309 Memoir of the Rev. Daniel Isaac. of the week, and the members of the christian church on the Lord's day. It was no unusual thing with him to preach three times, and walk from thirty to forty miles on the christian sabbath; and to add to the toils of the Sunday, a twenty miles' walk from the country to the city, on a Monday morning, to be ready for the reception and instruction of his pupils. When he had been about two years and a half a member of the Wesleyan society, and had resided about fifteen months in Lincoln, he was called to supply the place of the Rev. John Cricket, in the Grimsby circuit, of which Lincoln itself formed a part. Mr. Cricket was unable to attend to the work of the ministry, owing to declining health; and such was the state of the roads, that the horses were often in danger of being left as fixtures in the mud. Mr. Isaac had acted as a local preacher for the space only of about twelve months before he commenced his itinerant career; and it is no unimportant proof of the value put upon his ministry to find him advanced in the course of one year from a local to a travelling preacher, and called upon to exercise the functions of the latter, in the course of the first year of his itinerancy, in the same circuit in which he had exercised his talents in a local capacity, a circuit, which at a more subsequent period, he was again called upon to enter and to superintend. The circuits, to employ the phraseology of his own community, in which he has successively travelled since 1799, are Louth, Lynn, Yarmouth, Wetherby, York, Newcas tle, Shields, Malton, Scarborough, Lincoln, Leicester, Sheffield, Hull, and Leeds, at the last of which places he is now fulfilling the duties of a Wesleyan itinerant minister. At York, he has travelled twice; on one of the occasions two, and on the other three years; and on his removal to Leeds, the York societies strongly petitioned the Conference for him a third time. It was during one of his stations here that he led to the hymeneal altar his present wife, a lady richly meriting what she in fact enjoys, the good will and good word of all who have the happiness of her acquaintance. Since three-years stations became general in the Wesleyan connexion, he has generally enjoyed them; and Hull, one of the last places to yield to this modern regulation, was glad of the opportunity of making Mr. Isaac the first-fruit of its bendings. Having thus measured our distances, in a hasty run over the scenes of his labour, we shall now return and notice a few of the circumstances which have given rise to some of his works, and notoriety to his name, and 310 ... which otherwise tend to develop his real character, in its bearings upon civil and religious society. When Mr. Isaac was stationed at Lynn, in 1802 and 1803, Mr. Vidler visited Wisbeach, which was then in the Lynn circuit. This gentleman, while advocating the doctrine of Universal Restoration, frequently made the Methodists the butt of his vituperations. On one occasion, he was heard by Mr. Isaac, who took notes of his sermon, visited Mr. V. the next morning, shewing him what he had penned, and asked him to be candid enough to state whether he had given a correct view of his arguments and objections. Mr. Vidler answered in the affirmative. Mr. Isaac then told him, that from the views he entertained of the nature and tendency of the doctrine, he felt it his duty to oppose it, and to guard those who might sit under his ministry against it; further adding, that he purposed to enter into a refutation of it the next Lord's day, and had waited upon Mr. V. for any correction he might offer, as he wished to do him perfect justice in correctly stating what he had advanced. Mr. Isaac accordingly preached against the doctrine, and out of this arose his publication of "Universal Restoration Refuted, in a series of Letters, addressed to Mr. W. Vidler ;"-a work which bears the exact image and superscription of his own mind, in its endless resources, its deep, acute, varied, and original thinkings. The Wesleyans, at different periods, and in different places, have not unfrequently become the subjects of public censure, for the noise accompanying several of their meetings. These extravagances, however, which are often the result of inexperience among persons who have been suddenly roused to a sense of danger because of transgression, and received sudden deliverance in consequence of a manifestation of divine mercy, have not been permitted to pass unnoticed and unchecked by the more grave and intelligent members of the body, nor less a matter of regret and abandonment by the persons themselves, when all high-wrought feeling has subsided, and solid progress has been made in the divine life; persons who can afterwards say, in reference to the infancy of both lives they have lived, natural and religious," When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things." It must not be omitted at the same time, that many of those, properly "without," who rank themselves on the objective side of the question, are such as would have been offended at the noise of a religious assembly 311 Memoir of the Rev. Daniel Isaac. of old, when all the