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If therefore that Form of Public Worship be the best, which, confittently with the Opinions of the Church who prefcribes it, is the mot fimple, the most intelligible, the most comprehenfive; that Confeflion of Faith, which moft exactly correfponds to this Form, will be the best likewife.'

In regard to our forms, a revifion of them by authority would, he acknowledges, do honour to our Church; would give it the true merit of being really more perfect, at the expence only of parting with an imaginary notion of perfection. If ever fuch a revifion fhould take place, many alterations, he thinks, throughout the whole of our Liturgy would offer themfelves, which would undoubtedly render it more perfect, more approved by the judicious members of our own Church, and lefs exceptionable to those who are difpofed to cenfure it.

It would give us pleasure to accompany Mr. Sturges through the remaining part of his work; but we have faid enough to afford our Readers an idea of the rational entertainment they will meet with in his Letters, which do no fmall credit both to his good fenfe and to his moderation. We fhall conclude, therefore, with the following paffage from his laft Letter:

I am not more defirous, fays he, that candid, liberal, and intelligent readers fhould be fatished with thofe parts of our ChurchEstablishment, which appear to me good and unexceptionable, than I am, that their attention fhould be directed to thofe parts, which are capable of improvement, and which call for it. Though it must be expected, that all Human Inflitutions will have their defects; this is no reason, why endeavours fhould not be used to leffen and correct them; to render their proportion to what is good as fmall as poffible. Length of time and change of circumftances produce of themselves unforeseen inconveniences in things, which were planned at first with the greatest wifdom; they make what was originally well adapted to the purpofes intended, unfit and inapplicable; they produce improvements in knowledge, which in juftice to ourfelves we should adopt; fo that Human Inftitutions of every kind will grow, from thefe caufes only, iefs perfect and lefs ufeful, except they are from time to time refitted and re-adjusted.

This must be the cafe of every National Church, which has long fubfifted; and it feems reasonable to use the fame conduct with re Spect to that, as all wife nations do in other parts of legiflation; to make fuch alterations and amendments in Ecclefiaftical regulations, as any improvements in religious knowledge, or change of circumtances may require. That this fhould be done not wantonly or unneceffarily, will readily be admitted; but we fu ely feem too tender, too much afraid of moving a ftone of our Church, as if on being touched, though ever fo gently, the whole fabric would fall to pieces I trust there is in it more ftrength and folidity. There might be reafon for this exceffive caution, if the Church were now, as it once was, an inftrument of party, and the very name of it fufficient to fet half the nation in a flame; but now, my Lord, bad confequences are very little to be apprehended on account of any wife

and

and useful alterations, which should be recommended to the Legiflature by the Governors of our Church; they would be well received by the moderation and good fenfe of the better part of the nation, to the inattention and indifference of most others they would be uninterefting. Such improvements may be made, without affecting the great principles, on which our Eftablishment is founded, or changing its effential parts; by being fo improved, its virtues would be more acknowledged, its utility more apparent.'

ART. II. The Church of England vindicated; or, a Defence of the Vifible Church of Chrift, as established by the Legislative Authority of this Realm: In Answer to all Objections, which have been offered by Diffidents of every Denomination. With a prefatory Addrefs to the Pious and Learned Prelates of Great Britain and Ireland. 8vo. 5 s. Boards. Exeter, printed by Thorn; and fold by Wallis in London. 1779.

WE

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E have here an advocate for the church of England, of a very different temper and character indeed from Mr. Sturges, whofe Letters we reviewed in the preceding article. Mr. Sturges is a candid, liberal, judicious writer; the Author of this Defence of our religious eftablishment, is a moft illiberal intolerant. But, as the old Juftice in the play fays, we won't put ourselves in a paffion. -The objects of this Gentleman's abuse are, the Proteftant Diffenters, the Author of the Confeffional, Dr. Priestley, Dr. Price, Mr. Lindsey, &c. &c. and he does little elfe but rail at them from the beginning of his Defence to the end. But our Readers shall judge for themselves.

His Defence is introduced with a long addrefs, of eightyfeven pages, to the Prelates of Great Britain and Ireland, all of whom, we are perfuaded, will look upon the caufe which he undertakes to defend, as but little honoured by fuch an advocate. In this addrefs, we have the following obfervations on the fubject of licentioufnefs.

