especially the benevolent views in the latter part of it, have pro vided for the labours of the Associators against Republicans and Levellers, or rather to have been wrought up by the delud、 ing eloquence of Mr. Burke, that master-workman in constructive treason, who insulted our venerable Christian philosopher, by a comparison with Hugh Peters, whom, however, he caricatured for his purpose. *. It is remarkable that the consolidation of independent jarring powers which Dr. Price contemplated as a check to the war-system, has been just accomplished on the European Continent though by means far different from those which the benevolent speculator could have expected or desired.

Aug. 29, 1807.

Your's,

QUERO PRIMUS.

THE QUAKERS.

To the Editor of the Monthly Repository.

THY correspondent P. M. having in a friendly manner requested that one of the Quakers will "explain why they refuse to pay for a substitute drawn in the militia, and yet pay a tax

In a pamphlet published in 1751, entitled, " An Historical and Critical Ac count of Hugh Peters, after the manner of Mr. Bayle," and which has been ascribed to Dr. W. Harris, the Biographer of Cromwell and the Stuarts, Peters is described as a "weak and ignorant" man: I do not exactly see upon what sufficient authority. His quaint politico-religious exhibitions now appear ridiculous enough,but these were the fashion of the times; a fashion which such men as Owen and the Armi nian Goodwin, did not scruple to follow and in which the court-clergy had frequently indulged, when as Mrs. Macaulay observes," Priests were instructed to teach speculative despotism and graft on religious affections systems of civil tyranny." It is probable that Peters had some reputation for literature from the present which the parliament made him of Archbishop Laud's Books, and I think I have somewhere read that he was the means of preserving entire the royal library at St. James's. The kind services, which in his prosperity he rendered to several royalists, and which he proved on his trial, do him still greater credit. But his deportment in the article of death, and that a very dreadful one, might command the respect of his bitterest enemies. "Being carried upon the sledge to execution, and made to sit therein within the rails at Charing Cross, to behold the execution of Mr. Cooke,” (who had been Chief Justice of Ireland for the Parliament)," when Mr. Cooke was cut down and brought to be quartered, one they called Colonel Turner, called to the Sheriff's men to bring Mr. Peters near, that he might see it; and by and by the hangman came to him, all besmeared in blood, and rubbing his bloody hands together, he tauntingJy asked, How do you like this, Mr. Peters? How do you like this work? To whom he replied, I am not (I thank God) terrified at it; you may do your worst. Being on the ladder, he spoke to the Sheriff saying, Sir, you have here slain one of the servants of God before mine eyes, and have made me to behold it, on purpose to terrify and discourage me, but God hath made it an ordinance for my strengthening and encouragement." (Trials, &c. of the Regicides, 4to. 1739. pp. 257, 8.)

avowedly styled a war tax, namely, the tax on income," I will endeavour briefly to explain this seeming inconsistency, as it is termed by P. M.

The Quakers or rather Friends, as being the name by which they call themselves, have always believed it to be their duty to "render unto Cesar the things that are Cesar's," by paying all taxes levied for its support by the government under which they live, considering that the governors and not the governed are responsible for the application of such taxes. The supposed difficulty occasioned by the specific avowal of the intended application of the income tax would not be removed by a refusal to pay that tax only, since there is scarcely a single tax, duty, or custom that was not originally exacted virtually, if not specifically, for the same object, neither can we suppose that the taxes paid to the corrupt and warlike government of Rome were less exceptionable in their appropriation, the payment of which was nevertheless authorized and enjoined by Christ and his apostles. Sce Matt. xvii. 24 to 27. xxii. 21. Rom. xiii, 6, 7.

The Friends' objection to pay for a substitue in the militia rests upon the same ground as their refusal to be hired by government to kill their fellow men; for as in this latter case they would by their own personal act, violate their principle against war of every kind, so they consider it an equal violation of their principle to hire another man to kill and destroy in their stead. In both these instances the act being all our own, by which we immediately promote and sanction "the sanguinary progress of human destruction that is going on in the world," the responsibility is our's also; whereas in the former case we conscientiously submit to the ordinance of our rulers who are placed over us for the salutary purposes of promoting the good and harmony of civil society. If the means they employ be not always such as we can approve, still the object itself is good, (Rom. xiii. 1 to 4.) and the responsibility rests with them.

J. B.

THE CLERGYMAN'S ANSWER TO J. M.-LETTER II,

SIR,

To the Editor of the Monthly Repository.

I NOW follow your correspondent J. M. into the New Tes

tament.

The first text, which he censures me for citing in proof of the divinity of Christ, is, 1 Tim. iii. 16. Here he asserts, that Sir

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Isaac Newton has demonstrated the word eos to be an interpoJation, the original reading being 5; so that the genuine passage runs," the mystery of godliness, which was manifest in the flesh." The framers of systems are very apt to fancy that a demonstration, which they wish to be one. Where different readings occur, though it may not be easy mathematically to demonstrate which is the true one, yet it appears to me tolerably good moral evidence of the spuriousness of a reading, if it produces grammatical nonsense. This is the case with the reading. If it be the nominative case to the verb was manifest, which it plainly is, then it must likewise be the nominative case to all the succeeding verbs. Now, though I can conceive how a mystery may be preached unto the Gentiles and believed on in the world, I can frame no idea how a mystery can be received up into glory. What was received up into glory was Christ, not a mystery. A mysterious person may be received up; but to say, that a mystery was seen of angels, and received up into glory, is to my own comprehension downright nonsense. We might as well say, that a doctrine was received up; for what is a mystery, except a mysterious doctrine? Though I have given this answer to J. M. I freely own, that I have never heard of any such reading as %, which he says haa been demonstrated to be the true one. The Alexandrine MS. indeed reads is, which Griesbach prefers to eos, but which mangles the sense of the passage just as woefully as the of J. M. For the masculine relative is cannot accord with the neuter

