partiality in our own favour does indeed prefent it upon all occafions; but found philofophy ought carefully to guard against so natural an illufion."

TIM. It is not "our partiality in our own favour that prefents it to us upon all occafions," but the neceffity of the cafe. There is no other way of speaking upon the subject, so as to be understood. Knowlege in God and man, however different in degree, or attained in a different manner, is the fame in kind, and produces the fame effects, fo far as relates to our present purpose. The knowledge of God is intuitive and perfect; that of man is by deduction, and is therefore imperfect, either when his premises are falfe, or when paffion and prejudice enter into his conclufion. But wifdom, which confifts in fixing upon proper ends, and fitly proportioning means to those ends, is wisdom, in whatsoever object, mode, or degree it may exift; and there is therefore no illufion, in faying, every houfe is builded by some man, but he that built all things is God." You fpeak of thought, reafon, or defign, as "a little agitation of the brain;" as if you imagined, that Paradife loft or the Advancement of Learning, might at any time be produced, by fimmering a man's brain over the fire. Certainly an author cannot compofe without brains, heart, liver, and lungs; but I am of opinion femething more than all four must have gone to the compofition even of the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion. "Minute, weak, and bounded, as this principle of reafon and defign is found to be in the inhabitants of this planet," it can form and fruftrate mighty schemes; it can raise and subvert empires; it can invent and bring to perfection a variety of arts and fciences; and in the hands of fome very worthy gentlemen of my acquaintance, it can fet itself up against all that is called God, and revile the works of the Almighty through 364 pages together.

Toм. I cannot but ftill think, there is fomething of partiality and felf love in the business. "Suppose there were a planet wholly inhabited by fpiders (which is very poffible;) they would probably affert, with the Bramins, that the world arofe from an infinite fpider, who fpun this whole complicated mafs from his bowels, and annihilates afterwards the whole, or any part of it, by absorbing it again, and refolving it into his own effence. This inference would there appear as natural and irrefragable as that which in our planet afcribes the origin of all things to defign and intelligence. To us indeed it appears ridiculous, because a spider is a little contemptible animal, whofe operations we are never likely to take for a model of the whole universe.

TIM. Poifibly not; but I fhould take that "little contemptible animal" for an exact model of a fceptical philosopher

It fpins a flimfy web, it's slender ftore;

And labours till it clouds itself all o'er.

And were there a planet wholly inhabited by these fame philofophers, I doubt not of their fpinning a cofmogony worthy an academy of fpidersAnd fo, Toм, the voluntary humility which difcovered itself at your fetting out, ends at last in degrading man to a spider; and reafon is either exalted to the stars, or depreffed to the earth, as best serves the cause of infidelity. In this particular, however, you are at least as bad as the parfons.— But let us proceed. What have you more to fay against the argument of

the house?

TOM.

Toм. I fay, that arguments concerning facts are founded on experience. I have seen one house planned and erected by an archite&t, and therefore I conclude the fame with regard to others. But "will any man tell me, with a serious countenance, that an orderly universe must arise from fome thought and art like the human, because we have experience of it? To afcertain this reasoning, it were requifite that we had experience of the origin of worlds."

TIM, Truly I know not how that can well be; for worlds are not made every day. I have heard of the production of none fince our own, and man could not fee that made, because he himself was made after it; and he could not exist, before he was made. The contrary fuppofition was indeed once ventured on, by the mafter of a Dutch puppet-shew-Whether he were a metaphyfician, I never heard. In the beginning of this ingenious drama, Mr. PUNCH pofting over the stage in a very large pair of jack-boots, and being afked, whither he was going at fo early an hour, replies I am going to be created, His evidence, if you can procure it, is very much at the service of scepticism, and may go near to determine the matter. In the mean time, I shall prefume my argument to be still good, that if a house must be built by thought and defign, a world cannot have been built without; though I have seen the one, and never was fo fortunate as to fee the other. Let me add farther, that if in the general contrivance and conftruction of the world there be evident demonftration of confummate wisdom, that demonftration cannot be fet afide by seeming or real inconveniences in fome parts, which, for good reasons, were either origi nally defigned, or may have been fince introduced, for the trial or punishment of its inhabitants, or for other purposes, unknown to us-This is the plain conclufion formed by common fenfe, and furely ten times more rational than to talk of eggs, and feeds, and Spiders, and the neceffity of Seeing the world made, in order to know that it had a maker.

REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS.

St. Paul no Arian, or the end of the Mediatorial Kingdom: a Sermon preached on Sunday the 25th of April, 1802, in the Church of the United Parishes of St. Bene't Gracechurch, and St. Leonard, Eaftcheap, by the Rev. JOHN WHIte Middleton, A. M. 8vo. 18 pages.

UPON the whole this is an ingenious difcourfe on 1 Cor. xv. v. 24—28.

Mr. Middleton rightly explains the paffage as alluding to the mediatorial kingdom which the Son of God fhall ultimately deliver up to his Father. Indeed moft, if not all, commentators are of the fame judgment. There is an objectionable phrase however at page 8. "His [i. e. Chrift's] dominion will then be univerfal with the exception indeed of that Great Being who originally invested him with his powers." This is rather aukwardly expreffed, and might feem to favour fomewhat of femiArianifm.

The Meffiah voluntarily covenanted for man's redemption, and affumed our nature for the purpose of accomplishing that great work. There was nothing of inveftiture in the cafe, for this would be to make the Son the dependant of that Great Being who invested him. The point is very myfterious, and it should have been more cautiously and fcripturally expressed.

The

The Duties and Qualifications of the Chriftian Minifter, a Sermon Preached at the Cathedral Church, at Chester, on Occafion of a General Ordination, on Sunday, September 20, 1801. By the Rev. T. PARKINSON, D. D. Archdeacon of Huntingdon, and Rector of Kegworth, Leicestershire. 4to. pages 27.

THI

HIS is a very judicious difcourfe upon that appropriate text 1 Tim. chap. 4, ver. 16 "take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine." "The qualifications and duties implied in the due execution of your miniftry (fays the archdeacon) may be comprised in I. A firm belief of the truth of Chriftianity. II. A familiar acquaintance with the Scriptures. III. An exemplary life, conformable to them. IV. A zealous difcharge of your profeffional duties." On each of these topicks he offers fome excellent obfervations and advice which, if acted upon, muft render the perfons for whose inftruction they were delivered a blefling to the church. In a note at the end of a fermon is an anecdote of Dr. Manton which might as well have been omitted, especially as the faid Manton was chaplain to Oliver Cromwell and a notorious fanatic.

The fermon is published for the benefit of the Chefter infirmary and we are glad to fee it graced by a numerous lift of fubscribers.

A Letter addreffed to the Hon. CHARLES JAMES Fox in Confequence of a Publication entitled "A Sketch of the Character of the Moft Noble FRANCIS DUKE OF BEDFORD." Bath printed, 28 pages.

THI

HIS is a fmart letter, and evidently the production of no common writer. We, however, fhould not have taken any notice of it in our review, were it not for the ftrong and juft animadverfions it contains upon this popular orator for his failing to notice the duke's fentiments on religion. Some of his noble ancestors, it is well known, were eminently pious as well as great, and it would have been more gratifying to have been informed that the duke was a Chriftian upon conviction than uniform in his political attachments. The letter writer, in remarking upon the latter feature of his character, farcaftically notices his patronage of Paine, Hardy and Thelwall. Certainly this circumftance, if true, can reflect no credit upon the noble deceased, to whofe many accomplishments we are happy to bear our teftimony. It is, however, melancholy to obferve that in the catalogue of virtues recorded of fuch men as the duke of Bedford by their furviving friends, religion is totally omitted. This is a dark void, and bodes to have a fatal influence upon the beft interefts of our country. The letter closes with an extract from Bp. Horne's Letter to Adam Smith containing an appropriate account of the death of the pious and judicious Hooker.

