ORIGINAL LETTERS. Two from the late Rev. R. Robinson, of Chesterton, Dec. 2, 1786. MY DEAR SIR, YOUR favour came to hand last night at my return from Biggles wade, where, at the ordination of Mr. Bowers, I had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Birley. He told me of the printing, and I desired him to inform you, with assurances of my sincere esteem, that I gave you an absolute power over my scrap. I seldom quote chapter and verse in preaching, for I have supposed it a loss of time, and a temptation to divert my attention from the thread of the subject in hand. Were I to follow my ideas, I should always preach without ting, and always print with it. therefore you you will please to mark Scripture in italics, and put figures in the margin, as you propose, I shall be obliged to you. At the same time, allow me to say, I think your scrupulous delicacy on the subject more than was necessary in regard to any thing of mine, which, I believe, would always be improved by passing through your refining hand. Either I am mistaken, or your understanding is superior and sound.. quo If Your zeal for the publication gives me animation, as it convinces me of your approbation of the work. Whether your opinion be what I take it for or not, certain it is, it operates in due proportion on me according to the worth I set upon it, and that is high. I have had similar encouragement from other places, but, as I propose to myself no pecuniary gain, so 1 shall endeavour to throw the publication into a train, which may not encumber me, and yet be is to reputable to the cause. print it handsomely, that the cause of the contemptible Anabaptists may have a chance of being read by such as at present have our liberties and properties in their hands; for to us, Baptists, the New Testament is the whole body of our divinity, and quite sufficient to confirm us in the practice. For this purpose I have thrown in anecdotes and entertainment, not necessary to the argument, though VOL. XII. My plan C و appending to it, of which I had the pleasure, when you was here, of knowing your approbation. Ever since, I have been in the Alpine Vallies of Dauphiny, Provence, Savoy and Piedmont. Thence I was violently driven to Biggleswade, to the loss of three days time and my temper, for in the middle of my story, I was obliged to leave off, and send home my books. Now have I got all to fumble out again. I hope, however, within two or three weeks to finish this part, and then my plan is this: I intend to revise one sheet, and print it, as a sort of specimen, and to strike off eight or ten proofs, and no more. These will be put into the hand of a friend, and along with them an estimate of the expence of one volume. This friend will divide them into shares of ten books each, and when, if ever, he hath procured subscriptions enough to pay the press, the volume will be printed. If this take place, you will hear from him. In what manner he will arrange the affair I know not. All I ask is, that the work be printed, but not hackneyed by pressing subscriptions, as no money will be wanted till the paper and press are to be paid, and then only the value of the books subscribed for. It has been supposed, that if thirty churches would take ten each, the expence would be cleared: but this cannot be determined before an estimate is made. I am of opinion, that the work ought not to be hurried, but proceed leisurely, for new facts and new light daily rise on the subject. Ignorance, malice, political manœuvres, clerical sophistry, and party zeal have thrown together a vast pile of materials, true, false, doubtful, important, impertinent, and so on. All these are to be examined, assorted, arranged, and even lies must be disposed of, or they like vipers benumbed a while will revive and poison true historical facts. The mighty mass often discourages me, and damps my spirits, especially when I recollect how ready prepared to censure and abuse the most upright intentions some men souls, who do nothing but gape and stand-idle grin at those who are at work. You know, my friend, this is a very obscure, a very difficult history, and the writer of it deserves mercy toward his innocent mistakes; however, he will meet with none, and he neither expects nor asks for any. They say, there are no innocent mistakes. What answer can be made? Last night, along with your's, I received from a clergyman of my acquaintance, a perfect master of German literature, a great bulk of German history relative to the German Baptists, and an engagement to visit me in January to assist me in learning German enough to enable me to make out the records written in that tongue. I have time before me, for I query whether Germany will come up before my third volume. Spanish and Italian are nothing, for being only dialects of Latin they are easily surmountable; but high and low Dutch are ruffian-looking rogues. I am half afraid of them; but my friend, who was here a week last summer, put me in a way so that I got through the translating of one paragraph of a German work, which he had with him. If he stays a month next visit, I shall try, but with what success I know not. I have got Greece, Rome, Africa, and Navarre written fair for the press, and almost all the preliminary essays. Next week my amanuensis begins either Spain or Italy, if I can get time to revise either of them. Forgive my prolixity. You asked to know the state of the work. Accept this desultory account. We retain on our minds with singular pleasure a recollection of your excellent discourse to us at Cambridge, and we do ask one another what the General and Particular Baptists differ about; for, say we, either Mr. Taylor is a Particular, or we are Ge nerals. Accept the best wishes of this family, and present them to your house. I am, dear Sir, Most affectionately your's, Chesterton, Feb. 21, 1789. MY DEAR MR. TAYLOR, YOU may not have any concern with the subject of this letter for many years, yet I think it a duty I owe you to