or upwards on admission, or within the year, shall become a governor for life.

XIV. That no person having been elected a member of this society, shall be entitled to act as a governor until the subscription has been paid; or any subscriber who is more than one year in arrears, until such arrears are paid. Note.-Every person not receiving an acknowledgment of their subscription within one month after it has been paid, is requested to inform the treasurer of the

same.

XV. That every member of this society is presumed to continue so, until the contrary intention is formally declared in writing, addressed to the secretary.

XVI. That two visitors be appointed monthly, in rotation, to enquire into the cases recommended to the society, and make their report at the next committee. Any member to whom this appointment may be inconvenient, is to signify the same to the secretary on receiving notice of his appointment.

XVII.That such clergymen and others, as wish to promote the views of the society, but who reside at some distance from London, and may find it difficult to obtain such books and tracts as may be necessary to disseminate orthodox principles, may be admitted as corresponding members, by recommendation from any two of the governors; the society having experienced the advantage and importance of possessing active and zealous assistance in the country.

XVIII. That a fund of twenty pounds, shall always be reserved for cases of extreme, and pressing necessity. XIX. That politics in any shape, guise, or form, shall be totally inadmissible in this society.

XX. That every governor of this society shall be entitled to the use of the library; furnished with books for distribution; allowed to recommend any number of pa tients to be received on the medical list, or persons for inoculation; to issue any number of midwifery letters to deliver poor women at their own habitations, including whatever medical assistance may be afterwards necessary, together with the use of child-bed linen to such as are in absolute want thereof, when not previously engaged.

This society also intends to lend sums of money (upon security), without interest, when the temporary use will be of service; to establish and inspect a Sunday school and to print occasionally such tracts of orthodox divi

vinity, or the abridgment of old and excellent (but much neglected) works, as are calculated to promote the views of the society, and counteract the influence of irreligious and schismatic publications.

It is therefore hoped that the extent and importance of these designs, will induce adequate encouragement for their speedy execution.

Supscriptions and donations are received at Messrs. Rivingtons, St. Paul's Church Yard.-Mr. Hatchard, No. 190, Piccadilly.-Messrs. Weston, Pinhorn, and Co.. Borough Bank, Southwark.-And by Mr. Pears (Treasurer, and Surgeon to the society), Rockingham Row, Newington Butts, to whom application must be made for any, further information respecting the society. Also at Mr. Staines', Bookseller, Chelmsford, Essex.-At which places plans and rules of the society, may be obtained gratis.Collector to the society, Mr. Stiff, No. 100, Borough. Secretary, Mr. Bond, Clayton-place, Kennington.

I

TO THE EDITORS OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCHMAN'S
MAGAZINE.

GENTLEMEN,

HAVE read with much attention the opinion of the London Curate, on the burial of suicides, for whose learning and judgment I entertain the greatest respect, and whose candour equals both.-I cannot, however, coincide with him, on this subject. It has, hitherto, been my practice to confine myself to a literal interpretation of the rubric; and I must confess, I am not inclined from any thing I have yet seen, to give up that rule in this instance, and for two reasons; first, l'am of opinion, that an ignominious burial would in a great measure put an end to suicides; as we read, that formerly when the ladies, in a pet, put themselves to death on every trifling occasion, on an edict being published that the bodies of those who destroyed themselves should be drawn naked through the city, an entire stop was put to that practice: so I am persuaded that if a greater mark of infamy was expressed towards those who lay violent hands on themselves, this crime would soon be very seldom heard of. Secondly, in taking up an old book lately, I opened on a passage, which has confirmed me in the opinion that the service should not be read over a person, who has de

stroyed

stroyed himself, be the coroner's verdict what it may, without licence from the bishop; it is as follows," Some persons are denied Christian burial, and therefore such are expressed in what is said before, and may not be buried in a church or church-yard, without special licence from the bishop. That is, such persons as murder them. selves, die excommunicated, those that die in any mortal sin, sacrilegious persons, and usurers."-Vide 147 page of the Parson's Counsellor, by Sir Simon Degge, Knight, 1685.—4to. edition. From which it appears, that they cannot even be buried in the church or church-yard, much less have the service read over them without a special licence. And this interpretation has the greater weight, as it was given so near the reformation.

I think also, that if two or three duellists were hanged, as murderers, we should soon see an utter stop put to that base and cowardly custom.

I remain,
Gentlemen,

Your humble Servant,

Feb. 23, 1805.

P.