Village Dialogues, between Farmer Littleworth and Thomas Newman, Rev. Mers. Lovegood, Dolittle and others. By RowLAND HILL, A. M. 2 vols. 12mo.

To the name and character of Rowland Hill none of our readers can be a ftranger. It may feem to fome of them perhaps a matter of furprize that we fhould fo far difgrace our mifcellany as to take any notice of the man or his productions. He has already paffed under our caftigating hand, and in his prefent performance he has done us the honour of abufing us in his ufual very elegant language. We certainly should not feel a difpofition to review such wretched trash as the Village Dialogues, were it not

that

that they are calculated to do much mischief throughout the kingdom, by alienating the minds of the people from the regular clergy. The main defign of these tracts, which are published at a low price and circulated with uncommon avidity, is to render the great body of the clergy contemptible. If a ftranger were to form a judgment of the national church from fuch publications as this, he would conclude that a viler fet of men never exifted than the perfons who are now engaged in her services, whether archbithops, bishops, rectors, vicars or curates. That vene rable and exemplary champion of the Chriftian Religion, the Bishop of Rochester is caricatured in thefe dialogues by the malicious, but flovenly hand of Rowland Hill. Yet this fchifmatic pretends to be a dutiful fon of the Church of England, and at the very moment that he is doing every thing he can to accomplish her deftruction he has the impudence to trumpet her praises. But he wants none of his compliments or hypocritical adulation, for fhe difowns him as an apostate. With what face does Rowland quote her liturgy, when he is too proud to read it himself in his conventicle, but employs an illiterate mechanick to mangle it (according to his master's phrafe) as he pleafeth?

The activity of Rowland Hill and his affociates to propagate fchism throughout the united kingdom reminds us of the zeal of their proto-types the Pharifees, "who (we are told) compaffed fea and land to make profelytes" and very precious profelytes they made. If the obtruding themfelves into other men's labours, and drawing the people away from their lawful and confcientious paftors, be an evangelical rule of proceding, thefe men are perfect. But the Chriftian who reads the New Teftament to learn how he is to act as well as what he is to believe, will perceive that fuch a conduct is diametrically oppofite to the precepts of Jefus Christ and the practice of the Apofiles.

The Puritans in the feventeenth contury, took exactly the fame steps as the Methodists are now pursuing, to overthrow the Ecclefiastical Establifhment of this kingdom, and they not only fucceeded in their attempt, but with it they brought down monarchy under a pretence of making Charles the First A GLORIOUS KING." Our modern fanatics can alfo cant the praises of the church, and pretend great affection to the king, but if they were fincere, we fhould fee them obedient to the laws of their country which they now fet at open defiance. The act of toleration has its limits, and we are friends to that act, but we also wish to see the boundaries refpected and the violation of them properly refented. Conventicles are rifing every day, and are elbowing the church on every fide, while itinerant Enthufiasts of all defcriptions are prowling over the country seeking for.followers. Such is the state of things at prefent, and to the confiderate mind it is by no means a pleasant state. We call upon all the true fons of the Church of England (for alas! the has but too many falfe ones) to lay these things to heart, and to fet themselves with unremitted vigilance in counteracting the mischievous zeal of these infidious violaters of Christian order, and perverters of gospel truth.

LE

LIST OF BOOKS ECTURES on the Gofpel of St. Matthew, delivered in the Parish Church of St. Ja.nes, Weftminster, in the years 1798, 1799, 1800, 1801, by the Right Rev. Beilby Bishop of London, in one volume 8vo.

IN DIVINITY.

Elements of General Knowledge, introductory to useful Books in the principal branches of Literature and Science, with Bufts of the most approved Authers, defigned chiefly for the Junior Students in the Univerfities, and the

higher