▪ have with suitable dignity; and direct the whole course of ⚫ their lives to immortality. If an invincible patience be any • part of fortitude, can that religion be deficient in it, where

the very virgins have fealed their conftancy in the fierceft • torment? What encomiums have been beftowed on the Athenian prostitute, from whom no tortures could bring a • difcovery of the accomplices in the plot ; and on Anaxarchus, and the Syracufian Thrafo, for their firmness under the like ⚫ circumftances? For the urns of thefe, Machiavel himselfwould not grudge a chaplet; but how inferior their firmness, allowing it to be fuch, to ours? They fuffered out of hatred to the tyrants by whom they had been injured; our people, ❝ from affection to Chrift, who had crowned them with dif• vine favours. Their tortures were common and quick; 'ours, before unheard of and lingering. Their cafe was deperate; our fect freely preferred death and pain to life and ease, purchased by apoftafy: laftly, the number of them will not bear naming to ours. Now, can you pour contempt on an institution where the highest fortitude appears to have ⚫ been general? Dare you affirm, that a doctrine which has fteeled women and children with incredible magnanimity, • which has inflamed multitudes with an unconquerable love of glory, tends to debafe, to enervate humanity.?-

As to the Roman empire, is he who takes upon him to dictate in polity and government, unacquainted with the ' opinion of his equals, that ftates have their natural rifings, alterations, and downfals; and that permanency does not · feem to be of this world? How many cities and ftates, renowned for arts and arms, for magnificence, power and commerce, are now buried in the duft ?-After fo many ⚫ antecedent inftances of the natural mutability and diffolution of the beft compacted governments, why fhould this fagacious politician weep over the afhes of that of the Romans, and impute this bad event to the chriftian religion? Prefumptuous man, doft thou afk what elfe occafioned it? I'll tell thee then besides the natural origin, increase, and downfal of governments, all thofe arts by which the strength of ⚫ftates is knit together, had failed long before Chrift came into the world. When luxury and avarice, when bribery and faction had broken in upon them; when the laws and the fenate were set at defiance; when the commonalty became the mercenary tools of ambitious patricians; when the city was a scene of pillage and bloodfhed; when offices and governments were fold by auction; when the question in in✦ teftine commotions was not the public welfare, but who

'fhould

'fhould be uppermoft; when things were come to this pass,* and to this pafs they were come, as depicted by their own hiftorians, may not fuch a ftate be concluded to be on the edge of the precipice, and that it is unworthy of a longer • continuance.'

The author continues his exordium, in this declamatory ftyle, thro' the times of feveral Roman emperors, after Rome had profeffed christianity; and concludes that all the evils ⚫ which fell upon it proceeded not from an attachment to religion, [the chriftian] but to a neglect of it.'

Each of these topics he defcants upon more at large, in the profecution of his fubject.

26. Letter I. From a student at Hall, to his father, who had directed him to fend him, every three months, fome remarkable paffages in the foreign books he read. From the German of Kimpler's Zammlung von brieven.

The very title of this performance is fufficient to apprise us of what we are to expect, and what in reality it is, a common-place collection of jumbled and unconnected extracts. To this we must add, that the ftudent has fhewn very little judgment in the execution of his father's command.

27. Whether the Romans, who made fuch admirable roads, built no inns, or places of entertainment along them, there being no vestiges of any? From the Italian of Lancellotti. ¡

This is an uncommon fubject; and the author informs us he has taken much pains in his inquiries, to no purpose. He is of opinion, that people in public offices were accommodated fuitably to their rank, in every town wherein they chose to refresh themselves; that perfons of rank and fashion made free with the palaces and feats of their acquaintance, and returned the compliment by an equality of hofpitality and politeness upon the fame occafions. But he is utterly at a lofs to know how the lower fort of people fared upon their journies. How they did (concludes he) without inns on the roads, and in towns, is a mystery as dark as 'tis evident, no • veftiges remain of any fuch conveniencies.'

28. Curious differtation on the Eneid; from vol. xvii. of the Academie des Belles Lettres.

The author confiders the Eneid in a political light; and has extracted several paffages from it, in proof that Virgil's chief view, in the forming of his plan, was to compliment Auguftus in the character of Eneas, and to conciliate the Romans, thofe

firm friends to liberty, to his abfolute government. We are not at leisure to difpute with the author, the affertion he fets out with, that not one of Virgil's commentators have entered into his whole defign; but, we believe, he has opened no great discovery, to people of extensive and accurate reading.

29. Chriftianity in the primitive times, taken for a fect of philofophy. From Hiftoire critique de la philofophie of M. Deflandes.

This amounts to nothing more, than that christianity was not regarded by the learned pagans, as a fyftem by divine authority 'till they came to believe that it was fuch.

30. Whether the Greeks had traded to the British islands, before the expedition of Julius Cæfar? From vol. xvii. de l'Acadamie des Belles Lettres.

After producing feveral arguments for and against the above queftion, the author feems to incline his opinion to the negative. The point is not material to the generality of our readers; we commend it, therefore, to the decifion of that body to whom it most properly belongs.