I

ON THE NIGHT WATCH AND LAST TRUMPET,

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCHMAN'S MAGAZINE,

GENTLEMEN,

F the disapprobation, which you expressed with my protraction of an hypothetical subject was not meant to exclude me altogether from the privilege of occasionally addressing you, I shall, from time to time, offer you remarks on various subjects, which you may receive or reject as you may think proper, The following reflections were occasioned by Mr. Evanson's letter inserted in your Review for December last. Mr. Evanson asserts that the Apocalypse was written before the Epistles of St. Paul to the Corinthians, and he refers to Cor. xv. 52 for proof of his assertion. But St. Paul does not appear to me to refer to the Apocalypse, but to allude to a custom of the Romans, including, perhaps, a. custom of the Jews. The Romans, as it is well known, divided the night into a certain number of watches, the commencement of which was announced by the sound of a trumpet,

a trumpet. To this Lucan in his Pharsalia (Lib,- 2.3 alludes: Neu Buccina dividat horas. See Lee's Remarks on 2d Esdras v. 4. and Lancaster's Symbolical Dictionary, art. Trumpet.

Our Lord himself speaking of his sundry advents plainly refers to the Roman watches. Luke xii. 38. By analogy the last watch must be synonymous with the last trumpet, and the last trumpet with the last advent of Christ. The time of the last trumpet likewise was the dawn, the type of the resurrection in Ps. xlix. 14. and the very time of day when Christ rose from the dead, announced by "The Cock's shrill clarion," Mark xiii. 35. So that St. Paul seems to explain the typical sense of the Trumpet, so often used under the law; and his very words allude to the waking from sleep at the commencement of the last watch, and to the change of the watchmen, and to the clothing of them who rise from their beds. There is also another account of the trumpet signals in Josephus, (Ant. 3, 12, 6) to which, likewise there may be an allusion. The tents of the Israelites and the tabernacle, says he, were removed by degrees, as four successive trumpets gave the signals; and was not this a type of the resurrection of our earthly tabernacles from the dust of the earth? The word λ may consequently refer to the sounder of either of the last trumpets above-mentioned. And now since I have, as I hope, removed Mr. Evanson's objection to the received opinion of the time when the Apocalypse was written, permit me to offer a confirmation of the received date of the Apocalypse, founded upon the internal evidence of the book itself. In chap. x. ver. 8 to the end of chap. xi, are represented at once the first publication of the Gospel, and the second at the Reformation. The first publication of the gospel was gradual and not compleated till the publication of St. John's Gospel after he left Patmos, and the probable settlement of the ca non of scripture by him. It seems predicted in John xxi. 23, that St.John should not only see the destruction of the barren fig-tree, Jerusalem, an event which he long outlived, but likewise, that he should see the Roman mountain east into the abyss (Mark xi. 23,) in the same manner, Rev. vi. 13. 16.) And as Mr. Whitaker observes on Rev. vi. 1. a remarkable door of faith was opened in the year 96, by the death of the last of the 19 Cæsars, (the family which crucified Christ) and a great step taken

towards

towards the triumphs of the Gospel over the Roman Empire. The very Gospel of St. John seems to be allusively epitomized in Rev. x. 8. &c. In Rev. xi. 1.

he reassumes the Episcopal rod, and the power of a reformer, (narows) to open and shut as Cerinthus experienced, and measures the duration of the ministry of the Temple of God, i. e. of Christ, (ver. 3) in his Chronological Gospel, assigning a time, times, and half a time to the ministry of Christ calculated according to the feasts of the Temple, which itself was thereby also measured.

The same great reformer applies the canon to the New Testament, as is asserted, and thus republishes the lesser Testament. Also, as Mede has proved, (Mede's Works, p. 586) he calculates the duration of the primitive, uncorrupted church from the year 96, as well as that of the apostacy, and shews that the former includes the fourth general council, and that the latter commenced in the middle of the fifth century (see Mede's apostacy of the last times, the most valuable work on the prophecies, that exists.)

Finally, that St. John was thus commissioned in the place before us, is confirmed by the parallel accomplishment of the prediction in the reformers, and especially in Luther, who in the year 1522, came out of his retreat which he called Patmos, and in the same year published the first translation of the Gospel into the Germanlanguage. See Biog. Dict. 1762. Art. Lut. p. 89. I am, GENTLEMEN,

Your obedient humble servant,

EXTRACTS.

JUVENIS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCHMAN'S

MAGAZINE.

SIR, THE season of Lent being now nigh at hand, I trust you will have no objection to insert in your valuable miscellany the enclosed paper. It must, I should imagine, be acceptable to your readers in general, and more particularly so to your subscribers among the clergy, when it is known to have proceeded from the pen of the pious and primitive Bishop Kenn, it is useless to say any thing further of its excellence. I am, Sir.

LONDON, Feb. 12.

Your sincere well-wisher,

PRISCUS

Vol. VIII. Churchm. Mag. Feb. 1805. S A Pastoral