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punishment. There is an unusual impulse amongst them for attending religious exercises."

Mr. S. Ward, the sub-agent, says,"Last Sunday I was at a camp-meeting near the agency, and saw a great many of these people. They appeared to pay great attention to the preaching, and as good order was observed among them as among

the Whites on similar occasions. They have improved more than could be expected. They were dressed, many of them, in cloth of their own making, some in calico; all clean and decent. Nearly all the men I saw wore pantaloons. There was a large collection of Red people, and many of them rode good horses."

LIST OF NEW PUBLICATIONS.

"A Charge" delivered at his Visitation. By the Rev. H. Pearson, D.D. Dean of of Salisbury.

Select Sermons from Massillon. By the Rev. R. Morris. 10s. 6d.

Family Expositor of Dr. Doddridge. Edited by the Rev. G. Redford. 2 vols. 10s.

Divines of the Church of England, No. VI,, containing the Works of Dr. Barrow. Edited by the Rev. T. S. Hughes, 7s. 6d. The Law of the Sabbath. By Josiah Conder.

Sermons by the Rev. R. Wardlaw, D.D.

12s.

On" Preaching Christ." By the Rev. C. Davy. 6d.

The Crucifixion, and other Poems. By a Clergyman.

Practical Remarks on the Book of Exodus, adapted for Family Worship. 7s. 6d. Devotional Sonnets. 4s.

A Sermon on the Guilt of Colonial Slavery. By the Rev. D. Wilson.

Slavery in the West-India Colonies, Vol. II. By J. Stephen.

"A Charge," delivered at his Visitation. By the Rev. E. Bather, Archbishop of Salop.

Memoir of the Rev. E. Payson. 6s. Memoir of the late Mrs. Newnham. By W. Newnham. 5s. 6d.

The Day of Rest, and other Poems. 2s. 6d.

The Olive Branch for 1831.

Cabinet Cyclopædia, No. 12, being the History of France. By E. E. Crowe. 6s. Critical State of England at the present Time. 2s.

The Claims of West Africa. By Hannah Kilham.

National Dietetics. By G. Warren. "The Moral Muse;" a Present for Young Ladies. By E. Price. 7s.

SUPPLEMENT TO RELIGIOUS INTELLIGENCE.

WE append to the present Number the Bible-Society Extracts for December; and also No. 72 of the Anti-Slavery Reporter, which contains a convincing reply to Mr. Wilmot Horton's charges against the Anti-Slavery Society.

We shall add to our Appendix, published with the present Number, the abstract of the Bible Society's Annual Report, and the Monthly Extracts for last July (which being intercalary did not appear with the current Numbers); and also another Number of the Reporter, which contains an interesting account of Sir George Murray's correspondence with the Slave Colonies. With the Appendix will be given a title page, for binding the appended papers for the year. It is gratifying to us to reflect how many valuable documents have thus been rescued from the ordinary waste and loss attending such

papers.

Our monthly sketch of Public Affairs, Answers to Correspondents, &c. will appear in the Appendix; among the other papers in which, we particularly request the attention of our readers to a long and able discussion of Miss Fancourt's case, by the correspondent who wrote the papers on superstition, &c. Mr. Newnham's professional studies and experience have enabled him to discuss the case so satisfactorily that we cannot conceive that any reader, after perusing his paper, and the appended letter from Mr. Travers, will for one moment maintain that the cure was miraculous.

1

APPENDIX

TO THE

CHRISTIAN OBSERVER FOR 1830,

BEING THE THIRTIETH VOLUME.

RELIGIOUS & MISCELLANEOUS COMMUNICATIONS.

BAXTER ON THE MILLENNIUM, THE differed from his master. The epis

JEWS, AND PROPHECY.

Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer.

I

HAVE just been perusing Mr. Orme's Life of Baxter, and am so much interested with some pas sages relative to that eminent divine's opinions respecting the millennium, the Jews, and prophecy, that I transmit them for the consideration of your readers.

Mr. Orme's work is a valuable addition to our stores of religious biography, which he had already enriched by his life of Dr. Owen. Baxter's auto-biography, published by Sylvester in 1696, only reaches down to January 1685; whereas Baxter died in 1691, so that the remaining six years are supplied, from other sources, by the present annalist. This he has done with great accuracy and judgment; and has added an elaborate examination of Baxter's works; drawn up with much moderation, acuteness, and independence; and altogether worthy of the man who compiled the Bibliotheca Biblica. Mr. Orme himself is now become the subject of religious biography. He was of the school of Baxter, as well in his general views of the Gospel, as in his opinions of ecclesiastical polity-although, in this latter relation, he somewhat CHRIST. OBSERV. APP.

copalian reader of the work will, of course, meet with much by no means coincident with his own sentiments; but, as a non-conformist, Mr. Orme might have been excused, had he shewn some irritability, as both churchmen and dissenters agree that the ejected ministers were treated with great severity. But this is not my subject; my object being only to transcribe the account of Baxter's controversy with the millenarians. This combat was almost the closing act of his laborious and eventful life, extended to the age of seventy-six. The passage is apposite to one of the current discussions of these times; and may, at least, instruct all parties in the perplexities which surround their efforts; while it brings forward the mature sentiments of a divine who, voluminous as are his compositions, thought more than he wrote; and who was so conscious of the wide extent of this and some other mysterious subjects, as to pursue his investigations less to decide the question than to illustrate its difficulties.