people, with no ordinary degree of earnestness and emphasis, shouted "AMEN;" or even at a modern christian assembly, entering heartily into the spirit of devotion, during the reading of the Litany of the established church, the soul rising higher and higher as supplication proceeds, till it is somewhat affected like the soul of Him, who, when he was "in an agony, prayed more earnestly." Mr. Isaac, with a view to correct any impropriety, and yet, at the same time, to defend and encourage a hearty response, in opposition to ignorant and malevolent cavillers, published, during his first appointment to the York circuit, in 1806, a small tract on the origin, meaning, use, abuse, &c. of the word "Amen." This, though replete with judicious remark, is noticed, not so much because of its necessity and seasonableness, though a writer of the puritanic age led the way before him, but because of the grave, deliberate manner in which he proceeds in his ministerial work; his manner, abstractedly viewed, being so dissimilar to what might be expected from its perusal, especially by a person possessed of a fiery spirit; and yet, on a nearer approach, and to a close and solidly devotional observer, so much in character with his ministry, which diverts the eye of a hearer from looking at others, and fixes it upon himself, turning inwardly, and there, from a sight of the hidden abominations of the heart, extorts from its depths, in the midst of its depravity, the heavy and the lengthened groan. A reprint of this tract has been repeatedly urged, and he has had thoughts of enlarging it, and of adapting it more immediately to the present state of the Wesleyan connexion. In addition to some excellent discourses on the " Person of Jesus Christ," published when he was in the Newcastle circuit, in 1808 and 1809, in which the divinity of the Son of God is established by scriptural evidence, and by a process of reasoning rarely brought to bear upon the subject in so small a compass, he is the author of several papers in the Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, to which latter work he ceased to contribute, (a subject much to be regretted) after the death of the Rev. Joseph Benson, one of the first divines of the day. Mr. Isaac's next work we purposely omit till nearer the close of this sketch, as it will require a more extended notice, from the personal character involved in it, and the occasion which has been made of it by the timid, the wary, and the ignorant, to draw upon him the vengeance of both church and state. It will be readily perceived, that 312 there is here a reference to his "Ecclesiastical Claims." It was during his residence at Leicester, in 1820, &c. that he published "Baptism Discussed: containing Scripture Principles, Precepts, and Precedents, in favour of Baptism of Infants and Little Children." This work came out in a district which might be considered as the garden of persons of directly opposite theological sentiments, and in the presence, so to speak, of the great and the good Robert Hall and his flock. That, however, which might have been characterised as obtrusive ignorance in others, resolved itself into principle in Mr. Isaac, principle operating on a fearless, uncompromising spirit, which compels personał respect and comfort, the smiles of friendship, in short, every thing on this side of truth and duty, to bend to the publication of that truth, and the performance of that duty. If Mr. Isaac had not had some private reasons for publishing, (of some of which we happen to be in the secret,) abstracted from its being a public question, we are inclined to think that he would not, from his naturally retired character, and from the intelligence and piety with which he was surrounded, in many of the members of the Baptist persuasion, have girded himself for the battle, and entered the field: but since he has actually engaged in the contest, it is not too much to say, that from his peculiar mode of treatment, the controversy assumes a new character in his hand, that there are features given to it which it never had before, or which, if it had, were either ill-placed, disproportionate, wanting in strength and beauty, or not sufficiently prominent, and that a reviewer has not gone too far in affirming that the arguments," employed in the work, "are numerous, strong, and formidable." A second edition, that was soon called for, stamped a value on the book, which friendship and criticism often strive in vain to impart. But this was Mr. Isaac's work, and search must be made. 66 The publisher sent an advertisement of it for the cover of an extensively circulated periodical in the metropolis. Among the persons authorised to sit in judgment on advertisements, were some of Mr. Isaac's minor friends, who being unable to find any thing objectionable in the argument or illus trations in the body of the work, gravely started a numerical objection, which they supposed they had discovered in the titlepage. The consequence was, that the actual advertisement of the work hung in suspense through a few individuals linking their prejudices to a mere matter of business Besides the impolicy of such an act, few per 313 Memoir of the Rev. Daniel Isaac. 