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March preached two sermons at Bentinck chapel, on the occasion of this youth's decease; the one on the duties of parents, the other on the duties of youth; in which these important subjects are discussed with equal discretion, delicacy, and piety. They have since been published.

MICHAEL DAINTRY, ESQ.

Died, April 5th, at his seat, Byron's House, near Macclesfield, in the 78th year of his age, Michael Daintry, Esq.; and on the 9th his remains were interred at Leek, in Staffordshire, of which parish his father, the Rev. Michael Daintry, was many years Vicar. Designed for the ministry of the Church of England, which he afterwards declined from an apprehension of the high responsibility attached to the sacred office, a classical education had cultivated strong native talents, and formed a taste for general literature, by which he was distinguished through every period of life. Having relinquished the purpose of taking holy orders, he engaged in the button and twist trade, in his native town of Leek, on the slender sum of one hundred guineas, and, under the blessing of Providence, was the architect of his own princely fortune. In this respect he was not only one of many examples of the truth of the Scripture apophthegm, "Seest thou a man diligent in business? He shall stand before kings, he shall not stand before mean men :" but afforded a practical confutation of the vulgar prejudice, that liberal education and literary pursuits are incompatible with a commercial life. The foundations of his fortune, which were solidly laid at Leek, were prosperously built up in the flourishing town of Macclesfield, where, about thirty years ago, he entered into partnership with the late John Ryle, Esq., a gentleman of many virtues, and, like him self, the friend of religion and morals. This connection, carried on under the well-known firm of Daintry and Ryle, was maintained with an amity highly honourable to them both, to the period of Mr. Ryle's death, in the year 1808; and proved the establishment of one of the first houses in Europe, in a line which, by its extensive manufactories, has given bread to thousands. In this connection he realized an ample fortune; and if superior talents, directed by integrity of mind, sustained by unremitted industry, and adorned with the utmost suavity of manners, are worthy of success, he was entitled to unenvied prosperity. His mind, early em bued with a sense of religion, would not allow him to live without God in the world;

yet penetrating, comprehensive, and inquisitive, it could not receive partial accounts, and narrow systems, with easy faith and vulgar acquiescence. He read, he inquired, he thought, and be decided for himself, as became a man and a Christian: throughout the whole of this investigation humbly im ploring those inspirations of the Holy One which give understanding, and which, though concealed and inexplicable in their modes of operation, are ever found, by those who diligently seek them, to be effectual for the production of the Christian temper and conversation. The result of this inquiry was such as might be expected. Having taken comprehensive views of the evidences of Christianity, he was the more satisfied of its high credibility and superlative worth. Ac« quainted with the merits of those controver sies which agitated the Christian world, he learned to be moderate and candid, without imbibing a spirit of latitudinarian indifference, or being tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. Preserving a catholic love for all who founded their hope on a crucified Redeemer, as their sacrifice and peace; yet, in point of church order, he preferred the moderate episcopacy of his country, as approaching the nearest to apostolic usage, and he cordially embraced her doc. trinal Articles and Homilies. His warm attachment to her devotional Liturgy was evinced by his early and regular attendance on her services, from which he never absented himself until prevented by those increasing infirmities which terminated in death. A few months before his decease, he had occasion thus to write: I am not ashamed to avow, that I believe a Trinity of Persons in the Godhead; the fall of man, and his restoration to the forfeited favour and image of God by the atonement of Christ; and the influences of the Spirit of God to produce the fruits of a holy life; and these doctrines I conceive to be those of the Church of England, as well as of the New Testament." These were the doctrines, together with others connected with them, which had his marked approbation and public patronage, whether preached in the church or in the meeting; whether indiscriminately rejected and degraded as methodistical or Calvinistic; for he justly considered them as the реси. liarities of no sect, but as forming the high ground of our common Christianity. these doctrines prevailed and flourished, if religion was respected, if vice was discouraged, if general peace and amity were maintained between churchmen and dissenters, in the town of Macclesfield, it was very much

If

owing to the countenance, example, and in fluence of Mr. Daintry and his friend Mr. Ryle.

