of intellectual and moral light. Through the press these Peace Societies make their gentle, solemn, earnest appeal to men and Christians. By this means they endeavour to exhibit the true spirit of Christianity to all their brethren. And if ever war is to cease, the angry passions in which it originates to be subdued and curbed,—its pomps and glories to be despised,—its crimes to be committed, its miseries to be inflicted no more,-that last and noblest of the triumphs of Christianity over the miseries of human society, will be achieved by the calm power of mild and beneficent truth. When Jesus shall thus sit and reign over the harmonized nations of the earth, the sceptre that shall grace the hand and maintain the sway of that great Prince of Peace, will be the book of God shining in its own light, and diffusing its own spirit. We have no means but truth addressed to the reason and conscience of mankind for putting an end to violence and bloodshed. The weapons of force, the terrors of cruelty, have often been employed to suppress truth, and have too often been so far successful, as to retard her bright and benignant career; but in the final issue of that contest between these two hostile powers, of which this world has been the theatre, and mankind the active agents, the cause of truth, strong in its in'herent excellence, and espoused by heaven, shall win the day; and one of its fairest triumphs will be, that the nations will learn the art of war no more, because the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord. The sword can never destroy truth, but truth will at last destroy the sword.

But, it will be inquired, are the representations of the doctrine of Christianity, in respect of war,

ven by Peace Societies, correct?

Have not the amiable and zealous friends of peace affirmed too much, and adopted so ultra a sentiment on this subject, as to have overshot their mark, and to have impeded, if they have not entirely defeated, their own purpose? Have they not prevented numbers from joining their ranks, whose opinions, though strongly opposed to war, will hardly allow them to believe that the New Testament contains a positive prohibition of war, either expressed or implied? Of course it is not possible to discuss this point fully and satisfactorily, without reviewing the entire subject; and that cannot now be attempted. But the amiable and pious individuals who entertain this sentiment; who have a Christian horror of war; who believe that nine-tenths of all the wars the world ever witnessed have been unnecessary, and therefore wicked and hateful; who regard the religion of Christ as so strongly discountenancing war and the warlike spirit, that it goes every length short of a positive, universal prohibition, and would sanction it but on one of those extreme and hardly imaginable cases of necessity, which have scarcely ever occurred; these excellent persons would do well to consider whether they are not bound in duty to take some active and decided measures to express their sentiments, and to give them all the influence possible on the public mind. If they are unable to join the Peace Societies, as at present constituted, and to concur in the sentiments they at present maintain, ought not they to unite and pursue the common object according to their own views of the exact truth, and the wisest means? Ought they to hide the mild and healing light of their pacific views under a bushel? Is it not so blessed and needful a good to

diffuse a peaceful spirit throughout the world, as to demand most urgently the vigorous co-operation of every friend of so blessed and heavenly an object? The writer of these lines will not offer a decided opinion whether the Peace Societies have or have not adopted an opinion on this subject which cannot be maintained by an appeal to the New Testament; but this he has no hesitation in affirm ing, they are right in the spirit, even if they have erred in the letter. The religion of Christ is a religion of peace and love. That is the spirit it breathes and inculcates. It can never have its due effect on individual character or public good, but as it is regarded, felt, and enforced in that view of its character and design.

Now

that this most distinguishing feature of its excellence should have been so little observed and dwelt upon, has tended, more than any other cause, to obscure its lustre, to limit its progress, and to enfeeble its influence. Genuine Christianity was lost during the dark ages. It was but imperfectly recovered at the Reformation. It is not yet perfectly restored. And nothing is at this day more necessary to its complete re-appearance in its primitive beauty among evangelical Christians, than thorough perception of its mild and amiable morality, of its gentle, harmonizing influence on the heart of every genuine disciple, and therefore on the entire structure and intercourse of Christian society.

