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them in the affairs they managed; that, on fome occafions, their prudence failed them, and their virtue, on others; that their counfels and measures were conducted, at times, with too little honesty, or too much paffion? Yet, you will in vain look for any thing of this fort in their large and particular hiftories. All is candid and fair, judicious and well-advifed: every thing fpeaks the virtuous man, and able commander. The obnoxious paffages are either fuppreffed, or they are turned in fuch a way as to do honour to their relaters.

Or, take another inftance. When Cicero had offended against the capital law of his moral code, that which enjoined the love of his country; first, by his backwardness to join the camp of Pompey, and, afterwards, by his prompt fubmiflion to the tyranny of Cæfar; what is the conduct of the illuftrious Roman patriot, on this preffing occafion? Does he frankly condemn thofe falfe fteps, or does he content himself with a fimple relation of them? Neither of thefe things; he foftens and difguifes the truth; he employs all his wit and eloquence to palliate this inglorious defertion of his principles, to himfelf and others.

I might add many other examples. But ye fee, in these, a ftriking contrast to the ingenuity of the facred writers. They ftudy no arts of evasion or concealment. They proclaim their own faults, and even vices, to all the world. One, acknowledges himself to have been a furious bigot, a perfecutor, and blafphemer: another, relates his own cowardice, ingratitude, and treachery. There is nothing like a concert between them to cover each other's defects: they expofe the vindictive zeal of one; the intolerant fpirit of others; the felfish intrigues of all. In a word, they give up their moral character to the fcorn and cenfure of their readers, and appear folicitous for nothing but the honour of their Mailer-They preach not themselves, but the Lord Jefus Chrift.'

The eighth and ninth Sermons are ingenious and inftructive difcourfes, from the following paffages of ScriptureThe poor have the Gospel preached unto them-and-In my Father's houfe are many manfions: if it were not fo, I would have told you.

In the tenth Sermon, his Lordfhip confiders our Saviour's promife of the Spirit to his difciples, in the following words, John xvi. 12, 13-I have yet many things to fay unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit, when he, the Spirit of Truth, fhall come, he will guide you into all truth, &c.-In the eleventh, he fhews, from thefe words-Ye men of Galilee, why and ye gazing up into Heaven, &c. that the true wifdom of Chriftians confifts in adverting to the moral and practical uses of their religion, inftead of indulging fubtle, anxious, and unprofitable fpeculations concerning the articles of it; fuch especially as are too high, or too arduous for them; fuch, as they have no real interest in confidering, and have no faculties to comprehend. His Lordship enforces this confideration, by applying it to the cafe of fuch perfons, and especially of fuch Chriftians, as have been, at all times, but too ready to facrifice conduct to fpeculation; to neglect the ends of religious doctrines, while they

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bufy themselves in nice and fruitlefs, and (therefore, if for no other reafon) pernicious inquiries into the grounds and reasons of them.

In the days of ancient Paganifm, he obferves, that two points, in which religion was concerned, chiefly engaged the attention of their wife men; GOD, and the HUMAN SOUL: interefting topics both; and the more neceffary to be well confidered, because those wife men had little or no light on those subjects, but what their own reafon might be able to ftrike out for them. And, had they been contented to derive, his Lordship fays, from the ftudy of God's works, all that may be known of him, by natural reafon, his eternal power and Godhead, and had then glorified him with fuch a worship, as that knowledge obviously fuggefted; or, had they, by adverting to their own internal conftitution, deduced the fpirituality of the foul, together with its free, moral, and accountable nature, and then had built on thefe principles the expectation of a future life, and a conduct in this, fuitable to fuch an expectation; had they proceeded thus far in their inquiries, and ftopped here; who could have blamed, or, rather, who would not have been ready to applaud their interefting fpeculations. But, when, instead of this reasonable ufe of their understanding in religious matters, they were more curious to investigate the eflence of the Infinite Mind, than to eftablish just notions of his moral attributes; and to define the nature of the human foul, than to ftudy its moral faculties; their metaphyfics became prefumptuous and abominable: they reafoned themselves out of a fuperintending Providence in this world, and out of all hope in a future; they refolved God into Fate, or excluded him from the care of his own creation, and fo made the worship of him a matter of policy, and not of confcience; while, at the fame time, they difmiffed the foul into air, or into the spirit of the world; either extinguishing its fubftance, or ftripping it of individual confcioufnefs; and fo, in either way, fet afide the concern, which it might be fuppofed to have in a future ftate, to the fubverfion of all morality, as well as of religion.