The Monthly Reviewers,' fays this Writer, for we, too, are honoured with a fhare of his notice, with the whole body of proteftant diffenters, may be faid to be fully reprefented at present, and to have been fo for many years paft, by a logarithmetical Price, and a chimerical Priestley, who are the perpetual fitting members of our diffenting congrefs.

When the legislative authority of this realm had declared the Americans to be in a state of rebellion, one Price was permitted to write a book, in which, in a comparative view of the moral and literary deferts of the inhabitants of America and of Great-Britain, he gives the preference to the former, and obferves, that they are more deferving of the highest honours, dignity, and emoluments of government, than any on whom they are legally conferred in this our mixed monarchial state of royalty: This was not only one of the higheft poffible infults to the determining powers of legislation,

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but

but to his country at large; and, in any other part of the globe. inftead of being honoured with a freedom and a gold box, it had been juftly compenfated with an halter or a dungeon. In this book it is also rebelliously written, that the Americans are, and ought to be, difpofed to facrifice their heart's blood, rather than live in a ftate of fubjection to the legislative authority of this realm; but to a cool-headed politician what is the great difference between the heart, head, or finger blood of an American. And whatever opinion fome people may be inclined to entertain of this man's recondite erudition, he is abundantly more adroit in the unprofitable bufinefs of rhapfody and enthufiafm, than in the ufeful arts of found reafoning and just philofophy.

In the next place, the doctrine of the bleffed trinity is fanctioned and established by the legislative authority. So that whoever shall publish a book, in which our bleffed Saviour's divinity is expressly denied, and in which it is alfo peremptorily declared to have no fanction from the Holy Scriptures, is guilty of a licentiousness, which is made punishable by an established ordinance of government. And when any diffenting or monthly reviewing Arian shall hereafter take up his puritanism, which is not inferior in wonderful achievements to infallibility itself, and fhall impiously affirm, as did the old Will Whitton, that Jefus Chrift was a mere man, the fon of Jofeph and Mary, in the fame manner as he was the natural product of a male and female Whifton; fince nineteen out of twenty amongst the Diffenters do not qualify according to law, an Archbishop of Canterbury, in a neceffary and juft refentment, fhould receive informations, and fuffer the law to be executed with severity; and not to do fo is an unjustifiable pufillanimity. And on this point, let me here inform our Jebbite and Lindfeyan abettors of grofs arianifm, that three divine perfons in one fpiritual, immenfe, and eternal nature, can make but one fpiritual, immenfe, and eternal God: So that to charge the trinitarian church of England with a tritheiftical fpecies of idolatry, is manifeftly untrue; because this our chriftian doctrine of the bleffed trinity is evidently and perfectly confiftent with the unity of theifm. And whoever will read what the almoft unparalleled,. towering, and Shakespeare genius of the great Bishop Beveridge has written in proof of the fcriptural rectitude of our trinitarian faith, will be easily inclined to hold the doctrine of old Arius in no higher efteem than the noftrum of a quack, or a fable of the bees. Nature indeed declares, and therefore it must be true, that atheists, deifts, and arians, muft, and can be determined by nothing else than by private opinion and judgment, and have a right to a protection of perfon and property, whilft they behave as peaceable and dutiful fubjects: Yet ftill, if the rights and privileges, liberty and powers, of legiflation fhall be allowed an existence, thefe gentry have no right from or in nature to any fettled and particular places of religious convention, and to public fchools in a chriftian country, and within the bounds of an established trinitarian church; nor can they have a right to publish and propagate their fentiments in a spirit of infallibility, declaring every diffentient to be abfolutely in the wrong, that their arguments carry with them an irrefiftible conviction, and of confequence, that theifts, chriftians, and trinitarians,

must

must be wilful and unconfcientious facrificers of the intereft of truth.'

This may ferve as a specimen of our Author's Christian and tolerating fpirit-hear now part of what he farther fays of us Reviewers :

The Monthly Reviewers have wantonly afferted, that any number of diffenting families have a right, by the plain documents of chriftianity, to choose any perfon to be their minifter, But the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament were never understood by thefe lunary fcribes; and in matters of religion, they may justly be faid to be lunatic fcribes; because, as Mr. Pope has obferved of my Lord Bolingbroke, in things of religious concernment, they are rank triflers; nor during the whole controverfy, have they produced any argument fuperior to the fanciful pomp and fuperftition of a Ruffian

exorcift.'

