ocean, for a certain length of time, it will be well with him indeed, if its troubled waters float him not at laft, when his ftrength is fpent, to the dreary fhores of Atheism. For, if a man, who has once believed in God, can but be brought to waver and doubt in that belief; the end will generally be, that there will be no God for him. To bring mankind in general, flily and unawares, to this state, was the object of the Encyclopedie.

"The other inftance I would mention, of fcience preffed into the caufe of irreligion, is a work of the Marquis de Condorcet; a profound Mathematician, but a moft hardened Atheist, and, as Atheists always are, an enemy to all moral order. This wretch, a few years before the French Revolution, compofed a work of deep erudition in the Doctrine of Chances; in which Problems of great curiofity and great difficulty were fuccefsfully difcuffed. But the Book, befides its vifible fcientific purport, had a latent moral object; and this was, to infinuate an opinion, that there is no fuch thing as Certainty; confequently, no fuch thing as Truth: that verifimilitude (or probability) is the utmost to which we can attain; and that the only ftandard of verifimilitude is a majority of fuffrages. For this problem was the profeffed fubject of the book, To estimate the probability of right decifion by the majority of votes in popular affemblies."

Moft juft is the following obfervation, and most earnestly do we pray that it may meet with the attention which it fo

richly deferves.

"The phrenzy, which has feized the French, is of that nature, that it must be expected to spread, wherever it is not encountered by the most determined energies of Government, and by a great strength of found religious principle in private life. All will be loft (for a feafon at leaft) where the government is patient and paffive; or, which is more immediately your concern, my Reverend Brethren, where individuals are lukewarm, and, most of all, where the Minifters of the Gospel are remifs and negligent.”

We trust that the following remarks upon an apology, which we have ourselves frequently heard offered for the atrocious conduct of the French regicides to their clergy, will have a proper effect upon thofe who have been accustomed to offer it; we do not expect it will undeceive them; for we are perfuaded they were never deceived; but we hope that it will, at leaft, make them filent, by the natural operation of shame, combined with the certainty of exposure.

"A fecond remark I have to make upon the French business is, that the apology, which is fometimes attempted for the French Atheists, and may pats too eafily upon perfons of fuperficial information and weak difcernment, that their enmity againft the religion of their country was excited by a juft abhorrence of the corruptions of

the

the Church of Rome; that they were no enemies to the Gofpel in its purity, and have even rendered service to true religion by their fuccefsfal oppofition, as I have heard it faid, to intolerance and fuperftition; is a most unfounded falfe affertion. The real object of the fettled averfion of the Atheistical confpiracy was nothing that is erroneous and exceptionable in Popery: it was every thing that is good, amiable, and holy in Christianity. They railed, it is true, at Superftition. But Religion and Superftition in their phrafeology were fynonyms; and Religion was the real object of their abufe. They talked in raptures of univerfal toleration. But what they meant by the word, as appears by their confidential explanations to one another, was neither more or lefs, than the facrilegious project of feizing upon all property fet apart for the maintenance of any established church of any form, or of any religious inftitution.. Had the twelve Apotles been living upon earth, and preaching the Gofpel in France, in the times of Voltaire, D'Alembert, and Diderot; the twelve Apotles, as they would have exceeded all other Clergy in the energy of their preaching, and the fanctity of their lives, would have incurred, more than any other Clergy, the reproach and infult of thofe Children of

Hell.

"The proofs of this heavy accufation are easily to be drawn from the principles avowed in their publications, from the fentiments expreffed in their familiar epistles, and from every step in their conduct. What are the opprobious names, which Voltaire beftows upon Christ himself*, and upon the holy Apoftles +? Such, my Brethren, as I cannot repeat, nor could you hear without horror. What are the maxims, which we find in the works of his favourite difciples? The univerfal caufe,' fays one, that God of the Philofophers, the Jews, and the Chriftians, is nothing more than a chimera and a phantom.' The wonders of Nature,' fays another, far from proclaiming a God, are but the neceffary effects of matter prodigioufly diverfified." -There are no means of knowing,' fays a third, whether there be or be not a God. No means of knowing whether there be any difference between good and evil. The immortality of the foul,' fays a fourth, is a dogma of barbarians, gloomy, ditheartening, and contrary to all legiilation.'- Virtue and probity,' fays a fifth, in private life, is but the habit of actions perfonally ufeful. Personal intereft is the only and univerfal criterion of the merit of human actions. Modeity in the female fex,' fays the fame grave moralift, is hut an invention of refined voluptuoutnefs, and morals have nothing to fear from the generous paífion of love. Filial piety is more an affair of education, than of nature; and the laws, which enjoin the perpetual cohabitation of man and wife, are barbarous and cruel.'

