ftate, violently attacked. Our remarks, however, even when fevere, will not be made with bitterness, nor urged, as many of his own reflections are on the diftinguished writers abovementioned, with ill-beftowed raillery, or harth invective.

The doctrine of the infallibility, or, as this book foftens down the expreffion, the indefectability of the Roman Catholic Church, of which Mr. Plowden is a ftrenuous defender (and indeed it is the neceffary refult of his adherence to that Church, fince he himself ftyles it the groundwork of their faith," p. 217) is his principal stumbling-block throughout the progrefs of his laboured investigation; and all the nice diftinctions and fubtleties, in which both as a profeffional, and as a political writer, he is fo profoundly verfed, avail not occasionally to fave him from thofe inconfiftencies which muft inevitably attend exertions to fupport doctrines fo utterly repugnant as this infallibility, and his favourite, and often not very tempe rate, Whiggifin. The objects to which they refpectively and ultimately tend, are as remote as poffible from each other; and though, with great ingenuity and fome fuccefs, he has laboured to perfuade the members of his Church that, in a moderate degree, they may be united in the fame mind, yet he well knows, that no fmall facrifice of deep and rooted prejudices, must be made by him who harbours in his breast two fuch oppofite and jarring principles. But to be more particular in regard to the contents of this long book, which alone runs out to the enormous extent of above 300 quarto pages.

The book is thus entitled-Of the civil Etablishment of the Epifcopalian Proteftant Religion in England; and, in the short introduction prefixed to it, the writer informs us that his enquiries will be directed to the confideration of three principal objects, the ecclefiaftical revenue, or property, ecclefiaftical courts, and the king's fupremacy.

In confidering the revenues, or property of the church, the author enters at large upon the fubject of tythes, the payment of which (though he allows it to have been established under the Jewish law by divine command, as a proper fupport for that facred order, who were to devote their time and attention to fpiritual concerns alone) he is of opinion is by no means exprefsly enjoined by any precept of the New Teftament, but that the prefent practice of paying them can alone be supported by arguments of analogy and expediency, p. 307. On this point, however, as in most others difcuffed in this book, our fentiments widely differ from thofe of this writer; for we conceive, that by various paffages difperfed throughout the Gofpels, and the Epistles of St. Paul, the injunctions of the Levitical

Law

Law in this refpect are virtually confirmed and sanctioned; and that not a defultory and precarious, but a certain and permanent fupport for the ministers of the Chriftian Church, was intended to form a part of its divine œconomy. If the Lord ordained, as St. Paul afferts, 1 Cor. ix. 14, that they who preach the Gofpel fhould live of the Gofpel; if it be reasonable that they, who Jow Spiritual things, should reap carnal things; that those who minifter at the altar, fhould live of the altar; expreffions of this nature muft furely point to a permanent, appropriated, ecclefiaftical revenue, or fome very diftinguifhed writers have, in their commentaries, greatly mistaken the sense of the facred records. The practice of the ages nearest the times of the apostles, and the opinions of the fathers, uniformly support the interpretation for which we contend. The infant ftate of the church, and the fmallness of the numbers that compofed it at the first publication of the Gospel, did not require from Christ and his apostles any more explicit and direct instructions on this head. When thofe numbers greatly increased, and its fublime doctrines began to be univerfally diffufed through Asia and Europe, its governors became neceffarily invested with more ample authority, and more extenfive revenues. the very commencement of Chriftianity its numbers had but, one heart and one foul, and not any of them faid that of the things, which he poffeffed, any thing was his own, but all things were in common to them, Acts iv. 34, furely the fame ardent zeal would animate its votaries, in fubfequent ages, to contribute a tenth of their property to the comfortable maintenance of their aged and pious paftors. To fuppofe the contrary would be unjuft, to thofe who relinquished friends and fortune in the caufe of their Redeemer, and cheerfully afcended the fatal pile, to partake the honours of martyrdom.

If at

It is the favourite maxim of this author, that the fpiritual and civil power are, and ought to be, entirely diftinet; yet he feems to forget that, in a passage cited by us in a former review, he derives both from one fupreme fource, namely, from God; that the civil power was originally established to curb and punish thofe offenders whom the laws of God and of confcience, had no power to reftrain from infringing upon the rights and property of their fellow-creatures, united in the bands of focial harmony. How then are they thus neceffarily unconnected? And how is it confiftent with the Catholic principles profeffed in this work, to contend that they are fo? We cannot but fufpe& that the real foundation of such ftrenuous arguments for the Church's poffeffing no property, but what it derives from the civil power, voluntarily beftowed, and which

3

confequently

confequently that power, when it pleafes to exert itself, has a right to refume, muft exift in principles too fimilar to thofe which tore, with remorfelefs fury, from the plundered and beggared clergy of France, property that had defcended, unviolated, down to them, through fucceffive ages; property guaranteed by all the authority of law, and all the fanctions of religion. We are far from imputing to this author any wish to promote in this country defigns fo criminal, or to juftify guilt fo atrocious; but he must know that fome of the doctrines laid down in his third book have an ultimate tendency to renew in Europe those scenes of carnage and horror which have difgraced and ruined one of its fineft kingdoms. In times thus critical, he ought, at least, both as a loyal Catholic, and as a profeffional man, to have written with more referve and delicacy, on a point extremely hazardous, and, at beft, greatly difputed; and it would have become him, before he fo ftrongly charged Mr. Burke, as he does in page 313, with deferting "the principles of reafon and confiftency," to confider how inconfiftent, to his own fect, that man must appear, who contends at once for the infallibility of his church, and yet not only gives up privileges which it efteems among the molt valuable, but is an advocate for fome of those doctrines which have an evident tendency to fubvert both Church and State; and who, while he ftands fo prominently forward in favour of the Whig principles which brought about the revolution, feems to have forgotten that, by thofe very principles, the effence of popery was deftroyed, and the Catholic religion for ever banished from the throne. We mention thefe circumftances merely to fhow how cautious those who make an attack should be, left, while they direct their artillery against another's well-earned reputation, their own claims to praife, on the ground of reason and confiftency, fhould not be founded on the firmeft bafis.

