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shall be renewed in brighter worlds; and that the happiness awaits you of beholding your charge advancing rapidly in an interminable course of knowledge, piety and virtue.

But it were vain to make the supposition, that you have yet ceased acutely to feel a heavier loss, in which I seem to have a peculiar claim to condole with you. It were useless for us to attempt to conceal from ourselves, that there are wounds which time heals but tardily. Although the anguish of grief be passed, the heart long experiences a vacancy, which inclines us to exclaim with the poet, when he had lost an intimate friend,

"In vain to me the smiling mornings shine,

And reddening Phoebus lifts his golden fire,

The birds in vain their amorous descant join,

Or cheerful fields resume their green attire ;

These ears, alas! for other notes repine, A different object do these eyes require,

but

My lonely anguish melts no heart mine, And in my breast th' imperfect joys expire."

GRAY.

My own persuasion is, that when we allow our spirits to sink greatly below their level, it is for want of having our minds stayed on that which is the main support of the afflictedthe hope founded on the merciful character of the Deity, and the declarations of the gospel, that the distressing separation is only temporary, and will be succeeded by a happy meeting and

never be forgotten, let us look steadily at our real condition as deprived, by the wise dispensation of Providence, for a season, of the society in which our souls delighted, to be prepared for an everlasting abode in the mansions of our Father's house, where not a shade shall intercept the rays of his countenance, not a tear be shed for ourselves or others, no cares for the body interrupt the pursuits and enjoyments of the mind. To be deeply persuaded of this truth, is to enjoy a perpetual feast. When the mind, retiring into itself, can enjoy this transporting prospect, none of the cares and accidents of life can ruffle its serenity.

Whatever wound is inflicted, the balm is always at hand: such is the powerful efficacy of the Christian's hope. And it becomes us to place ourselves in those circumstances in which this hope may be most effectually cherished. Adopt whatever methods your own judgment shall direct, for keeping alive in the heart the impression of this rejoicing truth of which the daily business of life is too apt to render us forgetful. If such methods are persevered in, I am persuaded no other traces of sorrow will remain upon our minds, but a certain tenderness of spirit which, while it gives no interruption to our happiness, is highly favourable to the cultivation of devout and benevolent affections. That such may be your happy experience, is the earnest wish and prayer of,

My dear Sir,

Yours, with every sentiment of sympathy and friendship,

an eternal re-union, which will be joy- [Letters III. and IV. in the next No.]

ful in an incalculably greater degree, than the separation has been painful. Other aids may be employed with advantage and success when this is secured-business, exercise, company, change of scene. But if this main pillar be wanting, every other prop must successively sink under the weight which is laid upon it.

Let it be our business, therefore, my friend, to have this eternal and delightful truth deeply wrought into our minds, that "all that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of man, and they that hear shall live." Instead of attempting to obliterate what is indelible, to forget what can

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Account of the Lancashire Controversy on Prayer,

derstanding at least among his brother ministers. In order in some degree to account for certain apparently illiberal expressions in the work before us, as well as to trace the origin of the congregation in Liverpool, referred to by Mr. Rutt, in his P. S., it is necessary to go back to the year 1750, about which period a number of the Lancashire Dissenting Ministers form ed themselves into a society for the purpose of occasionally meeting together, "in order," as they express it, "to a full, impartial and public inquiry into the state and conduct of public worship, and all affairs of religion amongst the Protestant Dissenters of that part of the kingdom where we reside, and to consult upon and put into execution all methods which shall be judged expedient and conducive to the general advantage and improvement of religion."

Their first meeting was held at Warrington, on the 3rd July, 1750, when several rules were agreed upon for the regulation of meetings, which, it was decided, should take place three times in each year, including the provincial meeting. Certain questions were then proposed for discussion, and among others was the following: "As Christian societies have a discretionary power of conducting the public forms of their worship in the manner which they apprehend most agreeable to their own circumstances and the general design of the Christian religion, whether public forms might not be introduced amongst the Dissenters with general advantage."

The conversation on the foregoing question took place at Preston, on the 10th September, 1751, thirteen ministers being present, when the result was, that the majority gave it as their opinion,-"That a proper variety of public devotional offices, well drawn up, in no respect to be imposed, and to be altered at any time as circumstances shall require, might be introduced amongst the Dissenters with general advantage."

On this occasion the following minute was made by the Secretary: "In the course of the conversation, one of the ministers took occasion to represent to the assembly the light in which the Rev. Mr. Chandler of London, looked upon these meetings; that he was pleased to approve of

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them, and of the introductory questions that had been debated. It was resolved to open a correspondence with him on these subjects."