Such was the fruit of Pagan ingenuity! The philofophers kept gazing upon God, and the foul, till they loft all juft and ufeful conceptions of either: and thus, as St. Paul fays, they became vain in their imaginations; and their foolish heart was darkened.

If from the Grecian, continues his Lordship, we turn to the oriental, and what is called barbaric philofophy, what portentous dreams do we find about angels and fpirits, or of two oppofite principles, contending for maftery in this fublunary world; ingeniouly fpun out into I know not what fantastic conclufions, which annihilate all fober piety, or fubvert the plainelt dictates of moral duty. So

true

true is it of all prefumptuous inquirers into the invisible things of God, that proffing themselves wife, they become fool!

But thofe extravagancies of the heathen world deserve our pity, and may admit of fome excufe. The worst is, that, when Heaven had revealed of itfelf what it faw fit, this irreverent humour of fearching into the deep things of God was not cured, but, indeed, carried to a greater, if poffible, at leaft to a more criminal excefs; as I fhall now fhew in a flight sketch of the mischiefs, which have arifen from this audacious treatment even of the divine word.'

It would give us pleasure to lay before our Readers the whole of what his Lordship advances upon this curious and interefting subject; but we must content ourselves with referring them to the Sermon itself, which does honour to the Preacher's learning and abilities.

In the twelfth Sermon is fhewn, how very fmall a matter will serve to overpower the strongest evidence of our religion, though propofed with all imaginable advantage to us, when we hate to be reformed, or, for any other reason, have no mind to be convinced of its truth. This ftrange power of prejudice is exemplified in the text-Is not this the carpenter's fon? &c. Matth. xiii. 55, 56.

His Lordship's purpose, in the 13th Sermon, is to prove the reality of demoniac influence upon the mind of men.-That there are angels and fpirits good and bad; that at the head of thefe laft, there is ONE more confiderable and malignant than the reft, who, in the form, or under the name, of a ferpent, was deeply concerned in the fall of man, and whofe head, as the prophetic language is, the Son of man was, one day, to bruife; that this evil fpirit, though that prophecy be in part completed, has not yet received his death's wound, but is ftill permitted, for ends unfearchable to us, and in ways which we cannot particularly explain, to have a certain degree of power in this world, hoftile to its virtue and happiness, and fometimes exerted with too much fuccefs; all this, we are told, is fo clear from Scripture, that no believer, unless he be, firft of all, spoiled by philofophy and vain deceit, can poffibly entertain a doubt of it.--We are far from thinking this doctrine fo clear from Scripture as his Lordship imagines; nor do we think it quite confiftent with candour, to fuppose that no perfon can entertain a doubt of it, unless he be spoiled by philofophy and vain deceit.

The 14th Sermon is a very judicious practical difcourfe: the Preacher thews, very clearly, that the fear of God, or the RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLE, is the proper guide of life. In the fifteenth is fhewn the danger of giving a full feope to the purfuit even of innocent pleafures; and in the 16th, how repugnant the doctrine of the text (Matth. v. 38, 39, 40, 41.) is to that contentious, vindictive, and even fanguinary fpirit, which

prevails

prevails fo much among thofe, who, by a ftrange abuse of language, call themfelves Chriftians.

The 17th and 18th Sermons are a commentary upon Luke ix. 26. Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of Man be afhamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father's, and of the holy angels.

build my church.

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The text to which the two laft Sermons refer, is, the memorable promife made to PETER--On this rock will I church. In the firft of them, his Lordship takes a short view of the moft remarkable of those attacks, which have been made, at different times, on the Church of Chrift, and fhews how conftantly and fuccefsfully they have been repelled. The fecond contains a flight sketch of the trials to which Christianity has been expofed, from the improved reafon of ancient and modern times, and of the effect, which thofe trials appear to have had on the credit and reception of that religion.