"In the last year of his life, Baxter was led to engage in a controversy with the Rev. Thomas Beverly, on the subject of the millennium, and the second advent of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is one of those subjects which appears, 5 I

from time to time, to have agitated the church of Christ from the beginning. Even in the days of the Apostles, some indulged the expectation that the coming of the Lord was at hand, and under the influence of this feeling, appear to have relaxed in their attention to the ordinary duties of life. (2 Thess. ii. iii. 5-12.) In the subsequent ages, the doctrine of the millennium was a favourite speculation with many; though very various and discordant sentiments were entertained respecting it. At the Reformation, it had its patrons among those whose imaginations were excited by the extraordinary events of the period, to expect that the time of the restitution of all things was near. During the Commonwealth, the Fifth-monarchy men brought this subject again into prominent notice; but the extravagances of some of them, and the destruction which they brought on themselves, sunk it into contempt. It was held, however, by some most respectable and learned individuals, both before and after the time of the Commonwealth. It is only necessary to mention, in proof of this, the names of Joseph Mede and Henry More; men alike distinguished for learning and talents, and for their mild and conciliatory dispositions. Among the most strenuous and ardent supporters of this doctrine was Thomas Beverly, a man by no means destitute of good sense, scriptural information, and ardent zeal. He was pastor of a dissenting congregation which assembled in Cutler's Hall, and began his career as a writer on the prophecies about the period of the Revolution; of which he was a most devoted friend and admirer. In a work published in 1688, dedicated to the Prince of Orange, he endeavours to shew that the Papacy could not last nine years, and that the millennium would commence in 1697. From this time to that portentous year, he continued to send forth his publications on the subject in great numbers, challenging every

body to answer them. He lived to see all his prophetical calculations fail; so that, on the year in which they should have commenced their fulfilment, he resigned his pastoral charge, retired into the country, and shortly after sunk into obscurity.

"Such was the fate of a man whose talents, ardour, and devotedness, had they been better directed, might have rendered him eminently useful; but whose misdirected zeal and erroneous calculations issued only in disappointment to himself, sorrow to his friends, and triumph to the enemies of religion. Beverly was the friend and correspondent of Baxter. He admired his talents, respected his piety, and courted his acquaintance. Knowing the candour with which Baxter listened to every plausible representation on religious subjects, and being convinced that if he could but engage his attention, he would openly espouse his cause, or enter the lists against him; either of which results would answer his purpose by calling attention to his own publications; he accordingly presented him with them as they appeared, and most perseveringly solicited his observations upon them. Having published his Catechism of the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Thousand Years; shewing by Scripture that the great Articles of the Redemption, the Resurrection, the Mystery of the Saints not dying but changed, the Judgment, the Delivering-up of the Kingdom to God, all in all, cannot be explained at full Dimensions without it;' he sent it to Baxter, with an earnest request to be favoured with his opinion of it. The substance of Beverly's doctrine appears to be,-That Christ's kingdom begins only at the millennium; that the commencement of the millennium and the resurrection of the saints are parallel events; that the millennium is the day of judgment spoken of in Scripture; that during it the saints shall increase and multiply upon the earth; that the wicked shall also be upon

the earth; and that a grand conflict shall take place at the battle of Armageddon, when the wicked shall be destroyed. With all this, are mixed up some strange speculations about the person of Christ. On receiving the 'millenary Catechism,' Baxter addressed a long and kind letter to the author, proposing a series of questions to him. He assures him they were written, not in a spirit of captiousness, but from a real desire of information, which he considered Beverly well qualified to supply. As these questions are not unimportant at the present time, I shall extract a few of them. "Doth the Revelation mention one thousand years or two? If but one, doth not that begin upon the fall of Babylon? Why say you that Christ's kingdom beginneth at the one thousand years, when so many things tell us of his kingdom existent long before? Hath he not governed by laws and initial execution long before? yea, the kingdom is among us and within us. Do not the spirits of the departed just, with the angels, now constitute the general assembly above; and is not that kingdom of Christ, and doth he not now reign over all? Shall these blessed souls come down for one thousand years, and dwell either with devils, or where devils now dwell, in the air? If they come thither with Christ at judgment, shall they dwell there so long? and is it no worse a place than where they are? Seeing the heavens that now are must then be burnt, is not the air the lower part of the heavens, or that at least, and shall Christ and the new Jerusalem dwell in the consuming fire? I cannot possibly find what time you allot to the conflagration of heaven; whether it shall continue burning all the one thousand years, or be quickly dispatched at first; nor yet what time or measure you set to the conflagration of the earth. Doth it burn all at once, or by gradations, as Dr. Cressener thinks, beginning at Rome, and so going

