diffentient brother to officiate; and a reliance upon the folidity of his own arguments is the only weapon he retains for the fpiritual combats. The funeral cere. mony, again, is an example of brotherly love which puts outward pre eminence behind the curtain. Every clerical paftor takes an equal rank at the head of this folemn proceffion he alone performs the farewel ceremony to whofe congregation the deceased belonged. I recollect indeed to have feen a Proteftant, a Prefbyterian, a Roman Catholic, and, I think, a Quaker, officiate under the fame roof, on the fame day, and with very little change in the congregation. Had this harmonic fcene have been exhibited within thefe few weeks paft in London, I fhould have fuppofed they had all been reading Mr. Wloemen's conciliatory pamphlet on the Blunders concerning the Trinity, lately pub, lished by Mr. Robertson.

I am, Sir,

Your humble Servant,

SIR,

DR

Year

1765 Dominick Joyce 1765 Mrs. Moore 1766 John Mackay 1768 Sir Fleetwood Sheppard 1768 John Ryder 1768 Mrs. Adams 1769 John Chump 1770 Mrs. Sands 1770 Patrick Blewet 1771 Richard Gilfhenan 1772 Barbara Wilson 1774 Sieur de la Haye 1778 H. d'Arcary de Beaucovoy 1780 Monuela, a Negrefs 1792 William Marshall 1792 Flora Gale 1760 Elizabeth Hilton 1769 Francis Bons 1770 Mrs. Gray 1770 William Farr 1771 Owen Tudor

1771 Mrs. Carman

1771 Margaret Mc Kay,

121

1772 John Whalley

121

1772 Abram Strodtman 1776 Mary Yates

128

128

R. Hufeland, in his treatife on the Art of Prolonging Life, after noticing the ages attained by Jenkins, Parr, Drakenberg, Effingham, and eight or ten others of lefs note, and who but little exceeded a hundred years, fays thefe are the inftances of great age in modern times with which he is acquainted. It is rather furprising, as he informs us the fubject had engaged his attention for 8 years, he fhould not have known that fuch inftances of great longevity have been much more numerous, of which the following lift will furnish abundant proof. The inftances of perfons exceeding 100 years are fo frequent, that I have not included any who did not attain to the 120th year; the defign being chiefly to fhew, the utmoft period to which the duration of life, under the circumftances molt conducive to its prolongation, has extended; and I have no doubt that many more might be added to the number by those who have better opportunities for collecting fuch accounts.

*This pamphlet will amply pay a clergyman for reading it; and it does not feem to be unlikely that well-meaning Chriftians may profit by the difcourfes which may flow from

it.

1774 Andrew Brizin Debra 1785 Mrs. Neale 1791 Archibald Cameron 1769 Martha Preston 1779 Jean Aragus 1792 Matthew Taite 1708 Thomas Bright 1725 Elizabeth Stewart 1753 Andrew Bueno 1757 Robert Parr 1760 Thomas Wishart 1762 Catherine Brebner 1774 Andrew Vidal1790 Abraham Vanverts 1774 John Tice 1780 Mr. Gernon 1785 Mr. Froome 1670 Robert Montgomery 1706 John Bales 1758 Davie Grant 1768 Mrs. Bampton 1769 William Hughes 1772 Madame Girodolle 1775 Daniel Mullecry 1776 Martha Jackfon 1761 John Newell 1765 Edglebert Hoff 1765 Mary John 1771 Mr. Fleming

theological claffification; and in this he defcribes the Antinomians, as deriving their name from are againit and vous the moral law. This arbitrary introduction of the word moral, without any warrant, from etymological origin, is furely a juft fubject of diffatisfaction. I may incline much to antinomian opinions, and confider the moral laws of chriftianity as the most important and valuable parts of the difpenfation.

