A CHARACTER.

After the manner of a Living Author.

MR. is one of those elderly gentlemen who continually think, and talk, and write of the days of their youth only; who see nothing to admire in the present, and nothing to hope for in the future; to whom the past is every thing—all and in all. Whatever has gone by he can recount with the most minute accuracy; particularly all that is unimportant in the past. His eye is a telescope, which magnifies small objects, and only sees distant ones. Like Jack the Giant Killer, after he had sown the beans, his whole time is employed in tracing back his steps to the point at which he set out. Life is a verb which he conjugates in the preterite tense only. It is a false perspective, like Hogarth's picture, in which the most distant objects are the largest. If he should run a race for a wager, it would be like that of the man recently spoken of in the newspapers, who ran farther than any one had ever done before him— backwards! He goes the journey of this world in a coach, with his back always to the horses. Of all the fishes in the sea, he is, in this respect, the most like the crab; of all the beasts on the earth, the most like the cat, for he can see best in the dark, and the pupil of his eye contracts at the sunshine, resting on present objects. He has kept a diary of his life, and every morning turns back and folds down the leaf at fifty years ago. He can tell you how he ate, and drank, and slept, during the greater part of the last century; and run a regular parallel between the present times and seventeen hundred and odd.

As he is a professor of religion-a dissenter-and an enlightened dissenter he can give the most minute account of the origin and progress of his party. He is himself, in this respect, a whole antiquarian society-president, members, secretary and all. He knows when the Rev. Mr. (who died twenty years ago, and was forgotten long before he died) preached his first sermon, what was his text, and under how many heads he divided his discourse. He can write whole pages of the actions of a man who did nothing, and delights in reminiscences of those of whom nothing deserves to be remembered.

"O fond attempt to give a deathless lot

To names ignoble-born to be forgot."

To a line of text in large he can add whole pages of com

ment in little, remembering all the men who all the world besides has forgotten, and giving a catalogue raisonnée of such of their works as have been neglected by posterity, and used up as waste paper. He amuses a convivial party by discourses on their departed friends; his whole conversation is a prose version of the Pleasures of Mémory; and the best introduction he can give to an acquaintance is to tell in which volume, and at what page, his great grandfather is spoken of in Wood's Athena Oxonionsis. He is, in fact, the tomb-stone of his party, or its parish register. His discourse is one long funeral oration. Futurity with him travels backward, toward the flood: his course is toward the beginning of things. He lives a third time in the race-not of his grand children-but of his grand father; and his life, spent in the contemplation of his first childhood, secures him from the imputation of ever entering on his second.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY.

Lightfoot, in commenting upon some portions of the Old Testament, says--"Some three months after this, the three persons of the Trinity dine with "Abraham. The Son and Holy Ghost go down to Sodom, but the first person of the Trinity stayeth with Abraham."

"

An "Allegorical Picture of the Battle of Waterloo," by Ward, was recently exhibited in London. In the description which was sold in the exhibition room, occurred the following explantion of "The Union Jack." Wellington has his hand upon the tri-coloured cross on the shield of "Britannia, expressive of the Christian's emblem; the three colours of "which it is composed, being answerable to the persons of the Trinity. "Red is the first, or fiery principle in the Godhead.

"Blue, the second, is the Saviour or Mediator.

“White, the third, is the dove of peace."

In the "Rules and Orders of the Christian Benefit Society, held at the "Vestry of Mr. Upton's Meeting, Church Street, Blackfriars Road, insti"tuted January 7, 1817," the first rule, being that relative to the qualification of membership, is as follows:-"That this society shall consist of persons of sober life and conversation, well affected to his Majesty King "George the Third, and the Protestant interest; partakers of divine grace and "holding evangelical sentiments, particularly the doctrine of the Trinity; viz. "that there are three equal persons in the Trinity, the Father, the Son, " and the Holy Ghost, and that these three are one "God."

The priest is, of course, the president of this body; and he prefaces the rules with a pious address. A member of this benefit club, who has abjured the doctrine of the Trinity, has not long since become a member of the Freethinking Christians Church. He has, in consequence, been expelled the club, and all his previous contributions FORFEITED-the "partakers of "divine grace," and the holders of evangelical sentiments," not objecting thus to hold and partake of the money of an heretic.

NOTICES.

THE following Subjects are appointed by the Church of God, denominated Freethinking Christians, for the instruction of the Public on the Sunday Mornings, at their Meeting-house, Crescent, Jewin Street, Aldersgate Street. --Time of commencing Eleven o'Clock PRECISELY.

July 4.-The evidence upon which is founded a belief in the resurrection of Jesus, and also of the general resurrection.

July 11.-The effects, direct and indirect, of revealed religion upon the general condition of mankind.

July 18.-The character and claims of modern, assumed Believers.

