tellectual powers of individuals, but an additional portion of his diving grace, we have no right to expect -Equally abfurd, is our praying to God to protect us, from the power of the arch rebel Satan; he has no power, but what we ourselves give him; and where a voluntary allegiance and fubmiffion is paid, it is arrogant to expect God will interpofe any fupernatural fhield between us, when the means of refiftance is in our own power."

Our readers must plainly perceive that this divine of no-church, has no pretenfions to orthodoxy. He entertains, indeed, fome very fingular notions as well in religion as philofophy. Thus he adopts the Pythagorean fyftem of tranfmigration; the pre-existent lapfe of human fpirits, and thinks a lady's lap-dog has a foul to be faved as well as his mistress Need we enlarge on the fanciful doctrines of thi matempfychofian NO-CHURCH divine!

Political Empiricifm: a Letter to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley 8vo. 6d. Johnfon.

It is no wonder that, in an age, fo pufhing after gain and puffing after popularity as the prefent, there fhould be found empirics in all profeffions. In our two laft numbers, we reviewed a pamphlet entitled Pbilofophical Empiricifm and in our next fhall probably review another entitled Moral Empiricifm. The medical tribe no longer lay an exclufive claim to the title of Quack, the fpirit of empiricifm having infpired all ranks and conditions among us, from the fublime difciples of Galen and Paracelfus to the humble fhoe-black; who has his noftrum for "cleaning shoes, your honour" by virtue of his majesty's royal letters patent.-Nor does it appear there would be any great harm in all this, if these Char latans would be content to exercife their quackery only in their feveral profeffions. The misfortune is, our chymical quacks interfere with our philofophical quacks, and our clerical quacks with our political ones. Thus the Rev. Mr. John Wesley, is wellknown to have been, for many years, one of the first quacks in the kingdom in his own way. What, in the name of goodnefs, induced him to turn quack in any other? Has he not a thoufand times told his followers, it is impoffible to ferve God and Mammon ? And has he, at last found out the fecret of doing, it himself?-But let not us tickle him with a straw, when the lashes of fo tremendous a cat-o'nine-tail lie before us, To give a fpecimen of the trimming he has got by one or two strokes.

"Is it not, a little extraordinary that you, Sir, who have known the Americans fo well, who have received fo many personal civilities from them, who have (in your curious and valuable Journals) borne ample teftimony to their virtues, nay, who have no longer

ago

Written very probably by the author of the prefent. If fo, he has fucceeded better this time than the laft. In analyfing Dr. Higgins he burnt his own fagers by the unguarded ufe of the potential cauftic; in cutting up John Wefy, he plays the very devil with the poor Saint in the unmerciful ufe of the tur cautery.

ago than the late election (as hath been already obferved) fignified the most unreserved approbation of their refiftance. It is furely, not a little extraordinary that you should now fo fuddenly rife up to condemn them. "Shall I praife you in this? I praise you not +" It is reported that you have been difappointed in your hopes of an American Bishoprick; and when I confider your conduct, "I partly believe it ‡." It is likewife faid, that you have now fome other object in view: and this we alfo may take for granted, because you do not abfolutely contradict it. You adopt the safer method of endeavouring to evade what you do not think fit to deny. I do not expect you to acknowledge that you have bafely offered yourself to hire, that you have actually received the wages of prostitution. Though we know it to be an undoubted fact, that your Calm Addrefs to the American Colonies has been circulated from the first office in the kingdom; yet I think you cannot be quite so abandoned as to fuppofe that this circumftance does you any great honour: to me it affords a ftrong prefumptive evidence of your fhame. You probably have found it convenient to oblige à certain pious lord in adminiftration, whom it was impoffible to refufe. That this might not too much interfere with your apoftolical labours and pursuits, it was alfo convenient to have recourfe to Dr. Johnson, and to pilfer the moft contemptible of his publications. Thus, while you were cringing and licking the duft of the great man's fhoes, in order to obtain fome paltry pittance of his precious bounty, at the fame time (to use the words of your own very delicate figure in regard to Mr. Toplady) you unfortunately chanced to " lick up Dr. Jebnfan's fpittle *".

