that "his eye was not dim, nor was his natural force," or vigour, "abated;" although of the age of 120 years. Ver. 7th. Three of the evangelists have given an account of the transfiguration of Jesus; or a sensible display of the glories of the future state, in the persons of Moses, Elijah and Jesus. There is little difference in their several relations, only Luke positively calls them men; which would not have applied to Moses, had he been dead; neither can it be asserted, that he was risen from the dead, without contradicting the express testimony of Scripture, that Jesus was the first-fruits of them that slept. Here, then, we have the testimony of three evangelists that Moses died not; but was translated, like Enoch and Elijah, to the heavenly state. And this satisfactorily accounts, why his sepulchre was not to be found. This is called a vision by the sacred writers, but it was also a real transaction, as St. Peter affirms, from what they both saw and heard in the Holy Mount. (See 2 Epist. Peter i. 16-18.) It is rather singular, that neither John in his Gospel or Epistles, nor James, who were eye and ear witnesses with Peter, should make any allusion to this transaction of the transfiguration; but we have sufficient evidence of the historical fact. PHILALETHES. P.S. At p. 216, Vol. VI. of Theol. Repos., I beg to correct a passage relating to the Prince Michael, who is there represented as the leader or great prince of the children of Israel, to restore them to their country, &c., as foretold by Daniel. (See x. 13-21 and xii. 1.) It does not necessarily follow that this temporal prince was to spring from the stem of Jesse, as is supposed in the paper referred to; I rather think now, he may be of Gentile race, as Cyrus was, who was the great deliverer of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity. And should the war between Russia and Turkey take place, as in all probability it will, we shall soon discover to whom this high destiny belongs. Daniel De Foe, with a view to publication, you will oblige me by allowing your work to be the medium for requesting communications from any of your correspondents for the furtherance of the design, and the same will be thankfully accepted, addressed to me either at Lufton, near Yeovil, in Somersetshire; or at No. 34, Ely Place, Holborn, in London. WALTER WILSON. The Unitarian Mourner comforted. LETTER IV. To Mrs. on the Death of her Daughter, aged 20. Sept. 28, 1819. MY DEAR MADAM, you, in the hope of being able to express my sentiments on the subject of the recent painful visitation of Divine Providence, more fully and with better effect than can be done in conversation. If it be any solace of your grief to know that others feel with you, I beg to assure you, for my own part, that I have been deeply affected by your loss, and that the other mem bers of our society with whom I have conversed on the subject, sincerely sympathize with you. But happily it is not in the sympa. thy of our friends alone that we can find consolation in seasons of distress. With no better support than earthly friends can afford, the heart would sink under its burthen of grief. You will allow me to attempt the fulfilment of what I conceive to be the most important part of the office of the Christian friend and the Christian minister, by directing your thoughts, as well as I am able, to those everlasting sources of consolation which the sacred volume unfolds. I doubt not it will be often before you,-for every other book is poor and meagre in comparison with these living oracles. Let me particularly recommend to your attention the following passages, as affording interesting subjects for meditation, under the loss of friends, and more especially the loss of children: 2 Sam. xii. 15-23; 2 Kings iv. 8-37; 1 Kings xvii. 8-24; Job i. 18-22; Ezekiel xxiv. 15, 16; Luke vii. 11-16, viii. 41, 42, 49–56. Your eyes will, perhaps, be dimmed with tears, when you read of the 270 happy lot of the widow of Zarephthah, by man came also the resurrection of It is my earnest hope, that while you Had you this morning consigned to an untimely grave a froward, ungrateful, or vicious child, I might have been at a loss to know in what language of consolation to address you. But to the parents of an amiable, pious and dutiful daughter, a thousand pleasing topics for reflection will readily occur. To have been the authors of her birth, instead of being thought of with pain and shame, is a subject of pride and congratulation. A thousand instances of dutiful attachment to her earthly parents, and of reverential love to her heavenly Father, will rush into your minds in your hours of retirement and meditation. And even the last sad scene of suffering which brought her an early victim to grace the triumphs of death,-when it is recollected that disease and approaching dissolution seemed as it were to unlock the treasures of the pious heart, which modesty had kept concealed, and to convince her sorrowing relatives how well T Letter on the Unitarian Edition of Penn's "Sandy Foundation shaken." 