REVIEW.

Memoirs of the late Rev. Thomas Belsham, &c. By John Williams.

(Continued from page 391.)

FROM the 60th to the 78th page of the Memoirs, we find Mr. Belsham actively engaged in preaching, studying, and teaching. His own words will give the best idea of his progress:

"I went to Daventry in August 1766, and remained there a student till 1771. In August 1770, upon Mr. Haliday's leaving the Academy, I took the Greek class; and in August 1771, when Mr. Hill removed to London, I was appointed tutor in mathematics, logic, and metaphysics. I took pains, and was approved. I loved the pupils, and was beloved by them, and was upon good terms with Dr. Ashworth."

Thus, in the 22d year of his age, Mr. Belsham occupied an important position in the Academy, had acquired no small celebrity as a preacher, as the frequency with which he was occupied in pulpit duties evinces, and gave proof of his future eminence.

The next eighty pages carry us through seven years of Mr. Belsham's life-show us how assiduously he attended to the duties of his office in the Academy-present us with many instances of the chilling effects of Calvinism on his mind-mention many invitations received by him to take a congregational charge, among which were Calllane, Leeds, Walthamstow, and Worcester,-and inform us, that at length, after having once declined the invitation from Worcester, but having received a second and more pressing one, he relinquished the tutorship at Daventry, which he had held more than eight years, having been presented with a handsome piece of plate by the Trustees, in acknowledgment of his important services; and entered upon his pastoral office at Worcester, in July, 1778.

Upon the Sermon which he preached at Worcester, in the April preceding his settlement, Mr. Belsham made the following remarks, under date March 15, 1814.

"This sermon is a curious document, as representing the state of mind with which the writer entered upon his office at Worcester, and his full and practical belief of those doctrines which now appear the principal corruptions of the Christian religion, and from the delusions of which it is wonderful that he should ever have been released."

Mr. Belsham continued at Worcester three years,

during which period he received invitations from Ware, Carter-lane, and Daventry. The various correspondence respecting these invitations, and the particulars of his final acceptance of the office of principal tutor at Daventry, and his entrance upon that important situation, occupy the space in the Memoirs which extends from the 160th to the 236th page.

The 140 pages which follow, present us with most important and highly interesting information respecting the Daventry Academy and Mr. Belsham-his labours, his connexions, and his gradual change of religious sentiments. Among other particulars, we learn, that at one time he wished to remove the Academy to Northampton, and at another, to Warwick; that he was invited to take charge of the Warrington congregation, and join in a plan for the re-establishment of the Academy in that town; and that he fearlessly avowed the opinions which his anxious inquiries led him from time to time to adopt. And, under date Jan. 26, 1789, in the 376th page, we have an account of his resignation of his situation in Daventry Academy, followed by a reason for resigning, in his own words:

"To-day I sent my letter of resignation to Mr. Paice. A very important step in life. I know not, nor can I guess the consequence. I have thought upon it, and prayed over it repeatedly; and I think I have done right." "Sunday evening, Feb. 1:The most important week of my life has now elapsed. Having become a Unitarian, I hope, after the most diligent, impartial investigation, I have thought it my duty to resign the Academy. I hope I have acted on right principles, and that I have not deserted my post before I was properly relieved. I have many very anxious thoughts, but I desire to refer all to God."

To this is added a prayer which he composed on this occasion, which we should feel great pleasure in subjoining did our limits allow. It at once evinces his deep piety, his intense desire to do right, and his unquenchable thirst after pure Gospel truth. In his address to the students on closing the session, and resigning the divinity tutorship, he tells his late pupils that his change of sentiment had not taken place suddenly. "I even entered upon my inquiries," says Mr. Belsham, "with a firm persuasion that I should be able with ease to baffle the arguments of Unitarianism by the declarations of Scripture. I flattered myself that I might be of some considerable use in checking the progress of a doctrine which I considered erroneous in its principles, and mischievous in its consequences." "Nor was it without great reluctance and

many struggles, that I gave up the principles of that strictest sect of our religion in which I had been originally educated."

In the meantime, a new college was founded at Hackney, and Mr. Belsham invited to become its theological tutor. This invitation he accepted, and the next hundred pages of the memoirs are occupied with the details of the affairs and fluctuations of that institution, from its commencement in 1789, to its close in 1796. Two years before this last event, Mr. Belsham writes thus in his diary:

"I resigned Daventry Academy and congregation in August 1789, and my only expectation and wish, was to live in a small house in Birmingham, in the neighbourhood of Dr. Priestley. I was drawn involuntarily to take a department in the New College, and have remained here year after year, expecting each year to be the last."-" The convulsions which took place in the congregation upon the death of Dr. Price, and what I then esteemed the base desertion of my friends, threw me out of all prospect and expectation of a connection with this Society in any shape. Dr. Priestley's ministry has produced a great change in circumstances, and my election has been as honourable as my former rejection was mortifying. I was nominated one Lord's day, and the next, at a numerous meeting of the subscribers, summoned for the express purpose-I was chosen unanimously. Thus has Divine Providence cleared my way, and this encourages me to undertake the office, hoping that what God has called me out to, he will qualify me for." p. 456, 457.

