.... Dundee, Westport Penny Society, by Mr. Easson, (Female Education) .... Ludgershall, Collected by Rev. Mr. Walcot Dublin, York-street Missionary Fund, by Thomas Figgis, Esq... North of England Auxiliary, by Rev. R. Pengilly South Devon, by Rev. Samuel Nicholson: viz. 3 9 77 10 Chester, Subscriptions, (Sunday School 9s. 4d.) by Mrs. London E. Y. Robert Prance, Esq. by Ditto 5 5 6 10 0 200 TO CORRESPONDENTS. Just published, and may be had at the Mission House, 6, Fen Court, or of Messrs. Wightman and Cramp, Paternoster Row, The Vision of the Heavenly World; to which is prefixed, a Memoir of the late Mrs. Leslie, with Extracts from her Correspondence; by Andrew Leslie, Missionary at Monghyr. Price 3s. or on fine paper, with proof impressions of the Portrait, 4s. 6d. Any profits arising from this publication will be appropriated to the Baptist Mission Fund for Widows and Orphans. Our esteemed Correspondent, A. B. who inquires respecting some statements recently published in relation to Dr. Marshman and Serampore, is informed that the Missionary Herald has contained every thing in reference to the affairs of the Baptist Missionary Society, that has been published with the sanction and by the authority of the Committee. It should be fully understood, that though, by the kind permission of the Editors, and for general convenience, the Herald is stitched up with the Periodicals designed more expressly for circulation among the Baptist Denomination, it has no other connection with either of those publications. The Friends of the Society are respectfully informed, that they may be supplied, on application to 6, Fen Court, with Missionary Boxes, neatly finished, and labelled with an appropriate motto, for 1s. 6d. each. We have been requested to state that Mr. Peggs, Author of "The Suttees' Cry to Britain," has lately removed from Derby to Coventry, where he has entered on the stated exercise of the ministry, in the General Baptist Chapel, White Friars. A Situation is much wanted for a Youth of Sixteen, the eldest of a large family, whose father has for many years usefully occupied an important station as a Missionary in the East. The Youth has received a good education under the eye of his relations in this country, and is considered as strictly upright, and disposed to steadiness and seriousness of mind. His own inclination would lead him to wish to be placed with a Chemist and Druggist. Any Friend of Missions in that line, or any other respectable business, who may have an opening for such a Youth, would render an important service to the cause in which his father is engaged by receiving him. Communications may be made to the Secretary of the Baptist Mission, 6, Fen Court; if by letter, it is requested that the real name and address of the writer may be given. Littlewood & Co., Printers, 15, Old Bailey. BAPTIST MAGAZINE. APRIL, 1828. Letters of the LATE REV. ANDREW | have classed liberty under four FULLER. (Continued from p. 102.) MY DEAR FRIEND, Liberty seems to consist in the power of acting without control or impediment. But the term being relative, must be understood in relation to the different objects which are supposed to be impedi ments. kinds-physical, moral, civil, and religious. Physical liberty is the power of doing what we please, without any natural restraints or impediments. If our actions are not the free result of our choice, that is, if they are directed or impeded by an influence contrary to our will, we are destitute of this liberty. Moral liberty is the power of doing what is right, without being impeded by sinful dispositions or passions. A libertine, with all his boasted freedom, is here a perfect slave. "While they promise themselves liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption; for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage." Civil liberty, as it Some have defined liberty, the is commonly understood in Britain, power of doing what we please; is freedom from all fear of punishand this definition will doubtless ment contrary to law, and from apply to every kind of liberty ex-subjection to any laws but those to cept moral. But moral liberty, which a man himself, by his rewhich is of greater importance than presentatives, gives consent. Reany other kind of liberty, does not ligious liberty is the power of consist in this. Though we do as forming our religious sentiments, we please, in the exercise of moral and conducting our religious worliberty, this is not that by which ship agreeably to the dictates of it is distinguished from other things; our consciences, without being lino, not from moral slavery itself. able to civil penalties. Moral slavery is not that state in which a person is compelled to act against his will; but rather a state in which he is impelled to act against his conscience. A person may have the power of doing what he pleases, to the greatest possible degree, and yet be totally destitute of moral liberty, being a perfeet slave to his own appetites. Some persons, perhaps justly, VOL. III. 3d Series. Now, suppose Mr. R.'s notions of civil and religious liberty be just, yet surely he makes, if not too much of these, yet too little of that which is of far greater importance-moral