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    ^ Clapton , Sir , August 1 , 1822 . 1 KNOW not whether Euelpis ( p 409 ) is acquainted with the cir cumstance that the opinions of Dr

    Watts , which he has quoted from a work fim published in 1725 , were considered by strict Trinitarians among his immediate contemporaries , as a virtual renunciation of the doctrine of the Trinity . Thus , according to Johnson's J ^ ife of Watts , with Notes , &c ., by the late Rev . S . Palmer , ( ed .

    2 , 1791 , ) J' ^ - T , Bradbury , in a letter dated */ 25 , charged , him with making 'the divinity of Christ to evaporate into a were attribute , ' and after jeering at

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    • his professed love of truth s writes to him thus : * It is pity , after yOu hai * e been more than thirty years a teacher of others , you are yet to learn the first principles of the oracles of Gpdl Was Dr . Owen ' s Church to be taught

    another Jesus ?—that the Son and Spirit were only two powers in the Divine Nature V " ( P . 91 . ) To the same purpose was a pamphlet which I once met with , . Only long- enough to copy the following title-page : * 'The Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity , vindicated , in opposition to Mr . Watts ' s Scheme of One

    Divine Person and Two Divine Powers , by Abraham Taylor , ed . 2 nd , 1728 . " The author was tutor of an Independent Academy at Deptford , which preceded the institution now fixed at Homerton .

    In Vol . XVI . pp . 223 , 224 , I mentioned Dr . Tindal ' s " Rights of the Christian Church /* the controversy it produced , and how the doughty champions of High-Church , to quote the well-known sarcasm of Jvrtin , " called upon the constable to come and help them . " Looking very lately among those treasures of historical information which Dr . Birch bequeathed to the British Museum , I found \\\ \\\< k l \ a . n « l-writ . incr t . hf * t 7 \ Uc \ w-¦ V

    - ^ - " -- » -- — —• m « a jm . « . m ^ ^_ ^ ^ -rmi . » - ^ ^ . « w w ^ ^ ^ j - ^ « . ^ P *^ ^* ~ ~ ^ " ^ » _^ * & . ^ f V W ing extract , entitled " Dr . Burnet , Bishop of Salisbury , to Archbishop Tennison , 1 st June , 1706 . ' * ( Ayscough , 4292 ; 73 . ) Nonconformists ought , I think , to acknowledge the fairdealing of a clergyman of the Church of England who preserved for posterity such an ecclesiastical document . " as for TindaPs book , I shall be sorry if any of our friends answer jt ; for so much must be yielded , if we well defend the Reformation , that it will raise a new .

    controversy ; for hot people will think the church is given up , b y what is yielded . I know Mr . Kelsey's notions are generally wrong in that matter ; and . to call for his book and not to make use of it is to affront him . But if your Grace insists oa this , I will ask it pf him . "

    The annexed letters I copied from the ^ ame volume , where they are also in the hand-writing of Dr . Birch- Of these documents 1 was not aware when

    I sent you in 1819 , ( XJV . 721 , ) some account of tb « . controversies , in the Church of &ngland > on the ouce

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    Original Letters fromArchbishops Tennison and Sharp . 491

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    ^ re a /^ ticces | i 6 n of parentheses to be met * vfitft £ xplaiiatfdry of geographical nartie ^ - < Stee vets , 2 , 3 , 7 , 8 , 17 . ) Lastly , the # Hole spirit of this fragment prdves its author not only to have lived prior to Moses , but even to have written at a period not very distant

    from the time in which those events took place which are recorded by him . The style is at once as refined and apposite as can possibly be expected from an tiTstorian narrating the events of his own times , and writing at an early period , when no fixed rules of

    authorship existed . The writer is careful not to let the foreign king of Salem speak of God as Jehovah , or El Skadai , or even as Elohimy but as fV *? tf ^ , " the most high God ; " nay , he even makes him change the Hebrew epithet of creator of heaven and earth ,

    p&o crottf * on , into czrottf nip fiKl , " the possessor of heaven and earth . " On the other hand , when Abraham , as a genuine Hebrew , swears to the king of Salem , he raises his hand to Jehovah , the ' * most high God , possessor of heaven and earth , "

    and his friend . Expressions like these , varying according to the situation and circumstances of the parties by whom they are used , speak in favour of the writer ' s having lived at a period when the eventp narrated by

    him occurred , whilst the ancient geographical names adopted by him , decidedly pronounce him to have existed prior to those important changes which swept away the original names of the country in which they took place . ( To be continued . )

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1822, page 491, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2515/page/35/