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subjugation of the civilized world to an universal barbarous despotism, or the attainment, in all the nations of Christendom, of a more entire and better defined, and more solemnly sanctioned state of freedom than has yet been enjoyed. To which side our wishes and prayers lead us, we need not say; but we have been so often disappointed that we dare not assume the tone of prophecy: we must content ourselves with the persuasion and belief, that He who has all hearts in his hands, and who is King of kings, will overrule all things to the furtherance of his infinitely wise and merciful government, which involves by necessary consequence the final happiness and dignity of the human race.

The royal combination, taking the name of The Holy Alliance, is displayed to all Europe in its true character, as a league of brute force against opinions. These "Holy Leaguers," acquiring courage from partial success, and calculating (erroneously, as we trust,) that the quietness of nations is the settled submission of fear, have openly announced it as their will, which is to be sovereign law, that no changes shall take place in the European nations without their fiat. None but legitimate kings, that is, kings who are such in spite of the people, are to be acknowledged, and from these vicegerents of Heaven are to emanate all law and all policy. Every expression of the popular will and feeling is to be treated from the first as high treason. The Greek, on one side of Europe, and the Spaniard, on the other, are to be coerced and chastised by the myrmidons of the northern powers, if they touch the anointed Mahmouds or Ferdinands. Hundreds of thousands of armed machines are to be let loose at once against any refractory people that shall question "the right divine of kings to govern wrong," and dispute the resto ration of the Inquisition, or resist the robbery, violation and massacre of whole islands and provinces of Christians.

Our indignation at the assumptions of the allied despots, is mixed with unspeak able disgust at their hypocrisy. Of three different and incompatible religions, these men affect a pure zeal for truth, and plant in their assembly the standard of the cross. Under this banner, they proclaim the persecuted Greeks as rebels, and declare their fraternity with the fanatical barbarian of Turkey. Is there a man living, with the heart of a man, who does not pour scorn upon the dishonest, faction, though kings compose it, Who e'en while plundering, forge Religion's name,

To frauk their spoil, and, without fear or shame,

Call down the Holy Trinity to bless Partition leagues and deeds of devilishness!

Notes from the triple alliance have been delivered to the Spanish Govern, ment, and have been promptly and suitably answered. The ambassadors have, in consequence, demanded their passports, which have been readily granted, accom→ panied by laconic messages for their masters, which will shew them that eleven millions of people are not to be juggled out of their liberties, or intimidated into a surrender of their independence by a despotic rescript. The temperate firmness of Spain is the theme of universal praise, and is justly considered as a pledge of union and perseverance, which it may be hoped will ensure the success of their righteous cause.

Before this falls under the eye of the reader, the part that. France is to act in this critical state of affairs will probably be determined. All speculation upon it is, therefore, useless. This only seems certain, that with war or peace it will not be easy for the Ultras in that country to proceed in their attempts to nullify the Charter, without endangering the throne of the Bourbons. Superstition is called in as the ally of this party. The priests are every where employed to preach up the sacredness of kings and the nothingness of the people. Festivals, consecrations, processions, are got up to dazzle the public eye and to keep men from thinking. At Lisle, where twelve royalist deputies were elected, a Te Deum was sung in the Cathedral for their success, and in a loyal song they were compared to the twelve apostles. A peculiarly magnificent mass was performed on the 21st instant, to celebrate the martyrdom of Louis XVI. And with all this, the vola-: tile French seem amused, and they will continue to be amused with the same. scenes, unless circumstances should call them to witness and to halloo around spectacles of a very different nature.

Portugal and Spain have entered into a treaty for mutual protection. The former country has received assurances of the friendship of the English Government, which perhaps have kept the Holy Alliance from putting the Portuguese also out of the ban of their empire. Portugal has notwithstanding shewu little reverence. for royal personages, as such its Queen has been called upon to take the oaths to the new constitution, and on her refusal is obliged to quit the country: she has sent a leave-taking letter to the King, her husband, containing all the vapouring, pretensions and high-sounding menaces which might be expected from a weak

woman, inflated by the Bourbon pride and excited to anger by a crafty priesthood.

the Church Establishment, and the justice and expediency of prosecutions and punishments for the publication of mere opinions; and though we cannot expect the sudden renunciation of ancient prejudices, or the adoption at once of the liberal course which is equally recom

anticipate much good from the discussion: all that is wanted to meliorate the public mind is light: the parliamentary advocate of truth may not succeed, as far as the proportion of ayes and noes is considered, but his efforts are never lost: good and great measures may be perfected by being delayed: the present majority have the command of their own votes, but not of the minds of the community, by which all votes are ultimately swayed; and reason and truth, superior in this to parliaments, may be prorogued, but can never be dissolved.

