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THOMAS EMLYN

WAS born at Stamford, in Lincolnshire, in the year 1663. His parents, though they statedly attended the worship of the established church, were friendly to the principles of the Nonconformists; and accordingly, even at that period, when such a destination held out no flattering prospect, and might lead to bonds and imprisonment, they did not hesitate to devote their son to the Christian ministry in that connexion. For this purpose, after the usual preparatory course of grammar learning, he was sent, in 1678, to an academical institution conducted by a Mr. Shuttleworth, at Sulby, in Northamptonshire. For a short time he was admitted at Emanuel College, Cambridge, and was afterwards transferred to the academy of Mr. Doolittle, in the neighbourhood of London. Here he had greater advantages in the access to books, &c.; but there is reason to think that he was more indebted to his own personal exertions and private studies than to the instructions he received. His tutors appear to have been worthy and conscientious, but narrowminded men, of no superior talent or compass of thought. He seems, however, to have speedily acquired reputation as a young man of acquirement and promise; for, in 1683, when only twenty years of age, he became chaplain to the Countess

of Donegal, who then resided in London, and the following year went over with her family to Belfast in Ireland, where she was shortly afterwards married to Sir W. Franklin. Here he continued for some years in his capacity of chaplain, with a liberal salary, and was treated with great respect and distinction. Sir W. Franklin, who had a large property in the west of England, offered to present him to a considerable living in that part of the country; but he declined it, not in consequence of any scruples on the doctrine of the Trinity, respecting which no difficulties had as yet arisen in his mind, but from a dissatisfaction with the prescribed terms of ministerial conformity. That he was not, however, at this time a rigid Nonconformist, appears from his not only attending regularly the ordinary services of the church, but frequently officiating for the neighbouring clergymen, having a license for so doing from the bishop of the diocese, facultatis exercendæ gratiâ. The disturbances which took place in the north of Ireland in consequence of the landing of James II. in that country, occasioned the breaking up of the Countess of Donegal's establishment, and Emlyn retired to England; previously to which, however, he received an overture through Mr. Boyse, one of the ministers of the Presbyterian congregation in Wood-street, Dublin, to become his colleague as successor to Mr. (afterwards Dr.) Daniel Williams, who had been driven from his charge by the violent and tyrannical proceedings of the popish administration of the time. But he declined the proposal for the present. Having no immediate engagement in England, he accepted an invitation from Sir Ro

bert Rich, one of the Lords of the Admiralty, to his seat near Beccles in Suffolk, and was induced by him to officiate as minister to a small dissenting congregation at Lowestoff, in that county. Here he remained about a year and a half, though without formally undertaking the pastoral charge. During his residence at Lowestoff he maintained. a friendly intercourse with the clergyman of the place, accompanying him in making collections for the public charities, and occasionally attending with part of his congregation upon his public services. This was conformable, as we have seen, to his practice while in Ireland, and was by no means inconsistent with his principles; for he was not as yet a dissenter from the doctrines of the church, and he had too much liberality to make the minor matters of difference in discipline and ceremonial an insuperable bar to communion.

At this period, however, he also formed an intimate acquaintance with Mr. W. Manning, a worthy dissenting minister at Peasenhall, in his neighbourhood. Their congenial habits and pursuits occasioned frequent meetings, and they engaged together in theological inquiries, mutually communicating to each other their respective sentiments and conclusions; in which, as it happened, they were both led to deviate widely from the opinions then generally prevalent. The doctrine of the Trinity in particular they agreed, first in doubting, and at length in rejecting altogether. Mr. Manning embraced the Socinian view, but could not prevail on his friend to concur with him, as he could not satisfy himself with the Socinian interpretation of the texts usually brought to prove the pre-existence of our Saviour as the great Spirit or Logos

by whose instrumentality God created the material world. He therefore espoused what has since been called the High Arian hypothesis, in which he continued during the rest of his life. In these sentiments he agreed nearly with Whiston, Clarke, Peirce, and many other eminent divines of that and the immediately succeeding age, whose celebrity for a long period gave the Arian scheme the preference over that of Socinus.

When James II. was driven back to France, and affairs in Ireland assumed a more peaceable and settled appearance, Mr. Emlyn was induced to accept a second overture to become joint pastor with Mr. Joseph Boyse of the Presbyterian congregation in Wood Street, Dublin. To this city he accordingly removed in 1691; and here he continued in a station of great comfort and prosperity for nearly twelve years. Mr. Emlyn appears to have been a highly popular and acceptable preacher, and the sermons of his which have reached us, prove that he was very deservedly so. They are at once rational, persuasive, and pathetic, and when the subject calls for it, often rise to a high strain of eloquence. He is said also to have been particularly excellent and attentive in discharging the more private duties of a Christian minister. A few years after he settled at Dublin he married Mrs. Esther Bury, a widow lady with a handsome jointure; and thus being possessed of an easy competence, successful and acceptable in the discharge of his ministerial duties, apparently respected and beloved by his congregation and friends, and peculiarly blest in his domestic relations, he seemed to enjoy the fairest prospect of permanent and increasing usefulness, and of a reasonable share

But it

of temporal respectability and comfort. had pleased a wise Providence to order it otherwise, and dark clouds were presently destined to overshadow the scene which for some time appeared so bright and promising.

Mr. Emlyn had not as yet divulged his abandonment of the prevailing views of the Trinity, which were zealously maintained by his colleague, and doubtless by at least a large majority of his congregation. He abstained from touching upon controverted topics in the pulpit, where his discourses were for the most part practical; though their morality was invariably founded upon the precepts, and carefully enforced by the peculiar motives and sanctions suggested by the Christian scriptures.

"I own" (he tells us in his very interesting narrative of the proceedings against him) "I had been unsettled in my notions from the time I read Dr. Sherlock's book of the Trinity, which sufficiently discovered how far many were gone back towards polytheism; I long tried what I could do with some Sabellian turns, making out a Trinity of somewhats in one single mind. I found out that, by the tritheistical scheme of Dr. Sherlock and Mr. Howe, I best preserved a trinity, but I lost the unity; by the Sabellian scheme of modes and subsistences, and properties, &c., I best kept up the divine unity; but then I had lost a trinity, such as the Scripture discovers, so that I could never keep both in view at once. Till I had much serious thought and study of the holy scriptures, with many concerned addresses to the Father of lights, found great reason first to doubt, and after by degrees to alter my judgment, in

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