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the force of the senses to believe many things that we cannot fully understand: but when the evidence of our senses does not compel us, how can we believe what is not only beyond our comprehension, but contrary to it and to the common course of nature, and directly against revelation, which declares positively the unity of God as well as his incomprehensibility, but no where ascribes to him any number of persons or any portion of magnitude?' Let the Layman point out first where and how the force of the senses, or any mathematical administration, depending also upou the senses, compels us to believe Trinity in Unity, and the union of God and man, as it does with regard to the soul and body; and let him shew such revelation as ascribes to God any number of persons and any portion of magnitude, and then put the above questions to Ram Mohun Roy, and require him to believe the mystery of Trinity in Unity, which is not only be yond our understanding, but also contrary to it.

"As the Layman states, that such a person as Christ did exist, and that he did those things which are recorded of him in our gospel, is admitted both by the Jews and Mohammuddans,' I must beg to remind him, that though the Jews admit that such a person as Jesus lived, they utterly deny that the Christ has appeared, as they still expect Christ or Messiah (which is synonymous with Christ) for their final delivery. Mussulmaus, also, though they admit the existence of Christ, yet deny his most meritorious work, I mean his death on the cross, and class him as a prophet much below the rank of Mohammud.

"The Layman recites the extracts from Locke and Newton, and thus inter. prets them as the declared proofs of the Trinity. The Saviour is allowed by Locke to be our Lord and King, and by the term Lord and King, the spiritual Lord and King must be meant, which is the strongest expression for the Deity of the Saviour.' I have no doubt that by the term Lord and King, the spiritual Lord and King is understood; but I cannot see what relation these titles bear to the Deity of Jesus; divines are called spiritual fathers, and the Pope was acknowledged some hundred years ago by almost all Christians, and is at the present age considered by a majority of Christians, as their spiritual King. So also the bishops of the British Parliament were in the time of Locke, and still are termed spiritual Lords; but neither divines in general, nor the Pope himself, nor the Bishops of England, can

therefore be considered as bearing titles that imply their being possessed of the divine nature. The Layman might perhaps have been better justified, according to the Trinitarian mode of arguing, in drawing this conclusion from the language of Locke, did we not meet with the phrase promised and sent from God,' added to the term 'our Lord and King;' or had he found the words from the Father,' instead of from God,' as no one will scruple to confess that a Being promised and sent by any other Being, must be considered distinct from and subordinate to the Being by whom he is said to be so promised and sent.

"Again, the Layman infers from the words of Newton, that, as he represents it to be the duty of Christians to worship God and the Lamb, that great man must have believed in the divinity of Christ; for that if the Lamb is not God, such worship is idolatry. He neglects to notice the distinction made by Newton between God and the Lamb; for, while he represents God receiving worship as sitting upon his throne and living for ever and ever, he considers the Lamb ás exalted above all by the merits of his death. It is no idolatry to worship the Lamb with that idea of his nature; but it would be of course idolatry, according to Sir Isaac Newton's views, to worship the Lamb as sitting upon the throne and living for ever and ever. The subject of worship offered to Christ is fully discussed in Ram Mohun Roy's Appeal, p. 48.

"As to the offence of publishing the sentiments that appear so very obnoxious to the Layman, I may observe what I believe to be the fact, that Ram Mohun Roy, as a searcher after the truths of Christianity, did keep the result of his inquiries to himself, and contented himself with compiling and publishing the pure Precepts of Jesus alone, as he thought these were likely to be useful to his countrymen in the present prejudiced state of their minds against Christianity. But on the publication of these Precepts, he was unexpectedly, in some periodical publications, attacked on the subject of the Trinity, and he was consequently obliged to assign reasons for not embracing that doctrine.

"I am not at all surprised at the reference of the Layman to the penal statute against those that deny the divinity of Christ: for when reason and revelation refuse their support, force is the only weapon that can be employed. But I hope the English nation will never exhibit the disgraceful spectacle of endeavouring to repress by such means, opinions, for the truth of which the autho

rity of the Bible itself is appealed to by designs confidential, for he will rea

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The name of Mr. Buckingham, as Editor of the Calcutta Journal, must be known to many of your readers by the noble stand he has been making against the despotic mandates of a Governor-General in Council, which so ill accord with the liberal sentiments of a Marquis of Hastings congratulating himself upon having delivered the press of Calcutta from the degrading and vexatious inquisition of a censor. The friend to whom I owe the materials of the present communication, has put into my hands several letters which he has lately received from India. These contain very agreeable proofs that Mr. Buckingham is not only encouraged by an increasing circulation of his journal, but that he has attached to the support of his cause no small portion of the European talent in British India. Had Sir W. Jones, for whom one might have desired a Nestor's age, been suffered by an all-wise but inscrutable Providence to see these days, he would have rejoiced to realize in the East, amidst the votaries of avarice and amtion, his own animated description of

"men, high-minded men Who know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain."

