tension may, from any cause, be inconvenient, has an undoubted right, not, indeed, to retain the volumes he has received, without applying for the rest, and thus to leave imperfect sets in the hands of the Editor; but to return those volumes, claiming from the Editor the return of the first subscription, and the price paid for each volume. To such equitable claims I shall pay an immediate attention.

As to others, who are sufficiently satisfied with the progress of the undertaking, or disposed to make allow ance for unavoidable delays, and have no other reason for ceasing to be subscribers, they will, I hope, allow me to urge upon their consideration, the very great inconvenience and embarrassments to which an Editor is unavoidably exposed, by not having an opportunity of receiving payment for the volumes as soon as they are printed. Those subscribers who are not already in correspondence with me, will, I trust, immediately send their directions accordingly. I beg leave here to repeat my request to any of your readers, who can oblige me with any letters to or from Dr. Priestley, or any information which may assist me in arranging materials for the Life, illustrating the remainder of the works preparing for the press, or correcting any errors in the works already print ed.

I ought to apologize for occupying any of your pages with a subject so personal, and which can interest only a small proportion of your readers. To make the amends just now in my power, I offer you a letter, which you will, I think, deem sufficiently interesting to be worthy of your preservation. I copied it, some time since, from the valuable papers of Dr. Birch, in the British Museum, and have no reason to suppose it was ever printed. At least he has not given it, where it might have been expected, in his Life of Boyle. Probably, when Dr. Birch published that Life in 1744, the letter was not in his possession.

The writer, Lady Caroline Boyle, who married Viscount Ranelagh, is less distinguished as the wife or mother of a peer, than as the sister and friend of Robert Boyle, who, dedicating to Lady Ranelagh, under the name of Sophronia, his "Occasional Reflec

tions," describes himself as attached to her "more upon the account of esteem and gratitude, than of nature itself." Bishop Burnet, in his sermon on the Death of the great Philosopher, in 1691, remarks, that "his sister and he were pleasant in their lives, and in their deaths they were not divided; for as he had lived with her above forty years, so he did not outlive her above a week." After describing Lady Ranelagh as applying the influence of her rank and property to the most benevolent purposes, the Bishop appears to represent her as belonging to some sect of Nonconformists, yet in the exercise of the most catholic spirit. Though some particular opinions," says he, "might shut her up in a divided communion, yet her soul was never of a party. She divided her charities and friendships, both her esteem, as well as her bounty, with the truest regard to merit, and her own obligations, without any difference made upon the account of opinion."

66

Of "Dr. Worsley," mentioned by Lady Ranelagh, I can find no account. "Mr. Oldenburgh" is well known as the correspondent of Mr. Ray and the principal philosophers of his time. According to Dr. Birch, (Life of Boyle, p. 114,) he was "a native of Bremen," and "agent for that city in England." He was appointed "Secretary to the Royal Society, and died suddenly in September 1677, which ascertains the date of the letter. It appears that Mr. Boyle took the charge of Mr. Oldenburgh's two orphans. Countess and our youths" were, I suppose, the daughter-in-law and grandsons of Lady Ranelagh, who had been for some years a widow.

"The

"Mr. Wood," concerning whom Dr. Evans inquires, (XVIII. 690, and of whom see XII. 385,) is mentioned by Dr. Priestley in a note to the second of his Familiar Letters, as "the Dissenting Minister at Chowbent, in Lancashire," who, "in the first Rebellion, took the field himself at the head of his congregation." In Mr. H. Toulmin's Account of Mr. Mort, published in 1793, pp. 4-9, Dr. Evans will also find some interesting particulars of General Woods, who was the son of an ejected minister, and died in 1759.

J. T. RUTT.

preserve silence from a desire not to give publicity to a publication that at once overturns this portion of the fabric of Orthodoxy?

SIR,

THO

66

AN OLD SUBSCRIBER.

Islington, Jan. 1, 1824. HOUGH the Rev. Edward Ir. ving in the Preface to the Third Edition of his "Oracles of God and Judgment to come," says he prays for his unregenerate critics in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity," yet I am not sorry for the notice I took of his work, in a former Number of your Miscellany. (XVIII. 458.) Indeed, his admirers have thanked me for it. My only wish was that he would review the heart withering doctrine of eternal torments, which he himself confesses "shocks the faculties of reason and distresses the powers of belief." However, I must do him the justice to declare, that he does not couple along with it, like many of his orthodox brethren, the horrible decree of "election and reprobation." He again and again insists on the possibility of the sinner escaping eternal torment, and an exclusion from heaven is the result of his own incurable depravity. One paragraph on the subject is too remarkable to be omitted.

"All a man's life-time is the reign of grace. Till he closes his eyes, MERCY weeps over him to melt his stony heart. God's own Son, whose daughter mercy is, weeps over him to melt his stony heart; he shews to him his wounds and his cross, telling him he hath died once and could die again to save him! Surely God is slower to judgment than man is; surely unto the last he putteth off; surely there is not any thing he would not do sooner than bring it to the grand and finishing stroke of everlasting doom!" So far so well; for as Dr. Doddridge in his Theological Lectures justly remarks, "That a Being who is said not to tempt any one, and even swears that he desires not the death of a sinner, should irresistibly determine MILLIONS to the commission of every sinful action of their lives, and then with all the pomp and pageantry of an universal judgment condemn them to eternal misery, on account of these actions,

that hereby he may promote the hap piness of others, who are or shall be, irresistibly determined to virtue, in like manner, is, of all incredible things, to me the must incredible!"