liberty. This is the liberty of which the Scriptures chiefly speak; this is the glorious liberty of the Gospel. This is that of which every unregenerate man is destitute, being a slave to sin L and Satan. This is the liberty mankind." "The question is 66 (continues Mr. R.) what liberty the Gospel does bestow on mankind?" "Very good; and now let us see what his " 'glorious liberty of the sons of God" amounts to. "In days of yore (says he) divines were not ashamed to affirm, that liberty of judging and determining matters of faith and conscience was a prerogative of the papal tiara"-and so on; a long story of this kind, for four or five columns, reducing the glorious liberty of the sons of God to a mere liberty of with which the Son makes us free; without which all other liberty is but a shadow and an empty boast. This is implied in the reply of our Lord to the boasting Jews, who said they were never in bondage to any man: If the Son make you free, then are ye free indeed." It is allowed, indeed, that religious liberty, or a freedom to think and act according to our consciences, without fear, is of great value, and perhaps we none of us prize it sufficiently; but what is this to moral liberty? Suppose a man," judging and determining for ourliberated from the tyranny of sin and Satan, and deprived of all religious and civil liberty, groaning under the yoke of powerful persecution, would he not be in an un-imbibed, so that we acted freely! speakably better situation than another man, possessed of all the liberty he desired, whose soul was enslaved to sin? selves in matters of faith and conscience:" a freedom from the control of creeds and systemsthough it did not signify what we -as Suppose this freedom were included, yet surely it is not the whole of the meaning. Probably the apostle alluded especially to the redempIs it not strange, then, that when- tion of the bodies of believers at ever Mr. R. finds the term liberty the resurrection. But if Mr. R. in the New Testament, he should were right in applying the passage réduce it to a simple liberty of to the Gentile world, surely he doing as we please? And is it not might have conceived of a more passing strange, that "the glorious glorious liberty than that of 'thinkliberty of the sons of God" should ing and acting for ourselves-a be thus explained? Rom. viii. 21. moral liberty-a freedom from the Mr. R. having given us several bondage of sin and Satan, particuquotations on the text, from Greek larly from the slavery of idolatry and Latin writers, sums up the and superstition. This were a whole in English, by adding-liberty worth while for the Son of "The amount, then, is this: The God to come from heaven to beheathens expected some great re- stow. volution to be brought about, by some extraordinary person, about St. Paul's time. St. Paul was well acquainted with their opinion: it is natural, therefore, to suppose that the Apostle would speak on this article, and direct the eyes of the Pagans to Jesus Christ. The passage is capable of such a meaning, and it is highly probable that this is the sense of it. The Gentiles are earnestly looking for such a liberty as the Gospel proposes to Mr. Robinson may be right in censuring the bishops, for "sacrificing Christianity to save episcopacy;" but let him beware of undervaluing moral liberty for the sake of that of which he is so tenacious, of an inferior kind. Christianity is of greater importance than nonconformity. A remark of Mr. Whitfield, when he had attended one of the Synods of Scotland, and had heard one of the Associate Presbytery preach, may not be inappropriate" The good man | berty, and render their errors cri(says he) so spent himself in talk- minal! But what can be made of ing against prelacy, the common- such a liberty as this, unless it be prayer book, the surplice, the rose a divine right to do wrong? This in the hat, and such like externals, Mr. R. ridicules in politics (Claude, that when he came to the latter vol. ii. p. 42.): is it not a pity he part of his subject, to invite poor should retain it in divinity? sinners to Jesus Christ, his breath Further-There is a material difwas so gone, that he could scarce ference between my being at liberbe heard." This passage Mr. R. ty to believe and act in religious introduces into his arcana with matters without being accountable great approbation, and adds- to the civil authorities, or to any "This will always be the case: fellow-creature, as such; and my that learning, eloquence, strength, having a right, be my religious and zeal, which should be spent in principles what they may, to a enforcing the weightier matters of place in a Christian church. If I the law, judgment, mercy, and act with decorum in my civil capafaith,' will be unprofitably wasted city, I have a right, whatever be on the tithing of mint, anise, and my religious principles, to all the cummin' on discarding or defend- benefits of civil government: but ing a bow to the east, or a rose in it does not therefore follow that I the hat." p. 109. How far this am entitled to the privileges of the describes Mr. R.'s subsequent con-house of God. Mr. R. blames the duct, I leave you to judge.. church of England for not allowing