Such men, actuated by a spirit pacific, yet determined, who have the courage to repeat to Governors Ge

neral and Boards of Direction or Controul, the expostulation, strike, but hear me, must, surely, at length be heard.

dily agree with me, that all epistolary correspondences are recommended by the circumstance that the letters were not written, as suspected of Pope's, for the public eye. Now I am not aware that any letter could be less confidential than that in question. The acquaintance of the parties had but just commenced in Dorchester gaol, under the impression which my friend's wrongs and sufferings from the power of "wicked and unreasonable men," could not fail to make on the mind of such a man as Mr. Howe. Nor can I discover in the letter any trace of peculiar confidence, or the least hint at secrecy. Also, respecting the subject which has produced a discussion in your pages, such as I have no desire to prolong, I knew that it could not be private; for, only a few years before the date of Mr. Howe's letter, I had myself written and been written against on that subject, in the public prints; and, in concert with a learned friend, long an eminent barrister, I had brought the question before the most public body of Dissenters to which we had access. It was our opinion, whether well or ill formed I will not now inquire, that the original Regium Donum appeared to be a boon from the minister of the day, as a compromise for the justice which policy or power would not enable him to concede; and, therefore, that it would be creditable to Dissenters to abandon the compromise, while they continued, as I hope they will never cease, to demand the justice.

Catholic Miracles in Germany.

J. T. RUTT. THE Ce making great efforts to

Catholics in Germany appear

P. S. I am indebted to Mr. Wawne (p. 337) for the courtesy with which he has expressed his opinion, or at least his suspicion, that the letter of his friend Mr. Howe should not have been offered for publication. I assure your correspondent that I would readily add this to the numerons instances of defective judgment, which recollection too easily supplies, could I consider the letter of Mr. Howe as "a private letter."

By private, Mr. Wawne certainly

to be

recover, if possible, some part of the influence of which they have been deprived by the events which attended the French Revolution,-the secularization of the ecclesiastical electorates, and the general abolition of monastic orders, and appropriation of monastic property, except in the Austrian provinces. The latitude of scepticism in which some of the Protestants have indulged, has terrified some men of good feelings, but weak minds, into the bosom of that church which, by

prescribing an unchangeable model of faith, seems to keep her children at the greatest possible distance from the dangers of infidelity. This we believe to have been the case with the pious Count Stolberg, whose conversion was the subject of a controversy which filled the German newspapers and periodical publications about two years since; and the same motive appears to have influenced a descendant of the celebrated Haller, who has lately published an account of his secession from the Reformed Church of Switzerland to Popery. Others, like Frederic Schlegel, (if indeed his conversion is not to be attributed to the baser motive of worldly ambition,) being men of taste and poetical feeling, find Protestantism too modern, cold and naked for them, and exchange it for the pomp, magnificence and antiquity of Popery. The vulgar, meanwhile, are assailed by their credulity, and an attempt has been recently made to revive the scenes exhibited at the tomb of Abbé Paris, in the South of Germany, which, perhaps, only needed a violent interference of government to produce a delusion equally extensive and extravagant. The principal actors in this affair are a peasant of the name of Martin Michel, of Unterwittighausen, in the grand duchy of Baden, and an ecclesiastic of high rank, the Prince Alexander of Hohenlohe Schillingsfürst. Michel appears to have recovered from some disorder, as he believed, by prayer, and afterwards to have applied the same remedy with the same success to other afflicted persons, till his fame spreading through the neighbourhood, he was persuaded by the priests to consider his miraculous power as a proof of the divine authority of the Catholic Church, and as a manifestation of Divine power, designed for the seasonable purpose of convincing the world that this Church alone inherited the gifts of healing promised to the apostles. The Prince of Hohenlohe, a very young man, at the present time, we believe, not 28 years of age, residing in his neighbourhood, and having, it should seem by his own account, discovered his own prayers to possess a similar virtue, and being equally zealous for the glory of the Catholic Church, was naturally led to join his operations with those of Michel Martin. Thus

VOL. XVII.

