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hammedanism; and the volume, particularly the latter part of it, is enlivened by a great number of very interesting anecdotes. The able narrative, which we have been perusing, leaves on the mind impressions of the utmost detestation for the spiritual tyranny exercised by the court of Rome. Providence never made use of so terrible a scourge to chastise mankind. No power ever outraged the interests of society, the principles of justice, and the claims of humanity, to the same extent. Never did the world behold such blasphemy, profligacy, and wantonness, as in the proceedings of this spiritual domination. It held the human mind in chains, visited with exemplary punishment every inroad on the domains of ignorance, and plunged nations into a state of stupidity and imbecility. Its proscriptions, massacres, murders, and all the various forms which its cruelties assumed, the miseries which it heaped on the objects of its vengeance, its merciless treatment of them, and the grasp of its iron sway, seemed at one time to leave no room to hope for the liberation of the human race. Surely nothing can appear more hideous than this power in its real colours: it leaves the mind full of horror at its cruelties! - We are aware of the use to which this true representation will be perverted; of the inference which the weak will draw and which the designing will contend are fairly drawn from it, namely, that the professors of a religion, which has in times past been such a curse to the world, are not now to be trusted with the exercise of their civil rights by a free community. To persons of little reflection, it may appear strange that men of understanding should acknowlege the spiritual supremacy of a chief whose predecessors were for centuries the instruments of inflicting such evils on the world, and who so long held the human mind in such bondage: but they do not consider in what degree the chance of birth determines religious persuasion. The simple acknowlegement of the supremacy of the Pope in spiritual matters, and submission to him in that character, ought to be separable from any admission of his temporal power, and cannot on any principle be construed into an approbation of the usurpations and enormities of which his predecessors have been guilty. As well, we think, might the English people be reproached and stigmatized for the cruelties of their ancestors towards the original inhabitants of this island, as the present generation of Catholics be held subject to any disabilities on account of the persecutions of the church of Rome in antient times. This is not the inference which the author draws from the same premises. It was no part of his intention to furnish weapons for the odious cause even of honest bigotry, much less for that of the hypocritical bigotry of the present

day.

day. He has merely adhered to the truth of history, and fairly pursued his subject; and no blame attaches to him, if a wrong use is made of that which it was his duty to relate. He does not fail on any fit occasion to bear manly testimony to the inspiring cause of religious liberty, to which he appears to be a well-informed and zealous friend.

MONTHLY CATALOGUE,

For JUNE, 1814.

RELIGIOUS.

Art. 16. The Predestined Thief; or a Dialogue between a Calvinistic Preacher and a Thief condemned to the Gallows; in which is represented, in a Copy drawn as it were from the Life, the Influence of Calvinistic Principles in producing Crimes and Impieties of every Sort, and the Impediments placed by those Principles in the Way of the Sinner's Repentance and Amendment of Life. [With an Application to the recent Case of Robert Kendall, who was executed at Northampton, August 13. 1813.] Translated from the original Latin, published, London, 1651, without either the Author's or Printer's Name. Svo. 3s. Nichols and Son. 1814. The author of this dialogue, who is said to have been Archbishop Sancroft, holding the doctrine of rigid and exclusive Predestination in abhorrence, endeavours in a familiar way to argue mankind to reject it and to shun the preachers of it. In this dialogue, therefore, between the thief and the Calvinistic minister, the language of the original Calvinistic school is introduced, and its immoral tendency is placed in a strong point of view. The thief contends that the necessity of sinning was imposed on him on the part of God;' and the Calvinist, on his avowed principle of eternal and immutable decrees, is unable to vanquish the thief in argument. We give a short

specimen :

Thief. Are not all then elect?

Preacher. By no means; for God of his own mere good pleasure, without any respective consideration of their future impiety or wickedness, hath ordained the greatest part of mankind to eternal damnation!!

