doned the defign? If he has not, let me conjure him to haften the appear* ance of a work, which cannot but be acceptable, at this period, to every true friend of learning, and the Church of England. I am, Gentlemen, Your conftant Reader and Well-Wither, MISOPSEUDES. P. S. Since writing the above, I have met with a new periodical publi cation, which profeffes to be conducted, with a view of diffeminating the genuine principles of the Church of England. Yet in an effay, which Lightly cenfures the itinerating fpirit of Profelytism, the great body of the clergy are feverally animadverted upon, as innovators, who have re nounced the genuine doctrine of our church, as taught by all her Divines, from the Reformation to the Reign of Charles I.; and then it is added, that the fcheme adopted by the " prefent race of Divines," is that which was "introduced by Archbishop Laud, and modified after the Restoration of Charles II. by Tillotson, Burnet, Taylor, Whichcote, and Bull." Now, Gentlemen, what are we to infer from this declaration, but that the" fcheme," fo introduced and carried into effect, is repugnant to the pure principles of the Reformation? But this charge is not true; for the Church of England is neither Lutheran nor Calvinistic; and all that Archbishop Laud aimed at, was, to keep out the high Predeftinarian notions from difturbing the peace of the Church. He faw clearly enough, and the example of the United Provinces was striking, that if the preachers were fuffered to indulge the fashionable humour of lecturing upon the fublapfarian and fupralapfarian fchemes; upon the irrespective decrees of the Almighty; upon the abfolute, unconditional election of fome, and the abfolute reprobation of the others, with all the points neceffarily connected with fuch gloomy and myfterious topics, Puritanism and Antinomianism would break in with a full tide. The fcheme of the Archbishop was, therefore, nothing more nor less than to restrain the Clergy within the proper limits of the establishment, and to confine them to the practice and doctrine of the first reformers. Let any man read the fermons of Latimer, or the Homilies of the Church of England, and when he has compared them with the fermons of Archbishop Laud, and thofe of Bishops Taylor and Bull, let him point out any effential oppofition of doctrine, if he can. DOCTOR EDWARD GEE's LETTER. TO THE EDITORS OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCHMAN'S MAGAZINE. GENTLEMEN, YOUR learned and truly valuable correfpondent, the LONDON CURATE, having, in your Magazine for March, 1802, p. 141. expreffed his defire to fee" the whole of Doctor GEE's Letter," an extract from which appears p. 363-8 of Dean Comber's Memoirs; and having also, in a very handsome manner, requested I would "furnish you with a copy of it," I take this early opportunity of complying with your correfpondent's wifhes, being truly happy in the opportunity thus prefented me, in fome meafure to repair my former harthnefs towards that gentleman. The letter is fortunately in very excellent prefervation, the hand-writing remarkably diftinct and legible, and the ink fo little faded, that inftead of being 108 years old, it might pais very well for a century younger than it really is. You fhall have it verbatim et literatim, and I fhall be happy if it affords any of your readers the least amusement. Allow me, Gentlemen, to fay, through the medium of your valuable mifcellany, mifcellany, that I do receive your correfpondent's " affurances of regard, &c." with the most heart-felt fatisfaction: his kind offer of FRIENDSHIP made fornetime fince in a post-letter, gives me equal pleasure; and I fhall ever confider the continuance of his esteem as the PRIDE and HONOUR of my life. I will only add, gentlemen, that, as you are now favouring your numerous readers with a fketch of the excellent Bishop Warburton's Life, I will tranfmit you a copy of an original letter from him to my late father, if you fhould hint in your acknowledgments to correfpondents, that it would obtain a place in your mifcellany. It is entirely on the literary topics of the day. I am, gentlemen, your's, &c. Creech St. Michael, April 9, 1802. GOOD MR. DEAN, THOMAS COMBer. London, April 11th, 1699. * IN your letter you defired fome little account of my travels, which I would rather have now delay'd till we are fo happy to fee you in town, and perhaps to wait together †, when we should. have time enough to discourse 'em all over. However, in the mean time, I fhall be in part obedient, and tell you that my travels first carried me thro' Spain and Portugal, where I had the daily opportunity of feeing Popery undifguis'd, and very different from what it pretended to be in England, and I am as well fatisfied as that I am now writing to you, that if any of those people had dared to talk of their religion at the rate they did among us, or to have represented Popery either in Spain or Portugal as they did to us, they had been certainly clapt up in their inquifitions, and burnt too for fuch damnable errors as they would have call'd'em, without‡ they had confefs'd 'em and beg'd pardon. As for learning, I know not whether any thing left among 'em does deferve that name: in philofophy they are no farther than Ariftotle and Thomas Aquinas, and the motion of the earth, and the circulation of the bloud are as abfurd paradoxes as ever the Antipodes were among them. In philology they are as much ftrangerst, they neither know nor care for any new books, and know nothing of the prefent hiftory of learning. In divinity I take 'em to be at the fame