"After all, by whatever confiderations you may have been influenced in this business, it was to be fure, the luckiest expedient that, amidst innumerable refources could have been devised in the prefent emergency of affairs. To have gained over a man of Mr. Wefley's defcription, affords a ftriking proof of the wifom and confiftency of the powers that be. This furely, must be confidered as an invaluable acceffion of weight and dignity to government. I felicitate my fellow-fubjects on their having obtained fo upright, and fo confcientious an affertor of their natural and just rights! I heartily congratulate our rulers, the guardians of our liberties and laws, on their fagacity in diftinguishing, and on their good fortune in making fo refpectable an acquifition!--Perhaps, it is not an eafy matter at once to determine whether administration or Mr.. Wefley hath gained moft honour by fo extraordinary a coalition.But is it not humiliating to the last degree, to reflect on the state to which this once happy, free, and commercial country is reduced, when obliged to look for aid in the profecution of its plans, to the itinerant leader of a gloomy and fanatical fect? With what aftonishinent muft our neighbours on the continent, the filent, but not inattentive

See Poftfcript of Mr. Welley's Letter to the Printer of the London Chroni

attentive fpectators of the conduct of Great-Britain, at this important crifis--with what aftonithment mut they contemplate, with what fecret fatisfaction exult in our difgrace!--How would the breath of our late venerable fovereign, have glowed with generous indignation, had it been predicted to him during his life-time, that in the reign of his illuftrious grand-fon, the politics of England would have found a resource in the pharifaical cant and grimace of Methodism !

"It is a truly fingular and curious phænomenon in our political hemifphere, that the proud penfioner and the apoftate priest, are the moft fubftantial pillars of the prerogative, the moft zealous friends of government, the most original and difinter elled writers in fupport of its measures this day in the kingdom.

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Again. Sir, it is time to be ferious-The occafion abundantly requires it Such inftances afford a melancholy and degrading. picture of the human heart. We know, it is neceffary that the man who finks fo low as to become the creature of administration, fhould not poffe is the most refined fentiments of honour and delicacy But, Sir, your conduct (which is now more particularly the fubject of animadversion) so abounds with inconfiftencies, that an impartial obferver might be ftrongly induced to think that notwithftanding your oftentatious pretentions, you had no fixed principles either of belief or of action—that you had ever lived in a fluctuating ftate of doubt and uncertainty and confequently, that you can have no real concern for the fate of your country, for the welfare and fecurity of your fellow-citizens I am forry to fuggeft further, that thofe who know you beft, will be tempted to believe that you are governed by the bafest and most unmanly motives. What fhall we fay to your fhameful apoftacy from thofe fentiments of freedom which you once fo eagerly efpoufed-to your grofs and flagrant plagiarilims to your affected difavowal of being influenced by thofe confiderations of private emolument, with which you must be conscious that your conduct is too strongly marked? What are we to think of the futility, the referve, the evasion, and the petulance of your "feeble replies," to this complicated charge? In the pame of all that is jult, what can you urge in your own defence? But, if your frange infatuation does not ftill continue, you will father feek the darkest shade of filence and oblivion.-Yet, in what eimation, think you, will thofe hold your religious profeffion, whom you have hitherto impofed upon, by the fpecious garb of external fanctity and felf-denial, by a ftudied folemnity of countemance, and a gloomy aufterity of manners-to all outward appearance devout, mortified, avanting nothing; but in reality proud, ravenous, oppreffive, and for a pretence, making long prayers?Hypocrite, Bigot, or Enthufiaft, or a compofition of these three characters! do you, in your dorage, likewife long after the fleshpots of Egypt; or are you afraid leaft that the ligh. reafon and of liberty fhould banish your cant and your jargon our of America * ?" "For

In the fame fpirit of reproach, the letter writer addreffes him, after repre fenting the effets of his political doctrines, thus, "What a monfier must he be, YOL, III,

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"For God's fake, Sir, let me intreat you feriously to reflect for a moment, on the difgraceful fituation into which your own artifices have betrayed you.-Have you not bafely prostituted yourself to the vilest and most execrable purpofes?-Have you not fhamefully endeavoured, at least in effect, to depreciate the value of that ineftimable jewel, that pearl of great price, that " facred bleffing of Jiberty, without which (to ufe the manly language of the excellent writer already referred to) man is a beat, and government a curfe?It is natural to afk, Are you actuated by no other than the deteftable ambition of branding your name with contempt and abhorrence as a fecond SACHEVERELL? Do you afpire to stand confpicuous on the ignoble lift of infamy and venality-amongst those faves of fate t, the penfioned Jacobites and Tories, of whatever rank or precedency in guilt-the Johnsons, the Shebbeares, the Macpherfons, and the Hutchinfons of this degenerate age ¿"

The letter-writer leaving Mr. Welley in all this good company, we must here alfo take leave of him; though not without obferving that, when his hand was in, impartiality would have induced him to give a lafh or two at the Political Empiricism of Dr. Price (if not of Dr. Priestley) as well as that of Mr. Wefley. As minifters of the gofpel of peace, we think them both culpable fo far as they have departed from that character, to foment civil difcord and diffufe a fpirit of war. For, however different their principles, their productions tend equally to the literally fulfilling the scripture, not to bring peace but a sword.