а

The ministers of religion may be respectfully appealed to on this interesting subject. It is not of course to be expected or desired, that they should make the affairs of nations a subject of frequent discussion. That would be to desecrate the pulpit. Nothing can proceed from the sacred desk more

unseemly, more mischievous, than political discourses, tinged, as they almost certainly will be, with party opinions and party passions. But to speak with pity and horror of wasting wars, can never conduct a minister upon this perilous ground. To point out how the gospel was designed to establish among nations the reign of wisdom and justice, peace and love; and to put an end to injustice, ambition, violence, were indeed to employ the influence of the pulpit for a most legitimate object; to preach the same gospel in the same spirit in which angels announced it, "Peace on earth." Most appropriate occasions will often invite a Christian minister to express these sentiments. They will be most naturally afforded by many of the topics which, if he do not discuss, the servant of Christ will be sadly defective in "making full proof of his ministry." It is, indeed, pleasing to observe some names justly of great weight in the dissenting churches, associated with the proceedings of societies for the promotion of universal peace. Yet they are at present comparatively few. Every lover of his species, every lover of his religion, must earnestly desire to see the numbers multiplied a hundred fold, of those teachers of the religion of Christ, who shall stand forward as the advocates of peace, either in connexion with societies already established, or in promoting other plans calculated effectually to facilitate the accomplishment of this blessed object.

Some may doubt whether Christianity will ever put an end to war. And, indeed, such a doubt is not destitute of plausible defence. When it is argued that, hitherto, the professors of the religion of Jesus, so far from hating war, and dwelling in peace, have equalled, if not surpassed, pagan nations in

the extent, duration, and bloodshed of their wars; when it is pleaded that this sacred religion has been itself made the subject of fierce contentions and bloody wars; and that this religion has been appealed to as sanctioning the most barbarous conflicts; we cannot be surprised to hear the inquiry urged, Where is the proof that the religion of Christ is destined to calm the angry elements of strife?-how can it be maintained that she entered our world bearing the olive branch? It is not necessary, by a single observation, to assist the intelligent reader in answering these inquiries; but it may be useful to ground on them this remark-the religion of Jesus will never put an end to war, but as it is recognized and felt to be a religion of peace. We may spread the forms of our religion, and the doctrines of our religion, but if we do not, at the same time, diffuse the spirit of our religion, its forms and doctrines will only give a new direction to jarring passions, and afford a new subject for angry, and even bloody contention. Our ministers at home must preach the gospel, as the gospel of peace; our missionaries abroad must propagate the gospel, as the gospel of peace; the writers whose sentiments have a powerful influence on the public mind, must constantly exhibit the gospel, as the gospel of peace; all serious Christians must thoroughly imbibe the opinion, that an angry, contentious spirit, is just as inconsistent with real religion, as an immoral life; all who think seriously on the great themes of religion, must be directed

to regard it as one of their most necessary and fundamental principles, that the religion of Christ was designed to make men like Christ in patience, forbearance, and gentleness;-it is thus, and thus only, that the leaven of peaceful Christianity, diffusing itself through the minds of men, can ever bring them to look on war with astonishment, as the greatest of follies; with grief, as the greatest of miseries; with shame and detestation, as the greatest of crimes-unless, indeed, they can imagine a case wherein the gospel would sanction it; a case in which a greater evil, if a greater there can be, would be averted by it. The martial spirit is the spirit of human nature, the spirit which our fallen nature produces and admires. The gospel comes to cast out the evil spirit, and to infuse its own mild and beneficent temper into the bosom it has humbled and softened; to make man the friend of man; not to break, but to fulfil that royal law, which says, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy soul, and thy neighbour as thyself."

Gentlemen, if these few remarks should inspire with the spirit of peace, the bosom of a single reader of your valuable work, or, in a single instance, awaken into new energy and fervour that heavenly temper possessed, as I doubt not it is, by many of your readers, it will abundantly repay the labour of

Your humble correspondent,
PACIFICUS.