The Confeffional, the Monthly Reviewers, Lindsey, and Jebb, he fays, are juftly entitled to a fufpicion of not possessing any of the common fenfes of an human body, nor any of the common qualities of an human understanding.

The doctrine of the Trinity, he tells us, is naturally and pertinently deducible from the reason and nature of things, and from the Holy Scriptures of the New Teftament. Part of what he advances on this fubject is as follows:

Whatever is equal to two mutt be two, whatever is equal to three must be three, and whatever is equal to four must be four; and the fame may justly be faid of any feries of numerical deno, minators or reprefentatives. And, in confequence of this position, to be conceded from the reafon and nature of things, fince the Holy Scriptures of the New lellament have declared the Son and Holy Ghoft equal to God, each of them must be God, and therefore we are obliged to believe, acknowledge, and adore, the three different perfons of the holy, bieffed, and glorious trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Gholt. In another view of things, in whatever perfons fhall be allowed to exist all fuch excellencies or perfections as are commonly afcribed to God, each of them must be God; and the confequence mult naturally return to confirm the truth of the three different perfons of the holy trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghoft.'

His notion of Original Sin, he gives us in the following words. By original fin, I mean the feed of inclinations, which is fuppofed to commence with the first period of our existence, to impure and unlawful pleafures, and contidering ourfelves as fubjects of the fupreme government of God, in various inftances, to act wickedly and difobediently. And this feed of inclinations, or fuch inclinations themselves, are declared objects of divine displeasure and wrath; and in the fenfe of a word which is more harth and fevere, they are declared objects of damnation.'

He concludes his Defence in the following manner.

The learned Mr. Jortin, in his preface to Remarks on Ecclefiaftical History, has honoured the most literate or fcientific part of Diffenters, fuch as a Taylor, Abernethy, Chandler, and a Fofter,

with this Latin compliment, Cum tales fint, utinam effent noflri; but the important and fincere duty which I owe to the prefervation of the ecclefiaflical and civil establishments of my country, obligeth me thus to invert the compliment, and no doubt but it will be efteemed highly uncomplaifant by the whole fraternity of feparatifts,--Cum tales fint, gaudeo non effe noftros.'

We need fay no more, furely, of this noble Defence; the extracts we have given will speak for themselves.

ART. IV. An Elegy on the Ancient Greek Model. Addreffed to the Right Reverend Robert Lowth, Lord Bishop of London. Cambridge printed; and fold by T. Payne, London. 4to. I s. 6d.

1779.

W

HATEVER be the modern idea of elegy, it was anciently applied to very different purposes than at prefent. Originally appropriated neither to love or lamentation, it was equally extended to every subject that was confidered as ferious or important: and fo far from being confined to the trifling difplay of amorous impatience, or to reiterate the complaints of funeral forrow, the elegiac mufe not unfrequently

mares animos in martia bella

Verfibus exacuit.

In short, whatever related to the conduct of human life, or the interefts of fociety, was looked upon to come within her province. Hence, the ftrains of elegy, accordingly as the occafion demanded, were political, patriotic, or prudential. Such are the elegies of Solon, and Tyrtæus, and the gruas of Theognis. In imitation of thefe models is written the Elegy before us.

The Writer's object will be beft feen by the following introductory lines:

Mourn! Son of Amos, mourn! in accent fharp
Of angry forrow ftrike thy heav'nly harp.
Mourn! thou fublimeft of the fainted choir!
Thofe lips, that, touch'd with thy cœleftial fire,
Clear'd, from the gather'd clouds of many an age,
The bright'ning flame of thy prophetic rage;
Thofe lips, thro' Learning's facred fphere renown'd,
Have ftain'd their glory by a fervile found.
Envy with ranc'rous joy thefe accents heard,
And dwells with triumph on the fatal word;
Waging against Renown eternal wars,
Thus fhe infults the merit she abhors:

"How has the radiance of the mitre ceas'd!
Oblivion's poppy fhades the proftrate priest:
In dark Servility's expanding cave

Forgotten prelates hail thee from the grave;

See Ifaiah, chap. xiv.

Ó Lucifer!

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