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they were obliged to quit the room in which they had assembled for eight years. They engaged another at No. 5, Cateaton-street, late the Paul's-Head Tavern. They were still followed by the multitude; and now they appear to have excited ecclesiastical alarm. The then Bishop of London (Porteus), not much to his credit, is accused of having excited the magistracy of the city against them. The account of this shameful affair, and all the contemptible arts that were taken to suppress the meetings of the Freethinking Christians, have long since been before the public; they resisted, and expressed boldly before the Lord Mayor at the Mansion-house, and in every court in which they had occasion to appear before the business was ended, their determination to resist what they considered an unwarrantable interference with the liberty of Protestant Dissenters, and the rights of conscience, and in the end they triumphed over power and bigotry. They met again at the same place; the multitude that thronged their meeting was immense-several of the agents of the civil power were present-a short-hand writer from the Lord Mayor (Alderman Ainsley) attended and took down the discourses of the speakers; but the spirit of persecution dared no more, and from that time to the present they have regularly addressed crowded and attentive assemblies.

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At their meetings, doctrinal, moral, and scriptural subjects are chosen for public instruction; there is the utmost simplicity and familiarity in their form and manner. elder opens the business by stating the subject, and at his call several speakers, the one after the other, address the church and the audience assembled. It is no unusual thing to hear among them a difference of opinion, which they express without the least hesitation, considering that truth is engendered by the comparison of sentiment, and that no sensible mind can be otherwise than pleased at every attempt to correct what another may esteem its error. This exercise generally occupies about an hour and a half, and the business is concluded by the elder. The speakers in their discourses take frequent occasions to controvert the current opinions of the Christian world

in general, and to shew their ground of dissent from all sects and parties; nor are they at all sparing with their censures on the priesthood, which, under all its modifications and refinements, they consider as opposed, both in theory and application, to the best principles of the Christian church, inimical to the purity of the gospel, inconsistent with the advancement of mind, and unfriendly to the interests of truth.

The number of the Freethinking Christians is fast increasing; in 1810, they were enabled to build a respectable meeting-house in the Crescent, Jewin-street, Aldersgate-street, where they regularly address an assembly consisting of between four and five hundred persons: their present meetings are on the Sunday mornings only.

JOANNA SOUTHCOTT.

THE author having been frequently applied to respecting the opinions of Joanna Southcott, procured from a literary gentleman who is attached to her cause, the following communication. It is the most intelligible account of her opinions, as well as of her religious views, ever submitted to the public attention.

"The mission of this prophetess commenced in the year 1792, and the number of people who have joined with her from that period to the present time, as believing her to be divinely inspired, is considerable. It is asserted that she is the instrument, under the direction of Christ, to announce the establishment of his kingdom on earth, as a fulfilment of all the promises in the scriptures, and of that prayer which he himself gave to his followers; and more particularly of the promise made to the woman in the fall, through which the human race is to be redeemed from all the effects of it in the end. We are taught by the communication of the spirit of Truth to her, that the seven days of the creation were types of of the two periods in which the reign of Satan and of Christ are to be proved and contrasted. Satan was conditionally to have his reign tried for six thousand years,

shadowed by the six days in which the Lord worked, as his spirit has striven with man while under the powers of darkness; but Satan's reign is to be shortened, for the sake of the elect, as declared in the gospel; and Satan is to have a further trial at the expiration of the thousand years, for a time equal to the number of the days shortened. At the close of the seven thousand years the judgment is to take place, and the the whole human race will collectively bring forward the testimony of the evil they suffered under the reign of Satan, and of the good they enjoyed under the spiritual reign of Christ! These two testimonies will be evidence before the whole creation of God, that the pride of Satan was the cause of his rebellion in heaven, and that he was the root of evil upon earth; and consequently when those two great proofs have been brought forward, that part of the human race that has fallen under his power, to be tormented by being in the society of Satan and his angels, will revolt from him in that great day-will mourn that they have been deluded-will repent-and the Saviour of all will hold out his hand to them in mercy-and will then prepare a new earth for them to work righteousness, and prepare them ultimately to join his saints, who have fought the good fight in this world, while under the reign

of Satan.