A Letter to the Noblemen and Gentlemen, &c. who have addressed his Majefty on the fubject of the American Rebellion, 8vo. 1s Cadell. A complimentary, and not ill-written, addrefs to the addreifers, in which the writer advances little new, in point of argument. At the conclufion of his epiftle, however, he points out the circumtances that might induce the Americans to fubmit.

"Let," fays he," the voice of faction ceafe to be heard in the fenate; let our news-papers teem no more with feditious falfehoods and petulant fcurrility, to the difgrace of the national public spirit; and let a formidable force, fuch as we are told is intended, be fent to America; the violence of the colonifts will in all probability be foon diffipated Although they have hitherto treated with haugh tinefs the proffer of an accommodation; though their groundless pretenfions have been repeatedly difproved, and their arguments refuted, without any effect; yet the moft falutary confequences may be expected from vigorous meafures of governinent; and it is

certain

who puts himfelf forward, as the abettor of tyranny and arbitrary power! He must be the worst and most dangerous of rebels, the curfe of civil fociety, and the enemy of the whole human race. If you afk, whom does this character defcribe? I cannot answer you more pointedly than in the words of Nathan t David--THOU art the man.

Dr. Frice's Obfervations, &c. + Sec Jobnjon's Dictionaryftipend to obey his mafter."

-Art. Penfioner, "A flave of ftate hired by a

certain that humanity, as well as the juftice and dignity of the nation, calls aloud for the profecution of fuch. Let us therefore unanimously join, not only in vindicating the fupremacy of the legiflature, on which the very exiftence of government immediately depends, but in maintaining the freedom and preferving the poffetion of the American provinces; and I might add, in avenging the most atrocious violation of the laws that ever was attempted within the dominions of the British crown. Let us unite in rescuing from the horrors of anarchy the yet faithful part of our fellowfubjects and if the infurgents fhall of neceffity be facrificed to their own invincible delufion, let us in mercy fave their posterity from the defpotifm into which they otherwife muft fall."

Ay, let but only the two firft of thefe things be brought about, viz. the voice of faction cease to be heard in the fenate and our news-papers teem no more with feditious falfehoods and petulant fcurrility," and then we should fee peaceable and harmonious times indeed! But to thefe few lets there are fo many hinderances, that we despair of America's ever being humbled, if we are to wait for our fenators cealing to be factious, and our news-writers falfe and fcurrilous.

Reflections on the Prefent State of the American War. 8vo. 6d. Payne

This reflector puts us in mind of queen Dido, in the opera, who, tho' Carthage is in flames, and her palace tumbling about her ears, is determined to have her fong out, before the attempts to escape the fire. His motto is celeritate opus eft: quâ fi ufi effemus, bellum nullum baberemus.-By which it appears that he is in a wonderful hurry, and blames government for having already loft time, in reducing the Americans to reafon. The feafon of speaking and writing," he fays, "is paft." And yet he has here written a pam-phlet, which, we fuppofe, he would have the members of adminif tration ftop to read, before they proceed to action. Not but that it is fo light and eafy of digeftion, that "he who runs may read," fo let them read and run: for, if we believe him, there is no time to be loft. "It is clearly the interest of Great-Britain to finish the war, if it be poffible, in the course of a fingle campaign." We believe nobody doubts this, if, as he prudently obferves, it be poffible-But how, if it be not poffible!-Why then the war muit be given over, or carried on another campaign, for the advantage of the Americans; whose interest, he tells us, it as clearly is, "to prolong the war to an indefinite time."- Now this we cannot fo clearly fee; but, perhaps, that is, because we are bad politicians, and do not comprehend the advantages, a people may reap from having their towns fired about their ears, from being hunted from pillar to poft through an half-cultivated country, and, from being at last driven to feek fhelter among favages in the woods! It is not for fuch fhort-fighted politicians as literary Reviewers to difcern the far-fetched advantages of thefe things.

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