The same question was again brought forward for discussion at the provincial meeting, held at Manchester, 12th May, 1752, at which thirtyfive ministers were present. The issue was, that a conviction seemed to exist of the expediency of a public form of Prayer for general use; and a committee of eight ministers (among whom was Mr. John Brekell, of Liverpool) was appointed "to consider the subject particularly, and to represent the arguments on both sides the question, as fully as possible, as they shall occur in reading or otherwise."

This committee had instructions to meet at Warrington, the second Tuesday in the following September. It was then ordered, "That a letter of thanks be returned to Mr. Chandler's letter, and that he be acquainted with the business appointed for the committee; and that he be desired to give his fullest thoughts on the subject; and that he be pleased to direct us to such farther correspondents as he might judge proper should be applied to."

I have not been able to trace the exact proceedings of this committee, but there is no doubt that a full in quiry into the subject appointed for their consideration took place; and two MSS. which I have perused, written at this time, bear testimony to the earnestness with which the investigation was pursued. One of these was from the pen of Mr. Job Orton, whose assistance was desired. It is of some length, and warmly in opposition to the proposed measure of a Liturgy. About the same period, it is probable, that Mr. Brekell first brought forward the MS. referred to by Dr. Taylor, (p. 35,) also against a prescribed Form of Prayer, and which never appears to have been published.

The discussion on the subject of a public Liturgy seems to have been a prolonged one, for in the year 1758, Mr. Brekell published his "Remarks on a Letter to a Dissenting Minister, concerning the Expediency of stated Forms of Prayer for Public Worship," ascribed by Dr. Taylor's Editor to the Rev. Mr. Seddon, of Warrington. Nor did the affair end in barren spe

culation; for in 1763 a chapel was erected in Temple-Court, Liverpool, for the use of a number of individuals, principally from the congregations of Kaye Street and Ben's Garden, who had taken up the matter and resolved on using a Liturgy. Application had been made to several of the neighbour ing ministers to assist in its compilation, and, among others, to Dr. Taylor, who declined the overture, giving his reasons in his "Scripture Account of Prayer," addressed to the Dissenters in Lancashire, for opposing what he considered an unauthorized and injurious innovation, whether in reference to an individual congregation, or to a plan which he insinuates was contemplated, of introducing a Liturgy, generally, into all the congregations. The entire merits of the case can now only be but imperfectly known, but it is evident that this lengthened discussion had no very amicable termination; and Dr. Taylor calls upon the body of Dissenters to resist every attempt to force upon them any measure not strictly compatible with their religious liberty. "I had it," says he, (p. 72,) "from a principal hand in the affair, that it was proposed to have a meeting of ministers every seventh year, to review and adjust the orthodoxy of the new Liturgy, and to reform any faults therein that might from time to time appear.' This would do, once for all, in the hands of persons inspired and infallible; but, as things now are, it will be directly to set up an ecclesiastical jurisdiction among you, over understanding and conscience, lodged in the hands of fallible men. Therefore, how well so ever this may suit the ambition of innovators, you cannot but be sensible it will subject you, should you consent to it, to an intolerable yoke of bondage. A Septennial Synod of fallible ministers will receive from you, or assume to themselves, authority to sit as judges, to determine and settle for you matters of faith, doctrine and worship. How do you relish this? Can you digest it? It is the natural result of this wild scheme. You must either incur the danger of using a corrupt Liturgy, or consent to establish some authority to revise and correct it, as the case may require. This is directly contrary to your own principles, and to that freedom from human

impositions which, as Christians, you are bound in conscience to disdain and reject; and may, in time, bring you into servitude to as haughty and extravagant a tyranny as ever appeared in the Christian church."

Notwithstanding the difference of opinion which prevailed, "A Form of Prayer and a new Collection of Psalms" was compiled, and brought into use in June, 1763, when the Öctagon Chapel, Liverpool, was opened for public worship, by Mr., afterwards Dr., Nicholas Clayton, who had previously been settled at Boston, in Lincolnshire. He remained pastor of this church till its final dissolution in February, 1776, on which occasion he preached a sermon, afterwards published, and which is pronounced by his friend Mr. Gilbert Wakefield, to be "an excellent composition." During the greater part of the shortlived struggle for existence of the society at the Octagon, Dr. Clayton was assisted by Mr. Hezekiah Kirkpatrick, author of a volume of "Sermons on various Subjects, with an Account of the Principles of Protestant Dissenters, their Mode of Worship, and Forms of Public Prayer, Baptisin and the Lord's Supper;" published in 1785. Mr. Kirkpatrick afterwards removed to Park-Lane, near Wigan, where he died, 19th September, 1799, in his 61st year.