31. Hiftorical differtation on the fortileges of the Pagans, called Sortes Homerica, and Sortes Virgilianæ, &c. and on those known among the chriftians by the name of Sortes Sanctorum. From the fame.

This manner of inquiring into futurity, (fays the author) • unquestionably took its rife from a general custom of the • oracular priefts to deliver their answers in verfe; it fubfifted a long time among the Greeks and Romans; and being from them adopted by the chriftians, it was not 'till after a long fucceffion of centuries that it became exploded.

• Among the Romans it confifted in cafually opening fome celebrated poet, and among the Chriftians the fcriptures, and drawing from the firft paffage which prefented itself to the eye, a prognoftic of what would befall one's felf or others, or direction for conduct when under any exigency.' We are informed that this was none of the vulgar errors; the greatest perfons, philofophers of the best repute, held with this fuperftition.

Socrates, when in prifon, hearing this line of Homer, "Within three days I Phthia's fhore fhall fee." immediately faid, within three days I fhall be out of the world; gathering it from the double meaning of the word

• Phthia,

• Phthia, which in Greek is both the name of a country, and fignifies corruption, or death. This prediction, addressed to fchinus, was not eafily forgotten, as it was verified.' The author produces feveral other inftances of this Pagan folly, among men of the higheft rank and confideration.

The chriftians, we are told, had two methods of confult⚫ing the divine will from the fcriptures; the one, cafually to open the divine writings and take their direction, as abovementioned; the other, to go to church with a purpose of receiving, as a declaration of the will of heaven, the words of the scripture, which were finging at the inftant of one's 'entrance.'

The author produces feveral inftances of this unwarrantable procedure, in England as well as other christian countries, down to the 12th century. He concludes in a manner, which, we believe, our readers will approve no more than we do. He condemns, indeed, dipping into scripture with a view to confult futurity; but adds, that marty divines (with whom he feems to concur) look not altogether untowardly upon the practice, when difcreet and godly perfons have opened the facred book-to meet with fome paffage to fupport them in an hour of temptation, or in times of diftrefs and perfe cution.'

We have known feveral, whofe devotion has not always been regulated by judgment, purfue this method with that view the author mentions; and have generally observ'd, that the consequence has been despair, or prefumption. To fuch we beg leave to recommend one paffage in fcripture which will never disappoint them: THOU SHALT NOT TEMPT THE LORD THY GOD.

32. Letter II. From a ftudent at Hall to his father. This is application the fecond, of this difcerning ftudent, to his common-place book. See Letter I. p. 12.

33. Of the ufe of hypothefes and the decyphering of Letters. From the Latin of Gravelandt.

There are few articles on which we are not able to convince our readers how much we are at their devotion; but here, indeed, we are non-plus'd. There is not one conjurer', or decypherer among us.

P.

ART

ART. II. Difcourfes, controverfial and practical, on various Subjects, proper for the confideration of the prefent times. In two Volumes. By the author of Deifm revealed. 8vo. 2 vols. 12s. Millar and Rivington.

IN

notion

N order to give our readers a juft idea of thefe difcourfes, it may not be improper to lay before them part of what the author fays in his preface to the firft volume, addressed to the clergy of the church of England.

As to the defects of thefe performances, fays he, thus • addreffed to you, it is feared, they will be found too numerous, and too confiderable, to countenance the boldness of the author in this application. He is, nevertheless, on a • review of what he hath written, encouraged to apply; because the objections to which his work may be liable, are, he hopes, fufficiently balanced, not only by the goodness of his intention, but also by the perfpicuity and concisenefs wherewith he hath endeavoured to draw together, as in fo many focal points, the lights neceflary for the illuftration and proof of each controverted fundamental, which are ⚫ either too much diffipated, or too much obfcured, by the • terms of art, and prolixer reasonings, of abler, but more ⚫ voluminous controvertifts. He hath likewife introduced, throughout these his difcourfes, a variety of new arguments, which, he hopes, may merit your attention, whatsoever they may do as to your approbation. And further, as it was his chief aim finally to decide, if poffible, the debates ❝ under each important topic, to the fatisfaction of every truly candid inquirer; he hath, firft, endeavoured to prove the ⚫ fcriptures to be the real word of God. Secondly, to fhew how, as fuch, they ought to be read and underflood; and laftly, to clear up the several difputed points, by pure unfophifticated paffages of fcripture, not darkened or perverted by the arbitrary and artful expofitions of men, but taken in their first obvious and naked fenfe, prefuming that God ⚫ knew how to write intelligibly to a plain well-meaning understanding.

It is a grofs mistake, to fuppofe, that nothing new may be faid on the fundamental articles of our faith. They are really unexhauftible, and the scriptures, wherein they are • revealed, is a bottomle's abyfs of wifdom. The following difcourfes may, perhaps, fatisfy the learned reader, in a variety of inftances, that both affertions are true, without leading him from the plain path of common fenfe. But,

• be