Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

consent. The lord chief justice, therefore, proceeded to pass sentence on him; which was, that he should suffer a year's imprisonment, pay a thousand pounds fine to the queen, and lie in prison till paid; and that he should find security for good behaviour during life. The pillory, he was told, was the punishment due; but, on account of his being a man of letters, it was not inflicted. Then, with a paper on his breast, he was led round the four courts to be exposed. After judgment had been passed, Mr. Emlyn was committed to the sheriffs of Dublin, and was a close prisoner, for something more than a quarter of a year, in the house of the under-sheriff. On the 6th of October he was hastily hurried away to the common jail, where he lay among the prisoners in a close room filled with six beds, for about five or six weeks; and then, by an habeas corpus, he was upon his petition removed into the Marshalsea for his health. Having here greater conveniences, he wrote, in 1704, a tract, entitled "General Remarks on Mr. Boyse's Vindication of the true Deity of our blessed Saviour." In the Marshalsea our author remained till July 21, 1705, during the whole of which time his former acquaintances were estranged from him, and all offices of friendship or civility in a manner ceased; especially among persons of a superior rank. A few, indeed, of the plainer tradesmen belonging to his late congregation were more compassionate; but not one of the dissenting ministers of Dublin, Mr. Boyse excepted, paid him any visit or attention. At length, through the zealous and repeated solicitations of Mr. Boyse, the generous interference of Thomas Medlicote, esq. the humane interposition of the duke of Ormond, and the favourable report of the lord chancellor (sir Richard Cox, to whom a petition of Mr. Emlyn had been preferred), and whose report was, that such exorbitant fines were against law, the fine was reduced to seventy pounds, and it was accordingly paid into her majesty's exchequer. Twenty pounds more were paid, by way of composition, to Dr. Narcissus March, archbishop of Armagh, who, as queen's almoner, had a claim of one shilling a pound upon the whole fine. During Mr. Emlyn's confinement in the Marshalsea, he regularly preached there. He had hired a pretty large room to himself; whither, on the Sundays, some of the imprisoned debtors resorted; and from without doors there came several of the lower sort of his former people and usual hearers,

VOL. XIII.

The

Soon after his release Mr. Emlyn returned to London, where a small congregation was found for him, consisting of a few friends, to whom he preached once every Sunday. This he did without salary or stipend; although, in consequence of his wife's jointure having devolved to her children, his fortune was reduced to a narrow income. liberty of preaching which our author enjoyed, gave great offence to several persons, and especially to Mr. Charles Leslie, the famous nonjuror, and Mr. Francis Higgins, the rector of Balruddery, in the county of Dublin. Complaint was made upon the subject to Dr. Tenison, archbishop of Canterbury, who was not inclined to molest him. Nevertheless, in the representation of the lower house of convocation to the queen in 1711, it was asserted, that weekly sermons were preached in defence of the unitarian principles, an assertion which Mr. Emlyn thought proper to deny in a paper containing some observations upon it. After a few years, his congregation was dissolved by the death of the principal persons who had attended upon his ministry, and he retired into silent obscurity, but not into idleness; for the greater part of his life was diligently spent in endeavouring to support, by various works, the principles he had embraced, and the cause for which he had suffered. The first performance published by him, after his release from prison, was "A Letter to the Rev. Dr. Willis, dean of Lincoln; being some friendly remarks on his sermon before the honourable house of commons, Nov. 5, 1705." The intention of this letter was to shew that the punishment even of papists for religion was not warranted by the Jewish laws; and that Christians had been more cruel persecutors than Jews. In 1706 Mr. Emlyn published what his party considered as one of his most elaborate productions, "A Vindication of the worship of the Lord Jesus Christ, on Unitarian principles. In answer to what is said, on that head, by Mr. Joseph Boyse, in his Vindication of the Deity of Jesus Christ. To which is annexed, an answer to Dr. Waterland on the same head." Two publications came from our author in 1707, the first of which was entitled "The supreme Deity of God the Father demonstrated. In answer to Dr. Sherlock's arguments for the supreme Divinity of Jesus Christ, or whatever can be urged against the supremacy of the first person of the Holy Trinity." The other was "A brief Vindication of the Bishop of Gloucester's (Dr. Fowler) Dis

