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would be the greateft poffible benefit to the natives. III. That, to establish the civil power in the Eaft-Indies on a regular, efficacious, and permanent footing, the Governor's office fhould be new modelled, and accurately defined-that a general fuperintending government should be established, refident (according to the late Lord Clive's ideas) not at Calcutta, but at Muxudabad, whofe authority fhould be without fpecific reftraint;-that the Governor fhould be invested with a power of putting a negative upon the proceedings of his Council;-and that not needy adventurers, but men of reputation, ability, and connection, fhould be placed at once in the higher ftations of the government in India: this would give strength and confiftency to the whole British Government in Afia, and probably prevent the renewal of thofe deftructive fcenes, which have exposed us to the contemptuous hatred of the natives, and the ridi-' cule of Europe. IV. That juftice fhould be administered where the natives are interested, without a rigid adherence to the forms of English law, and the Supreme Court be at liberty to act rather as arbitrators than as lawyers.

These points, with fome others nearly connected with them, our Author difcuffes with much good fenfe and precifion. As they are points which will merit particular attention, when the affairs of the EastIndies come under the confideration of the Legiflature, this publication is extremely feasonable, and may be of great utility.

SCHOOL-BOO K.

Art. 36. A Practical Grammar of the French Language. By N. Wanoftrocht. 12mo. 2 s. Johnfon, &c.

1780.

To prevent the inconvenience, in teaching, of referring from book to book, this Author has undertaken to comprife in one volume the effential elements of the French language, with fuch exercifes as are neceffary in acquiring a facility of writing and fpeaking it and he has, in our opinion, executed the defign very fuccefsfully; with the material advantage of having a more perfect knowledge of the English language, than commonly falls to the lot of French teachers.

PAMPHLETS on the POPISH BILL.

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Art. 37. A Letter to a Diffenting Minifter, containing Remarks on the late Act for the Relief of his Majefty's Subjects, profefling, the Popish Religion, with fome Strictures on the Appeal from the. Proteftant Affociation to the People of Great Britain; alfo, Extracts from feveral Acts of Parliament; with a Brief State of the Penal Law, as it now ftands, fhowing, that neither Popish Priests. nor School Mafters are legally tolerated in exercising any Part of their Functions; and recommending Christian Charity and Forbearance towards all the peaceable Worhippers of God. By a Lay Diffenter. 8vo. 6 d. Nicoll. 1780.

This very copious title fufficiently expreffes the defign of this well, intended and judicious pamphlet.

It is with particular pleafure that we prefent our Readers with the. following extract: I am glad, Sir, to find, that the applications, which the Affociation have made to the feveral Diffenting congregations in and abour London, have met with that contempt which the pernicious views of the leading affociators deferve. Some minifters, have indeed joined them, and feveral of the laity have contributed

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to their defigns by their names and by their money; but almoft all the regular Diffenting minifters, with much the greater part of their congregations, have behaved as good fubjects, and done real honour to the Proteftant caufe.'-We have obferved with indignation and difdain, the malignant but impotent attempts of fome Newspaper fcribblers, to fix a foul opprobrium on the Diffenters, by charging to their account the caufe of the late riots in the capital. The charge was as falfe as it was invidious, and could gain no credit, unless amongst a fet of men whose bigotry having clouded their understandings, left them the fport of a fenfelefs credulity. To calumniate a whole body for the misconduct of a few, is grossly illiberal: and we cannot avoid remarking, that the members of the Church of England will on this partial mode of judgment condemn the very cause they are fo zealous to fupport, for the measure which they mete will be measured to them again,' Our intereft in particular, as well as common justice, concur to prove, that "all mankind's concern is CHARITY."

Art. 38. A Reply to an Appeal from the Proteftant Affociation, to the People of Great Britain, &c. wherein the fallacious Arguments of that Pamphlet are fufficiently expofed, and candidly refuted. 8vo. 6d. Dilly. 1780.

The Author is a warm advocate for the late bill in favour of the Roman Catholics. He writes with spirit, and reasons with much fhrewdness.

We imagine, indeed, that we perceive fome little predilection for Popery in this performance, though the Author ftrongly difavows the character of a Papift. Let me not (fays he) be thought a Papist, pleading the cause of popery, for I am a Proteftant, jealous of my civ and religious liberties, and profess myself a Christian.'