pitch, for, notwithstanding their talk fometimes of Fathers and Councels, I appeal to you what kill they are like to have in them or the antient Church Hiftorians, who understand not one word of Greek, that being a language fo utterly difus'd among them, that even the JESUITS themselves neither pretend to know it nor teach it in their schooles. Alas, their Fathers are St. Auftin and Thomas Aquinas, their Councils that of Trent, and for the reft I dare vouch they neither know their ages nor their names, nay I am further fatisfy'd that the generality of their Priests do not really understand their Breviaries and Miffale they ufe every day, I mean fo far as to be able to tranflate 'em into Spanish or Portugueze, being perfectly at a loife if you would put 'em upon talking Latin: and therefore I have told fome of my friends, and do tell it every one now, that if ever they have to do with a Popish prieft, let 'em but pull out a *The first paragraph of this letter being on private bufinefs, is alone omitted. T.C.. As chaplain to King William III. Lege, unlefs. Perhaps even this would not have faved them from Inquifitorial power! The polifhed reader of the prefent times will please to recollect that Dr. Gec's ftyle and phrafeology is more than a century old. Greck Greek Teftament or Bible and it will prove a very exorcifm to them. Their libraries I vifitted wherever I had oppertunity, and found them miferably ` furnished; the numbers they did not want fometimes, but what were thefe of but schoolemen and canonifts, and the later trifling writers of their own order, or of their church; as for the good editions of Councils and Fathers, or of Hiftorians either ecclefiaftical or civil, no fuch to be found or heard of there. I remember in a convertation I had with a gentleman at the great and famous city of SEVILL in Spain concerning the poornefs of their learning and their libraries, he told me that upon a discourse concerning Vefpafian's laying a duty upon urine, and a wager against it, that they were a long time a fearching, and had much ado to find a Suetonius Tranquillus in all that city, which with much ado they at last did, and only one. When I vifitted their libraries I used to make particular inquiries after MSS. and was 'till I knew 'em better, fent upon many an April errand to fee MSS. In a convent of the order of St. Austin at SEVILL, I asked a father whether they had not fome MSS. of the ffather of their order St. Auftin, and he told me they had many of his own hand writing; we could not go into the library then, it being afternoon when it is lockt; but I was in no little folicitude to haften thither next morning to fee fuch a fight; but what do you think I was entertain'd with; a fight of a poor edition of this ffather's works in Print, which was all the poor foul meant by MSS. of St. Auftin's own hand-writing. When I left Spain I crofs'd the Mediterranean to Italy, hoping to find things much better there, but I cannot fay my expectation was answered, for the priests there neglect learning and the Greek tongue almost as much as they do in Spain or Portugal. At Naples fome of the lawyers have entertained the Cartefian Philofophy, have a value for ERASMUS (whom all I had hitherto converfed with abhor) and would bring the Greek tongue into vogue by fetting up a fchoole for it, but I could not find that it made any progreffe; the clergy fecular and regular not being willing to forfake Ariftotle and Thomas Aquinas, and hating heathen Greek, tho' that was the original language of that and the neighbouring cities of Magna Græcia, as that part of Italy was formerly called. At Rome I convers'd chiefly among thofe who have larger thoughts, and a liking to learning, among whom the prefent library-keeper Segniore Abbade Zaccagna understands Greek very well, but these are a very small number, and as well with them as with the Cardinals I converfed with, I found they had a great opinion of the learning of the clergy of the Church of England; and they often exprefs'd their concern that they did not write more in Latin among us. At Florence, Sienna, Legorn*, and Genoa I found learning much at the pitch I left it at Naples, a miferable ignorance of the Greek tongue, which was the more deplorable, efpecially for Florence, where I believe are the greateft collection of Greek MSS. of any city in the world, if Rome for its VATICAN efpecially is not to be excepted. When I came into France I did not doubt but that I fhould find learning flourishing indeed there, but when I got to Arx in Provence, where I vifitted Padre Pagi the Francifcan (as I had promis'd the famous Magliabechi of Florence that I would do) who wrote the Differtatio Hypatica, and the Critica in Baronium (and who now has, as he told me, two or three more volumes of that critic in the preffe upon him) he gave me no fuch pro * Lege, Leghorn. mifing account of things. He told me learning was very much in its -wane among them, that there was little or no encouragement given to learned men, all the preferments in their church and encouragements being now almost universally beftow'd on them who had no other qualifications for them but their high birth, and no other merit but their quality; that the Greek learning was next to extinct among them. And when I came to Paris I found the learned men there in the fame note, the Abbot Longuerue (who is one of the learnedest men in France, and excellently fkill'd in the languages Oriental and others, as well as in hiftory) profefs'd to me that they had not onely loft the Greek learning, but almoft the Latin too