pov; the only antecedent therefore which we can find for it is olukos a pillar, in the preceding verse, except indeed we prefer omos a house. But how could the house of God, the pilfar of the truth, be received up into glory? In fact, this supposed various reading O2 is simply 2, the abbreviated mode of writing EOE, the central mark of the theta having been abliterated in so ancient a MS. as the Alexandrine by lapse of time. To this Griesbach's answer is, that O2 was more likely to be changed by an unskilful transcriber into O2, than the reverse. Why his opinion is more likely than the other, I cannot conceive. It is manifest, that by lapse of time, the diacritical mark of the theta might easily be erased, which would convert it into omicron; while no lapse of time could add to the omicron the mark, which would convert it into a theta. In addition to. the internal evidence that neither is nor & can be the true reading, inasmuch as they alike produce nonsense, even Griesbach himself brings sufficient external evidence to prove the genuine ness of the received reading sos. J. M, indeed asks with much

onfidence, whether I do not know that the word eos is not to be found in any Greek copy before the fourth or fifth century? I answer, that in the copies used by Ignatius and the writer of the Apostolical Constitutions the reading was evidently eos. Both these authors allude to the text in question, and both introduce, not the word is or , but eos. Thus in Ignatius we find the expression θες ανθρωπίνως φανερωμενο, God manifested in human form; and in the Apostolical Constitutions feos xugie, ETIQVELS Suvev tagni, O Lord God who wast manifested unto us in the Aesh. This God manifested in the flesh, according to Cyril of Alexandria and Justin Martyr, was the divine Word, whom St. John pronounces to be God and with God. Such is the evidence pro and con, internal and external: on which side it preponderates is, I think, not very difficult to determine. Are we to adopt the unsupported Alexandrine reading, of the origin of which a rational account may be given, and which if adopted produces absolute nonsense; or the common reading, which is supported by the primitive fathers, which precisely accords with the doctrine contained in the beginning of St. John's gospel, and which produces perfect grammatical sense? As for J. M.'s notable idea, that trinitarianism is the spirit of antichrist, it is too contemptible to deserve a serious answer. However such assertions may please the dogmatizing party among the Socinians, who claim exclusively to themselves the praise of rationality, the sober inquirer will find it difficult to discover in St. John's description of antichrist any censure of those who believe Christ to be God without denying him to be man. According to J. M. the apostle himself must have drunk deeply of antichristianism: for, while he teaches us that Christ was man, he teaches us no less explicitly, that the Word made flesh was God. And that the Word means Christ, is allowed by J. M. himself: for he acknowledges, that Rev. xix. 16. relates to Christ; but the person, styled "King of kings and Lord of lords," is the Word of God. See Rev. xix. 13.

The answer, which J. M. gives to Acts xx. 28, is a mere quibble. I appeal to any person, whether in the plain untortured sense of the words God is not said to have purchased the Church with his own blood. The reason of the expression is, that, God and man being one Christ, the blood of Christ, although the blood of the man Jesus, is styled the blood of God. By the assistance however of a convenient ellipsis, or some similar contrivance, a Socinian will persuade himself, whatever he may do others, that a text means the very reverse of what anlettered Christians would suppose it to mean. In support of

his ellipsis, he adduces 1 John iii. 5; and says, that the only an tecedent to he was manifested is the Father in verse 1: but the Father, even according to the trinitarian scheme was not manifested; therefore he must be referred to Christ, though he is not mentioned in the context. I deny that the antecedent to he was manifested is the Father. This passage is exactly parallel to that in the Acts. In both, God is the antecedent: both consequently prove Christ to be God. "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God. Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew not him (viz. God). Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know, that, when he (God) shall appear, we shall be like him (God). And ye know that he (God) was manifested to take away our sins." 1 John iii. 1, 2. 5. As St. Paul tells us in the last considered text that God was manifested in the flesh, so St. John here tells us that he (God) was manifested to take away our sins and this he did, according to the author of the Acts, by purchasing the church with his own blood.

:

From Col. i. 15-17, I had asserted that Christ was the preexistent Creator of the universe. This assertion J. M. denies, on the ground, that the words pre-existent Creator, and universe, do not occur in the text. I confess, I had always supposed that all things were equivalent to universe; and that to be before all things was much the same as to be pre-existent to all things. Hence, when I read that all things were created by Christ, and that he is before all things, I thought myself warranted in styling him the pre-existent Creator of the universe. Iam perfect ly ready, however, to exchange my phraseology for that of the apostle. If Christ then be a mere man, let J. M. teach us, how

all things were created by him and for him, and how he is before all things." Perhaps J. M. may be assisted in his inquiries by comparing together the beginning of Genesis and the beginning of St. John's gospel. Moses teaches us, that the world was created by Jehovah: St. John assures us, that all things were made by the Word, that he was in the world and the world was made by him, that he was made flesh and dwelt among us, and that he was in the beginning with God and was God. As J. M. has not noticed an ingenious Socinian gloss upon Col. 1. 15-17, I cheerfully adduce it. "By the creation there spoken of," says the gloss, (and by parallelism of reasoning, I suppose, by the creation spoken of in the beginning of St. John's gospel), we must by no means understand the natural creation of the universe, but merely the moral creation,

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