Zealous Proteftants have been very load in their declamations, against one of the most enormous corruptions of the Romish Church, viz. the exaction of pecuniary fees for certain crimes committed by its members, according to a rate established by the Conclave at which the Pontiff prefided. This matter, according to the Author of the prefent Keply, hath been moft grofsly mifreprefented by Proteftant writers; and he confiders it as a duty incumbent on him, as a man not bigotted to any party, to fet this circumftance in a fair and impartial fight,

At a grand conclave, held in Rome, at which the Pope prefided, it was taken into confideration, to curb the wickedness of men by fome wholesome check, exclufive of the civil power. The doctrine of confeffion was already fo fufficiently established, that few ever omitted to acknowledge before the priest the crimes of which they had been guilty. It was, therefore, by them confidered, that certain fees, levied by the Confeffor, upon the crimes and follies of mankind, would be ferviceable to their morals, while it would produce a revenue to the state, infinitely fuperior to any poll-tax ever levied ; and accordingly an edict paffed to that intent. But the act of confeffion, or of receiving abfolution, by no means exempted the guilty perfon from the punishment incurred by his crimes from the civil law. It was only this: The perfon guilty came to his confeffor to relieve his confcience of a burden: the holy Father injoined him penance and repentance for his fins: and if he had robbed, cheated, or defrauded,

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or any way deceived his neighbour, ftraightway to make him reparation, and pay the fees established by the church and if he repented him fincerely of the crime, then, in the name of God, does he abfolve him. But this man coming forth from his confeffor, being fufpected or accufed, might, and ftill may be arrested by the civil power, and tried, and if found guilty, punished or executed as the law fhould direct; whether the crime committed be towards a Papilt or a Heretic. The abfurdity of concluding, that abfolution was an exemption from the civil law, and at any time to be obtained for the trivial gratuity of a few thillings, is fo contrary to all common sense and reason, that it is fcarcely credible that any one can be fo weak as to credit it. What would become of that state where every enormity could be committed under the protection of, and fkreened from justice by, a purchased absolution? It could not fubfist a twelvemonth. All would be anarchy and confufion; for of what ufe would be the civil law if fubject to the controul of religious tenets acting in oppofition to its doctrine ?'

This reprefentation of the matter is very plaufible in a merely political view of it :-but we think, it will not be quite fatisfactory to thofe Proteftants who confider ALL abfolutions by priefts as prefumptuous and invalid-all pecuniary mulets as totally inconfiftent with the defign and end of the Chriftian inftitution; and the pretence, on which the practice of exacting them is founded, as a mere artifice of prieftcraft, and one fcandalous and pernicious effect of an ufurped authority over the consciences of mankind.

A trivial gratuity of a few fhillings,' paid to the priest in private, will go but a little way in curbing the wickedness of men ;' and inflead of proving a wholesome check,' will, in our opinion, be rather an encouragement to vice-especially that which comes not under the cognisance of the civil power. The paying it, indeed, may relieve confcience of a burden,' and when it can be relieved. fo cafily, we fear it will make little scruple to avoid a fresh burden. RELIGIOUS and CONTROVERSIAL. Art. 39. A farther Inquiry into the Cafe of the Gospel Demoniacs. Occasioned by Mr. Farmer's Letters on the Subject. By William? Worthington, D. D. 8vo. 4 s. fewed. Rivington, &c. 1779. We find so much to cenfure, and so little to commend, in this last publication of a deceased Writer, that, for the fake of his reputation, we could willingly pass it over in filence: but this would be incompatible with the nature of our undertaking. The maxim, Nil de mortuis, nifi bonum, is not binding upon Reviewers. We owe it to the Public to give a just character of every performance that comes before us; and if the Author have discovered a bad spirit, it is our duty to reprove and condemn it, even though death may have placed him beyond the reach of our censures.

In our account of Dr. Worthington's former publication on the cafe of the Gospel demoniacs *, we noticed and cenfured the weaknefs of his arguments, and the difingenuity and illiberality of his reprefentations and reflections. The prefent work is equally deficient in judgment and candour. The Doctor appears to have set about it

• See Review, vol. lvii. p. 389.

with a mind full of refentment against Mr. Farmer, and with a determination to treat him with feverity and rudeness. We looked in vain for the " new matter" which he promises at the beginning. We found little more than a continued petitio principii, and a perpetual train of grofs mistakes and mifreprefentations, intermixed with low and illiberal reflections. They who deny the reality of demoniacal poffeffions are ftill fufpected of disbelieving the perfonality and divinity of the Holy Ghoft: it is ftill thought matter of ferious confideration, whether the fpeaking a word against Chrift's cafting out devils by the Spirit of God, be not fpeaking against him, and that Divine Spirit too.' Pomponatius and Bekker are ftill ranked among irreligious and atheistical writers. Dr. Worthington acknowledges that he never faw Bekker's work, but upon the credit of fome name. lefs perfon he pronounces it a very moderate performance, and intimates, without the fhadow of proof, that Mr. Farmer may have been obliged to him both for argument, and for fome quotations from the ancients.' The Doctor ftill afferts, that the devil's entering into Judas, after the fop, confirms the opinion that evil fpirits conveyed themselves into men's bodies at meals, and that Simon Magus faw evil fpirits forced out of the bodies of men in a public manner; and ftill charges Mr. Farmer with countenancing the notion, that it is lawful to profefs one thing and believe another, and with undermining the doctrine of a future ftate. We are forry that Dr. Worthington paid fo little regard to the friendly counfel we gave him at the clofe of our remarks on Mr. Farmer's Letters *. It is to be regretted that a Writer, who had acquired a reputation for benevolence and candour by his earlier performances, fhould difcover fuch a bigotted and uncharitable difpofition in his laft publications. But fuch is the effect of a fond attachment to fyftem, and of an unbridled zeal for indefenfible opinions!

