Page images
PDF
EPUB

ments, I have explained a method of paying off, with a finking fund of a million per ann. † a hundred millions of the national debt in 40 years. What then might not be done with fuch a fund as this?

"In five years 18,986,300l. will fall from an intereft of 4 per cente to 3 per cent.-Alfo, 4,500,000l. 32 per cent. 1758 will fall, in fix years, to an intereft of 3 per cent. The long annuities granted in king William's time, will, in 20 years, become extinct; as will also the greatest part of the life annuities specified in page 112. -All thefe favings amount to near 400,000l. per ann. And, were they to be added to the fund as they fall in, its operations would be fo much accelerated, that in a few years we should fee this country above all its difficulties. Still more might be done by ftriking off uneceffary places and penfions; by giving up all the means of corruption; by reducing the pay of the great officers of ftate; and fimplifying the taxes.-A-minifter who appeared determined to carry into execution fuch a fyftem, would foon gain the confidence of the public; endear himself to all honeft men; and in time come to be bleffed as the faviour of his.country.-But what am I doing?-We have no fuch happy period before us. Our minifters are active in pursuing mea fures which muft increase our burdens. A horrid civil war is begun; and it may foon leave us nothing to be anxious about."

men.

[ocr errors]

DIVINITY.

ART. X. The Character and Conduct of the Female Sex, and the Advantages to be derived by Young Men from the Society of Virtuous WoA Difcourfe in three Parts, delivered in Monkwell-freet Chapel, Jan. 1, 1776, By James Fordyce, D. D. 8vo. 2s. 6d. Cadell. We were in fome doubt, after reading these difcourfes, which we understand were delivered from the pulpit, of the propriety of claffing them under the head, Divinity; so very little of divinity or of godlinefs did we meet with through the whole. Having mentioned more than once the impropriety, at leaft, in our opinion, of introducing the difcuffion of political and temporal fubjects in a place facred to devotion, and attention to fpiritual concerns, we fhall probably be thought too fevere, fhould we hint any thing like a disapprobation of a moral difcourfe. But there are not only times and feafons, but places for all things; and we do not think the pulpit of a diffenting. meeting-houfe the most proper place from which a minister of the gofpel of Chrift might deliver even the moft moral difcourfe, to the fole purpofe of bringing boys and girls together to make one another good. But we beg Dr. Fordyce's pardon-a meeting-houfe? This difcourfe was not, it feems, delivered at Monkwell-ftreet meetinghofe, but at Monkwell-freet chapel! This converting our meeting houfes into chapels, puts one in mind of other shops about town, be

At the time of writing the introduction here referred to, above three years ago, I thought, or rather bupal, that the furplus of the revenue might be taken at 9 0,0001. per ann But it must be confidered, that the nation was then in poffeffion of a contribution of 400,col. per ann. from the India company, which has been fince loft. See the additional Preface to the fecond edition of the Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt.

fides thofe of modern divines; the latter being turned into chapels, as the former into warehouses. Of a piece with the politenefs of the external appellation, is alfo the modifh itile of internal addrefs. The congregation is no longer called men, brethren, or fellow-christians, but, Gentlemen," Are none of you, Gentlemen, difposed to exact from the other fex, a degree of perfection, which you hold yourselves exempt from attempting?" Again, "The Ladies of ancient days frequently poffeffed a wonderful influence." And, "Truft me, ladies."What a pity our polite Doctor is in this only an humble imitator of the poor country curate and his parish clerk; the former, in churching the 'Squire's wife, devoutly praying for a benediction on the lady, and the latter adding in the fame ftrain of civility, "Who puts her ladyship's trust in thee."-Seriously, the times are ftrangely altered fince we were young men, and went to Monkwellftreet. The minifters of those days, like humble followers of their meek and lowly mafter, preached up Jefus, and him crucified. By inculcating the effentials of Chriftianity, by preaching the faith once delivered to the faints, they knew good works as a neceffary confequence would follow. But what a contraft! What a prostitution of the pulpit! Inftead of even a moral difcourfe, founded on religious principles, connecting piety with virtue, delivered in the grave and decent ftile of truth and fobernefs, becoming the dignity and duty of a divine; we have a frippery declamation about wifdom and folly, and prudence and honour; recommended on the maxims of worldly convenience, in the stile of a modern novel, or a newspaper effay.

A few fhort extracts will ferve to fatisfy the reader of the nature of this performance.