3 F

splendidly presented to the world, their wonder-working powers every day attracted greater notice, and the fame of their cures spread far and wide, so that on the Prince's arrival, in January 1821, at Eichstädt, the whole country for fifty miles round was in commotion, and the roads with various maladies, travelling on were covered with patients afflicted foot and on horseback, in carriages and sledges, to be healed. Two illustrious personages were said to have been cured, the Princess of Schwarzenburg, and the Crown Prince of Bavaria, the former of debility in the limbs, the latter of a deafness which had afflicted him from his childhood. Hitherto the cures had been performed by prayer and exorcism, between the party desiring relief and Michel and the Prince; the police of Bamberg and Würzburg now interfered, very wisely not to forbid that any more miracles should be wrought, but to prohibit secret proceedings between the workers of them and the patients, and to require that what was done should take place openly, and in the presence of scientific men. On June 28, 1821, accordingly the experiment was tried pital at Würzburg, but without the on twenty patients in the Julius hossmallest success, as is attested by a protocol regularly drawn up, although the faith of the common people was so strong that every one of them was believed to have been cured. Bamberg a commission was appointed for the purpose of investigating the reality of the alleged cures ; the Prince tried his gifts in their presence, upon a number of sick persons, without any effect; and as reports continued to be spread of miracles wrought by him in private families, each of these cases was separately inquired into, and the result was, that in none of them did any cure appear to have been effected. Of course the failures were all attributed to want of faith, and those whom he could not heal, the Prince exhorted to come again, after confession and communion, with their minds in a better frame. The two cases which have excited the most attention, those of the Princess of Schwarzenburg, and the Crown Prince of Bavaria, when the circumstances are carefully examined, will appear to be any thing but miraculous. The

At

Princess, according to the testimony of her medical attendant, Heine, had been making progress towards the recovery of the power of walking, and he had announced to her connexions his hopes that her cure would soon be completed. In this state of things Martin Michel is introduced to her, prays over her with great fervour, raises her mind to a state of high excitement, produces that confidence in her own power which medical men know is in such cases alone wanting to accomplish the effect, commands her to walk,-she makes the experiment, and finds that she can do so. The deafness of the Crown Prince of Bavaria had been only a hardness of hearing, and though, by his own testimony, he heard a great deal better after the prayers of Prince Alexander than before, he confesses that he still hears much worse than other people. It remains to be seen too, whether even this partial amendment will be per

manent.

The caution with which the Court of Rome proceeded in respect to this affair, appears at first sight extraordinary. The letter addressed to the Vicar-General, Baron von Gross, at Bamberg, is to the following effect: "We have heard with pleasure of the wonderful cures accomplished by the prayers of our beloved son, Prince Alexander of Hohenlohe, and exhort him to continue them, avoiding, however, all noisy publicity, lest that which is holy be made the object of idle curiosity or ridicule. We expect from the Vicar-General an exact and faithful account of the most important of these cures, corroborated by testimony on oath, and we will then summon a special consistory, which, after strict examination, shall decide whether they really hear the character of miracles." Papal infallibility was not wont in former days to wait for affidavits in order to pronounce its decrees; but the reason of this cautions proceeding is evident. The letter was received on September 8; on June 28 the Prince had failed in his attempts to cure the patients in the hospital: no doubt this fact was known at Rome when the rescript was drawn up, and it is, therefore, with consummate prudence that he is exhorted to avoid noisy publicity, and that the final decision on his miracles is referred to

a consistory, which, no doubt, will hold its first sitting on the Grecian Kalends. This affair, absurd as it may seem to us, has excited very great attention in Germany, from the attempt made to connect the miracles of the Prince and Michel with the claims of the Catholic Church. The review of the pamphlets occasioned by it fills 35 pages in the Jenaische Allgemeine Litteratur-Zeitung of March this year, from which the facts above related have been extracted. Among them are discourses preached by Ammon at Dresden, and Bretschneider at Gotha, both men of great consideration among the Saxon theologians, and who would hardly have troubled their audiences upon such a subject, had not the reported miracles made a considerable impression, even in their comparatively distant sphere.