The English Parliament is about to meet, and the Session will be one of the most interesting in the memory of man. The King's speech will probably avow a pacific line of policy with regard to the Continent, but at the same time recommended by philosophy and religion, we mend preparation for any unfavourable contingency. There will be work enough for the ministers at home. Changes have taken place in the administration which foreshew some new plan of finance. It will not be easy by any measures to conciliate and satisfy the ruined agriculturists. Retrenchment and economy must be seriously adopted. The question of Parliamentary Reform will be discussed under more favorable circumstances than the reformers have known for forty years. Catholic Emancipation will take a new shape in consequence of the late outrages of the Orange faction. With this measure will come (when it comes) the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts: at least, the Dissenters should take care that the two measures are not set apart in point of time. It is intended, we understand, to bring before the legislature the subject of religious liberty on its broadest ground, including the claims and the operation of

P. S. Jan. 30th. The die is cast. The Bourbon of France has announced to the Chambers that the Duke d'ANGOULEME is about to march into Spain at the head of 100,000 Frenchmen. He has thus staked his crown upon the issue; prepared, no doubt, to become either a wanderer or a martyr.

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CORRESPONDENCE.

Communications have been received from Mr. Mardon; A General Baptist; F. B.; and Northumbricus.

The controversy on Chapel Trust Deeds is at an end,

We present our readers in this Number with an Engraving of the UNITARIAN CHURCH, WASHINGTON, a liberal contribution to our work by Mr. GEORGE COOKE, Since the Number was completed, we have received the following letter from Dublin, enclosing a donation of £2. for WILLIAM ROBERTS, the native Unitarian Missionary at Madras, the miscellaneous contents of which will gratify our readers : To the Editor of the Monthly Repository.

SIR, Dublin, 17th January, 1823. I have with much pleasure seen a correspondence between Mr. Aspland and Mr. Ivimey in the Morning Chronicle, relative to the conversion of a Baptist Missionary by Rammohun Roy, which has ended in the complete discomfiture of Mr. Ivimey.

I wish that a daily or weekly paper could be generally made use of by Unitarians, in which articles on religious controversy would be found; it is in vain to expect that our opinions will be inquired into through the medium of a monthly publication, dedicated solely to the Unitarian cause, unless the religious public are led to the inquiry by paragraphs in a newspaper. I fear they will not read the Tracts circulated by Unitarians; but what frequently comes before their eyes will at last be read in some leisure hour. I have lately seen an advertisement in the Courier, ending with an offer of a subscription of £1000 towards building a Metropolitan Chapel. I am of opinion that a Chapel, with a Reformed Liturgy, unobjectionable to any sect, would be a true Catholic Church, and as such I would subscribe to it. I sincerely wish we had such a sum to commence a subscription for erecting an Unitarian Chapel here, for we have not one strictly such. If a truly Catholic Church was erected here, I would willingly contribute to the support of it: such church must be necessarily Unitarian. I send herewith £2. for the assistance of William Roberts, of Madras, in his Unitarian labours. Yours, JOSEPH HONE.

Monthly Repository.

No. CCVI.]

FEBRUARY, 1823.

[Vol. XVIII.

THE following letter was lately

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Baxter MSS.

An Original Letter of Remonstrance to Richard Baxter, on his treatment of the Unitarians: with some Account of Gilbert Clerke, the supposed Author. mencement, 1655, refusing on grounds left his Fellowship after the Comof conscience to take the degree of Bachelor of Divinity to which the statutes obliged him. On quitting the University, he retired, one authority says generally, into Northamptonshire, another says to Stamford, where, it is added, he lived long. By the death of his elder brother, about the time of his giving up his Fellowship, he came into possession of an estate of £40. per annum, which was looked upon by his friends as a providential blessing, he being thus saved from want. He died some time between the years 1695 and 1698.†

in Dr. Williams's Library. It is without an address, but it is evident that it was sent to Baxter. There is no date, and only the initials G. C. These appear to stand for Gilbert Clerke, with whose history, opinions and style, the letter perfectly agrees. The readers of the Monthly Repository will be pleased with this hitherto unpublished production of one of the early English Unitarians, which will, perhaps, be rendered still more interesting by such a brief account of the supposed author as the transcriber has been able to compile. Should any reader be able to give further information concerning this learned author, the communication of it to this work will be esteemed a favour, and will facilitate the inquiries of the present writer, who is making collections towards a history of English Unitarianism, the final use to be made of which will depend upon the ultimate success of his researches. Gilbert ClerKE was the son of John Clerke, school-master, of Uppingham, in the county of Rutland. He was admitted into Sidney College, Cambridge, in the year 1641, being then scarcely fifteen years of age. In 1648, he took the degree of M. A., and was made Fellow of the house. At the age of twenty-five, he received (1651) Presbyterian orders, and his allowance in the college was thereupon augmented, as the statutes require for those that are ordained priests. He was created proctor of the University the next year. He

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Nelson gives this candid character of Clerke: "His learning lay chiefly in the mathematics, but he was also esteemed a very good Grecian, and a great scripturist. He chiefly consulted the modern critics, when he read the Bible, not omitting the Polonians, or else trusted to his own invention and sagacity in that part of divinity, without ever advising with the ancients, of whom he had a very low esteem. He thought the controversy between us and the Church of Rome not worthy his study; because the errors of the Papists seemed to him so gross and palpable, as not to need it. He betook himself, therefore, to read the

* Nelson, in his Life of Bishop Bull, (8vo. 2nd edition, 1714,) p. 512, from whom the above particulars are derived.

