not only to clerical but to lay readers. Specimens of all sorts of sermons, good, bad, and indifferent, from the very best to the very worst are therein exhibited. Two editions of the translated Essay have been since published; one by the Rev. Charles Simeon, Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, who affecting to despise the notes, gave to his clerical brethren, doubtless by way of exemplification of the rules of Mr. Claude, a few hun-, dreds of "skeletons" of his own sermons. In the other bastard edition, published likewise by a clergyman, who concealed his name, by far the major part of the notes are omitted. Mr. Robinson's edition although a large one, two thousand copies, has not met with the reception a work of such sterling merit deserved. During his life time its sale was slow: after his death it fell into different hands, and the paltry art sometimes practised of printing new title pages, with the words second, and third edition, was adopted. Copies are at length become scarce; and if the tutors of dissenting academies, the students under their care, and preachers in general are duly sensible of the value of the work, it will not be long before another ediis called for.

In 1781, our author published—The general doctrine of Toleration applied to the particular case of free communion. For some time previous to the appearance of this pamphlet the subject of mixed communion had been controverted by some of the most respectable ministers of the baptist

denomination. Messrs. Ryland of Northampton, Turner of Abingdon, and Browne of Kettering, had pleaded the right of christians who might not perceive it their duty to submit to adult baptism, to church fellowship with their baptist brethren. Others argued for their exclusion. The most zealous of the latter class was the late Mr. Abraham Booth, who had recently published An Apology for the Baptists, and which affords a sad instance of the mistakes to which good men are in this mortal state too frequently liable: such is the dogmatism and uncharitableness which blemish the performance, so calculated was it to divide the christian world, and such astonishment did it raise in the minds of some of the author's friends, that one of them I have just mentioned, and for whom as the instructor of my youth, I shall ever retain a grateful remembrance, Mr. Ryland, when Mr. Booth's performance first made its appearance, made use of, in my hearing, this emphatic expression :-" If there were but one stump of a

pen, and one thimble full of ink left in the "church, they ought to be used in answering "Mr. Booth's book." Notwithstanding the severe charges which the author threw out against his brethren, of being "innovators, wishing to anni"hilate the ordinances of Christ, neither baptists, "nor pædobaptists, but an heterogenous mixture "of both;" so much was Mr. Booth respected on account of his abilities and general character, that there does not appear to have been a reply

made to him but what was written in a spirit of christian candour and liberality, a spirit totally opposite to that which reigns in the Apology. Mr. Robinson's piece is distinguished for the firmness with which he maintained his sentiments as a baptist, the arguments by which he vindicated the right of his differing brethren to church fellowship, the respect shewn to his opponents, and the novel and beautiful illustrations of his subject. The picture drawn towards the close, of the meeting of a strict baptist church, the application for admission on the part of some of the most illustrious pædobaptists, the feelings of the church on the occasion, form such a powerful appeal to the heart of every sincere christian, that I may safely pronounce it unanswerable.*

Such was the christian politeness of our author, that previous to the publication of The Doctrine of Toleration, he sent a copy of it to Mr. Booth, requesting that if he had mistated any of his senments he might be informed accordingly, to which no answer was returned ;—that is no private answer, for not long afterwards Mr. Booth thought proper first to misrepresent, and then to revile our author in such a manner, as to make one wish what he had written, for the honour of his character, for ever blotted from his writings. Mr. Robin'son's gentle mode of reasoning appears, instead of softening to have increased Mr. Booth's roughness

* Vol. III. p. 188-192.

and asperity. Whether the latter was conscious of his inability to answer the arguments of his opponent I will not take upon me to affirm; but it is notorious, that instead of attempting an answer, he fell to reviling, and openly charged him with "being the advocate of error, who rather than "fail to carry his point, had committed an act "of high treason against the majesty of eternal "truth, encouraging rebellion against her saluta

ry claims, on the understandings, the con"sciences, and the hearts of men :"* and in what, gentle reader, did this treasonable offence against truth, committed by Mr. Robinson, consist? Why truly, in the assertion-That there is no moral turpitude in mental errors, or as the author explained and applied it to the controversy in hand:"The candidate for fellowship, who has examined "believer's baptism by immersion, and cannot "obtain evidence of the truth of it, is indeed in a "state in which his knowledge is imperfect; but

his imperfection is innocent, because he hath "exercised all the ability, and virtue he has, and

* Pædobaptism examined &c. 1st. Ed. p. 462. 2d. Ed. Vol. II. p. 514-520.

Dr. Williams's masterly defence of Infant baptism 2 vols. 12mo. written in reply to Mr. Booth, will it is hoped, prove an effectual check to that dogmatical arrogance which abounds in the Pædobaptism examined, as well as in the Apology for the baptists. The admirable chapter in Dr. Williams's work, on Analogical reasoning proves that Mr. Booth, when arguing on that part of the subject, takes the precise ground of the Roman catholic writers in their controversy with protestants!

"his ignorance is involuntary; yea perhaps he " may have exercised ten times more industry and application, though without success, than many "others who have obtained evidence... THIS IS (6 A CASE OF INVOLUNTARY ERROR, AND THERE, "s IS, THERE CAN BE NO MORAL TURPITUDE IN IT." And is not this a truth, I will venture to demand, inculcated by reason, and that forms the prominent feature of revelation? Yea, I will further demand-Whether the Almighty governor of the universe at the last day, "who will be clear "when he judges," will not judge his rational creation, by the rules of eternal justice and mercy, not condemning any one for involuntary error, but solely for errors from which they had the means of freeing themselves, and the guilt of which was visible in their conduct? This subject is admirably treated in the preface to the third volume of Saurin's sermons, as well as in the pamphlet on Toleration.* It cannot but excite surprise that Mr. Booth should so grossly misrepresent our author as "the enemy of truth, and the patron of error," when at the very time, he was refuting his

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* The same subject was particularly discussed early in the last century by a learned divine of the established church, Dr. Sykes, in a tract entitled-The Innocency of Error asserted and vindicated. This tract passed through several editions. Should it ever be re-printed, would it not be best to entitle it The Innocency of involuntary Error, &c. This being the author's meaning, and there being so many who without this explanatory word, are so liable to misunderstand the phrase.

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