His charity, always unostentatious, and frequently concealed, directed by discrimi nating prudence, and administered with economy, was constant, uniform, and general, embracing every want of humanity, and every call of religion; at the same time, it must be acknowledged that it was not thought to flow with that full stream which his ample fortune might have supplied. In politics, as in religion, he was a disciple of the old school. The jealous friend of his king and country, and a warm admirer of the British constitution, he observed with deep concern the attacks made on the altar and throne by the devotees of a false and destructive philosophy. On many occasions, his zeal in counteracting them was prompt, energetic, and successful. Under Providence, he considered our constituted authorities as the firmest bulwarks of English liberty and protestant religion. In the office of a magistrate, as mayor and alderman, he evinced uniformly how much he had at heart the welfare of society, and the good order of the town of Macclesfield.

Neither his public avocations, nor extensive commercial and private concerns, prevented him from devoting a portion of his time to the regular discharge of the duties of the closet. Not satisfied with an ample portion in this world, he looked forward to a heavenly country, and inore durable riches. The worship of God in his family and his closet, as well as in the church, evinced how much he delighted to acknowledge him in all his ways.

In his last illness, the form of sound doctrine he had derived from the glorious Gospel of the blessed God, yielded him consolation and support. Though not joyous, his last painful days of mortality were peaceful and resigned, pouring forth his soul in prayer to God, and calling on his family to aid him in that pious exercise. By repen tance renouncing his unrighteous deeds, and by faith in Christ renouncing his righteous ones as the foundation of his hope, he expired in the midst of the prayers of his family, in humble dependence on the merits and intercession of his Saviour, and in prospect of awaking to a blessed immortality,

Thus lived and died Michael Daintry, truly a great man; and such he must have been in any direction to which he had applied his superior talents, adorned with the learning of the scholar and the manners of the gentleman. Temperate, indefatigable,

regular in all his habits, cheerful in temper, of a lively and inoffensive wit, highly conversible, but never obtrusive and loquacious; ready to commend even humble merit, but mild and sparing to censure; equally remote from vanity and pride, he made no display of any thing he possessed, nor did he value himself on his family and fortune, nor be tray any thing of that overbearing supe riority which too frequently accompanies in tellectual wealth. He possessed a great command of a temper naturally irritable, and that under very trying provocations. Of injuries or enemies he never made mention; the midnight depredator, who violated the security of his dwelling and spoiled his property, owed his life to his forbearing humanity; nor could he be prevailed on to adopt any but precautionary and unvindictive measures against the ruffian, who lifted his hand against his grey head, and, without shadow of provocation, struck him to the ground in the streets of Macclesfield. In a word, there was blended in his public and private character so much of the great and good, that he could not but live respected and beloved, and be regretted at his death as a public loss.

Cordial and warm as is this encomium, it flows from no venal pen. It is not the homage paid to his fortune, the tribute of mere private friendship, the gratification of personal affection in a numerous family, respectable in all its branches; much less is it intended to exalt a character which no longer is amenable to any human tribunal; for posthumous fame, though a principle which warms the breasts of the living, can have no place in the spirits of the dead: there God is all in all; and his decision on individual character can receive nothing from human praise or censure. It is for the living this memoir is penned, as a way-mark in the path of life; and chiefly as an example to the great and wealthy, that they may learn from one of their contemporaries, and of their own class, what to seek and what to shun, as well as what is generally expected from them in the conduct of life. A great fortune is a great trust, to which is attached high responsibility; and it is most eminently so, when dignified with superior powers of mind. Such men cannot be neutral characters, for their influence is extensive and great in society; and if he who buried one talent be punished as an unprofita ble servant, what may they expect, who shall prodigally waste, or supinely bury, ten? Hast thou, affluent reader of this page, found leisure to institute an inquiry into the

foundation of thy faith and hope, and hast thou conducted it with humble reliance on Divine instruction, and with that interest and assiduity with which thou wouldst ́ascertain the validity of thy title to an earthly inheritance? Hast thou adopted the Christianity of the New Testament; learning the humiliating lesson, that thou art the child of sin, as well as of mortality; that thou must found thy hope of pardon and heaven on the sole mercy of God, through the sacrifice of the death of Christ; and that nothing can constitute thee a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven, but a real regeneration of the Spirit, a total renovation of thy principles, temper, and conversation? Hast thou, like the subject of this memoir, publicly avowed thy secret conviction of the superlative worth of religion; and dost thou countestance it by thy example, and encourage it by thy influence? Happy art thou, if thou knowest and doest these things!

Yet shouldest thou be all Mr. Daintry was, that is not all which God and his church require at thy hand. Thy station is conmanding, thy fortune princely. It is expected that thou shouldest vindicate God's bounties to thyself. The cause of thy God should not only be asserted, but asserted with zeal and boldness. Thy hand should not only be prompt to give, but to give largely, as God giveth to thee. If the female be not chaste, the soldier brave, the minister faith. ful, the trader honest, the physician skilful, and the rich liberal, they are each defective

in that characteristic virtue, which should belong to them. And it should be well remembered, that Christian liberality scorns to be measured by that of the children of this world. Christians know the immense “grace of their Lord Jesus Christ, who, though ke was rich, yet for their sakes made himself poor, that they through his poverty might become rich ;" and knowing this, they know that their fortunes, as well as themselves, are his, and should be used and improved to his glory; and the use he made of bis own riches teaches them what account he will require at their hands. And dost thou, O rich man! seriously call thyself a Christian? Tremble at thy responsibility! He that made and redeemed thee, treats thy salvation as little less than a miracle. Thy minister, thy pious friends, tremble for thee. Thy good is thine evil; thy wealth thine incumbrance, thy snare, thy daily temptation to depart from the living God, and to take up thy portion in this world. Hast thou genuine piety? Thou needest twenty times as much as thy poor fellow-servant. O lop thy for tunes, as thou wouldst prune thy vine. What thy rich ungodly neighbour gives to equipage, luxury, splendour, and dissipation, give thou to charity and religion. The God of Shadrach preserve thee in the midst of the burning fiery furnace and if thou shouldest not be found altogether equal to the godlike character designed for thee, mayest thon, at last, though on a single plank, be cast safe onthe heavenly shore!

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

WE beg to inform X. Y. that most of the sermons in our work are not taken from books. We are much gratified by his approval of them.

W.'s observations on the Construction of Wills have been received; but we have not had time to read them with the attention they seem to merit. We will give them all due consideration.

INDAGATOR H.; THEOGNIS; T. W. R.; Kρ&Tтwy; and TALIB, have been received,

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To the Editor of the ChristianObserver.
ISHING to bring my con-

his own principles. I never meant to grant that the treading under. foot the holy city, &c. Rev. xi. 2, im

W 'Sovery With Wir. Faber to a plied in it the establishment of ido

close, I shall confine what I have to offer, in reply to his paper in your Number for March, within the nar. rowest limits possible.

With respect to the new authority said, by Mr. Faber, to have been conferred on the Pope, in the year 606, I think it sufficient to refer to my papers in the Christian Observer, for January and April, 1810, wherein, I think, I proved that the Emperor Phocas conferred no new powers, but merely confirmed the title granted by Justinian seventy years before. It is true that Pope Gregory the Great protested against the assumption of the title of Universal Bishop, by his rival the Patriarch of Constantinople: but this does not disprove the fact of the title of Head of the Church having been conferred on the papacy by Justinian, which title, and not that of Universal Bishop, is still assumed by the Pope. Indeed, at the very time that Gregory, in his struggle for power with his rival metropolitan, denied to him the title first mentioned, he himself exercised the powers of head of the church in the western empire; and in Italy, and the adjacent islands, even the existence, the union and translation of episcopal seats were decided by his absolute discretion*.

When I asserted in a former paper, that the edict of Justinian did virtually establish idolatry, I intended to argue with Mr. Faber on

Gibbon's Decline and Fall. Chap. xlv. CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 114.

latry, by public authority, at the commencement of the 1260 years. It seems to me to signify no more than that, during the 1260 years, the visible church should be grievously oppressed and trampled upon, by men, who, though Christians in name, should be Gentiles in character; no matter whether idolatry was established by public authority, or not. Having said so much in explanation, I am willing to join issue with Mr. Faber, even upon his own principles, and I do still assert that the edict of Justinian was, in effect, an act of public idolatry; it granted to a dead saint such honour and reverence as were in spirit a violation of the second commandment. To prove this point, I shall give the substance of a passage from the edict itself, and let the reader judge.

