Mr. URBAN, Teversal, March 6: HAVE sent you a front view, from the North, of Teversal Hall, in the county of Nottingham, as it appeared in 1811; but which has since been taken down.

The House was of stone, and appeared to have been erected at different periods; the middle part was the most ancient, and was probably built by Roger Grenehalghe in the reign of Henry VIII. which the style of the building and coat of arms over the porch seem to confirm.

The grand entrance was through a porch, (over which, in 1811, were still remaining the arms of the Grenehalghe family, impaling Babington,) having at the farther end a massy oaken door, bearing date 1612; and that once opened into a spacious hall, at the North end of which was the

gallery. The suite of rooms, though

not on an extensive scale, were nevertheless stately, and handsome in their day. The principal ones most deserving of observation were, the diningparlour and the drawing-room; the former having its sides embellished to the last with white embossed stucco, representing a variety of rural scenery, the sports of hawking, and the story of Actæon.

The edifice stood on high ground (of which the offices are now inhabited by the principal farmer in the lordship,) and overlooked to the South several extensive and hanging gardens, descending to terraces by different flights of steps, and ornamented at intervals with some venerable yews. The prospect around, though confined, is very picturesque, and presents to the eye a rural and cultivated landscape.

Molyneux family before the reign of James I., by which Monarch the Title

of Baronet was conferred on John Molyneux June 29, 1611.

The estate, at the time the view was taken, was the property of Sir Francis Molyneux, knt. and bart. Gentleman-usher of the Black Rod; but since his death, it has devolved on Henry Howard Molyneux, esq. M. P. for Gloucester, brother to the heirpresumptive of the Dukedom of Norfolk, and nephew to the late Sir Francis Molyneux.

An account of the church of Teversal, with its monuments, was published in your Magazine for February 1810, vol. LXXX. p. 121.

Yours, &c. R. R. RAWLINS.

Mr. URBAN, Essex-street, Dec. 12.

DR. Priestley, in his inquiries into

the doctrine of the primitive Christians concerning the person of Christ, was led to maintain that the early Hebrew Christians were known by the name of Ebionites, that they all agreed in believing the simple hu manity of Christ, and that they only differed upon the question of his miraculous conception: and, to estab lish these facts, he appealed to the testimony of Origen. This is the main question upon which the two learned polemics are at issue.

The Bishop peremptorily denies the facts stated by Dr. Priestley, and boldly challenges the credibility of his evi

dence. I tax," says he, "the ve racity of your witness." Origen might say it, but he could not believe it. He knew the contrary: and "I would not take his testimony upon oath." The Bishop then proceeds to state, as

*Hist. of Corrup. vol. I. p. 7. Letters to Dr. Horsley, p. 18.

A

an ascertained fact, that in the reign of Adrian, after the total destruction of Jerusalem, the majority of orthodox Hebrew Christians returning from Pella, whither they had fled for safety, abandoned at once the rites of Moses, and joined with a church of Gentile Christians for the sake of being admitted to the privileges of the colony of Elia, which had been founded by Adrian near the site of Jerusalem: and from which all Jews were excluded upon pain of death. The Bishop refers to Mosheim as an authority; but does not mention what afterwards appears to have been fact, that all the incidents were borrowed from that learned writer upon whose authority the Bishop seems implicitly to have relied*.

Dr. Priestley, having never in the course of his reading met with any account of this church of orthodox Hebrews at Elia, and having only consulted Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, instead of his Commentaries, to which the Bishop referred, and not finding there all the circumstances which he had stated, rather too precipitately charged the Bishop with having alleged facts without sufficient authority, and in plain language, as a falsifier of history and a defamer of the dead t.

The Bishop, conscious of innocence, repels the charge with indignation and now for the first time acknowledges the extent of his obligation to the German Professor. 66 If," says the offended Prelate," Dr. Priestley had consulted Mosheim, he must know that these were Mosheim's assertions before they were mine. He must know, that I have added no circumstance to Mosheim's account but such as every one must add in his own imagination, who admits Mosheim's representation of the fact +."

In the mean time the Bishop, finding the facts disputed which he had alleged with such unhesitating confidence, thought it advisable to consult Mosheim's authority; and, to his great surprize and disappointment, he finds them nothing to the purpose. Sulpitius is silent upon the most material points: Orosius is admitted to be "a feather in the scale:" and Epiphanius.

* Horsley's Tracts, p. 173. Dr. Priestley's Second Letter, p.192. Horsley's Tracts, pp. 408, 409.

was a witness to be brought forward with great caution, and upon his testimony little stress could be laid §.

Unwilling, however, to abandon a favourite hypothesis, and with the express design of rescuing himself from the imputation" of relating that upon Mosheim's authority which he related upon none," and "to state the principles which determined him to abide by Mosheim's account," the Bishop now brings forward a formal proof of the fact in question: namely, that the Christian Church at Elia was composed chiefly of orthodox Hebrew fugitives, who had returned from Pella, and had discarded the rites of Moses for the sake of participating in the privileges of the Elian colony.