314 sons but would have been grateful for the His hostility to forms of Prayer is supobligation conferred by the publisher, not to ported by arguments less convincing to many say, that a man has certainly a right to tell of his brethren in the ministry than to the his tale in his own way, while others retain people, though conscientiously proposed, the privilege of charging him for it. He and satisfactory to himself. This opposition tells it at his own cost. This did not sur- is stated to have been carried, on one occaprise Mr. Isaac, and had the act been hission, a little beyond the wishes of his hearers, own, more might have been made of it. It as well as the deference due to the estabbrought him, however, to the final determi- lished custom of the place, by reading the nation, of never more appearing in the in- prayers otherwise than in the order in which side of the pages of a periodical, by his own they are intended to be read. He has been voluntary consent, while his works were ad- known to direct the current of opposition judged as unfit for its cover. against the introduction of the Liturgy, where attempts have been made; and it is said, that he has objected to an appointment to the metropolis, in consequence of his being, by such appointment, subjected to the necessity of either reading them contrary to all judgment of propriety, or of opposing them from principle. At all events, his brethrenhighly creditable to their respect for his character and feelings-have hitherto avoided stationing him in circuits where the Prayers are read. To Instrumental Music, established Forms of Prayer, Ordination, and Popery, as connected with the christian church, he has an insuperable objection; and to Atheism and Infidelity, the foes of that church, he is an avowed enemy. His opposition to the first of these has long been known, but it was not evinced in public debate, till the question of introducing an organ into Brunswick chapel, Liverpool, came before one of the Conferences held at Sheffield, several years back. He was found one of the sturdiest opposers of organ advocates, and they experienced no small trouble in answering his objections. Having expressed his sentiments in private, and before the Conference, and finding applications multiplying for the erection of organs to the last court of appeal, he stepped forward in the midst of the bustle occasioned by the Leeds case, and published his sentiments to the world in a pamphlet, entitled "Vocal Melody." An attempt was made to answer this pamphlet, but the author was not the man to measure swords with Mr. Isaac. The Leeds separatists calculated on Mr. Isaac as a powerful auxiliary, on his appointment to one of their circuits, from the simple circumstance of his being an anti-organist, but in this they were disappointed; for though he differed in opinion from some of his brethren on the subject in question, yet he had no quarrel with the system itself, but hugged it to his heart with affectionate gratitude for what it had done for himself and for thousands; and full of trust in its capabilities, under God, of still effecting more. But though his hostility extends to all instrumental music in places of worship, (for which no candid man will condemn him till he has first read and answered the pamphlet satisfactorily for himself) yet he is most at variance with the violin in the assemblies of the saints,-"those squeaking shoulder-height things," as he contemptuously denominates them. His opposition does not originate in a want of taste for music, for he is seen now and then, in a left-handed way, fingering the piano-forte. Though great talent and learning are employed on the Ordination question, so called, in support of its claims, yet the majority of the Wesleyan Ministers are opposed to it, among whom Mr. Isaac-without at all detracting from the glory of others--may be considered as the leader. At the Conference of 1822, held in London, the subject was formally discussed. Dr. Clarke was President, and could, of course, take no part in the debate. Some of the most highly gifted spoke long, eloquently, and argumentatively in favour of Ordination; others took the opposite side, yet no one was more distinguished than Mr. Isaac on the occasion, who, added to his arguments, had public prejudice in his favour. He warily lagged behind in the march, and after several set speeches had been delivered, rose in the midst of the assembly with his pocket Bible in his hand. Unusual attention was paid; the hopes of numbers hung upon him; he adverted to chapter and verse-stripped the various texts of appeal of the glossaries put upon them-and, by a course of ratiocination,occasionally wedged in by sudden strokes of irony, repartee, and wit, bore away the palm. It is certain that the question was not carried by those who pleaded in its favour. On the subject of Dissent, Mr. Isaac is an exception, generally speaking, to his brethren; for the Wesleyans are not, in the proper acceptation of the term, Dissenters: and he is as thorough-paced in his protestantism as in his dissenterism,-the Church of Rome and the Church of England meeting with equal courtesy, when