The practice of ecclefiaftical hiftorians will as little juftify the infinuation of an odious meaning, as the proper fignification of the Greek root. Mofheim obferves (vol. ii. p. 160. of Maclaine's tranflation, 4th edition) that "Johannes Iflebius Agricola took occafion in 1538, to declaim against the law (of Mofes) main. taining that it was neither fit to be propofed to the people as a rule of manners, nor to be used in the church as a mean of inftruction; and that the gospel (of Jefus) alone was to be inculcated and explained both in the churches and in the fchools of learning. The followers of Agricola were called Antinomians, or enemies of the law." Of this Agricola whofe proper name was Kaftenbauer, and who compiled a collection of German proverbs, fome account may be found in Bayle's Dictionary: his writings, like thofe of Grotius, explained away many of the prophetical and other fuppofedly fupernatural features of the Old Testament, and tended to concentrate the evidences and promifes of religion on a defence of the exclufive authority of the New Teftament. Whether this has been done fuccefsfully or no, morality at leaft is not indangered by the hypothefis; for the moral tafte of the gofpel-writers is far more refined, humane, and benevolent than that of the compilers of the Pentateuch.

The Antinomian fect is of late years become very important, efpecially in North Germany, in confequence of the biblical labours of Herder and Eichhorn. A friend who has lately travelled in Holftein, informs me, that Antinomianifm is in fact become the established religion of the Danish church. The hierarchic conftitution of that church is prefbyterian; its minifters have been permitted by the government to concert a revifal of their liturgies and other facred books; and the confultation has terminated in a filent defertion of the Judaism hitherto amalgamated with chriftianity. From bible chriftians they are become evangelical chriftians.

Antinomianifin does not interfere with any doctrines peculiarly evangelical; nor

is it merely a modern new-fangled fect, an attempted compromife between revelation and philofophy, like the scheme of the Polonian brethren or exoteric creed; of which the tafte of Herder, and the learn ing of Eichhorn have obtained the profes-fion from the more cultivated and literate portion of the Proteftant clergy of Germany it has ftrong clairns to the character and anthority of a primeval chriftianity. Between contending fects, Mr. Gibbon will probably be thought a very impartial arbiter: he divides (vol. i. p. 547) the original church into the Gnoftics, or knowing, and the Ebionites, or poorer Christians; into the lettered and unlettered, converts: and he thus details the tenets of the Gnoftics, or primitive Antinomians.

"From the acknowledged truth of the Jewish religion, the Ebionites had concluded, that it could never be abolished. From its fuppofed imperfections, the Gnoftics as hastily inferred, that it never was inftituted by the wildom of the Deity. There are fome objections against the authority of Mofes and the Prophets, which too readily prefent themfelves to the fceptical mind; though they can only be derived from our ignorance of remote antiquity, and from our incapacity to form an adequate judgment of the divine economy. Thefe objections were eagerly embraced, and as petulantly urged, by the vain fcience of the Gnoftics. As thofe heretics were for the most part averse to the pleafures of fenfe, they morofely arraigned the polygamy of the patriarchs, the gallantries of David, and the feraglio of Solomon. The conqueft of the land of Canaan, and the extirpation of the unfufpecing natives, they were at a lofs how to reconcile with the common notions of humanity and juftice. But when they recollected the fanguinary lift of murders, of executions, and of maffacres, which stain almoft every page of the Jewish annals, they acknowledged that the barbarians of Paleftine had exercifed as much compaffion toward their idolatrous enemies, as they had ever fhewn to their friends or countrymen. Paffing from the fectaries of the law to the law itself, they afferted it was impoffible that a religion which confifted only of bloody facrifices and trifling ceremonies, and whofe rewards, as well as punifhments, were all of a carnal and temporal nature, could inspire the love of virtue or reftrain the impetuofity of paffion. The Mofaic account of the creation and fall of man was treated with profane derifion by the Gnoftics, who would not liften with patience