of your readers who have any veneration for the worthies of old time, and who turn with eagerness

from the insipidity and level uniformity of modern memoirs to the records of those ages when the pulsation of intellect was stronger, and its operation more vigorous and durable than the artificial process of modern education will suffer us to hope for. Excepting the volumes of Calamy, Neal, Brookes, and Wilson, where, as in the sarcophagi of nonconformity, the illustrious dead are embalmed, scarcely a memorial is left of our forefathers, or if some solitary record have escaped the ravages of time, it lies like the inscriptions of classic Greece and Rome, in the museum of the curious, and tends rather to foster the selfishness of a perverted bibliomania, than to confer any public benefit on mankind in general, or on the interests of dissenters in particular. The pages of our monthly miscellanies have happily preserved the memory of some of these worthies. In particular, the Protestant Dissenters' Magazine was entitled to great praise on this account, and your own has been inferior to none. I have ever looked on these tablets as the safeguard of your pages; the very relics of ancient saints, whose shrines are to defend you from ruin and oblivion. But while I cordially thank you for what you have done in rescuing from undeserved forgetfulness the memory of our fathers, suffer me to say, much-very much, is yet undone, and much may be done. Whilst I heartily lament that so few accessible documents of ancient nonconformity are preserved, I must not be understood as stating that no means yet remain of filling up the chasm: I believe, on the contrary, that by a very little sacrifice of private taste to public good, and no dissenter-no liberal conscientious dissenter-would refuse the test, a mass of materials might

be procured which would embody, in one collection, the now scattered fragments of dissenting history, and be a nucleus for some future annalist on which he might wind the thread of events as time prepares them to his hand. The sources of information to which I allude are the funeral sermons which were so generally published by the old dissenters on the decease of eminent persons, either ministers or laics. It is inconceivable to what a mass they amount when viewed together; and when it is remembered that their insignificant size, and the subject on which they are written, make them uninteresting to most persons, your readers will easily believe that rapacious cheesemongers and thrifty fruiterers are daily diminishing their numbers, at such a prodigious ratio, that except the ravage be immediately stopped, this act of oblivion will be as fatal to the memory, as the act of ejection was to the persons of the two thousand confessors. I, who watch over these mutilators of literature with the jealousy of an inquisitor, have snatched many of these unostentatious pamphlets from ruin, and possess at least twenty goodly octavo volumes, almost exclusively consisting of such materials, each volume containing, on the average, about fifteen funeral sermons. No doubt that many other dissenting bookworms have an equal, or even greater, quantity. Few ministers whose libraries I am acquainted with, are entirely destitute of them, either in single tracts, or bound. up with other pieces. Now, Gentlemen, if these pamphlets were all entrusted to one person well acquainted with the subject, with permission to extract from them as many sermons as were needful to the design, the duplicates being returned to their original owner or sold to defray

the binding of a complete set, there can be no doubt that such a body of nonconformist history might be obtained as would be a creditable addition to the library of some one of our academies, and be a lasting benefit to history. I am very sanguine in the belief that if this design were universally acted upon, the dissenting antiquarian would no longer have the mortification of turning over in vain all the sources of information he possesses in search of the private history, or sometimes even of the name, of some ancient dissenting worthy, whose instructive page he has incidentally met with, and from which he has derived improvement. Permit me also to say, that if this plan meet with any attention on the part of your readers, and if it be deemed eligible to act upon it, if no fitter person offer his services to arrange and complete this compilation of dissenting elegiastics, I will cheerfully undertake the task, or afford every aid to any one who may be thought more eligible. I may venture also to add, that the three orders of dissenters are equally interested in this design, as funeral sermons occur as commonly for members of the Presbyterian and Baptist denominations, as for those of our own body. I know not how I can more properly conclude this letter, than by laying before you a list of those funeral sermons for dissenters which have come under my notice, either by possession, or by meeting a reference to them in reading, from which your readers will have an opportunity of judging how great a portion of dissenting history this design would embrace, and, I doubt not that this list, ample as it is, is susceptible of much addition from my own memoranda, if I thought it needful to make a dili gent search into my sources of in

formation, and of incalculably more from the matured knowledge of others. Let me premise, that this list is confined to the period between 1650 and 1750, with very few exceptions. Many of these sermons relate to persons of whom there is no other existing record; and, in most instances, contain a short biographical memoir. Those written by Baxter, as being well known to most readers, and many of those which are quoted at length by Calamy, or by Wilson, in his account of the Churches in London, are not mentioned here.