"Suppofe, Gentlemen, you were told that a woman had been speaking of you in the fame unmerciful manner, in which multitudes of our fex pronounce upon hers; would you not complain of the fentence, and appeal from her tribunal? Moft probably. But fuppofe, that on meeting any of you, immediately after, fhe fhould alter her ftyle, affume a language diametrically oppofite, and exprefs the highest approbation in the fmootheft tones, and with the fofteft airs of female blandishment; would not fo arrant a coquet deferve your abhorrence? Undoubtedly. And yet,-shall Ispeak out? am by. no means certain, that thofe of your number, who most affect to defpife the fex, would not be enchanted with the foothings of this very woman, more efpecially were fhe handfome. The credulity of loofe men in fimilar circumftances, their boafting of the favours they have received, or would be thought to have received, and their exhibition of letters, prefents, and gewgaws, from women who flatter their vanity to make fure of their purfes, are fufficiently ridiculous. May we not add, that for thofe men to believe fo implicitly in the fincerity of fuch artful creatures, where they themselves are the objects of their art, at the fame inftant in which they exult over them among their fellows, for giving credit to male adulation, demonstrates a weakness fuperlatively contemptible?

"Perhaps, Gentlemen, one reafon why the moft accomplished of. our fex are fond of converfing with the most agreeable of the other, is because with them they are relieved from that rivalihip of genius, and thofe contrarieties of cpinion, which too often impair, not to fay poi

L 2

fɔn,

fon, the enjoyments of male fociety. Sentiment, imagination, vari ety, complacence, and all the pretty playfulness of minds that only wish to please and to be pleafed, fill up, in the former cafe, thofe intervals of leifure that fucceed the fatigue and anxiety of bufinefs, the abstraction of study, or the training of the faculties on whatever account. Surely, my brothers, they do not much confult either ease or gratification, who prefer, to this kind of entertainment, the low pernicious company of profitutes, or the noify and intemperate intercourfe of rakes.

"When men of debauched principles appear happy, on the retiring of cultivated and virtuous women from table, or elsewhere, they might be afked, What do you gain by it? Does the converfation become either livelier, or more refined? Or will you fay, that your behaviour in general takes a better caft? You will fcarcely say, that it is improved in politenefs. But it is improved in freedom- yes; the cruel restraints of decency are removed: you are now at liberty to burst forth into clamour, oaths, obfcenity, prophaneness, defamation of the fex, and, if you are fo difpofed, to get drunk into the bargain. Glorious privileges! Worthy, no doubt, to be highly prized by reafonable beings, by perfons of education, and by gentlemen."

Once more, "With respect to those selfish and forward females, who catch with eagernefs at the leaft femblance of regard on the part of fome male acquaintance, as a pretext for claiming the matrimonial connexion, we cannot help faying, that we abhor alike their meannefs and their impudence; that they trefpafs on all the rules of decent referve, and maiden dignity; and that they often reprefs in the minds of difcreet men who know them, many pleafing propenfi. ties towards better women, left these also should be found mercenary and bafe.

If a wish to poffefs the heart of fome worthy man, co-operating with the partiality which moft perfons have for themselves, fhall induce a woman to conclude too haftily, that fuch a man is attached to her; it will be decent at least to conceal a perfuafion, which women of prudence and delicacy will ever be flow to entertain. To entertain it rafhly, we have feen, is always wrong, and frequently pernicious. We now fubjoin, that to declare it bluntly is both unwife and contemptible. But then we fhould remember, that the fame behaviour is chargeable on many men. I am particularly concerned for women of fentiment, when I confider how often their good-breeding is put to the trial in the prefence of coxcombs, whom their good fenfe cannot but defpife; left common civility fhould, with fuch prefumptuous fools, pafs for fondnefs. Surely, Gentlemen, one of the laft things a man of fenfe and modefty will fufpect is, that a women is enamoured of him."

Still one paragraph, "Learn, ye credulous fair! oh, learn to trust your heart with no man, who does not tell you plainly that he has given you his, with a refolution to give you his hand too, as foon as his fituation fhall permit."

What fad ftuff is this to be formally delivered by a minifter of the gofpel to a chriftian congregation from the pulpit! What is it but the butt end of an old fong, which the Ladies and Gentlemen may have heard fung at that other excellent school of morality, the Playhoufe:

[ocr errors]

"My fair one, truft none who won't make you his wife,
"For he who loves truly will take you for life."

Such are the famples, taken without particular choice, from different parts of the picce; to the matter of which, it is poffible the can. did reader will make no exception. Nor, indeed, fhould we, on the fuppofition that the ladies and gentlemen of Monkwell-ftreet chapel fland in need of so trite a remonftrance; had its reverend author dif feminated his hackneyed reflections through the congregation by means only of the prefs, fuch of them as are not furnished with the Tatler or Spectator, might profit by filling up a vacant hour in perufing them at leifure. But we do not think, as before obferved, the matter of fufficient moment and gravity, to fupply the place of the dictates of the gofpel, and the faithful expofition of the holy fcriptures, by a minister of the word of God.