+ Grounds and Occasions of the Controversy, concerning the Unity of God, &c. By a Divine of the Church of England, 4to. 1698, p. 17. This is the 4th tract in the 5th volume of the old Unitarian Tracts, a volume exceedingly scarce, and until very lately hardly known to be in existence.

The writer ascertains this fact from a comparison of dates. Clerke's last known publication, to be presently specified, appeared in the year 1695, and the tract, just quoted, dated 1698, refers to him as amongst deceased Unitarians.

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Socinian writers, whence he became, in the main, a Socinian; yet. he did not symbolize with them in their errors, touching the Divine attributes; upon which account he would sometime say, he was no Socinian. Some, also, to whom he was personally known, have excepted the point of the Satisfaction, for he seemed, indeed, to have had some particular notions of his own about this matter. He was a man of an open and frank disposition, but withal too bold, and easily to be heated; otherwise, the conduct of his life was sober and regular, not blemished with any remarkable immorality, but rather abounding with good works, which he earnestly pressed. He was very busy and zealous in defending those new principles which he had taken up, and which the gross absurdities of the Antinomian system, then much in vogue, had probably contributed more than a little to fling him into."*

The "Divine of the Church of England" says, that he was "well known and esteemed by Dr. Cumberland, the Reverend Bishop of Peterborough, who used to speak of him by the name of Honest Gilbert." +

3. Of his works, the following titles are known: De Plenitudine Mundi. Lond. 1660. 8vo.-De Restitutione Corporum. Lond. 1662. 8vo.-The Spot Dial. Lond. 1687. 4to.

Distinct from these, probably, is another work referred to by Nelson, as follows: "He was for certain an excellent mathematician, his book upon Mr. Oughtred's Clavis being much valued by the ablest judges in that part of learning." §

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Two Latin tracts are all the theological works of Clerke that the present writer has discovered: they were published, with a third, by an anonymous hand, under the title, "Tractatus Tres: Quorum qui prior AnteNicenismus dicitur; is exhibet testimonia Patrum Ante-Nicenorum, in quibus elucet sensus Ecclesiæ Primævo-Catholicæ quoad Articulum de Trinitate. In secundo brevis Responsio ordinatur ad D. G. Bulli, Defensio

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nem Synodi Nicenæ, authore Gilberto Clerke, Anglo. Argumentum Postremi: vera et antiqua Fides de Divinitate Christi explicata et asserta, contra D. Bulli Judicium Ecclesiæ Catholicæ, &c. per Anonymum, Anno Domini, 1695."

An answer to Clerke was found amongst Dr. Grabe's papers, in the hand-writing of Bishop Bull, and was published in the 3rd volume of Bull's Sermons and Discourses, (8vo. 1714,) entitled, Breves Animadversiones, &c., or, as the title of the translation, which precedes the Latin work in the volume, ruus, "The Consubstantiality and the Coeternity of the Son of God with the Father, asserted; or some few Animadversions on a Treatise of Mr. Gilbert Clerke, entitled Ante-Nicenismus, so far as the said Author pretends to Answer Dr. George Bull's Defence of the Nicene Faith," &c.

Clerke published his name to his tracts, says Nelson, "as not being ashamed or afraid to own what he had written, because he took it to be the very cause of God and of his Unity against all sorts of Polytheists." The biographer adds, that the "three tracts came out together, that so the Unitarians might thereby take an occasion to boast of a complete answer in Latin" to all that Bishop Bull had written in the Trinitarian controversy.

LETTER, &C.

such a man as I, was about five yeares You may possibly remember yt since with you in your chamber, to expostulate with you about a passage in your Cure of Church Diviand Mahumetans together; now I sions, in which you joyned Socinians send this letter much upon ye same errand. Some are of opinion y you have utterly overthrowne Dr. Stillingfleet in your Second Defence, & I am one of ym. My meditations upon occasional discourse with a Staffordshire Divine & Dr. Templar's serabout episcopacy are very suitable to mon (not long after I was with you) yours; wherein as I graunt not only Bishops, but Presbyters & Deacons too, in great churches if need be, so I

* Ut sup. p. 501.

+ P. 502.

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