271 the sufferer was fitted, through the ness." April 3, 1822. cause of Christian Truth, and the reputation of William Penn, as its con sistent advocate. AN ADVOCATE FOR TRUTH. DEAR FRIEND, In compliance with thy request we have attentively read Wm. Penn's "Sandy Foundation Shaken;" nevertheless, it has not shaken the foundation of that truth for which Wm. Penn was both an able and a faithful advocate. Whatever constructions individuals may have put upon that pamphlet, entirely opposite to Wm. Penn's views and intentions, his subsequent declaration of his principles, and his public vindication of them in a work entitled, "Innocency with her Open Face," removes from him every possible imputation of holding Unitarian doctrine. In Clarkson's Life of Wm. Penn, Vol. I. p. 36, there is a full account of the circumstances which caused this pamphlet to be written, the substance of which is this: two persons of the Presbyterian congregation in Spitalfields, went one day to the Meeting house of the Quakers, merely to learn what their religious doctrines were. It happened that they were converted there. This news being carried to Thomas Vincent, their pastor, it so stirred him up, that he not only used his influence to prevent the converts from attending there again, but he decried the doctrines of the Quakers as damuable. This slander caused William Penn and George Whitehead, an eminent minister among the Quakers, to demand an opportunity to defend themselves publicly. This, with a good deal of demur, was granted, and the Presbyterian Meetinghouse fixed upon for the purpose. When A GOOD deal has lately been said the time canie, the Quakers presented on the supposed coincidence of opinion among some of the original leaders of the Quakers, and that main tained by Unitarian Christians. The subject lately formed a part of a conversation at which an intelligent lady of the fornier persuasion was present, and who was requested to peruse "Penn's Sandy Foundation Shaken." A copy, as published by the "Unitarian Society," was presented to her for that purpose, which was afterwards returned, accompanied by the following letter, which I have permission_to send for insertion in the Monthly Repository, and shall be glad to see satisfactorily answered. The subject is rather an important one, both as respects fair and candid dealing, the themselves at the door, but Vincent, to secure a majority, had filled a great part hearers, so that there was but little room of the Meeting-house with his own for them. Penn and Whitehead, however, with a few others of the Society, pushed their way in; they had scarcely done this, when they heard proclaimed aloud "that the Quakers held damnable doctrines." Immediately George Whitehead shewed himself, and began to explain aloud what the principles of the Society really were; but Vincent interrupted him, contending that it would be a better way of proceeding for himself to creed. Vincent, having carried his point, examine the Quakers as to their own began by asking the Quakers whether they owned one Godhead subsisting in three distinct and separate persons. Penn and Whitehead both asserted that 272 Letter on the Unitarian Edition of Penn's "Sandy Foundation Shaken.” this, delivered as it was by Vincent, was no scriptural doctrine." Clarkson, after going more at large into the subject, adds, "it will not be necessary to detail the arguments brought forward in this controversy, in which nothing was settled;" but he describes the great intemperance betrayed by several of the Presbyterians, so that it was impossible to obtain a hearing. This then was the cause for William Penn's writing the "Sandy Foundation Shaken," which gave offence, from its being entirely misunderstood, as his "Innocency with her Open Face" will amply testify. 66 And now suffer me to make some remarks upon the Unitarian preface to the "Sandy Foundation Shaken," wherein there are (excuse me for saying so) two instances of an entire want of candour in the author. He mentions the commitment of William Penn to the Tower, by Lord Arlington, the then Secretary of State. Can we then suppose him iguorant of the letter which William Penn addressed to Lord Arlington, wherein he says, truly were I as criminal as my adversaries have been pleased to represent me, it might become me to bear my present sufferings without the least resentment of injustice done, and to esteem a vindication of my cause an aggravation of my guilt; but since it is so notorious that common fame hath maliciously belied me, and that from invincible testimonies, I stand not guilty of what my adversaries would have so peremptorily fastened on me, confessing that eternal deity of Christ"? Certainly no man will assert this is Unitarian doctrine, the "eternal deity of Christ." And now let me transcribe one of these "invincible testimonies," which William Penn speaks of. They are not isolated passages to be hunted for through his works, but are to be found every where, where he speaks upon the subject; indeed one characteristic stamps both his life and writings, that of being led and guided by the spirit of Christ. But let his letter to John Collynes, dated 1673, speak for itself. "I will tell thee my faith in this matter: I do heartily believe that Jesus Christ is the only true and everlasting God, by whom all things were made that are in the heavens above, or the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth, that he is omnipotent, omniscient, therefore God; this confest by me in two books printed a little before the Sandy Foundation Shaken,' viz. Guide Mistaken' (p. 28) and Truth Exalted,' (pp. 14, 15,) also at large in my Innocency I think I have with her Open Face,' · dealt very honestly with thee; I am sure The other passage in the Unitarian preface is the following: "During this close imprisonment, the loud and general clamours against him reached Penn's eyes or ears, and induced him to write a small tract, which he called an Apology for the former, not with an intention of recanting any of those doctrines which he had so recently professed to lay down on the immoveable basis of Scripture and right reason, but to clear himself from aspersions cast upon him for writing the Sandy Foundation Shaken." Yet, in this very Apology, which the Unitarian author considers as no recantation of the doctrine which he ascribes to the " Sandy Foundation Shaken," are to be found these unequivocal expressions: "I am constrained, for the sake of the simplehearted, to publish to the world of our faith in God, Christ and the Holy Spirit : We do believe in one holy God Almighty, who is an eternal spirit, the creator of all things, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, his only Son and express image