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    or if there is any life of Dr . Robertson written at large . I remember to have seen a short account of him in the Obituary of the Gentleman ' s Magazine , which T believe was copied into the " Biographical Dictionary . " By this he appears to have shewn a truly exemplary disinterestedness in refusing Church Preferment while in very scanty circumstances . So justly did this good man deserve Mr , Lindsey ' s description of him in the

    " Historical View / ' as " the venerable Father of Nonconformity in our days . " Dr . R— ^ besides being many years a widower , endured the uncommon affliction of surviving 21 children ( all his family ) , many of whom lived to maturity * . I shall also thank any of your readers who can give or refer

    me to an account of the author of an anonymous little work , of which a second edition appeared in 1754 , entitled * An Appeal to the common sense of all Christian People—more particularly the Members of the Church of England—with regard to an important Point of Faith and Practice imposed upon their

    consciences by Church Authority . " All I could ever learn of the author was , that his name was Hopkins , and that he was a

    Clergyman , in Sussex . The " Appeal , " admits the pre-existence of Christ , but refutes the doctrine of a Trinity from a very large and satisfactory examination of passages of Scripture . This little work fell into the hands of a Calvinistic minister in Essex , with whom I was long acquainted . It convinced him , though he was then nearly sixty years of age , that " there is but one God even the Father , " and he employed the last months of his

    life amidst decaying health , in publishing an edition of Hymns , chiefly Watts ' s , from which he excluded every expression that might be considered as a worship of Christ—or an acknowledgment of an Atonement in the Orthodox sense of , substitution . In what has been called the Arian sense , he still received it . Yet , I apprehend he wanted only a longer life to have become

    altogether such as those Christians who are generally called Unitarians . In an interview lhad with him a very short time before his death , an event which he expected with great piety and resignation , he observed to an Orthodox , but candid and intelligent friend , with whom we were conversing , that the Christian world was yet in its infancy , as to an acquaintance with the phraseology of Scripture . —I beg leave to record this instance of a change of sentiment effected in circumstances rather unusual by an anonymous little book after it had been almost forgotten , as a happy confirmation of Dr . Jebb ' s encouraging maxim , that < c no effort is lost . " March 10 , 1806 . L . L .

    * Our correspondent will have read with pleasure the first article of Biography in the present number of the Repository , which , it is somewhat singular , came to hand before iiis communication was receive ^ . Editor .

    Untitled Article

    ISO Dr . Robertson and Hopkins' Appeal .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1806, page 180, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1723/page/12/