give you a hint of it. A friend of mine having informed me of his in tention to leave a considerable sum for the benefit of our poor ministers and churches, and giving me at the same time his particular views, desired me to advise and arrange the distribution of it. The leading feature in the complexion of the donor is a love of perfect religious liberty. There is, then, a trust created, and a sum, yet accumulating, provided, to enable the trustees to pay annually five pounds or more, if needed, to twenty, for certain, and it may be, if the donor lives a few years longer, thirty or forty churches. There is also a legacy of £400 to the four funds in London (for I named your fund, which my friend had not heard of, and £100 accordingly was bequeathed you), on condition the fundees give security to the executor that they will always pay the interest to one or more Protestant Dissenting ministers that shall apply, and profess to believe Jesus is the Son of God, and who shall attest by their lives the sincerity of their profession. The first £100 is to be offered on this condition to the Particular Baptist fund, and if they refuse, then the £100 bequeathed to them is to be offered to you, along with your own £100, so that £200 is contingent to you; and if you refuse, then provision is made from one to another, till the donation vests where the receivers will not be crippled with human creeds. It is very likely the first fundees will not accept money under this restriction, for one of their printed rules and orders is, that such, and such only shall receive any benefit from this fund, profess to believe the doctrines of three divine persons, eternal and personal election, &c. It should seem there are many worthy, though poor ministers, who do not believe either the one or the other; but this condition does not prevent their believing what they approve, it only prevents future fundees from putting human creeds in the place of the gospel, and depressing the servant of Christ into a slave of his brother, a servant like himself and no more. as My neighbour, Mr. Payn, of Walden, has favoured me with "the proceedings of the General Assembly held on Wednesday, May 14th, 1788, at Worship-Street, &c." I see no human test here, and it should seem you hold really as well as professionally the suf ficiency of Scripture. I intend to send it among the friends of freedom in the University, who have, somehow or other, got hold of the book of "rules and orders of the Particular Baptist fund," and are extremely shocked at the absurdity of their conduct, the more so as they thought the Baptists were inalienable friends of the freedom of conscience. Your fund account I hope will be a corrective, and shew that all Baptists are not tyrants over their brethren. I am asked by the University several questions too hard for me to answer, as 1. Had the London Particular Baptists of 1775 the consent of their country brethren to compile a human creed for them? Most certainly they had no anthority from Christ. 2. What makes Baptists so fond of the name and the creed of Calvin, seeing the barbarian burnt Servetus, and denounced the vengeance of God and the civil magistrate against all Anabaptists? 3. How is the imposition of a human creed consistent with their profession of the sufficiency of Scripture, and the sole dominion of Christ over the consciences of his disciples? 4. With what face can such men ask for the repeal of the test-acts, seeing they impose human tests upon one another? 1 5. Have the General Baptists of fended or injured the Particulars, that they have thus excluded them from all their favours? 6. Is the belief of election a virtue, or the denial of it a sin; and is the acknowledging of persons in God any test of grace in the heart? 7. Are a people likely to improve, whose inquiries are bounded by human ereeds; and is it not a strong prejudice against Calvinism that it needs such props? &c. &c. I wish their book of rales and orders had been at the bottom of the sea rather than at Cambridge. You cannot think what disgrace it has brought upon the London Baptists. Our church behold it with astonishment, and the University say the authors were strangers to the first principles of Christian liberty. The question is not of the truth of their creed, but of the imposition ion of it, for such only shall receive our charity as believe as John of Geneva did. Could I subscribe a human ereed I would not do it for a poor Baptist dole, I would submit to my lords the bishops, for some good thing in their rich corpora tion. These ecclesiastical sheriffs, appointed by the crown, play Jupiter with a better grace than our little Anabaptist tyrants. Believe what they will, but why pretend to write a creed for me? Why sap the foundation of the good old Baptists? Scripture alone is a sufficient guide for every Christian man. Pardon, dear Mr. Taylor, niy prolixity. I hate dominion over conscience, because I am clearly convinced it dishonours God, degrades man, tacitly denies the perfection of the divine word, dethrones the King of saints, and introduces all manner of wicked passions among Christians, withdrawing them from the example of the mild and merciful Master, and imparting to them the contentious and cruel dispositions of bigots. They have turned the gospel into a miserable system of metaphysics; and to define natures, not to observe facts, is instead of talents natural and acquired, instead of good sense, exact reason, and often, instead of virtue itself. This depression lies upon all human systems, when they are made the tests of Christians. My wife, who sits by, asks how people found the way to heaven before Calvin and Van Harmin were born? I answer, by the light of Scripture alone. Then, adds she, I shall content myself with my New Testament, and leave the great Latin folios to your friend Taylor and you. I reply, you may very safely, and we shall debate our points with as little gall as if the inquiry were which of us could most