courses concerning the descent of the man Christ Jesus from Heaven, from Dr. Sherlock the dean of St. Paul's charge of heresy. With a confutation of his new notion in his late book of The Scripture proofs of our Saviour's divinity." In 1708 Mr. Emlyn printed three tracts, all of them directed against Mr. Leslie. The titles of them are as follow: 1. Remarks on Mr. Charles Leslie's first Dialogue on the Socinian controversy. 2. A Vindication of the Remarks on Mr. Charles Leslie's first Dialogue on the Socinian controversy. 3. An Examination of Mr. Leslie's last Dialogue relating to the satisfaction of Jesus Christ. Together with some remarks on Dr. Stillingfleet's True reasons of Christ's Sufferings. In the year 1710 he published "The previous question to the several questions about valid and invalid Baptism, Lay-baptism, &c. considered; viz. whether there be any necessity (upon the principles of Mr. Wall's History of infant baptism) for the continual use of baptism among the posterity of baptised Christians." But this hypothesis, though supported with ingenuity and learning, has not obtained many converts. Our author did not again appear from the press till 1715, when he published "A full Inquiry into the original authority of that text, 1 John v. 7. There are three that bear record in heaven, &c.: containing an account of Dr. Mill's evidence, from antiquity, for and against its being genuine; with an examination of his judgment thereupon." This piece was addressed to Dr. William Wake, lord archbishop of Canterbury, president, to the bishops of the same province, his grace's suffragans, and to the clergy of the lower house of convocation, then assembled. The disputed text found an advocate in Mr. Martin, pastor of the French church at the Hague, who published a critical dissertation on the subject, in opposition to Mr. Emlyn's Inquiry. In 1718 our author again considered the question, in "An Answer to Mr. Martin's critical dissertation on 1 John v. 7; shewing the insufficiency of his proofs, and the errors of his suppositions, by which he attempts to establish the authority of that text from supposed manuscripts." Mr. Martin having published an examination of this answer, Mr. Emlyn printed a reply to it in 1720, which produced a third tract upon the subject by Mr. Martin, and there the controversy ended; nor, we believe, was it revived in a separate form,

until within these few years by Mr. archdeacon Travis and professor Porson.

While Mr. Emlyn was engaged in this celebrated controversy, he found leisure for other publications. In 1718 he printed a tract entitled, "Dr. Bennet's new theory of the Trinity examined; or, some considerations on the Discourse of the ever blessed Trinity in Unity; and his examination of Dr. Clarke's Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity." Dr. Bennet's explication of the Trinity was singular, and approached to Sabellianism; on which account he laid himself open to the strictures both of trinitarian and unitarian divines. Three pieces were published by Mr. Emlyn in 1719. The first was "Remarks on a book entitled The Doctrine of the blessed Trinity stated and defended, by four London ministers, Mr. Tong, Mr. Robinson, Mr. Smith, and Mr. Reynolds. With an appendix, concerning the equality of the Three Persons, and Mr. Jurieu's testimony to the primitive doctrine on this point." These were four dissenting clergymen, who had united their talents upon the subject. His next publication was, "A true narrative of the proceedings of the dissenting ministers of Dublin against Mr. Thomas Emlyn; and of his prosecution (at some of the dissenters' instigation) in the secular court, and his sufferings thereupon, for his humble Inquiry into the scripture account of the Lord Jesus Christ: annis 1702, 3, 4, 5. To which is added an appendix, containing the author's own and the Dublin ministers' account of the difference between him and them, with some remarks thereon." The last tract published by our author, in 1719, was "The reverend Mr. Trosse's Arguments answered; relating to the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Deity of the Holy Ghost. Taken from his Catechism, and Sermon on Luke xxii. 31. printed at Exon."

Although Mr. Emlyn flattered himself that his doctrine gradually gained ground both in England and Ireland, he still continued to be so obnoxious, that none of the divines among the dissenters in London dared to ask him to preach for them, excepting the ministers of the baptist congregation at Barbican, Mr. Burroughs and Mr. (afterwards Dr.) James Foster, who invited him more than once to that office. About 1726, upon the decease of Mr. James Pierce, of Exeter, several of the people wished to invite Mr. Emlyn thither; but, as soon as he was acquainted with it,

he requested them to desist, thanking them for their respectful attention to him, and excusing his acceptance of an invitation, on account of his declining years, and the feebleness of his limbs. Though our author lived in pri vate retirement, he was honoured with the esteem and friendship of divers persons of distinguished learning and in eminent stations. He was particularly intimate with Dr. Samuel Clarke, who, though at first he was upon the reserve with Mr. Emlyn, when he came to be farther acquainted with him, expressed a high value and regard for him, generally advised with him in matters of importance, and opened his mind to him with the utmost freedom. The doctor's language to our author was, "I can say any thing to you." Mr. Whiston also, in his account of his own life, has spoken of Emlyn several times in terms of great respect. In 1731 our author wrote "Observations on Dr. Waterland's notions in relation to Polytheism, Ditheism, the Son's consubstantiality with, and inferiority to, the Father;" and in the same year he drew up some "Memoirs of the Life and Sentiments of the reverend Dr. Samuel Clarke," neither separately published, but inserted in his works. Mr. Emlyn, who was naturally of a very cheerful and lively temper, enjoyed, in all respects, a large share of health, the gout excepted; which, by degrees, impaired his health, and by its annual returns greatly disabled him in his limbs. For the last two or three years of his life he grew much feebler; and about a year before his death he received a violent shock, which it was feared would have carried him off. However, he so well recovered from it, that he weathered the next winter, though a severe one, without any farther breach upon his health. On Friday, July 17, 1743, he was suddenly taken ill in the night, but grew so far better as to be able, for some days, to converse with his friends, and to testify the great satisfaction he enjoyed in the consciousness of his integrity. His disorder returning, he departed this life on Tuesday, the 30th day of the month, in the seventy-ninth year of his age. On the 16th of August following, his funeral sermon preached at Barbican, by Mr. Foster, who has given him an excellent character. His character is likewise displayed at large in the Memoirs of his life, in which we are told that he was one of the brightest examples of substantial unaffected piety, of serious rational devotion, of a steady unshaken integrity, and an undaunted Christian courage.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »