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Smith, Author of Select Discourses, not a Socinian.

I presume that no apology is necessary for what I have advanced respecting Mr. Raikes. He made himself a public man, and like other public men, a Swift, a Johnson, a Fox, a Pitt, a Warburton, a Bentley, he must stand exposed to the criticism of the Biographer; else, what is to become of the truth of History?

I should add, that Mr. Raikes never
established a Sunday School beyond
the limits of this town. How indeed
could he do so, whose influence, more
or less, was confined to the place of
his residence. All he did was to make
known the institution to those who
asked him; this was all that gained
him the name, while the unobtrusive
Mr. Stock was left in the back-ground.
Yours, &c. ARTHUR B. EVANS,

Head Master of the Cathedral School,
Gloucester.

Mr. URBAN, Liverpool, Aug. 18. IN Bowles's Life of Bp. Ken, vol. II. is an interesting paper, containing a list of the Non-juring Clergy and Scholars. We cannot but read with melancholy disposition the memorial of so much virtue. Amongst them I found the name "Mr. John Worthington, Fellow of Peterhouse." I was anxious to know whether this person was the author of the Preface to Smith's Select Discourses, and of Select Discourses, written by himself. This fact I have now ascertained. I referred for information to Dyer's History of Cambridge, which has some information concerning the nonjurors; and, amongst other observations, found the following (vol. II. p. 156),

"Smith's writings are not doctrinal; but he appears to have been a Socinian, and very conversant and embued with the writings of Plato."

That he had read much of Plato, I admit; but the other part of the criticism is to be corrected. Smith certainly was not a Socinian, at least touching the articles of Christ's person and his death.

"Socinus (says South) having denied Christ's divine nature, was resolved to cut him short both root and branch."-Serm. on Rev. xxii. 16. vol. II. p. 419, Oxford edit. 1823.

"The Socinians deny Christ to be properly a priest, or his death to have been a propitiatory oblation for the sins of the

[Oct.

world."-Idem, Sermon on 1 Cor. ii. 7, p. 383, vol. II. Oxford edit. 1823.

"He began with subverting (as far as in him lay) the true and ancient doctrine of the Trinity, rejecting the Deity of the Second Person, and even the being of the Third."-Waterland's Doctrinal Use of the Church Sacraments, p. 141, vol. VIII.; Van Mildert's edit.

"Sabellianism, and Photinianism, and Socinianism, do in reality come at length into one-all resolving into Judaism; for the fundamental error of them all is, the denying the Divine Sonship and personal divinity of Christ."-Ibid. Judgment of Primitive Churches, p. 231, vol. V.

So far of the creed of Socinus. Now let us hear Smith's.

"When the Divinity united itself to human nature in the person of our Saviour, he then gave to mankind a pledge and earnest of what he would further do therein." Disc. of Legal and Evangelical Righteousness, p. 368. Rivingtons, 1821.

"We are fully assured that God hath this prementioned design upon lost men, because here is one (viz. Christ) that partakes every way of human nature, in whom the Divinity magnifies itself, and carries through this world in human infirmities and sufferings to eternal glory; a clear manifestation to the world that God hath not cast off human nature, but had a real mind to exalt and dignify it again."—Ibid. p. 372.

Upon the redemption Smith has these remarks,

"Whereas every penitent sinner carries a sense of guilt upon his own conscience, is apt to shrink with cold chill fears of offended Majesty, and to dread the thoughts of violated justice; he is assured that Christ hath laid down his life, and thereby made propitiation and atonement for sin; that he hath laid down his life for the redemption of him; and so in Christ we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.' Thus may the hearts of all penitents, troubled at first with a sense of their own guilt, be quieted, and fully established in a living faith, and hope in an eternal goodness; seeing how their sins are remitted through the blood of Jesus, who came to die for them and save them, and through his blood they may have free access unto God."-ibid. pp. 372, 3.

I doubt not but these words of the great, learned, and pious John Smith, will sufficiently clear his character from the charge or suspicion of Socinianism, so far as that doctrine concerns itself with the person and nature of our Lord, and the design and efficacy of his death and sufferings. A SUBSCRIBER.

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ZIVALORD TIBKY"

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