of his substance, who took upon him flesh, and was in the world; and in life, doctrine, miracles, death, resurrection, ascension and mediation, perfectly did and does continue to do the will of God, to whose holy life, power, mediation and blood, we only ascribe our sanctification, justifiAnd we cation and perfect salvation. believe in one Holy Spirit that proceeds from the Father and the Son, as the life and virtue of both the Father and the Son, a measure of which is given to all to profit with; and he that has one has all, for these three are one, who is the Alpha Amen." and Omega, the first and the last, God over all, blessed for ever. Now if this be not a recantation, does it not clearly prove to every candid lover of truth, that William Penn's "Sandy Foundation Shaken" was totally misconstrued and wrested from its genuine meaning? But if, on the other hand, the editor's preface is to be regarded as truth, wherein he says, he is "not acquainted with a more manly and able vindication, in that peculiarly fanatical age, of the pure Unitarian doctrine than the Sandy Foundation Shaken;"" then it necessarily follows, that the apology is a recantation, or disavowal of his former sentiments, it being in direct opposition to the principles which constitute Unitarianism. Let any unprejudiced mind read the following vindication of himself, in "Innocency with her Open Face," and then declare if there be any ambiguity in his expressions: "How much I have been made an instance must needs be too notorious to any that holds the least intelligence with common fame, that scarce ever book took more pains to make the proverb good by proving himself a liar, than in my concern, who have been most egregiously slandered, reviled and defamed, by pulpit, press and talk, terming me a blasphemer, Socinian, denying the divinity of Christ, the Saviour, and what not, and all this about my late answer to a disputation with some Presbyterians, bat how unjustly, it is the business of this short Apology to shew." Now I think it must be allowed that the publication of the "Sandy Foundation Shaken," by Unitariaus, without taking the least notice of William Penn's vindication, or of his open and unequivocal avowal of a doctrine totally opposite, or of his declaration of the injustice in terming him a Socinian, and a denier of the divinity of Christ, is at once disingenuous and unjust, and a departure from that principle which teaches us "to do as we would be done by." We are averse to discussions of this nature, from a belief that they do not generally promote vital religion; yet in entering into this subject, we trust we have not been influenced by any unchristian disposition, but with unfeigned good-will to wards thyself; and most sincerely do we wish that in this important point, as in every other, thou mayest be guided by the spirit of truth into all truth. On Congregational Schools, and Considerations to what extent the Minds of the Labouring Classes may be advantageously cultivated. SIR, WH March 27, 1822. WHEN a religious society united formerly in a contribution for educating that class of their community who might otherwise have remained wholly untaught, the distinct and specific objects were unquestionably to instruct the boys in reading and writing, with a slight knowledge of numbers, and the education of the girls was confined to needle-work and reading; and when their funds enabled them to do so, the benefit to the children was increased by gifts of clothing, and occasionally a dinner was provided for them. The same necessity for these schools cannot now be deemed so immediate as they were before the general establishment of the national schools, VOL. XVII. 2 N which, admitting all denominations of the poor to the above advantages, adds that of greater promptitude and a more lively attention, (perhaps from the emulation induced by numbers learning together, than can be well attained among a smaller number, even where the same plan is adopted,) as is generally observed by those who compare the National with the Congregational Schools. If, then, the Congregational Schools have no further object than the simply instructing children in reading, writing, arithmetic and needle-work, it becomes a question why the societies incur the expense of these establishments, when there are others at least equally efficacious of comparatively no expense. Female education having most occupied my attention, I shall confine my observations particularly to the degree of instruction which girls now receive in these schools. I learn that the object in view is to make good houseservants of them. On visiting their school-rooms, with this impression, I find that sitting at needle-work occupies most of their time, and that in knowledge they attain as much as just enables them to read mechanically a chapter in the Bible, and some of them add to this a little of writing and arithmetic. The girls also scour and clean their school-room, &e., and thus otherwise would; yet, perhaps, not acquire a little more activity than they sufficient to compensate for the sedentary mode in which they spend the rest of their time during the most important period of their lives, as relates to health and habitual activity. The funds are frequently insufficient to maintain the establishment without considerable aid from the work done in it, and in consequence it is often observable that more vigilance is exerted in getting work completed to be sent home, after being entrusted only to a few who are qualified for the nicety it may require, than care in instructing those who require immediate superintendence. By degrees, perhaps, a good knowledge of shirtmaking is attained; and at fourteen, a girl whose last six or seven years have been devoted to the purpose, quits the school able to execute plain work promptly and neatly, but without having been taught, what would most likely |