It does not appear that the Liturgy which had been used at the Octagon Chapel was ever adopted in any other congregation, though I believe it has formed a part of one or two more recent compilations, particularly that still in use at Shrewsbury, in the very chapel once occupied by Job Orton, the determined opposer of prescribed forms of public Prayer.

On the dissolution of the society at the Octagon, proposals were made to the congregation of Ben's-Garden Chapel to join their body, which was agreed to, and Dr. Clayton was associated there, as one of the ministers, with the Rev. Robert Lewin. On the death of Dr. Aikin, in December, 1780, Dr. Clayton succeeded him as Divinity Tutor at the Warrington Academy, and in this capacity he remained till its dissolution in 1783, when he went to Nottingham. returned to Liverpool shortly before his death, which took place on the

He

Account of the Lancashire Controversy on Prayer.

20th May, 1797, in the 66th year of his age.

Soon after the society at the Octagon was broken up, the chapel, which was a handsome, substantial building, was disposed of, and came into the hands of the Establishment, under the denomination of St. Catherine's

Church. It thus remained till the close of the year 1819, when it was taken down, by the Corporation of Liverpool, to make way for some public improvements. On this occasion, the bodies which had been deposited in the adjoining cemetery, were removed, and among other remains those of Dr. Clayton, to the burial ground then recently annexed to the Unitarian Chapel in Renshaw Street. With respect to Mr. Brekell's works, a list of them (though a very imperfect one) may be seen in Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica. Dr. Taylor speaks of him as a learned man. In 1728, he became co-pastor with Mr. Christopher Bassnet, the first minister of Kaye-street Chapel,† Liverpool.

For a farther account of this estimable man, and of the society at the Octagon and their Liturgy, see Mon. Repos. VIII. 625.

I may be allowed, in this place, to correct a mistake into which a late respectable correspondent, Dr. Toulmin, [IV. 657,] had fallen in reference to this chapel, which is erroneously represented as having originally been an Independent place of worship. It was erected about the year 1700, when Mr. Bassnett was chosen minister, a pupil of the celebrated Mr. Richard Frankland, at Rathmell, Yorkshire, with whom he entered in 1696. He was a regular member of the Presbyterian Classis, of the Warrington district, as appears by their records; and a sermon on " Church Officers and their Missions," which he published, (probably on the ordination of Dr. Winder and Mr. Mather, at St. Helens,) in 1717, sufficiently proves the high notions he entertained of the efficacy of the hands of the Presbyters. In 1714, he published a small book, entitled, "Zebulon's Blessings opened, applied in Eight Sermons." It is dedicated to all that have friends at, or deal to sea, merchants and others, belonging to Leverpool," and he alludes to "the Dock," not then finished. The society remained in Kaye Street (or, as it is now called, Key Street) till the year 1791, when the present chapel in Paradise Street was opened. The former building

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On the death of the latter, July 22, 1744, he remained sole pastor, and died on the 28th Dec. 1769, aged 73 years.

is now called St. Matthew's Church, under the Establishment.

Your correspondent was likewise somewhat in error respecting the original ministers of the congregation afterwards exists as to the society having sprung assembling in Ben's Garden. Little doubt from Toxteth-Park Chapel, near Liverpool, as mentioned by Dr. Toulmin; an ancient place of some note in the annals of Nonconformity. The first pastor of the new church formed in Liverpool, seems to have been Mr. Christopher Richardson, an ejected minister, under the Bartholomew Act in 1662, from Kirkverpool soon after the Indulgence, as it Heaton, in Yorkshire. He came to Liwas called, of Charles II., in 1672, "where he preached once a-fortnight, and the intervening day at Toxteth Park. He died in December, 1698, aged about 80. He was mighty in the Scriptures, being able, on a sudden, to analyse, expound, and improve any chapter he read, in the pious families which he visited." (See Palmer's Nonconformists' Memorial, III. 439, 2d ed.) Mr. Richardson most probably preached in the chapel erected in Castle-Hey, Liverpool (since called Harrington Street). His successor there appears to have been Mr. Richard Holt, one of Mr. Frankland's pupils, entered 6th February, 1690-1. Mr. Holt continued minister of Castle-Hey Chapel till his death in 1715, and was succeeded, in 1717, by Mr., afterwards Dr., Henry Winder. This gentleman had been educated at Dr. Dixon's Academy in Whitehaven, where he was contemporary with Dr. Caleb Rotheram and Dr. John Taylor. He afterwards studied at Dublin, under the care of the learned Mr. Boyse; and succeeded Mr. Edward Rothwell, at Tunley, near Wigan, in 1714. In 1727, a large new chapel was erected in Ben's Garden, to which Dr. Winder removed with his congregation, where he died, 9th August, 1752, aged 59 years, bequeathing his large and valuable library to the chapel. He was a man of learning, as appears by his "History of Knowledge, chiefly Religious," in 2 vols. 4to., published in 1745. A second edition of this work came out, I believe, about the year 1756, with a Life of the Author prefixed, by Dr. George Benson. Little is said of his theological opinions, but from his manuscripts there is reason to think they were of a very liberal cast.