The placing a text out of thofe fcriptures, at the head of fuch a difcourfe, is like making a mockery of the facred writings. "Now "Jefas loved Martha, and her fifter."And what then? For any edifying application, of this paffage, the preacher might as well have taken his text out of the first chapter of Matthew, "Now Abraham begat Ifaac." To do him jufiice, indeed, he does just mention the two fifters once or twice, and in the exordium of his fermon in a manner deferving notice.

"From this amiable circumftance in the hiftory of our Saviour, told with a fimplicity inimitably tender, as well as from other beautiful paffages connected with it, we know, not only that he often vifited thofe worthy perfons, but that his elevated foul took peculiar pleasure in their company. An example of fuch high authority will afford me a very fair occafion for contemplating the intellectual, moral, and fpiritual intercourfe, which ought to fubfift between the fexes, as far as the condition of human nature will allow."

Whether the preacher means here to include our Saviour within the condition of human nature, it is hard to fay. Thefe laft words are ambiguous, efpecially if we take in the former, of his being faid to poffefs an elevated foul. Had our Saviour then a human foul! A frange expreffion, furely, in fpeaking of the divine Redeemer! But, perhaps, the divinity of our Saviour is not an article of the preacher's creed. He tells us, indeed, that he is a minifter of "Chrift's religion," as he terms it, and yet he talks of the divinity of virtue, without a word of the former, He calls him once or twice, it is true, the Son of God; as he calls alfo on the name of God, to atteft the fincerity of his advice to his hearers; but in fuch cafes furch advice is fo trivial, that we cannot help regarding it in fome degree as taking the Lord's name in vain; which, as a minifter of Chrift's religion, we think Dr. Fordyce, in his zeal for the petites marales, ought carefully to have avoided.

ART. XI. Joy in Heaven, and the Creed of Devils. Two Sermens, preached Oct. 29, 1775. By Auguftus Teplady, A. B. Vicar of Broad Hembury. 8vo. 1s. Vallance and Simmons. Mr. Toplady is a divine of a very different caft from the author of the above difcourfe, and equally in the extreme an oppofite way.

+3

Fordyce

Fordyce is all fair fpeech and flummery, and the foul-mouthed Toplady all damnation, hell, and the devil.- We are indeed forry that we have fo little credit with the latter, as to fee our wholefome admonitions, refpecting the grofsnefs and vulgarity of his ftile and manner of preaching, entirely thrown away upon him.— Surely Mr. T. cannot have had the education either of a gentleman or a fcholar! If he has, he must be ftrangely mistaken in thinking ether incompatible with that of a chriftian! Such language in these days, however excufable it might have been formerly, we pronounce to be irreverend and indecent, and therefore highly improper to come from the pulpit. It is, in fact, an infult to our preacher's congregation, if he held forth any where but at Billing gate or St. Giles's, to address it in fuch a dialect. The coarseness of fome of his ideas, is alfo not inferior to that of his language; and his claffing the orthodox chriftian with fuch good company as the devils, is a pretty specimen of his pulpit politeneís. "The devils, fays he, are incomparably more orthodox than nineteen in twenty of our modern divines.”What a nice calculation! Has he confulted that great calculator, Dr. Price, on this subject? "Do you think, continues he, there is fuch a being as an Arian devil? or a Socinian devil? or a Sabellian? Is there an Anti-Trinitarian among the devils? or an Armenian? or a Pelagian? No, they endeavour to feduce men into these herefies; but they are too well informed to be fpeculatively heterodox themselves." Thus, according to this preacher, nineteen out of twenty of our modern divines are greater heretics than the inhabitants of the infernal regions; or, to ufe his own phrafeology, they are fad dogs indeed, while the devils are damned good chriftians, and the damned themfelves bell-fired true believers. How Mr. T. came to be fo particularly acquainted with the religious opinions of these infernals, we know not, unless he be acquainted with the author of a certain diabolical tract, who diftinguishes them of his own knowledge, by red devils, green devils, black devils, white devils, and indeed by devils of all the colours of the rainbow. Seriously, this is either too ludicrous, or too fad a manner of treating this fubject, nor fhould we wonder if weak minds were fo affected by fome paffages in these discourses, as to be haunted by what are vulgarly called the blue devils; rendering them fitter for Bedlam, or St. Luke's, than a christian congregation.

[ocr errors]

POETRY.

ART. XII. A poetical Epiftle from the late Lord Melcombe to the Earl of Bute, with Corrections, by the Author of the Night Thoughts. 4to. 15. Becket.

We are forry it fo often happens that we differ in opinion with the editors of posthumous productions, as in the cafe before us. In the

Of the orthodoxy of the damned, Mr. Toplady expreffes the fame good opinion as he does of thote of the devils. "What I obferved of the orthodoxy of devils, holds equally true of every human foul in hell. There is not an Arian, a Socinian, a Sabellian, a Pelagian, or an Armenian, weitering in that lake of fire."

« PreviousContinue »