But not only has he neglected avowed Socinians to continue in weightier things, in defending those its service and receive its emoluof inferior importance; but it ap-ments: (Claude, vol. ii. p. 212.) pears to me, that his notions of and not long since, unless I am liberty are latitudinarian, unscrip- misinformed, he declared in pubtural, and unreasonable. lic company, at an ordination, that no church had any right to refuse any man communion, whether he were an Arian, a Sabellian, a Socinian, or an Antinomian, provided he was of good moral character! Though in regard to men, we are at liberty to think and act as we please in religion, this is not true in regard to God. He requires us to believe the truth, as well as to obey his commands. He has If, however, this notion consist given us a rule of faith, as well as with either Scripture or common of practice, and requires us to sense, I must confess myself a think and act according to it; stranger to both. The church of and, moreover, it is at our peril God is represented as a city—a that we allow ourselves in the con- city with walls and bulwarks; a trary. This, however, is a distinc- city with gates, of which they tion which I never knew Mr. R. to themselves have the care and have made; though I could scarce-keeping. ly have thought he would have manded to open the gates-but to avowed the contrary, had he not told me in conversation, that no man was bound to believe the Gospel that their only duty was to examine it-and that to make it their duty to believe, as well as to examine, would destroy their li It is true they are com whom? To the righteous nation, "who keep the truth." These, and these only, are to enter in. Isa. xxvi. 1, 2. I know the objection Mr. R. would make to this; viz. Who is to be judge what is truth? But, on this principle, we may this:" Lord, we never apprehended we had any thing to do in judging of the doctrines that people held, who became members with us: we came together upon the liberal principles of universal toleration, and never expected to be called to account about any one's sentiments but our own, whatever we were for these.' But, in reply to all such pleas as this, it is sufficient to say-" Thus saith He that hath the sharp two-edged sword, I have somewhat against thee." doubt of every thing, and turn selves in some such manner as sceptics at once; or else consider that to be truth which any man thinks is truth. But if it be indeed so difficult to ascertain the truth, as that we must needs give over judging in that matter; and that must pass for truth which every person thinks to be such; then surely the Bible cannot be such a plain book as Mr. R. represents. Besides, we might, on the same principle, refrain from judging between right and wrong; for there are various opinions about these, as well as about truth and error. Suppose, for instance, a As to the bugbear frequently person were to apply to a Christian held up, that if we presume to church for communion, who ap-judge in these matters, we assume proved and practised polygamy; to ourselves infallibility, to what or who should think that Scripture does it amount? On this principle, sanctioned concubinage, and there-all human judgment must be set fore practised it; upon this prin- aside, in civil, as well as in sacred ciple the church must be silent; things. No man, nor any set of for should they object to such men, can pretend to this: neither practices, as immoral, it might be need they. It is sufficient that replied "I think they are right; they act to the best of their capaand who are you, that you should city, availing themselves of all the set up for judges of right and means of information they possess. wrong in other men's conduct?- All men, undoubtedly, are fallible : Mr. R. therefore, need not have it becomes them, therefore, to been so squeamish, in his pro-judge with meekness and fear; and posed reception of Arians and So-to consider that their decisions are cinians, as to provide for their not final-that they must all be good moral character. Upon his brought over again, and themselves principle, the want of character be tried with them at the Great ought to be no objection, provided Assize! But does it thence follow, they are so abandoned in vice as to that all human judgment must be believe that evil is good, or so laid aside? Surely not. versed in hypocrisy, as to say they believe so, whether they do or not. I do not see how the church at Pergamos could have been blanred by the Lord Jesus, for having those among them that held the doctrine of Balaam and of the Nicolaitans, unless they were authorised, and even required to judge of right and wrong, truth and error, in relation to those whom they received as On Mr. R.'s principles, they might have excused them The great outcry that Mr. R. has made of our Lord's words" Call no man master," &c. is no more to his purpose than the other. Surely it is one thing to dictate to a man what he shall believe, and persecute him if he does not; and another, to require a union of principles, in order that we may unite with him in church fellowship, and have communion with him in the ordinances of Jesus Christ. As an individual, we have nothing to do |