The National Register.
London, England, 1808-11-06 00:00:00

THE NATK)NAL REGISTER.

NOV.: 4:

• -.1.11 ~Itli-V. 'rIik;OPI4ILUS Lill DIET

On the 3.1 of November died, at his house in Eisex.street, be-
twern.the hours of six and seven in the nit, ia the elghty-
\th rear of his age, the Rev. Theophilus Lindsey, formerly
Vicar of Catterick in Yorkshire. This living he resigned in'
the ear ITN, from a convietion that the service of the church
14 England, as far as it involves the doctrines of the Trinity, is
.irrpu;,nunt to the precepts of our Saviour and his Apostles, and '
particularly to Coe great common! of God solemnly promul-
rded to the Jews, and urged with the strongest emphasis by
our ''‘aviour--Thous,•alt have no Other gods but me. In couse-
quebre of this conviction, and the ineffectual attempts to oh.
lain redress for the Clergy. in the subscription to the thirty-nine
Articles, having resigned his living, and quitted Yorkshire, he
came to London; and in the year seventy-fov, encouraged by
the application of several prisons of high respectability, who
mere earnest in the same cause, he opened a room •in Essex-
I;ofw, for the wore-hip of the only true God, in w hieh he per-
tained divine service, according to the Liturgy of the Church
of England, reurincil by the celebrated Dr Clarke, with some
variat ems adaptcit to lAiitr n more improved views of the sub-
Jeo. Four yea I'S after rhe preached a sermon on the open-
in4 of the chapel in Essex House, which has since that time
been dedicated to Unitarian worship. •Ilere his services us
Minister were most acceptable to a numerous congregation; and
whate‘er disapprobation his opioions might excite among the
unioformed of different denominations, even they could not tP:t
coeval a characier of such benevolence, honesty; and integrity.
'lnc atiacament of those Who were more intimately acquainted
o tilt hi. virturs was unbounded, for seldom is to he found a man
oho h.'s lived so deeply in his heart th... ;turd chrracteristics of
the Coristi.m telizion—love to God and love to town. He la- -
merited the divisions amongst Christinns, owingto the unreason-.
aide adherence of many to tradition, merely of human or politi7
cal authority., in opposition to the language of revelation. The
w towe of hi, p caching was benevolence, and the easy yoke
of Chri•t, ardour in the study of the Scriptures, humility in the
of God, and the rejection of that false 15iety which-lays
undue Glrt'S on external circumstimees. • In these useful labour,
he mis (Imaged to the 70th year of his age, when lie resigned his
pastoral °dice, dedicating the remainder of his life to the great
ohjcct, of promAing scriptural truth, iq which service he con-
tinue)] occasionally to employ his pen: No man was a inure sin-
frietid to civil and reliAious liberty; no one more attached to
those pcinciples which placed the Brunswick Family upon the
Throtu. To these, pridciples he never failed, when a proper
i.iy•irtunity ol:ered, °I bearing his testimony with consistent
tiponess and cletracieri-tic mildness : for mildness, benevolence,
still humility, Collided on, piety and entire resignation to the
will of God., and combined with habitual cheerfulness, were the
sii.il‘ing features in hit character. During the latter part of his
file infirmities of age gradually pressed upon him, but lie
! ore them all without a murmur, and his favourite maxim, en
which he dwelt emphatically almost in his last moments, and
when utterance became difficult, was—What God wills is best.