patience to the repofe of the Deity after fix days labour, to the rib of Adam, the garden of Eden, the trees of life and of knowledge, the fpeaking ferpent, the for bidden fruit, and the condemnation pronounced against human kind, for the venial offence of their firft progenitors. The god of Ifrael was impioufly reprefented by the Gnoftics, as a being liable to paffion and to error, capricious in his favour, implacable in his refentment, meanly jealous of his fuperftitious worship, and confining his partial providence to a fingle people, and to this tranfitory life. In fuch a character they could difcover none of thofe features of the wife and omnipotent Father of the universe. They allowed that the religion of the Jews was fomewhat lefs criminal than the idolatry of the Gentiles; but it was their fundamental doctrine, that the Chrift, whom they adored as the first and brightest emanation of the Deity, appeared on earth to refcue mankind from their various errors, and to reveal a new fyftem of truth and perfection. The most learned of the Fathers, by a very fingular condefcenfion, have imprudently admitted the fophiftry of the Gnostics."

In all this account, no charge occurs of Immoral opinions; on the contrary, the puritanic features of a primitive feet are exprefly noticed. The writings of Crip, Eaton, Saltmarsh, and other English Antinomians being unknown to me, I cannot affirm that they have no where treated of the moral law with licentious laxity. Yet I think it poffible, that a mistake on this head may have gained credit from the fimple circumftances that in the revised Articles of the Church of England, agreed on by the Affembly of Divines, at Weftminfter, in 1643, the feventh article is underftood to be directed against the Antinomians; and this article, after afferting the law of Mofes to have been given from God, proceeds quaintly to denominate the ten commandments the moral law, and to maintain their divine authority. The Antinomians, by denying the miraculous origin of the ten commandments, do not deny their perpetual obligation, or even diminish their fanction, if they admit Jefus (Mark xii. 29.) to have re-enacted them. Generally speaking, the Antinomian teach ers do not appear to have advifed or practifed the formality of feparating from the feveral fects within which they have refpectively originated indeed, they cannot but confider Jefus as paying this very tribute of exterior acquiefcence and complacent tolerance to the habitual rites and Tympathics of his fellow countrymen, MONTHLY MAG, No. 1.

Hence their difciples have every where fubfifted in filent schism, not in diftin&t herety, and have formed in the different churches an interior gnoftic or illuminated order, rather than independent congregations. It is not, however, with the evi dence or tendency of any religious doctrines that I wished to occupy your readers, but merely to preferve a name of fect, which ought to be fimply definitive, from fliding into a term of reproach.

Is it too much to claim from the apparent fairness of Mr. Evans? that in a future edition of his convenient and useful work, he will expunge the word moral, and content himfelf with defining the Antinomians to be against the law of Mofes. Those who receive that law as of divine authority, the nomian chriftians, as they might be called, have in all ages of the church found it difficult to justify their ceafing to judaize. CHARICLO.

For the Monthly Magazine.

REMARKS ON CERTAIN RESOLUTIONS LATELY PASSED CONCERNING THE PUBLIC FINANCES.

MONG the many circumstances A which diftinguish the ruinous ex

pence of the prefent war, there is none more remarkable than the ministerial triumph with which it is accompanied. Though our debts have been doubled within the laft fix years, and the ordinary means of providing for the public exigencies have failed ;-though the profpect of peace is as diftant as when hoftilities first commenced, and no limit is feen to new loans and requifitions; we are amufed by Mr. George Rofe, and other writers of the fame clafs, with the affurance that our profperity increales as our difficulties multiply, and that the only effect of the war is to render us a wealthier and more powerful nation.If this be true, it is certainly a new discovery in the fcience of Finance, and the Minifter is entitled to all the praife of it, as well as to the merit of giving the fulleft effect to his own invention.-At prefent, however, the doctrine derives no fupport from the general experience of the country; for, with a few exceptions of loan-jobbers and contractors, the great mafs of its inhabitants feems to feel, as in all former times, that their comforts are reduced as their burthens are accumulated. But the feelings of the multitude are fallacious-Minifterial triumph is founded on the more fatisfactory documents of the Cufom-House and Excile Office, which 5 K

prove