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minister , and that it is the best means of discovering the true sense of Scripture ; that the Lord Jesus Christ is appointed tke sole head and lawgiver of his church , and the only Master in
religion . And / also declare , that I reject all doctrines and practices that are inconsistent with these principles , as witness my hand this third day of January , 1776 . ** Andrew Ross . "
Mr . Lindsey has added , ' * to the honour of the parishioners of Inch , that they unanimously presented a petition , dated April 24 , 1775 , to the Presbytery of Stanraer , praying
that their minister might be allowed to continue among them upon his own terms , and attesting his excellent , unspotted character , and faithful , laborious discharge of his duty among them . ' *
This petition which Mr . Lindsey has given , at length , as it " stands in the minutes of the proceedings of the Presbytery , " thus concludes : " They tliink that every church should leave its members free to search
the Scriptures , and not to bind them down for ever to one sense of them . In all these points they agree most cordially with their minister , and will be happy , extremely happy , to live with him upon these terms . "
Give me leave to hazard a conjecture that the •* letter on subscription / ' inclosed in the letter f ( from Dr . Benson to Mr . Towgood , " formed afterwards a part of the following publication .
" Some Letters , which passed between a Young Gentleman , designed for Holy Orders , and his Uncle , a Clergyman , concerning Conformity to the Church of England . With an Appendix , by the Editor . " 1758 . This anonymous editor I have supposed to be Dr . Benson , partly from
the circumstance of my having this correspondence in a volume containing other pieces by Dr . B . and which a former possessor ( who was , I believe , a Dissenting minister of Marlborough , named J . Davies ) has lettered " Benson ' s Tracts . " In the
Editor ' s Appendiw , ( p . 161 , note , ) after quoting from JVhichcot , * ' to profess and nofc believe , this is hi g h dissimulation , and a horrible indignity put upon God , " he adds ,
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' * See the very different sentiments expressed in a Sermon , entitled , * \ Defence of the Subscriptions required in the Church of England : ' preached before the University of
Cambridge , on the Commencement Sunday , 1757 . By W . S . Powell D . D . Fellow of St . John ' 3 , College . " The Editor professes to have received " the original letters" from 44 an intimate friend /* the son of the elder brother of the nephew in the correspondence , " under an engage - ment" to conceal * ' the names sutu .
scribed to the letters / ' and not " to date them . " The initials of the uncle are J . M . and those of the nepbevv , who is called Harry , are H . M . There are two of the letters , the first and the concluding , from the uncle , who t € a few days after he wrote his second letter , was seized with a
violent disorder , which soon carried him off . " His nephew , who wrote six letters , t € died within two years after him . " That this was a real correspondence , I see no reason to doubt , though it be impossible now to ascertain the date of the letters ; except that they were written after 1736 , when Warburton ' s " Alliance between
Church and State" first appeared ; for the nephew ( p . 94 ) refers to that work as the * ' most unnatural and monstrous , most senseless , and bowelless production , that ever the brain of man was delivered of . " If the
notes be not by the Editor , ( and he does not appear to claim them , ) the letters must have been written later , for there is a note on bowelless , referring to the " canons of criticism /' { Can . vi . Eocamp . viii . ) which did not appear till 1748 .
Had I leisure , and were your pages less occupied , I would readily give some account of the arguments for Nonconformity contained in these letters . The nephew was evidently an Unitarian , perhaps of Dr . Clark ' s school , and the uncle probably an Hoadlean , who had found some liberal associates , inquiring clergymen , in his neighbourhood . One of their free conversations mentioned , ( p- ^ A )
appears to have impressed the nephew , in whom , as Johnson says on another occasion , they kindled a name whicih burned but dimly in themselves .
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468 Mr . Rutt on some Anonymous Letters .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1823, page 468, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1787/page/36/
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