on? or is it all the one thousand years proceeding to its dispatch? If so, it is a wonder that this long fire consumeth not Gog and Magog; and if the inhabitants fly from it, as at Etna, whither do they carry their goods, and where will they find room, both saints and sinners? Is it the new earth all the while it is burning? If it be burnt at all at the beginning, where are the surviving saints all the while? You avoid many difficulties by holding but one resurrection; but what then becomes of the bodies of all the wicked, who die during the one thousand years? Do soul and body go to hell unburied; or do only their souls suffer, and their bodies never rise? Is there one conflagration or two? The Scriptures speak but of one; and then what becomes of your new earth at the end of the one thousand years? Are not Gog and Magog burnt at last? Is your beloved city on earth in one place? and where? or over the whole earth? Is not the number that cover the camp, as the sand of the sea, with Gog and Magog, inconsistent with the description of the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness, and with the times of restitution, when the groaning creation shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into a paradisiacal state?'"

"Such is a specimen of the questions which Baxter proposed to Beverly, on his having transmitted to him a copy of the work which he had published. Could I have quoted them all, they would have shewn how amply Baxter, even at this advanced period of his life, entered into the subject; and that no portion of his natural acuteness had yet failed him. It does not seem to have produced much effect on Beverly; and therefore, in the course of the year 1691, appeared a quarto tract, entitled 'The Glorious Kingdom of Christ, described and clearly vindicated, &c.; by Richard Baxter, whose comfort is only the hope of that kingdom.' In this

work he enters the lists with the Millenarians in general; with those who boldly asserted the future restoration and reign of the Jews, and the one thousand years' rest before the conflagration, with those also who expected a reign of one thousand years after the conflagration; and with Beverly in particular, in answer to his challenges and censures, of which he appears to have been very liberal. Baxter endeavours to explain the promise of the new heavens and the new earth; and contends for the everlasting duration of Christ's kingdom. He undertakes to prove, that the doctrines of Beverly, and the Millenarians, are chimerical, and without foundation in Scripture; that the views commonly entertained on these subjects are in accordance with all correct interpretation of the prophecies of the Bible; that Christ's kingdom is spiritual in its nature, properly commenced at his resurrection, and will continue till the final conflagration, when it will be perfected for ever in heaven. From this work, it appears that Baxter did not believe that the Ten Tribes were ever so entirely lost as many suppose, and that part of them existed in the time of Christ and the Apostles: consequently that the recovery of such a body, according to the expectations of many, is not to be looked for? Nor does he appear to have believed in any national conversion of the Jewish people; in their restoration to their own country; in their instrumentality for the conversion of the world; or in their future superiority over the nations. His reasonings on all these topics cannot be given. I do not agree with him in every point; but I have no hesitation in saying, that, though less known than many of his works, it is one of the acutest and best written of his numerous publications. The opinions of Beverly were not new when he wrote: they had been frequently started and exploded before. They have been repeatedly revived since, maintained with no

less confidence, and propagated with equal zeal, and in future ages will probably continue to experience the same fate. One passage of Baxter's tract, relating to Beverly, I think merits to be quoted :

"Your writings make it plain that you are a good man, of deep thoughts, fallen into a fond esteem of your new, unripe conceptions, and wrapt up thereby into a diseased conceitedness. How you will be able to bear it when Providence and experience have confuted you in 1697, I know not. But I am more bold to foretel your failing, by my persuasion that your exposition of the Revelation is a mere mistake from the beginning almost to the end. Wonder not that nobody writeth to confute you, for men love not to trouble themselves with convincing every single man of his errors. The reason why I attempt it is because by the seduction of some of my friends, and the general inclination of the Antinomian, Anabaptist, and separating party to this conceit of the thousand years' kingdom, I understand that your opinion, which formerly was tolerable as confined to a few conceited good men, is now becoming a great article of their faith and religion; especially since I see that in all your professed extraordinary humility, you brand all who dissent from you as semi-Sadducees of the apostacy, and constantly challenge all pastors and doctors to answer you, and maintain (though you conform) that God's word knoweth not a clergy.'

"Beverly published a short answer to Baxter, as full of confidence as ever. In consequence of which Baxter brought out quickly after, another pamphlet in Reply to Mr. Thomas Beverly's Answer to my Reasons against his Doctrine of the Thousand Years' Middle Kingdom, and of the Conversion of the Jews. Feb. 20, 1691.4to. This tract consists of only twenty-one pages, and must have been among the last things of a controversial nature which Baxter

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