are obedient to his precepts shall obtain everlasting life." To this is subjoined the following note: God. The time, it is hoped, is not far distant, when men will cease to be called by the names of Athanasius, Arius or Socinus." If this should fall in the way of the writer in the Eclectic Review, I should be glad, if he would in as clear a manner state his own opinions; I am sure you would give them a place in your Repository, which I trust will continue to present to your readers both sides of the question, for our cause delights in investigation, and neither requires nor will ever cmploy abuse in its support. I remain, Sir, Your very obedient PHILO XENOS. Gogmagog on the curious' Extract from the Eclectic Review. SIR, "As persons are frequently led away by names, to which they affix very opprobrious ideas, and this abuse prevails no where more than in the University, I shall for the sake of the junior students, just delineate the leading features of some sects now prevailing in the nation. By Unita. rians I mean those, who believe God to be one person, and all other persons and things to be his creatures in opposition to Trini. tarians, who believe God to con. sist of three persons in one substance, and all creatures, persons and things to be their joint production. The different opinions concerning the nature of Christ, may be briefly stated in the following manner. Either Christ pre-existed, or he did not. If he pre-existed, it must have been either as God, or as a creature of God; the former is the Athanasian, the latter the Arian opinion. If he did not pre-exist, his existence must have commenced either naturally or supernaturally; that is, he must have been conceived by his mother in the ordinary manner, or in some extraordinary way, must have been the son of Joseph and Mary, or of Mary alone: the former as it was the opinion of some early Christians, so it is also of some sensible and learned persons of our Your curious' extract enables times; the latter is the general me to answer a question which I opinion prevailing among the So- have sometimes heard concerning cinians. The author professes this company of Eclectics. The himself to be a Unitarian, distin- true Eclectic in religion, is one guished from the Arians, by denying the pre-existence of Christ; and from the Socinians, by deny ing the propriety of addressing prayers to any but the one true Impotent rage is always ridiculous: you have, indeed, amused your readers by bringing forward a redoubtable Eclectic to play his frantic part on the arena of your Repository. (pp. 92-94.) Wheth er he or his brethren have been equally satisfied with his being exhibited on such a stage, may perhaps be doubted. You have given him rope enough, according to the condition of the proverb, and he has exemplified the consequence of it (which I need not put down in words,) most notably. who picks up one grain of truth out of this party, and another out of that, and so fills up his measure of wheat without chaff; but this is evidently not the just defi. nition of such Eclectics as he who are told, by a certain set of physi. has been figuring away upon your cians among the antients, who pages, who has no taste but for culled simples to cure disease; and seed of the growth of Geneva, and from them it is borrowed, doubtless, who would empty his bushel, ra- by our modern reviewers, who colther than suffer it to contain a lect and decompose new publicasingle kernel of Polish corn. Your tions in order to get an extract Eclectics are not necessarily phi- that shall poison heresy. losophers; Shakespeare has sketch. ed out in his wonderful manner a company of female Eclectics, who reviewed all nature, in order to choose and pick whatever is nau. But to follow our own Eclectic, seous and venomous; I allude to instead of wandering after Eclecthe Weird Sisters' in Macbeth, tics, in general,--he complains who elected and collected the fol. that Socinians' have received lowing ingredients' for their 'cal. dron:' -- Double, double toil and trouble; By a like eclectic process, divines gather together all that is rank in prejudice, all that is bitter in calumny, all that is malignant in passion, and after proper distillation acquire the odium theologicum, the essence of bigotry, a spirit more intoxicating and brutifying, than -the insane root That takes the reason prisoner. Thus, Sir, you have an idea, in the language of the above-mentioned antient doctors, of the medicina eclectica. from "the Christian world, a forbearance and complaisance to which they were ill-entitled," and he instances in those two Socinian' ring-leaders, Lardner and Priestley. The opposite of complaisanceis rudeness, of forbearance-in. tolerance; and certainly Lardner, though a 'Socinian,' was not insulted, much less imprisoned or expatriated, by his orthodox contemporaries; perhaps, they could not well spare his learning, or conveniently forget his services to the cause of Christianity, and hence agreed to cover his naked. ness, to veil his abominable heresy*. In this our