We see no reason for charging the principal agents in this transaction with any wilful fraud. Michel appears to be an ignorant enthusiastic peasant, who had been led by some accidental circumstances, to attribute a peculiar virtue to his own intercessions, and was persuaded by the priests to consider himself as a living proof of the apostolical tradition of the gift of healing in the true Church. Neither he nor the Prince appears to have derived emolument from their miraculous powers, or to have practised any collusion with the persons alleged to have been benefited by them. In this, as in all the cases of similar popular delusion, there can be no doubt that real benefit has been derived by some persons whose disorders have been of such a nature that lively exeitement and strong agitation were calculated to be useful to them. The German Thaumaturgi will serve to furnish an additional chapter to Douglas's Criterion. Their fame seems already to be dying fast away. In the Frankfort Journal of Oct. 6,′ 1821, Michel gives notice that he is going on a journey for an indefinite time, and shall not be able to receive the visits of those who had announced their intention of coming to him. The Prince on the 15th of the same month, declares by the same channel," that his professional duties and the weak state of his health compel him to decline the visits of those who meant to apply to him." This illness of the

universal healer reminds us of what is said to have happened to Von Feinagle, of artificial memory, when in this country. Having lost a bank note, he applied to the police to assist him in recovering it, and on being told that it was necessary they should know the number, he was compelled to confess that he had forgotten it. Nec pro sunt domino quæ prosunt omnibus

artes!"

64

K.

[Prince Hohenlohe's miracles are not, it seems, confined to Germany, or to his own presence. The Catholic Miscellany, a magazine recently established for the support of the doctrines of the Church of Rome, contains in the number just published the following account of a supernatural cure, effected by the Prince's means, in England:

"Miss BARBARA O'CONNOR, aged 29 years, a choir nun of the community of English ladies formerly established at Leeds, but now residing at New Hall, near Chelmsford, Essex, was attacked in November 1820, with a malady in her right arm, accompanied by excruciating pain. In the December following, she lost the entire use of her hand and arm, so that she could not move a finger, Recourse was had to medical art, and the most distinguished practitioners were employed, particularly Mr. Carpue, of London, to restore the afflicted limb, but without effect. From December 23, 1820, till the 3rd of last May, the pain continued without intermission, and the limb paralytic, though the swelling was at times reduced by the application of medicine. On the 5th of March last, Prince HOHENLOHE was applied to by letter, who, in reply, dated Bamberg, March 16, gave notice that he would offer up mass for the afflicted sister on May 3, at eight o'clock, and invoke for her the sacred name of Jesus. The invalid made a retreat and a nine days' devotion, and prepared herself by a general confession. On the same day, at the same hour, mass was likewise celebrated by the chaplain of the convent, and all the sisters communicated. At twenty minutes past eight, as the priest was beginning to read the last gospel, Miss O'Connor felt a powerful emotion; she heard a sudden crack in her right shoulder, from which a thrilling sensation darted to the ends of her fingers, the pain instantly ceased, and motion was as simultaneously restored to both her arm and hand, the free use of which she continues to enjoy to this day.

"For some time previously to the cure, Miss O'Connor had left off the use of medicine. On May 2, however, she was visited by Dr. Badley, of Chelmsford, and Mr. Barlow, a surgeon of Writtle, who it to be in as bad a state as they had ever both examined her arm, and pronounced seen it; the wrist measured 15 inches round. They both visited her again shortly after the sudden cure, expressed their astonishment at the change they witnessed, and attributed it to the intervention of Divine power and goodness. Dr. Badley, in a letter dated May 24, subject, observes in conclusion, This, which he wrote to a gentlemen on the my dear Sir, baffles all reasoning. What wonder and admiration; or burst out with can we say? Nothing; but bow in silent the poet-These are thy wonderous works, Parent of good! Almighty !"

the Catholic conversions in Germany,
The same magazine thus announces
luded:
to which our correspondent has al-

"During the present year two foreigners, named John Christopher Rous and Thomas Watts, made abjuration of Protestantism in the church of St. Nicholas of Chardonnet; and also two English gentlemen, who have received confirmation in a private chapel. Other great examples are daily occurring; the learned as well as the simple have opened their eyes to the truth; pastors, men of letters, professors and magistrates have returned to the bosom of the Catholic Church. A distinguished professor of Lausanne was lately employed to answer Mr. Haller; this task obliged him to read controversy, and the result was his conviction of the truth of Catholic doctrines, and his renunciation of error. He has since entered among the Jesuits at Fribourg?"

SIR,

MR.

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R. YATES infers, (p. 292,) that my own view of the construction of the words of 1 Cor. i. 2, σvv πασι τοις επικαλεμενοις το όνομα το Κυριε ήμων Ιησε Χριςε εν παντι τοπῳ, is not clear; because, as he supposes, I have offered no less than five different translations of them: this is a is merely verbal, for the sense is idenmistaken supposition: the difference tically the same. The terms are convertible! This may be elucidated by a reference to Dr. Clarke: Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity, Works, IV. 73, No. 691, where he notices that James

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