Art. 40. Two Sermons, preached at Norwich. By Samuel Parr, A. M. 4to. 1 s. 6d. Norwich, printed. London, fold by.. Baldwin, &c. 1780.

Thefe difcourfes are published by request. The Author fpeaks of. them with much diffidence; but they are fenfible and judicious performances. In the first, from Gal. iv. 4. he treats of the time of our Saviour's appearance, and in a ftrain of clofe and calm reafoning endeavours to obviate fome objections, which have been offered. His. remarks are worthy of the Reader's ferious attention, though they do not properly admit of extracts. Thofe who are much facquainted, with thefe fubjects will fometimes think of Butler's Analogy, to which performance the Preacher alfo directs us. The fecond fermon. was delivered on a charitable occafion, from Hebrews, xiii. 16. It is peculiarly defigned to defend the utility and importance of charitySchools, and break the force of fome objections against them, which: Fobferves this writer] have grown up, I fear, to popularity, among berfons of captious tempers and fhallow understandings.The laft words of this fentence are, we apprehend, rather harth, and not entirely congruous to the Author's general ftrain of expreffion; but the dif

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courfo is full of good sense and argument, and evinces the Preacher's humanity and piety.

Art. 41. The Foundery Budget opened; or, the Arcanum of Wesleyanifm difclofed. By John Macgowan. 8vo. 9 d. Keith, &c. 1780.

Mr. Macgowan, one of Mr. Wefley's most potent antagonists of the present day, zealously attacks the peculiar doctrines of the Foundery. Those who wish to know what are the modes of faith, &c. for which Mr. Macgowan contends, may be referred to this tract,—to his Dialogues of Devils,-to his Familiar Epiftles to Dr. Prie ley,-his Socinianifm brought to the Teft,-his Death, a Vifion,-his Shaver's Sermon on the Oxford expulfion (12th edition)-his Life of Joseph, &c. &c.-Or, they may refort, for farther fatisfaction, to his meetinghouse in Devonshire Square; which muft, no doubt, be a fafer and furer way to heaven, than through Moorfields, by the Foundery.

SERMONS.

I. National Calamities founded in national Diffention and Diffipation. Preached on the late General Faft. By William Hunter, A. M. Minifter of St. Paul's Liverpool, and Fellow of Brazen Nofe College, Oxford. 4to. I S. Cadell.

Profeffus grandia, turget.

"Heady, not trong, and foaming, but not full."

The Preacher hath in this fermon very well illuftrated that fpecies of the bombast which the Roman and English fatirifts have made the fubject of their ridicule in the above lines.

The rage of this difcourfe is foamed out moft unmercifully against the fecret intrigues and fubdolous machinations of the confederated republican faction?- the feditious demagogue and envious Prefbyter'

the hydra-headed monfter, which now affumes every fhape, and explores various regions to rob us of our civil and religious rightsagainst those who had breathed a poisonous air in the bogs of a Leyden or Geneva, where every whole fome confideration, whether natural or moral, for native foil and clime, were counteracted, ftupified and drowned.'-But the venom of this frothy difcourfe is mixed up by Mr. Hunter for Sir William Howe and Admiral Keppel much more abundantly. Nevertheless, as he prepared it in his wrath, and fcatters it about in his fore difpleafure, friends as well as foes may be injured by it; and on, that account we think it prudent to retire for our own fafety.

II. Preached at York on the 29th of March, 1780, for the Benefit of the Lunatic Afylum. By James Scott, D. D. Rector of Simonburn, and late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. 4to. 1 s. Cadell.

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This truly fenfible and benevolent difcourfe does equal credit to the understanding and difpofition of the Author. Its object is fo humane, that every generous heart muft with it the greatest fuccefs: and Dr. Scott hath pleaded its caufe with fuch found judgment, and unaffected eloquence, that we think the coldest hearts must take fome hare in its intereft.

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