"Now I afk, upon what principle is this abuse of the Son of God, thefe daring difputations against the very being of a God, these attempts to obliterate the diftinctions of right and wrong, to confound the fair with the ufeful, and to reconcile men to all manner of immo+ " Douze faquins.”

* "L'infame."

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rality,

vality; how are fuch language and fuch maxims to be reconciled with that reverence for the fubftance of pure Chriftianity, which is afcribed to this flagitious junto by their apologifts; when they gravely tell us, that the quarrel was with the abufes of religion, not with religion itself at moft but with Popery, not with Christianity, in the form in which it appears in the Proteftant churches of England, Sweden, Germany, and Geneva ? How is it then that these friends of the reformed churches could find no better name for the faith of the Genevois, but that of the fooleries of John Calvin *? How is it that they never speak of Luther, but in contradiction to the truth of hiftory, and to the evidence of the man's own writings, in which though dead he yet fpeaketh, as a dull ftupid fellow, given up to wine and women? Whence was Voltaire's exultation, in the prof pect of the fall of the Church of England; upon which he feafted his imagination, as the inevitable confequence of the truths, he calls them, propagated in this island by the pen of his brother-blafphemer, Hume? Was all this from pure love of the reformation? And was the offence taken at the worship of the Blessed Virgin in the Church of Rome the motive, with the democracy of apoftate France, to drefs up a ftrumpet in the emblems of the Goddess of Liberty, and, under that title, to pay divine honours to that living idol of their own creation? Was it abhorrence of idolatry, that induced them revive the Pagan rites in the dedication of altars to Liberty and Reafon, and in the ceremonies by which they honour the memory of their dead, while they confign their bodies to eternal fleep? If these things are too abfurd to be believed, the inevitable conclufion must be, that pure genuine Chriftianity is what the impious confederacy would obliterate; which carries us on to this further conclufion, that they will attack it in every shape, and in every place; and for this purpose, indeed, they have their emiffaries in every quarter."

to

Long as our extracts have already been from this excellent Charge, we cannot refift the temptation of extracting one other paffage, though at the risk of incurring an imputation of vanity, from the perfect conformity of the obfervations and the fentiments which it contains with those which we have, at different times, fince the establishment of our work, laboured fo ftrongly to imprefs on the minds of our readers.

"Still the operations of the enemy are going on. Still going on by ftratagem. The ftratagem ftill a pretence of Reformation. But the reformation the very reverfe of what was before attempted. Inftead of divefting religion of its myfteries, and reducing it to a mere philofophy in fpeculation, and to a mere morality in practice; the plan is now to affect a great zeal for orthodoxy ; to make great pretenfions to an extraordinary measure of the

*Les fottifes de Jean Chauvin,”