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or are you

Thief. Tell me then, in good earnest, what think you of my state? Am I elect, or reprobate? Do you answer doubtful as to the enquiry? Speak! - involve not your meaning in uncertain expressions; think not one thing while you speak another; let your words and your judgment coincide; candidly and clearly tell me your sentiments. It is absolutely necessary I should know the truth. If I am reprobate, I should believe a lie; for Christ hath obtained no grace for the reprobate. If I am elect, I shall follow the truth, and not a lie; but, for enquiry into the truth, the Gospel is a necessary guide. Above all things, I would know whether I am elect or not.

• Preacher.

Peacher. Every one in the Church is bound to believe God's commands; that by Christ he is redeemed, reprobate as well as elect but each in his peculiar way or manner. The elect is held to believe that by his faith he is partaker of the election: the reprobate, that believing according to the design of God, he has less to be answerable for. And Christ is therefore offered for the reprobate, not that they might be saved, but that, convicted by their unbelief, and their refractory heart, they might be without excuse.

Thief. You would say, then, God would have the reprobate believe that which is a lie: nay, further, that he will damn them eternally for not believing what is a lie: now what hinders this conclusion for the sentence of condemnation against the reprobate being fixed, 'tis all one by what means they incur it.

Preacher. Leave those subtleties, I pray you; and let us rather implore God to bestow upon you eternal salvation.

Thief. If you chase to pray for yourself, do so; I would not spend my labour to no purpose in prayer: for, if I am reprobated, I shall never obtain salvation, though I were to spend a thousand years in prayer. For a sentence of reprobation is fixed and immoveable: so that, as the elect cannot possibly be reprobated, in the same manner the reprobate cannot become elect.

This extract is of the same tendency with the whole of the dia logue, and represents the indiscreet mode of exhibiting doctrinal points by the old continental Calvinists: but we would not attribute the language here employed to our modern orthodox, who will probably think that more acuteness than piety is displayed in this publication.

Art. 17. Three Discourses delivered in the Parish Church of Wisbech, St. Peter's, before the Wisbech Battalion of the Isle of Ely Regiment of Local Militia, and published at the Request of the Corps. By Jeremiah Jackson, A.M., late Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. 8vo. 28. Gale and Co. 1813.

The Wisbech battalion of Local Militia has done itself no little credit by desiring the preacher of these sermons to publish them; since they manifest much sound sense and clear discrimination, and place each subject discussed in a just and profitable point of view. We, too, owe Mr. Jackson our thanks for the satisfaction which we have received from the perusal of them, and have only to request that, if these discourses come to a second edition, he would affix a distinct title to each sermon. In the first, Mr. J. shews that the strong expressions of our Saviour, on the subjects of peace and forgiveness, must be taken with some limitations; and that the profession of a soldier is neither forbidden as unlawful, nor discountenanced as in any respect inconsistent with the dictates of religion.' In the second, he displays with suitable animation our civil, religious, and national blessings, blessings which we ought highly to appreciate and manfully to defend; and in the last he draws the character of the Christian warrior, pointing out the striking analogy which subsists between the Christian and the military character.

These sermons are well adapted to the preacher's audience not only by the choice of subjects, but by their plain yet nervous style, and by the patriotic animation which glows through the whole.

Art.

Art. 18. The Preacher's Manual; containing, I. Two Essays, on Lay-Preaching, and on the Ministerial Character. II. Simplicity recommended to Ministers of the Gospel, (Third Edition.) III. Letters on Preaching, by Sheva, from the Evangelical Magazine. IV. Appendix; being various important Extracts from Claude, Doddridge, Mather, Watts, Newton, Cowper, Cecil, &c. 12mo. 3s. Boards. Williams and Son.

From a feeling of delicacy, the author of this manual conceals his name: but he does not hesitate to declare that he principally designs his work for the use of those who have not enjoyed the advantages of a regular education for the ministry; and while to persons of this description his hints and maxims are well adapted, the clergy in general may derive benefit from the serious consideration of them. The author appears to have studied his subject, and to have a right conception of the nature and object of the Christian ministry; and if, under certain circumstances, he advocates lay-preaching, he is not insensible to the advantages of a regularly educated clergy. In his essay on Simplicity, he pointedly objects to that which proceeds from ignorance or stupidity; for,' says he, however the preaching of the Gospel may be esteemed foolishness, there is nothing commendable in foolish preaching.' The objects of his recommendation are, Simplicity of Doctrine, Method, Style, Delivery, and a minister's public duty and private conduct. On simplicity of doctrine, different classes of Christians will have different ideas: the present writer does not mean by it the most simple doctrines: but we shall not touch on the subject, nor follow him in his explanations; especially as this part of the manual has been previously published in a separate form.