And under the cheering influences of those ennobling views of God which Mr. Belsham now entertained, we find him expressing those better feelings of the heart which that "more excellent way" than Calvinism points out, enabled him to cherish. On his being chosen sole pastor of Gravel-Pit Hackney Congregation, he gives utterance to his emotions in these words:

"I cannot but remark the different state of this congregation. In the year 1791, this society would not choose me assistant to Dr. Priestley-in 1802 I am elected sole minister. I trace the course of Divine Providence with admiration and gratitude. I desire to approve my fidelity and zeal in the sight of God. I trust he will endue me with vigour and fortitude to perform the duties, and to bear the burdens of the office with which I am now invested. The time of my continuance in it, my comfort and success, I resign wholly to his disposal." p. 518.

From this part of the Memoirs to about 40 pages onward, we have chiefly notices and letters on the deaths of Dr. Priestley, Mr. Kenrick, and other friends of Mr. Belsham; and correspondence on Mr. Belsham's removal

from Hackney to Essex Street congregation, to succeed Dr. Disney, which took place in March 1805.

Under date January 1, 1807, Mr. Belsham thus expresses his gratitude to God:

"The goodness of God to me in the past year has been very great, and the more to be admired and acknowledged, because it has been constant and uninterrupted. I have enjoyed health and ease, and all the blessings of life in great abundance. My relative comforts have beeen numerous, and the means of intellectual and moral improvement great. My public services have in general been very pleasant, and my acceptance beyond all expectation. It is often the subject of grateful admiration. I hardly know how to believe what I am continually witnessing." p. 572.

And again, on occasion of his birth-day, he employs the following pious language:

"Tuesday, April 20, 1808.—This day fifty-eight years I was a helpless infant; I am now entering upon my fifty-ninth year, an old man upon the verge of sixty. I can truly say, that I die daily! The thought of death is always uppermost in my mind; but not so as to distress me or to make me at all unhappy. It rather makes me indifferent to public amusements and any thing of that kind; also to the cultivation of society of rank and fashion, of which I was once eager. And it excites me to diligence in the work I have to do, as the time is short." p. 580.

A few pages onward, Mr. Belsham assigns the reasons of his being happier now than formerly:

"One fact is remarkable, I find myself happier in the present stage of my existence (his sixtieth year) than in that which preceded it. Thanks be to the abundant, unmerited, unchangeable goodness of God. One great cause of present satisfaction is, that I see men and things in what appears to me to be their true light. The first thirty years of life was a kind of dream. Nothing appeared in its due proportion; every object was magnified and in a considerable degree distorted. I had notions much too exalted of rank, of opulence, of learning; and my religious views were irrational and false in the extreme, and a source of unspeakable pain and misery, especially during my course of studies at the Academy. They completely destroyed the comfort of my life, and made the naturally delightful season of youth an insupportable burden." p. 586.

The tenor of his mind, the breathings of his heart, the aspirations of his soul, were all thus beneficially changed, and gloriously elevated by those heavenly, holy views of Christ, and God, and man, and futurity, which he had gratefully taken in exchange, for the mind-enslaving, heart-withering, vain philosophy with which he had been saturated in the immolating, iron, merciless school of Calvin. He had disowned the man of Geneva, and put himself wholly under the guidance of the man of Nazar

eth; and the rest to his soul, experienced in his emancipated state, was a theme for daily and hourly delightful converse, a subject for constant thrilling contemplation, and the cause of ever-growing inward satisfaction, and ever-swelling gratitude to God.

(To be concluded in our next.)

The Assurance of Faith; or Calvinism identified with Universalism. By Rev. David Thom. Two Vols. London; Simpkin & Marshall.

IF originality of thought, facility of expression, firmness of purpose, and benevolence of design, may be ranked among things that are valuable, then these volumes must be allowed to be at least of some worth. The author is endowed with no common mind, and has recourse to no every-day methods of displaying its powers. His forte is encountering difficulties, and his delight is solving paradoxes. Theological Alps are to him mere molehills, to be stepped over with ease, or scattered with pleasure. And while he, with small effort, levels all obstacles that stand between himself and the goal at which he aims; be, with little difficulty, casts up many mighty barriers between himself and his pursuers.

The author's views may be gathered from the following abstract: God has chosen a certain number to enjoy eternal life; and yet Christ died for all, and ultimately saves all. The wicked shall be eternally punished, and yet every child of Adam shall be brought to happiness. Eternal life through Christ is bestowed on and enjoyed by the believer Now, without any condition; and the chosen or elect ones, are each infallibly certain that God's love is towards himself personally. This is the assurance of faith. Belief of the truth, is, in them that possess it, the principle of immortality. The human soul is mortal, and both soul and body will be destroyed at death, that is changed, but not annihilated. But the spirit is distinct from the soul, because the soul or mind is natural, and the spirit supernatural, or divine, or of the nature of God, and therefore immortal, Believers have this spirit, and therefore are spiritual and immortal; but unbelievers have it not, and therefore are natural and mortal. The believer or the elect shall live and reign with Christ in his kingdom, and help to subdue the earth. At the con