"The mission of Joanna is to be accomplished by a perfect obedience to the spirit that directs her, and so to be made to claim the promise of "bruising the head of the serpent ;" and which promise was made to the woman on her casting the blame upon Satan, whom she unwittingly obeyed, and thus man became dead to the knowledge of the good; and so he blamed his Creator for giving him the woman, who was pronounced his helpmate for good. To fulfil the attribute of justice, Christ took upon himself that blame, and assumed his humanity to suffer on the cross for it, that he might justly bring the cross upon Satan, and rid him from the earth, and then complete the creation of man, so as to be after his own image. It is declared, that "the seed of the woman" are those who in faith shall join with her in claiming the prom

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ise made in the fall; and they are to subscribe with their hands unto the Lord that they do thus join with her, praying for the destruction of the powers of darkness, and for the establishment of the kingdom of Christ! Those who thus come forward in this spiritual war, are to have the seal of the Lord's protection; and if they remain faithful soldiers, death and hell shall not have power over them and these are to make up the sealed number of one hundred and forty-four thousand to stand with the Lamb on Mount Sion! The fall of Satan's kingdom will be a second deluge over the earth; so that from his having brought the human race under his power, a great part of them will fall with him, for the Lord will pluck out of his kingdom all that offend and do wickedly. The voice which announces the coming of the Messiah is accompanied with judgments, and the nations must be shaken and brought low before they will lay these things to heart. When all these things are accomplished, then the Desire of nations will come in glory, so that "every eye shall see him," and he will give his kingdom to his saints!

"It is represented, that in the Bible is recorded every event by which the Deity will work the ultimate happiness of the human race; but that the great plan is for the most part represented by types and shadows, and otherwise so wrapt up in mysteries, as to be inscrutable to human wisdom. As the Lord pronounced that man should become dead to knowledge if he ate the forbidden fruit, so the Lord must prove his words true. He therefore selected a peculiar people as depositaries of the records of that knowledge; and he appeared among them, and they proved themselves dead to every knowledge of him, by crucifying him. He will, in like manner, put the wild-olive to the same test; and the result will be, that he will be now crucified in the spirit!

"The mission of Joanna began in 1792, at which time she had prophecies given her, showing how the whole was to be accomplished. Among other things, the Lord said he should visit the surrounding nations with various calamities for fifteen years, as a warning to this land; and that then he should bring about events here which should

more clearly manifest the truth of her mission, by judgment and otherwise: so that this should be the happy nation to be the first redeemed from its troubles, and be the instrument for awakening the rest of the world to a sense of what is coming upon all, and for destroying the Beast, and those who worship his image!"

Since the insertion of the above article in the last edition, Joanna Southcott died of a protracted illness. It was given out that she was to be the mother of a Second Shiloh. Presents were accordingly made her for the Babe, especially a superb cradle, with an Hebrew inscription in poetry! But she expired, and no child appeared on the occasion. A stone placed over her remains in the New Burial-ground, Mary-le-bone, has this mystic inscription :

In Memory of

JOANNA SOUTHCOTT,

who departed this life December 27th, 1814,
Aged 60 Years.

While through all thy wond'rous days
Heaven and earth enraptured gaze,

While vain sages think they know

Secrets thou alone canst show,

Time alone will tell what hour

Thou'lt appear in greater power!

Similar in extravagance were the lines put on the stone of Ludovick Muggleton, a journeyman taylor, who set up for a prophet in the time of Cromwell. He and his companion Reeves absolved and condemned whom they pleased, saying, they were the two last witnesses spoken of in the Revelations, who were to appear previous to the destruction of the word! He was buried in spinning-wheelAlley, Moorfields, dying March 14, 1697, in the 88th year of his age. The inscription ran thus:

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Whilst mausoleums and large inscriptions give
Might, splendour, and past death make potents live,
It is enough briefly to write thy name-
Succeeding times by that will read thy fame :
Thy deeds-thy acts-around the world resound,
No foreign soil where Muggleton's not found!

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