dexterously jump over a five-barred gate. If you think proper to write to me, you may give your letter to my daughter, or ask her for a frank. She is the wife of a Mr. Brown, wine-merchant, No. 2, Love Lane, Little Eastcheap, where, I am sure, she will be glad to see you, and where probably Mrs. R. and I may have the pleasure of seeing you some time or other. My dutiful respects to Father Britain, and to your whole family. I am, dear Sir, Ever your's most affectionately, By the way, my friend may after his will, you will recollect, and then all the former part of my letter is nothing. Is not Mr. Winchester in your connection? His book, on the restoration of all things, is in the University library, and thence I had it to read. His ac count of the American German Baptists, pp. 143, 144, is very just, except that his printer has misprinted one letter. Their American name is Tunkers, from the German verb, tuncken, to dip, not Dunkers, as the printer has put it. They are the true old original Baptists of the dark ages. The sufficiency of Scripture is their foundation truth, and having no human creeds they have no quarrels. Their mode of administering baptism resembles that of some Eastern churches. They use trine immersion, and the person baptized receives the ordinance kneeling in the water. They are riglit in immersing, right in bowing the candidate for baptism forward, and wrong (I think) in causing him to kneel, and in repeating the immersion thrice. I suspect they were originally Trinitarians, by this, yet this is not certain, for the Unitarian Baptists of Spain in early times used trine immersion. Once more, peace be with you! EXTRACTS. Letters of Dr. Franklin's.. [From his "Private Correspondence, now first published from the Originals, by his Grandson, William Temple Franklin," in one Volume 4to. Printed for Colburn, 1817.] I TO GEORGE WHITEFIELD. I SIR, Philadelphia, June 6, 1753. RECEIVED your kind letter of the 2d instant, and am glad to hear that you increase in strength; hope you will continue mending till you recover your former health and firmness. Let me know whether you still use the cold bath, and what effect it has. As to the kindness you mention, I wish it could have been of more service to you. But if it had, the only thanks I should desire is, that you would always be equally ready to serve any other person that may need your assistance, and so let good offices go round; for mankind are all of a family. For my own part, when I am employed in serving others, I do not look upon myself as conferring favours, but as paying debts. In my travels, and since my settlement, I have received much kindness from men, to whom I shall never have any opportunity of making the least direct return; and numberless cies from God, who is infinitely above being benefited by our services. Those kindnesses from men, I can therefore only return on their fellow men, and I can only shew my gratitude for these mercies from God, by a mer One of the founders of the Methodists; born at Gloucester, 1714, died in New England, 1770. ایسے readiness to help his other children, and my brethren. For I do not think that thanks and compliments, though repeated weekly, can discharge our real obligations to each other, and much less those to our Creator. You will see in this my notion of good works, that I am far from cxpecting to merit heaven by them. By heaven we understand ■ state of happiness, infinite in degree, and eternal in duration : I can do nothing to deserve such rewards. He that for giving a draught of water to a thirsty person, should expect to be paid with a good plantation, would be modest in his demands, compared with those who think they deserve heaven for the little good they do on earth. Even the mixed imperfect pleasures we enjoy in this world, are rather from God's goodness than our merit: how much more such happiness of heaven! For my part, I have not the vanity to think I deserve it, the folly to expect it, nor the ambition to desire it; but content myself in submitting to the will and disposal of that God who made me, who has hitherto preserved and blessed me, and in whose fatherly goodness I may well confide, that he will never make me miserable; and that even the afflictions I may at any time suffer shall tend to my benefit. The faith you mention has certainly its use in the world: I do not desire to see it diminished, nor would I endeavour to lessen it in any man. But I wish it were more productive of good works, than I have generally seen it: I mean real good, works; works of kindness, charity, mercy, and public spirit; not holiday keeping, sermon-reading, or hearing; occur, they are difficult chiefly be- readiness but neglected the work; - estimate their respective weights, and the heretical but charitable Samaritan, ptr Your friend and servant, TO DR. PRIESTLEY. 20. Of London, September 19, 1772. that is of importance occurs on either side, I come to a determination accordingly. And though the weight of reasons cannot be taken with the precision of algebraic quantities; yet, when each is thus considered šeparately and comparatively, and the whole lies before me, I think I can judge better, and am less liable to make a rash step; and in fact I have found great advantage from this kind of equation, in what may be called moral or prudential algebra. Wishing sincerely that you may determine for the best, I am ever, my dear friend, Your's most affectionately, TO DR. PRICE, LONDON. Pussy, February 6, 1780. DEAR SIR, I RECEIVED but very lately your kind favour of October 14th. IN the affair of so much impor- Dr. Ingenhousz, who brought it, tance to you, wherein you ask my having staid long in Holland. I sent advice; I cannot for want of sufficient the enclosed directly to Mr. L. It premises, counsel you what to deter- gave me great pleasure to understand mine; but if you please, I will tell that you continue well. Your wriyou how. When those difficult cases tings, after all the abuse you and they |