Eclectic thinks them wrong and laments their It is amusing to observe how ea gerly Lardner is held up to praise as a Christian, by the very men, that think no abuse too much for him as a 'Socinian.' We have the same farce played off with the names of Locke and Newton, who, whenever Christianity is to be de fended against unbelievers, are blazoned forth as illustrious ornaments of the faith, (as in this very article of the Eclectic Review, in the next paragraph but one, to those quoted in the M. Repos.) but who, there is every reason to believe, were Socinians,' that is, in the Eclectic version, Anti-scripturalists, Semi-de The meaning therefore of the term Eclectic cannot be any longer doubtful. It was assumed, we ists.' "The reader can be at no loss to determine, whom the author intends by a busy active man in regenerating the civil constitutions of nations. The occasion of the Sermon, and the complexion of its sentiments, concur in direct. ing us to Dr. Priestley; a person whom the author seems to regard with a more than odium theologicum, with a rancour exceeding the measure, even of his profession*. The religious tenets of Dr. Priestley appear to me erroneous in the extreme, but I should be sorry to suffer any difference of sentiment to diminish my sensibility to virtue, or my admiration of genius. From him the poisoned arrow will fall pointless. His enlightened and active mind, his unwearied assiduity, the extent of his re error. But, surely, he has little that lofty stile of eloquence, to occasion to regret the lavish "com. which a vigorous writer is someplaisance and forbearance," in- times lifted, unconsciously, by dulged to Dr. Priestley! That his subject. heresiarch might not, indeed, deserve respect or kindness--but he certainly found little of either from our Eclectic's Christian world.' He was, it is true, only driven from his peaceful home; his library and philosophical apparatus only were burnt; the copies of his works, dispersed throughout the country, were not committed to the flames by the hands of the hangman; his approvers were not every where threatened and harrassed by an orthodox mob; and war was not made upon America for receiving into her bosom, a man with the viper' of heretical pravity fastened on his hand,' and vengeance' marked out on his person and family. Yet he suffered enough, one would think, to satisfy any ordinary malice; and his sufferings would, I verily searches, the light that he has believe, have satisfied our Eclectic himself, but for the recollection of certain eulogies passed upon the celebrated exile, by some writers, whose talents and elo. quence might have been expected to be devoted wholly to the orthodox faith, but whose philanthropy triumphed, for a moment, over their creed. I am persuaded, Sir, that our Eclectic had in his eye, a beautiful wreath of praise, wound about the head of Dr. Priestley, by "Robert Hall, M.A." of Cambridge, in his pamphlet entitled "Christianity consistent with a Love of Freedom: being an Answer to a Sermon, lately published, by the Rev. John Clay. ton." Printed for Johnson, 1791. Permit me to place the passage I allude to in your work; it is in poured into almost every department of science, will be the admiration of that period, when the greater part of those who have favoured, or those who have opposed him, will be alike forgotten. Distinguished merit will ever rise superior to oppression, and will draw lustre from reproach. The The Eclectic Review was not in stituted, till many years after Mr. Hall wrote his pamphlet, or we might have interpreted him to insinuate here that the Rev. John Clayton' was an Eclectic. It is, however, the divine faculty of genius to see future events, when they are as yet in embryo; and Mr. Hall might from his great perspicacity, be able to foretel that bigotry, after sleeping' many days and nights, would get so much sweltered venom,' of such potent malignity, as to require an Eclectic Review for its discharge. C vapours which gather round the venient instrument of reproach, he rising sun, and follow it in its very naturally reflects (as appears course, seldom fail at the close of to me,) upon Mr. Hail, who has, it, to form a magnificent theatre in various parts of his reply to for its reception, and to invest "the Rev. John Clayton," magwith variegated tints and with a sof. nanimously protested against the tened effulgence the luminary which use of poisoned weapons in the they cannot hide." (pp. 34. 