His Lordship obferves, that, from the Reformation to the prefent time, the Chriftian religion has been the first and last object of attention; that it has been examined with the most fufpicious and fceptical curiofity; that it has ftood the attacks of wit, of learning, of philofophy, and, fometimes, of all these acting in concert, without any restraint or referve whatsoever; that, notwithstanding all this, it keeps its ground, or rather, that the belief of it is entertained, not only by the multitude, but, more firmly than ever, by the ableft and wifeft men.

When we contemplate the prefent ftate of Christianity, in an age of the greatest light and freedom, and the respect that is still paid to it,, his Lordfhip defires us to call to mind the ftate of Pagan religion under the like circumftances; and to reflect that, when men of fenfe examined its pretenfions in the Auguftan age, there was not a fingle perfon in the priesthood, or out of it, of ability and learning, who did not fee and know that the whole was a manifeft impofture, and deftitute of all evidence, that could induce a well-grounded and rational affent. Can any thing like this, he afks, be faid, or even fufpected, of the Chriftian faith?

His Lordship allows, that fraud and falfehood, by being mixed with a great deal of acknowledged evident truth, may obtain refpect even with fome acute and inquifitive men; as, without doubt has been the cafe of Popery fince the Reformation: he allows, too, that a falfe religion, unfupported by any truth, may even keep its ground in a learned age, when reftraint or other causes have prevented a free inquiry into that religion; as may have been the cafe of Mahometanifm, in one ftage of the Saracen empire but that a religion, like the Chriftian, as delivered in the Scriptures, which muft either be wholly falfe or wholly true, and has been fcrutinized with the utmost freedom and fe

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verity,

verity, fhould yet, if the arguments for it were weak and fallacious, maintain its credit, and fubfift in the belief of the most capable and accomplished reafoners, is, he thinks (and with great justice, in our opinion) a prodigy, which never has appeared, or can appear among men,

R.

ART. III. Experiments and Obfervations relating to various Branches of Natural Philofophy; with a Continuation of the Obfervations on Air. The Second Volume. By Jofeph Priestley, LL. D. F. R.S. Honorary Member of the Academy of Sciences at Petersburg, and of the Royal Academy of Medicine at Paris. 8vo. 6 s. Boards. Johnfon. 1781.

TH

HOSE-and their number certainly is not fmall-who have been duly fenfible of the value and importance of the Author's former philofophical publications, will be happy to find that he ftill continues a purfuit in which he has been fo eminently fuccefsful; and for which nature feems to have endowed him with particular talents. The great number of experiments related in this volume, fufficiently evinces how extenfively and fuccefsfully the active mind of the Author has been employed, fince the publication of his laft volume, in extending his useful purfuits, and in opening new fources of enquiry, notwithstanding fome late interruptions refpecting his private fituation.

In this fecond volume (which may likewife be confidered as the fifth of his publications in this branch of fcience), he clofes,' to ufe his own words, his philofophical accompts as they ftand at prefent;' ftill following the fame excellent method, which he at first adopted, of giving a familiar and hiftorical account of his experiments, and of the motives which led to them; and of prefenting them to the world, as foon as he was in poffeffion of fufficient materials for a volume. In confequence of this early publication of his difcoveries, the Public are already poffeffed of many others, which they principally owe to the frank and communicative fpirit of the Author; whofe early communications, quickly diffufed throughout Europe, by means of tranflations and extracts in literary journals, but principally, in confequence of their intrinfic importance, have incited, and at the fame time enabled, numerous philofophers to prosecute these new subjects of philofophical and chemical inquiry with fuccefs.-For, to use the Author's motto, Philofophy, like Fame, vires aquirit eundo.

The Author has arranged the contents of the prefent volume in thirty-three fections. Though we cannot undertake to give a regular analyfis of a work which comprehends fo great a variety of matter, we fhall nevertheless take a fomewhat methoREV. Nov. 1781.

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