their abuses look him in the face. 315 Memoir of the Rev. Daniel Isaac. While preaching at W, in Nottinghamshire, on a public occasion, he dealt out some tremendous blows against Popery. A Jesuit, who taught in a school in the place, was one of his auditors. He muttered disapprobation of what was stated, though not sufficiently loud to be heard by Mr. Isaac, who would have had no objection to a public disputation. The Jesuit waited upon him at the house in which he took up his abode during his stay in the place, in order to contest with him several points of dispute. They set deliberately to work: Mr. İsaac very cautiously commenced in the interrogatory style-proposing questions, and imperceptibly drawing him into slight concessions. After some points of concession had been gained, he then requested him to state the points of difference. This being done, he proceeded with much dexterity to combat his opponent with weapons drawn from Popish writers, reminding him, ever and anon, with great adroitness and presence of mind, of the concessions he had already made, and from which it was impossible to recede. The Jesuit was baffled; and, though unconvinced, as was naturally to be expected, acknowledged afterwards that he never before had a more powerful and subtle antagonist to grapple with, or one who maintained a better temper in the course of ar. gument. In 1825, when the Roman Catholics directed their artillery particularly against Bible Societies, and convened a public meeting in Ireland to discuss the points at issue, Mr. Isaac is stated to have had it in contemplation to publish a small pamphlet, entitled, "A Short and Easy Method with the Roman Catholics," adopting part of the title of Leslie's celebrated work against the Deists. In this he intended to shew, that the arguments employed to prove that the Scriptures ought not to be put into the hands of the common people, because of their inability to interpret them-wresting them, as unlearned men, to their own destruction, would operate equally against the Popish Clergy, who, from the doctrines which they held, evinced themselves fully as inadequate to the work of fair and proper interpretation as the subjects of their charge. One of the principal points of attack was to have been the doctrine of Transubstantiation, or actual presence of Christ in the bread and the wine. The doctrines of Absolution, Purgatory, &c. were noticed to him by a friend, as proper subjects for attack, when he observed, that these would lead him into too wide a field, his object being to have something brief, and transubstantiation was as capable 316 of being rendered ridiculous as any topic that could be suggested. The propriety of connecting some other subject with Transubstantiation being still urged, he replied, "If I am about to attack a city, and see a large breach made in the wall, at which I can enter with ease and take it with safety, there is no occasion for me to go round and round the outskirts, in order to ascertain at how many other small openings I can gain admission. If my way is clear by one entrance, it will be as good as a thousand of minor importance, and to go in quest of others would only be a needless expenditure of time." It was by a short cut of this kind, in another work, that he contemplated a thrust at the ignorant and practical Atheism and Infidelity of the Vulgar, as induced by the writings of Paine, Carlile, Taylor and others of the lower school: but, like a treatise on the "Atonement" of Christ, these, and other intended publications, must be calculated upon, on the prolongation of life, and some sudden, inspiring turn of the mind to the several subjects. He entered the list, when in Hull, against the quackery of Phrenology, through the medium of the public journals, and is strongly suspected as one of the authors of the "Head-Piece and Helmet," or Phrenology incompatible with Reason and Revelation,”—a work reviewed in our pages some months since. 66 To return to his "Ecclesiastical Claims," it is not only his most popular work, but a work on which he has bestowed the greatest pains-though it is not altogether the labour conferred, which has given it celebrity. It was printed in Edinburgh, in 1815, and on its publication, at once unfolded, to such as were unacquainted with them before, his reasons for dissent. Like his other works, it bears the distinct stamp of his own mind; and to a person of only a moderate share of discernment, the separate publications of Mr. Isaac, without even his name being appended to them, might be selected from others, and filiated upon him with as much ease and accuracy as the paintings of Rembrandt, Vandyke, and Martin, could be brought home to the several artists by a connoisseur of taste and judgment: and this work, by the way, shews, by the dark masses of shadow lying on the scene, and the strong lights by which they are relieved, that he prefers the school of Rembrandt to any other. He seems to know, that though there may be more of art in the compositions of many of the other masters, admired by the public, yet there is a greater portion of truth in the models he has studied, and after which he has laboured. 