from among them, that hardly a Jefuit was left master of that, and did charge these their loffes upon that intolerable vanity among them, which he faid was ftill going on triumphantly, of having all good books translated into their French tongue, fo that now nobody minded or studied the originals. I found Mabillon and father Simon and others much of the fame fentiments; and tho' they pretend to publifh fome of the Greek Fathers as well as they have done the Latin ones at the Benedictines Abby of Saint Germain, yet they affur'd me that the Monk Montfalcone (who put out St, Athanafius's works in Greek and Latin just before I came there, and who is the onely man that pretends to understand Greek among them) was miferably furnish'd with skill in that language for any fuch undertakings. But he went for Italy while I was at Paris to fearch their libraries for Greek MSS. in order, as I was told, to a new edition of St. Chryfoftom's works by Mabillon, of Clemens Alexandrinus, by others; and to let you fee what care he took in order to it, he did not fo much as confult or fay one word of his intentions to Father Mabillon, who had been there for the very fame purposes, as Mabillon himself told me: and I told the ffather I was forry I did not see him before he went, because I could have told him of feveral Greek MSS. of that very Greek Father, which I believe had efcap'd him, and he own'd that they had. But its time for me to confider what a long letter I have been writing, and you, Mr. Dean, I dare fay do now repent of the making any fuch requefts of accounts of travels from me; its decent therefore for me to break tho' abruptly off, but with this affurance that I am, and fhall always be with great readiness, Good Sir, Your very faithful and obedient Servant, To the very reverend Dr. Comber, Dean of Durham, at the Deanery in Durham. EDW. GEE. April 11, 1699. ON MARRIAGE. Love refines the thought, and heart enlarges MILTON. THE fubject of Marriage has lately engaged the public attention-much depends on its being rightly understood. The welfare of nations, the happiness of families, and the peace and fecurity of individuals, are involved in it. Barbarity and ignorance have always made light of the facred obligations impofed by marriage, while true virtue, and wisdom, have ever been disposed to honour and obey them. + Thofe. Vol. II. Churchm. Mag. April, 1802 E c One One among the fatal mischiefs which a revolutionary age has produced, is that concerning Marriages, which would reduce them to a mere civil contract; and then the oppofite to them, an open avowed adulterous life, is treated with great levity, if not with indulgence. But furely all fuch, whatever their station and rank, "do greatly err, not knowing the Scriptures, or the power of God; for what faith the Scriptures-He who made them in the beginning, made them, male and female; and faid, for this caufe, fhall a man leave his father and his mother, and cleave unto his wife, and they fhall be ONE flesh." To this the Chriftian LORD adds, Whom GOD hath joined together, let not man put asunder. If there be meaning in words, here is much more than a mere civil contract; for here is a religious vow, a mental engagement, as well as a civil contract; as fuch, Marriage is a facred right, a moral obligation, as well as a legal act. It applies to every part of man, foul, mind, and body it has a regard to GOD; it is the most folemn contract between , two individuals, and it is alfo a civil act; for which purpose, befides the mutual vow and engagement between the two parties, there ought to be the benediction of a prieft, proving it to be a religious right, as well as the prefence of witneffes, and certain reftrictions, as to place, time, age, &c. as defined by the Civil Law. In the fame degree, as we esteem and honour Marriage, fhall we hold the anti-conjugal life in deteftation and abhorrence? No fplendour of rank, no charm of beauty, no flashes of wit, no prevalence of example, ought ever to reconcile the mind to what is morally wrong, to what is a violation of a vow to GOD, the greatest injury and infult to the married partner; the moft pernicious example to fociety; a direct violation of the laws of God and Man. If fome restraint is not impofed, confufion and every evil work will enfue. An able writer well obferves, that " an adulterer, or intriguer, is involved in the charges of falfehood, difhonefty, theft, and treachery. Can there be greater falfehood than that which demands continual diffimulation of fpeech and behaviour? Can there be greater dishonesty than that which purloins to itself another's avowed and fanctioned right? Can there be a greater theft than that which robs a man of the dearest treasure of life, domeftic peace and affection? Can there be a greater treachery than that which prostitutes the honour of friendship, breaks the bonds of mutual dependence (the nobleft tie by which fociety is held), infects with jealousy the fweetnefs of affiance, and perverts the bounties of a generous confidence, to the detriment of him from whom they flow." See Thoughts on Marriage, p. 42, 43. Shall, then, the adulterer dare to boaft, that he is a man of honour? Shall he be received and courted in fociety, as much as if no ftain attached to his character? Shall he be admired and applauded by fome as if they gloried in his crime; while they hold forth a moft alarming example to the rifing generation; what fecurity can they have in the virtue of their fons and daughters, when adulterers are domesticated with them, and admitted as their familiar companions? ON |