With refpect to the point in debate, the right of the State, upon great national emergencies, to apply to its ufe, or to affume, the revenues of the Church, notwithstanding all the ingenious legal arguments of our author, who difcuffes it with laboured attention, we can by no means admit that right to be fubftantiated; we ftill heartily agree with Mr. Burke, in thinking that the ecclefiaftical revenue (appropriated to the nobleft of purposes, the fupport of that public worthip of the Deity, which is the fureft means of preferving, unviolated, the national morals, and tends alfo to the cultivation of fcience, and the maintenance, in decent independance, of a body of virtuous and learned men) is, to all intents and purposes, private property, fanctioned

९.

and

142

:

and guarded, like all other property, by the exifting laws and the public faith of this ancient and established fund, we repeat with Mr. Burke," that the State is not the proprietor, either for ufe or dominion, but the guardian only, and the regulator."

The greater part of the third chapter of this final book, is devoted to the confideration of the Teft Law, against which the author violently declaims, as an oppreffive ordinance, equally impolitic and abfurd, and as preventing millions of loyal fubjects from being ufeful to the State, in times moft difaftrous and dangerous, when every nerve fhould be exerted, and every hand armed for its defence. P. 341. A violent attack then follows upon Bishop Warburton's celebrated treatife on the alliance between Church and State; the fubject of fubfcription to the thirty-nine articles is next difcuffed; and Archdeacon Paley, for his liberal and rational fentiments on that head, falls under the lafh of our political theologue,. who will not allow to Proteftants that latitude of judging and thinking in which every Catholic who takes the oath of allegiance appointed for them, upon the Whig principles of the revolution, muft, and undoubtedly does, indulge hiinfelf.

In regard to the Teft Act, we declare ourfelves to be of the number of thofe here anathematized, who think a national eftablishment of religion, upon fixed principles, fupported with all the authority of the temporal power, and intimately connected with it, to be a grand and neceffary effort of human policy. We cordially approve, and efpecially in times like thefe, of a Teft, to evince the principles of those who hold places of diftinction, truft, and emolument, under a government thus regulated; and, with respect to Warburton's production, though we do not in all points affent to it, we have ever considered it as one of the noblest efforts of ge"as one of the nius; and, to ufe Bithop Horfley's words, fineft fpecimens that are to be found in any language of fcientific reafoning, applied to a political fubject." Our author first denies the bithop's affertion, that Atheism and Deifm properly come under the jurifdiction of the civil magiftrate. In a country where Chriftianity is established by law, we are, at leaft, of opinion that they ought, and a Chriftian writer, of whatever denomination, makes but an indifferent figure, when he pleads for the toleration of offences that strike at the very exiftence of fociety; for the firft fubverts the grand principle of all religion, natural and revealed, the very being of a God; the fecond aims to take from us the benefit of his governing providence. All the logic, therefore, of our author cannot

difprove

difprove Warburton's propofition, on which the argument was built, that the Atheist and the Deist are, in fact, the basest of affaffins, and confequently no better than criminals in the eye of every fyftem that has religion for its bafis. Warburton properly confidered the religion and policy of a state radically as infeparably allied; a determination to support, at all hazards, a contrary fyftem, does not permit our author to perceive the force of his arguments, or admit the juftness of his decifions.

Mr. Plowden next enters into an investigation of the merits of the refpective fyftems of Warburton and Rouffeau, which, however differently founded, according to the refpective opinions adopted and fupported by thofe authors, he endeavours to prove are equally falfe in their principles, and defective in their conclufions. Great legal erudition, nicety of difcrimination, and acutenefs of argument, are occafionally fhown in the courfe of this difcuffion; but we neither generally affent to his propofitions, nor can we, with any fatisfaction behold a far inferior writer, difcharging his intemperate cenfure against a character fo diftinguished in the first walk of genius and literature as Warburton. The following extract, in which Mr. P. contrafts the refpective fyftems of these writers, is as fair a fpecimen as can well be given, of the manner in which he treats both the fubject, and the authors in queftion; and it will again prove, that a man, in the eagernefs of fupporting a favourite hypothefis, may fometimes be grofsly guilty of the fame offence of which he accufes another, and in the very page that conveys the charge.

"

"It would fall in too intimately with the dogmatic affurance of the Warburtonian school, were I to treat every perfon, from whofe opinions I differed, with difdain or contempt: and my rank is with those, whom his biographer declares to be incapable of feeling ftrongly, or writing forcibly." P. 121. I think it however my duty to obferve, that the philofophic Citizen of Geneva, J. J. Rouffeau, whom Warburton has treated with fuch contemptuous hauteur, for having faid of him, in his Contrat Social, (1. iv. c. 8.) that " he held Christianity to be the only certain fupport of a body politic;" and that he (Warburton)" had proved, that, from the earliest ages, no ftate had ever been established without having religion for its bafis," in his theory of a Social Contract has wandered lefs wide of truth, and fallen into fewer contradictions and incoherences, than the chimerical projector of the Alliance between Church and State. The principles upon which both thefe philofophers have erected their different theories, appear to me to have been falfe: and it would be a difficult talk to decide, whether the Bishop or the Citizen had advanced the more untruths about the revealed law of Chrift, and the government of his

church.