Holy

Holy Spirit's influence; to alienate the minds of the people from the Established Clergy, by reprefenting them as fordid worldlings; without any concern about the fouls of men; indifferent to the religion which they ought to teach, and to which the laity are attached; and deftitute of the Spirit of God. In many parts of the kingdom new conventicles have been opened in great number, and congregations formed of one knows not what denomination. The pastor is often, in appearance at leaft, an illiterate peasant, or mechanic. The congregation is vifited occafionally by preachers from a distance. Sundayschools are opened in connection with these conventicles. There is much reason to fufpect, that the expences of these schools and conventicles are defrayed by affociations formed in different places. For the preachers and schoolmafters are obferved to engage in expences, for the fupport and advancement of their inftitutions, to which, if we may judge from appearance, their own means must be altogether inadequate. The poor are even bribed, by small pecuniary gifts from time to time, to fend their children to these schools of they know not what, rather than to thofe connected with the Established Church, in which they would be bred in the principles of true religion and loyalty. It is very remarkable, that these new congregations of non-defcripts have been moftly formed, fince the Jacobins have been laid under the re ftraint of those two most falutary ftatutes, commonly known by the names of the Sedition and the Treafon Bill. A circumstance which gives much ground for fufpicion, that Sedition and Atheism are the real objects of thefe inftitutions, rather than religion. Indeed, in fome places this is known to be the cafe. In one topic the teachers of all these congregations agree; abufe of the Established Clergy, as negligent of their flocks, cold in their preaching, and deftitute of the Spirit. In this they are joined by perfons of a very different caft whom a candour, of which they on their part fet but a poor example, is unwilling to fufpect of any ill defign; though it is difficult to acquit them of the imputation of an indifcretion in their zeal, which, in its confequences, may be productive of mifchief very remote, I believe, from their intentions. It is a dreadful aggravation of the dangers of the prefent crifis in this country, that persons of real piety fhould, without knowing it, be lending their aid to the common enemy, and making themfelves in effect accomplices in a confpiracy against the Lord, and against his Chrift. The Jacobins of this country, I very much fear, are, at this moment, making a tool of Methodism, juft as the illuminèes of Bavaria made a tool of Freemasonry; while the real Methodist, like the real Free-mafon, is kept in utter ignorance of the wicked enterprize the counterfeit has in hand.

"What measures it may become the wifdom of the Legislature to adopt, to ftop the progrefs of this growing evil, is a point upon which I fhall not touch in this affembly. The queftion, my Brethren, for your confideration, is what affiftance the Church of God has a right to expect from you: much she has a right to expect, for much may be done by you, in your proper character (a character of great public

X 3

utility

utility and of high dignity, when it is well fuftained) of Patih Priefts."

The advice to the Clergy which follows this paffage is moft excellent. If pursued it cannot but produce the most beneficial effects. On the fubject of Sunday Schools, as, indeed, on most other subjects, the fentiments of this learned prelate, are perfectly confonant with our own. They are "Inftitutions that may be very beneficial, or very pernicious, according as they are well or ill conducted, and according as they are placed in proper or improper hands." The concluding admonitions on the fubject of fchifm, and the remarks on the proper mode of preaching, cannot be too often nor too generally perufed. If there be any thing on which we do not perfectly agree with the Bifhop, it is in his recommendation to avoid the dark fubject of predeftination and election,” and the unqualified praife of Calvin. His Lordship cannot be ignorant of the bad purposes to which the Methodists have perverted these doctrines, and of the clamour which they have endeavoured to raise against the regular Clergy by their grofs misrepresentation and perverfion of them; and if the Clergy were wholly to abftain from all difcuffion of these questions, how are the ill effects of fuch misreprefentation and perverfion to be prevented?-Truly, however, does his Lordship obferve, that there is a fubject 86 upon which the people of this country in general much want good teaching."

"I mean the nature of the Church, the neceffity of Church Communion, and the danger of Schifm. Upon these points I know nothing fo well calculated for general edification, as a tract, intituled, "An Effay on the Church," by the late Reverend William Jones, fome time of Pluckley, in this county, but laft of Nayland, in Suffolk. It has lately been re-published, in a fmall fize, and at a cheap rate, by the Society for Promoting Chriftian Knowledge, of which the author had been many years a most useful member. Of that faithful fervant of God I can fpeak, both from perfonal knowledge, and from his writings. He was a man of quick penetration, of extenfive learning, and the foundeft piety. And he had, beyond any other man I ever knew, the talent of writing upon the deepeft fubjects to the plaineft understandings. He is gone to his reft, and his works, we truft, follow him. His Catholic Doctrine of the Trinity, and this Effay on the Church, cannot have too wide a circulation."

Having quoted fo largely from the book, and having thereby afforded our readers fo fair an opportunity of judging for themfelves, nothing remains for us to add, but ftrenuously to recommend it to general perufal.

ART.