To shew the Rev. Mr. Irving that I am not one of those unregenerate critics who delight only in finding fault with his work, I will conclude with an extract, which, amidst the multiplicity of quotations, has never yet made its appearance in any periodical publication. It is on a future state. Had Mr. Irving always written thus, his volume would have been eminently useful and encountered no opposition throughout the religious world. It takes the Unitarian ground of incul cating the resurrection of the human race from the resurrection of the Man Christ Jesus, agreeably to the words of the Apostle Paul, 1 Cor. xv. 21: Since by man came death, by man: came also the resurrection of the deads and yet by this Reverend Divine from the pulpit are UNITARIANS frequently unchristianized. The extract is the best part of the volume: it is addressed to Unbelievers, and written in the spirit of unadulterated and scriptural theology. Nor is it an improper topic of meditation at the commencement of the new year.

"Seeing we have ALL to pass through the same ocean of death which our SAVIOUR passed, and to explore the unknown land beyond it from which he alone returned, it behoves us to apply to him for advice upon the best outfit for the journey. He alone doth know, for he alone hath seen. Our own fancies are dubious, and may prove as wide of the truth when we awaken upon the long day of eternity, as our visions upon our pillow do seem in the morning. Neither let us be directed by the fancies of other men who see no further beyond death than we do. The land is a new land, to the nature of which you and I and all men are strangers. It lies like a wide dark ocean spread around the little island of life whereon we sojourn! A dark impenetrable curtain shrouds us in, of which the sight is fearful and the neighbourhood appalling. All men are moving towards this dark verge with ceaseless and anxious motion, which sometimes approacheth and shroudeth up multi

tudes prematurely in its invisible womb, and all trace of them is for ever gone: it flits and shifts before us with fearful incertitude, and no man laying himself down at night is sure that he will rise again in the morning among his friends and in his native land. But though it shifts awhile, this gloomy bourne of our pilgrimage hath an unshifting limit behind which it never recedes. And soon the extreme angle of that limit is reached. by all! On they move in endless succession, helpless as the sheep to the slaughter, and the moment they touch the dark confine they disappear, and all clue of them is lost! You may cry aloud, but they hear and answer not; you may give them any signal, but they see and return it not. No voice cometh from within the curtain where all is silent and unknown. How it fares with them, whether they merge at once into another country, whether they are out at sea, by what compass and map they steer, or whether they are lost in that gulf and abyss of being for evermore, no man for thousands and, thousands of years had the shadow of an imagination. It was very mysterious; each man as he passed shuffled off his mortal coil,' left us his slough, but nothing of himself. His reason, his feeling, his society, his love, all went with him: here with us was left all of him that we were wont to see and touch and handle. How he could exist apart from these, the helps and instruments of being, was all a phantom and a dream. The existence, if existence there was, no human faculties could fix a thought upon. His spirit, if spirit there were, takes its fate in cold nakedness; but how it dwells or feels or suffers or enjoys, when thus divested, was altogether incomprehensible. Why, then, in this midnight ignorance, should we apply to any man to guide us, or to ourselves? It is vanity. Quit, then, with such presumptuous trust, and be not duped with their blind directions.

"Only ONE MAN of the myriads who passed the darksome veil returned; he passed into the obscure, in the obscure he tarried, and like the rest was given up for lost. But forth he came in the greatness of his strength, having conquered the powers beyond.

He came not for his own sake but for ours, to give us note and warning of what was doing upon the other side, and of what fare we were to expect for ever! And he hath laid down the simplest rules to guide us to happiness and honour, and the amplest warning to keep us from degradation and ruin. In the name of reason and consistency, then, to whom should we apply but unto him who knows so well, and was never known in all he said to deceive, in all he did to injure? To him, then, let us go for tuition. And most surely he is the kindest, most affectionate, most considerate Teacher, that ever breathed the breath of knowledge over helpless ignorance. Away, then, with our own conjectures, away with the conjectures of other men who, however wise in this life, know nothing of the life within the veil which shrouds us in. Up, then, go to THE SCRIPTURES which he uttered of himself or by the inspiration of his spirit; there let us be stripped of all our fancied knowledge of things which we know not in the least. Under them let us commence a new childhood, a new scholarship for eternity, and we shall arrive at length at that manhood of strength and knowledge, which will never fall away into the dotage or sereness of age, and shall survive death and convey us safe through the unknown to the mansion of our heavenly Father, which our great Fore-runner hath gone to prepare for our reception."

I close by remarking, that in this great doctrine of a future state, the Christian world, however crumbled down respecting inferior articles of faith, are united. The Catholic, the Churchman and Dissenter, are here agreed. That JESUS hath brought life and immortality to light, is the prime doctrine of the Christian revelation in which both Trinitarians and Unitarians have uniformly acquiesced. "There is a something in our common faith," (says Dr. Watson, the late Bishop of Llandaff,)" in which all are agreed, and that somewhat is in my opinion a circumstance of such ineffable importance that I will never refuse the right hand of fellowship to him who acknowledges its truth, never think or speak of him with disrespect, nor with true pharisaical pride esteem myself more orthodox, more accepta