"Since we have found some persons carried away by the disease and madness of the impious Nestorius and Eutiches, who are enemies of the holy catholic and apostolic church, inasmuch as they refuse to acknowledge the glorious Mary (always a virgin) to be properly and according to truth, the mother of God; we have hastened to teach these persons what is the right faith of Christians."

And how did the Emperor enforce this creed?" We order" (says he in a former edict, to which reference is made in that of 533) " that all such persons" (alluding to those who refused to receive his tics, be subdued by fit punishments." creed)" shall, as confessed here

2 Y

I will not enter into any discussion respecting the title of Mother of God. I shall only observe, in the words of the translator of Mosheim's History of the Church, that "to the judicious and learned it can present no idea at all, and to the ignorant and unwary it may present the most absurd and monstrous notions."-I remark further, that it is, even according to Mr. Faber's admission, indefensible: and it is, in the opinion of many (of whom I confess myself to be one) nothing less than blasphemous; insomuch that were a creed tendered to me for subscription, of which it formed a part, I should think it my duty to go to the stake rather than subscribe it. Yet this was the creed imposed on all his subjects, by the emperor Justinian, under the severest penalties; and he was supported in this act of monstrous tyranny by the Pope, to whom, on the promulgation of the edict, he gave the title of "Head of the Church," requesting him to sanction his (the Emperor's) creed, by the authority of the Holy See.-In these proceedings, the Emperor made the refusal to give to a dead saint, a title and honour altogether unwarranted by the Scriptures, the ground of excommunication, and of inflicting several civil pains and penalties. I did not expect that any Protestant would deny this to have been an act of idolatrous veneration to the Virgin Mary; or that thereby the Emperor placed the abomination of desolations in the symbolical temple, Dan. xii. 11. I am sure, sir, that if a similar law were passed in these kingdoms, the fires of Smithfield must be rekindled, and we should practically feel, that a desolating abomination did tread under foot the courts of our Zion *.

As to the tendency of the title of

Mr. Faber quotes Acts xx. 28, in palliation of the offensive title; but the reading adopted by Griesbach deprives the Catholic of every support from that text. Griesbach reads, "The Church of the Lord."

Mother of God, to promote the direct worship of the Virgin, which I asserted in a former paper, and which Mr. Faber expressly denies; we are most explicitly informed, that even in the fifth century, in consequence of the Nestorian controversy, the image of the Virgin Mary, holding the child Jesus in her arms, obtained the first and principal place among the costly images which adorned the churches +. It is also an undeniable fact, that every church which has given to the Virgin the above title, has at no distant time fallen into open idolatry. I leave it, therefore, to the reader to judge whether Mr. Faber's assertion, or mine, be best supported by history.

Mr. Faber's interpretation of the flight of the Woman into the Wilderness, (Rev. xii. 6.) seems to me to be erroneous. For if the flight of the woman denote (as he supposes) the separation of the true church from the external communion of the Romish church, then, by parity of reason, the return of the woman from the wilderness, at the close of the 1260 years, must signify her restoration to a state of communion with the Romish church, i. e. with

*Mr. Faber does not deny the tendency of this ascription to produce idolatry, but establishment of idolatry, or involve such merely that its use does not prove the

establishment as a necessary consequence. We make this remark, in the hope that it may tend to prevent the prolongation of this particular controversy, of which our readers have manifested some signs of impatience. The same motive induces us to observe, that as far as respects the argu ment derived from the use of the title, "The Mother of God," we are disposed to regard Talib's view of it as by no means a conclusive reply to the reasoning employed by Mr. Faber in our Number for March, p. 141. We certainly are far from desiring to become parties in this controversy; but we are in hopes, that ably as the subject has been discussed on both sides, and completely as it has been exhausted, this short note may preclude the necessity of a reply on the part of Mr. Faber-EDITOR

+ Mosheim's Eccles. Hist. Cent. v. partii.

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