To this end, "I take for granted," says his Lordship," these things." He then assumes six preliminary propositions, which it is quite needless to repeat here, because at the conclusion of them the Bishop very judiciously and candidly adds, "It may seem that my six positions go no further than to account for the disuse of the Mosaic law upon the supposition that the thing took place:" and "that they amount not to a proof that a church of Hebrew Christians not adhering to the rites of Judaism actually existed at Elia." "To complete the proof, therefore," continues the learned Prelate, "I might appeal to Epiphanius's assertion of the return of the Christians of Jerusalem from Pella." But, conscious that this was very tender ground, he adds, "I will derive the proof from a fact which I think more convincing than the testimony of Epiphanius."

This fact is contained in the Bishop's seventh proposition, “viz. that a body of orthodox Christians of the Hebrews were actually existing in the world much later than in the time of Adrian." And he rests the credit of this proposition upon "the mention which occurs in St. Jerome's Commentary upon Isaiah of Hebrews believing in Christ as distinct from the Nazarenes ¶." His Lordship contends that in Jerome's style Hebrews be

lieving in Christ must mean orthodox Hebrew Christians who had renounced the rites of Moses. And these were of course the legitimate representatives of those pious emigrants from Pella, who had discarded the institutes of their ancestors for the privileges of the Elian colony in the reign of Adrian, two hundred years before. Nevertheless, as his Lordship seems to have thought it possible that this argument, however forcible in itself, might not carry conviction to the mind of his prejudiced opponent, he concludes it with a concession which could not fail of producing the happiest effect. If," says the learned Prelate, with an urbanity of which this celebrated controversy unfortunately affords but few examples, "if the orthodox Christians of the Hebrews, actually existing somewhere in the world, from the reign of Adrian to the days of St. Jerome, were not members of the Church of Elia, dwelling at Ælia, and in the adjacent parts of Palestine, Dr. Priestley, if he be so pleased, may seek their settlement *."

Dr. Priestley, however, held out even against the convincing testimony of Jerome. And, notwithstanding the ingenuity of his Lordship's comments, he presumes to insinuate that Jerome's "Hebrews believing in Christ" might be no better than downright Ebionites under another name: but that, at any rate, allowing them to be as orthodox as the Bishop could wish, he discovered no connexion between the existence of a body of orthodox Hebrew Christians in Jerome's time, and those circumstances attending the origin of the church at Elia in the reign of Adrian, two hundred years before, which, having been first alleged by Mosheim, the Bishop had so generously undertaken to support and ve rify. And as to the labour of tracing out the settlements of the supposed orthodox Hebrew Church for two centuries, the learned writer appears to have left it to those whom it might more immediately concern t.

Now, Mr. Urban, comes the denouement of the piece. The Bishop, no doubt, began to be apprized that, in laying the whole weight of the

church of Elia upon the shoulder of St. Jerome, he had imposed upon that holy father a heavier burthen than he was able to support; and therefore, in the last of a series of Disquisitions which he annexes to there publication of his Tracts in one volume, after his accession to the mitre, he very fairly releases St. Jerome from his task, and very adroitly retracts the whole of his argument.

It has been already shewn that, in stating his argument, the learned Prelate expressly acknowledges "my six positions go no further than to account for the disuse of the Mosaic law upon the supposition that the thing took place;" they "do not amount to a proof" of the facts. This proof his Lordship derives from his seventh proposition, the credit of which rests wholly upon the testimony of Jerome, viz. that "a body of orthodox Christians of the Hebrews were actually existing in the world much later than in the time of Adrian."

But in the Disquisitions his Lordship's language is very much altered indeed. The learned reader," says the Bishop," will be pleased to recollect that my proof of the existence of such a church rests in part only upon Jerome's evidence. The entire proof rests upon seven positions, and St. Jerome's evidence goes barely to the proof of the last of those positions."

St. Jerome's evidence is brought for the proof of this position singly: and this, proved by St. Jerome's evidence in conjunction with six other principles previously laid down, makes the whole evidence of the main fact which 1 affirm, that a church of orthodox Christians of the Hebrews existed at Ælia from the final dispersion of the Jews by Adrian to a much later period.

Thus, Mr. Urban, by the Bishop's own concession, the whole evidence, the entire proof of his main fact, the existence of his orthodox church at Elia, rests upon seven propositions, of which "the first six go no further than to account for the fact upon the supposition that the thing took place;" and the seventh rests wholly upon the testimony of Jerome, which is alleged barely and singly to prove, that "a body of orthodox Hebrew Christians existed in the world much later than

‡ Horsley's Tracts, p. 549.

the