The Ben's-Garden congregation removed to their present place of worship

He was succeeded by Mr. Philip Tay. lor, grandson to Dr. Taylor, who had been his assistant the last two years. In an extract of a letter from the latter, now before me, he says, " Mr. Brekell's congregation never distinctly understood what his real sentiments were on doctrinal points, but I judged from his private conversation that he was an Arian. My friend, Dr. Enfield, who, some years after his death, had access to his papers, however, told me that from thein he could ascertain him to have been, in fact, a Socinian. He passed with his people as an orthodox man; and from an idea, then very prevalent among free-thinking ministers, he conceived it his duty not to endanger his usefulness among them by shocking their prejudices."

Mr. Brekell, in conjunction with Dr. Enfield, compiled, in 1764, "A Collection of Psalms, proper for Christian Worship, in Three Parts," which, with subsequent additions, was used in both congregations till a very recent period, and was well known under the name of the Liverpool Collection. It contained a few anonymous original compositions by him, but of no remarkable merit.

SIR,

H. TAYLOR.

nation, from the earliest ages to the present period, have, I believe, uniformly attributed these books to the pen of Moses; and this testimony is indirectly confirmed by Christ and his apostles: nor does Mr. B. presume to invalidate the historical testimony to their authenticity. He rather grounds his conclusions on internal evidence alone; but, surely, the internal evidence is decidedly against him. For the same characteristic qualities, the same unvarnished simplicity, the same easy and natural flow of sentiments and language, varying only with the nature of the subject, the same freedom from that fiction and wildness which prevailed in the fabulous ages, the same unity of design and tendency of each succeeding incident to establish that design, namely, the evidence and government of one God;-all these unequivocally mark the Mosaic records, and lead us to consider them as the productions of one and the same au thor. The style and manner of Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon and Aristotle, are sufficiently peculiar ; yet these immortal writers by no means supply a surer criterion of authenticity than can be discovered in the books of Moses. Where, then, is this internal evidence to be discovered? In his account of the creation this divine author

I TAKE the liberty of sending for first calls God Elohim; in a second

the Repository a few remarks on a late Sermon of Mr. Belsham's. If the principles of that author were not well known, I should suspect that the discourse alluded to was the composition of some enemy of revelation in disguise. But this cannot be thought of Mr. Belsham, whose talents have ever been pre-eminently employed in promoting the knowledge and supporting the divine authority of the Scriptures, and whose character is an ornament to his profession. His positions are, that the Pentateuch is not the composition of Moses, but a compilation from more ancient documents; that the Jewish lawgiver, in his account of the creation, while unexceptionable as a theologian, so far from being divinely inspired, is only a retailer of vulgar errors. The Jewish

in Renshaw Street, in October, 1811, since which time the former chapel has been occupied by a society of Welsh Methodists.

stage he styles him Jehovah Elohim in a third, Jehovah; in a fourth, Elohim again. From these variations Mr. B. infers, that these several stages or portions must have been the writings of different authors. But surely no inference was ever so hasty and unfounded. If these several designations present any difficulty, this is cutting the knot instead of untying it; a solution unworthy of an enlightened critic. But they do not; and it remains to shew that Moses had an important end to answer by these different appellations. I do not here pretend to be altogether original, but I am not above receiving information when I can get it. Essenus, a treatise on the first three chapters of Genesis, ascribed to Mr. Jones, speaks to this effect:

"In all languages many words exist which convey, under a plurality of form, a singular signification. Elohim is one of that number, and for this peculiarity a satisfactory reason can be assigned. Power, however abso

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