July 25.—An examination and an exposure of the pretensions, the principles, and the characters of eminent unbelievers.

August 1.-The same subject continued.

August 8.-Ditto ditto.

August 15.-The Constitution, Government, and Laws of the Church of God, under the Christian dispensation.

August 22.-The character and attributes of God, as delineated in the Old and New Testaments, compared with the works of Nature.

August 29.-An examination of the maxims and principles contained in what is termed—the Sermon of Jesus upon the Mount. Sept. 5.-What support does a belief in good angels and spirits, derive from the scriptures?

Sept. 12. The character of Jesus.

Sept. 19. The dispositions necessary to the possession of the advantages which the principles of Jesus are capable of producing. Founded on Matthew xiii. 44 to 52.

Sept. 26. The belief in the existence of a being called the Devil proved to be unreasonable and unscriptural.

Our friend C. T. certainly establishes his point, but we apprehend no one can be found who supposes the funeral service of the church of England has any authority in the scriptures.

If, as requested, we should offer our "candid remarks" on the publication of J. Carstairs, we should do him a great disservice.

Joseph John Gurney's book on the Peculiarities of the Society of Friends has been received, for which we are obliged to the author.

The Report of the Southwark Auxiliary Bible Society has been received from our Southwark Correspondent-snch documents are always useful to us.

HETHERINGTON, PRINTER, 13, KINGSGATE STREET, HOLBORN.

THE

FREETHINKING

CHRISTIANS'

QUARTERLY REGISTER.

THE RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD OPPOSED TO THE DOCTRINE OF THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.

ESSAY V.

"IF the dead rise not, then is Christ not raised; and if Christ be not "raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins; THEN THEY ALSO 66 WHICH ARE FALLEN ASLEEP IN CHRIST ARE PERISHED." 1 Cor. xv. 17, 18, 19.

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IN N our first Essay upon this subject, which menced in Volume I. p. 19, we proposed to establish the positions "that the resurrection from the dead is peculiarly the doctrine of the gospel, and that the hypothesis of an immaterial, immortal soul, is a "doctrine of heathenism and infidelity, and essentially opposed to the christian's hopes of futurity:" this design has been carried into effect, by historically tracing immaterialism up to an origin purely heathen;-by proving that man is entirely material, and that his physical and mental powers are produced by organization;-by explaining all the scriptural terms connected with this subject, and deducing therefrom direct evidence in disproof of immaterialism;-by examining every passage in both the Old and New Testament, which our opponents have advanced, and proving that such passages do not answer the object for which they are adduced-and by shewing, that from the period of death, to that of a resurrection, there is no recognition in the scriptures of an intermediate state of consciousness, and that, consequently, there is no evidence

that the future existence of man, his punishments and his rewards, will commence until the period of the resurrection.

Having effected thus much in the controversy, we now proceed briefly to notice the leading and important place which the doctrine of the resurrection from the dead occupies in divine revelation; and such being admitted, the doctrine of the materiality of man follows as an inseparable consequence, for as has been briefly and clearly stated, "death and resurrection are terms opposed to each other; "a real resurrection must be preceded by the actual death "of that which is raised; that which does not die, cannot "be raised from the dead; the resurrection made known "in the Scriptures is a resurrection from the dead; whatever "is to be raised from the dead, must remain dead, until "it is raised."* This view of future existence will be seen directly to emanate from the declarations of Jesus, as well as from the teachings of his apostles, it having been announced that "this is the will of him that sent me, that every one that seeth the son and believeth on him, may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day,” John vi. 40; and those who from right principles could give entertainment to others, are told to "call the poor, the maimed, the "lame, the blind, and thou shalt be blessed, for they cannot recom

pence thee-thou shalt be recompenced at the resurrection "of the just." Luke xiv. 13, 24. Thus, " the will of him" that sent the Messiah was to make known to his creatures, everlasting life;" a life from the very terms of the communication, clearly not derivable from a self-existent, immortal principle, but, from the "resurrection from the "dead;" when all that are in their graves shall come forth to the resurrection of life, or to that of condemnation. It was for proclaiming this doctrine, and that too in defiance of both Jewish and Heathen authorities, and even of martyrdom itself, on the part of the apostles, that the "priests and the "captains of the temple and the sadduces came upon them; being grieved that they taught the people and preached through "Jesus"-not the immortality of the soul, but-" the RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD." (Acts iv. 1, 2.)

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The hope of a future state of existence, built upon this foundation, rests not on the belief of an immortal spirit, but solely, and to the exclusion of all other doctrines, on the declarations of the Messiah, and the fact that God had raised the man Jesus from the dead; for if there be no resurrection

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*See "The Resurrection from the dead an essential Doctrine of the Gospel." By R. Wright, Unitarian Missionary.-P. 6. 1820.