35.) controversy with the Unitarians. This was worthy of the successor My opinion that our Eclectic of Robert Robinson; this merits, intended his article to be a disin too, the anger of our Eclectic, genuous attack upon both Mr. who can never, I dare say, forget Mall and the Socinians,' is furthe length to which Mr. Hall here ther strengthened by the recolleccarried forbearance and com- tion of many passages glancing at plaisance" towards such an arch- and reprobating cowardly theolo heretic, or forgive the Socinians' gical assaults, in the admirable the honour of having had such an pamphlet which seems to have eulogy pronounced upon their made an equally deep impression upon the reviewer and me. Feeling himself condemned in the condemnation passed by Mr. Hall upon such as resort to base polemical artifices, how much in cha racter was it that, whilst he was foaming with rage against Sociniens,' he should have sprinkled a little of his venom upon that libe ral writer! The following is one passage out of many at which our Eclectic must have maddened : leader. There is another reason why I feel a strong conviction that our Eclectic meant to smite Mr. Hall through the sides of the Socinians;' which is, that Mr. Hall, in the valuable pamphlet before quoted, gives a definition of an Unitarian totally different from that of our Reviewer, and one which allows the appellation of Unitarian to the Socinian' and conveys nothing reproachful. He "He (Mr. Clayton,) gives us says, (p. 56) "An Unitarian is a a pompous enumeration of the person who believes Jesus Christ piety, learning and talents of a had no existence till he appeared large body of his brethren who on our earth, whilst a Trinitarian concur with him in a disapprobamaintains that he existed with the tion of the theological and politi Father from all eternity." Now cal tenets of the Unitarians. The this is the very definition of an weakness of mingling them togeUnitarian for which Dr. Priest- ther has been shown already; but ley himself contended against if these great and eminent men, both the Arians and the Trinitari. whom the world never heard of ans; but with this our Eclectic before, possess that zeal for their quarrels, because it is a matter of religion, they pretend, let them fact statement of a theological opi- meet their opponents on the open nion, and cannot like the bugbear field of controversy, where they termSocinian,' (appropriate to may display their talents and no English sect,) be pressed into prowess to somewhat more advan the service of calumny; and, ob- tage than in skulking behind a jecting to the loss of such a con- consecrated altar." (p. 74.) Our Eclectic has indeed bene- Dr. Horsley and Mr. Pitt, his fited the public by the exercise sarcastic ridicule of the Rev. and display of his peculiar talent; John Clayton,' his vindication of but he felt it more safe to cast the liberty of the Press, his argu. abuse from behind a hedge than to ments for a Reform of Parliament, take open ground, where the and his rapturous exultations on abuse and the abuser would have the French Revolution. Such an been seen together. He feared, admirer of Mr. Hall, I conceive perhaps, that if he grappled per- our Eclectic to be, who neverthesonally with the expiring Unitari- less caricatures all the features of ans, some one of this once formi- his style; who exhibits his coarsedable tribe might suminon up the ness without his vigour, and his last remains of strength and throt- passion without his genius,-who tle him in a convulsive, dying gives us his painful periods which struggle. However this may be, yet as to sense are perfectly aborit is to the honour of Mr. Hall tive, and who designs his bold that he should be looked upon as figures but is utterly unable to an adversary, in virtue of his cha- mould them into shape, to give racter as an author, by a disciple them expression or to keep them of the Old Man of the Mountain.* from confusion; who attempts One more reason may be assign. fine writing but violates grammar, ed why I consider our Eclectic as who affects to be nervous upon having Mr. Hall in his mind; nonsense, and who seeks to be namely, a certain awkward imita- brilliant by the aid of the printer, tion of that writer's style, which and with an inverted sacredness, Dr. Parr, (Spital Sermon, p. 63, an anti-apocalyptic sublimity, Note) pronounces 'most beautiful couches slander under the mysand animated.' Nor is it uncom- tery of the seven stars.' mon for good writers to be imitat. In answer to all these reasons ed by such as are least disposed for my supposition, it may be to borrow their spirit or principles. pleaded that so safe a polemic as Hume has copyists who are not our Eclectic would not have aimed stoics or sceptics; Johnson's pon- a kick at a living lion but he derous sentences are repeated by might reckon upon impunity from many who are not Jacobites; Parr his conscious insignificance and may be taken for a model by some contemptibleness; or he might, that do not think it useful for the more probably, consider the once cause either of learning or truth formidable champion of freedom, to heap together a mass of names, peace and charity, as a defunet great and little, good and bad, author; as, at least, unharnessed and to crown them all with super- for "liberty's defence," twenty lative praises; and Hall, in point years ago his "noble task;" in of eloquence, may have his hum- short, as an emeritus professor of ble admirers, who would yet gladly the rights of man and the prerogaconsign to oblivion his eulogy on tives of conscience. Dr. Priestley, his philippics against |