317 Memoir of the Rev. Daniel Isaac. It has been already intimated, that in this work a good deal of personal character is involved; and as it has been the subject of public censure by a public body, the public at large, before whom the censure has been laid, cannot, since their attention is courted by the act, be justly blamed for the expression of their opinion, especially where a memoir of the man himself is concerned. In the "MINUTES" of the body to which Mr. Isaac belongs, we read, "RESOLVED, That the Conference approve of the conduct of their Book Committee in London, in having refused to facilitate the circulation of a Book on Ecclesiastical Claims, which was printed in Scotland, and published by a Member of our Connexion; and deem it a public duty to declare, in the fear of God, their most decided disapprobation of various passages contained in that Book, as well as of the general spirit and style of it, which the Conference believe to be unbecoming and unchristian." That there are expressions employed in the work, which Mr. Isaac's warmest admirers, would wish to see removed, and which they doubt not will be omitted in future editions, must be admitted; yet it is singular, that those who have made the greatest outery against objectionable modes of expression, have been mute on the great argument of the work. The "Minutes" of Conference have had a general circulation; but, as Mr. Isaac's defence, entitled, "Remarks on a Minute of Conference," had only a limited circulation among the members of the Conference, the public at large are only furnished with one side of the question. Not to enter into the means employed for the purpose of impugning the general character of the work, and the ingenious distinctions resorted to between a man and his book, charging the blame on the latter rather than the former, with a view to get rid of Mr. Isaac as a defendant, Mr. I. considered himself as having just cause of complaint, chiefly on the following grounds, inasmuch as,-That it was not the whole, but only a part of the Book Committee that refused to advertise his work,-that the Conference, in its accusation, did not give him a public hearing,―that the same Conference, in its condemnation, never informed him of the objectionable passages, that it had departed from its general usages in condemning without the permission of defence,—that, instead of joining in the general outcry against another objectionable work of one of its members, a number of palliatives were offered to the public, founded on the absence of bad intention and the excellences of personal character, that the Book Committee had 318 frequently advertised "Simpson's Plea❞ and "Neale's Puritans" on the cover of the Magazine, as well as allowed them to be inserted in the Catalogue of Books for sale at the Conference Office, in both of which works, as well as in the writings of Messrs. Wesley and Benson, much severer things had been declared against the Church than any thing he had advanced,—and that some of the members of the Conference, in their hostility to the book, had ungenerously excited groundless suspicions against his piety and loyalty. The former was too gross to be admitted, and any defect in the latter was quite sufficient to operate to his disadvantage with a loyal people. That Mr. Isaac is amenable to his brethren, who have a right to call him to an account for any heresy in doctrine, or any moral irregularity in his conduct, cannot be disputed; but that he was treated with any thing like brotherly feeling, or common courtesy, on the present occasion, admits of doubt,-and that, too, from a number of other showings besides his own. Nor is it to be wondered that a difference of opinion should exist on this question out of doors, when Conference itself is violently riven into two parties in its decision in the case,-119 preachers being for the vote of censure, and 86 against it. "Had I," says Mr. Isaac, "been permitted to plead my own cause in Conference, I am confident I should have had a large majority in my favour. My accusers were just able to "settle the business without me.' Few things tend more to mark the dignity of Mr. Isaac's character, than his exclusion of public questions from private life. He never suffers their associate feelings and expressions to settle like an entail upon the harmonies of social society. The question is left at the place of debate, and closes like the performance of a drama, at the dropping of the curtain, or the apparently angry debates of opposite counsel with the cause at issue. This was eminently the case on one public occasion, when his grand antagonist, as was not unusual with him, dealt in personalities. Private, petty prejudices, with Mr. Isaac, have nothing to do with public questions. Such things strip the questions themselves of their dignity, and prostrate their supporters in the eyes of the opposing party, who cannot help commiserating their condition, in seeing them shorn of their strength like Samson, and voluntarily rolling in the dust of their own prepossessions. An excellent minister of God has been known to be lost to the body, chiefly by suffering one of the customary manoeuvres of the same |