The third part, intitled Letters on Preaching, under the four heads of doctrinal, practical, experimental, and allegorical, appeared in a periodical work in 1808. As a short specimen of the writer's mode of preaching to preachers, we shall take the conclusion of his advice on practical preaching:

I know that some Calvinists have scrupled the addressing any exhortations to sinners, farther than to external acts of duty; that is, they have exhorted them to be hypocrites! for such are those whose religion is all external, and springs not from the heart! Those who can bend the Scriptures to this system, may bend them to any thing: nor would it require more force to make them speak the opinions of Socinus, or of Pope Pius." My son, give me thine heart," is the language of God from Genesis to Revelation; and the minister who does not aim at converting the heart, however able a divine or learned an expositor, is unworthy the name of a Christian minister. "But shall we try to convert the non-elect?" Yes, by all means; and if you succeed you will be forgiven! Some people seem afraid of inviting more to heaven than Christ has provided seats for. But he hath said, "In my Father's house are many mansions ;”. and hath commissioned his servants, to the end of the world, to say,—« Yet there is room." "

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In the selections from various writers, of which the Appendix is composed, a variety of instructive and amusing matter is offered to clergymen ;

clergymen; and we may venture to report of this little volume that, if preachers habituate themselves to turn over its pages, and attend to the advice which it contains, their duty would be performed more honourably to themselves, and more profitably to their congregations. Art. 19. The Pulpit; or a Biographical and Literary Account of eminent popular Preachers: interspersed with occasional Clerical Criticism. By Onesimus. Vol. II. 8vo. 10s. 6d. Boards. Carr.

Of Onesimus's first pulpiteering-cruize, we took some notice in our Ixiiid Vol., N. S., p. 277., and the success which he has obtained has induced him to venture on another similar expedition: but, as the novelty of this species of reviewing has ceased, we doubt whether his second attempt will be equally acceptable with his first. To recom mend himself to the members of the Established Church, he extends the warmest applause to her forms and faith, to her Liturgy, ordinances, and Articles; and being moreover one of her orthodox sons, he mourns the prevalence of Arminianism (which he calls the leaven of the age) among the leading ministers of the Establishment. That this zealous churchman should be attracted by the talents, and desirous of swelling the merited fame, of the most respectable of his own clergy, is not surprizing: yet it seems a little suspicious that his attachment to the Established Church should be so intimately blended with the most perfect knowlege of the concerns of the Dissenting Church; a knowlege which could result only from the fullest istercourse. Instead of confining himself to the consecrated walls of the national church, he wanders about "from Dan to Beersheba," visiting every conventicle that happens to have that inviting object called a Popular Preacher; and if this popular preacher appears with the nimbus of evangelism surrounding his brow, he is puffed; not, surely, for the purpose of keeping down his vanity. Sometimes, however, this clerical critic preaches at preachers not in a style of flattery. Against the Wesleyan Methodists, he employs a degree of severity which may be in character with a Calvinist, but not with a critic who, like an impartial judge, should hold the scales even between contending sects. We transcribe a short passage in connection with this remark:

Arminianism is found subservient to Unitarianism.- Perhaps the transition is not difficult, from undervaluing the atonement of Christ to the denying of his divinity likewise! Pharisaicism is still rootedly hostile to Christianity.'

Surely, Onesimus does not mean to palm this on the world as a specimen of sound logic, or of a true Christian spirit! The remark on Arminianism is supposed to be justified, because Astbury and Pickersgill, two Methodist local preachers, left the Wesleyan forms and became Unitarians: but the author might with equal truth have asserted that Calvinism is subservient to Unitarianism, because Dr.Priestley and Mr. Belsham were once Calvinists. By an artful collocation of sentences, does he mean to intimate that those who disbelieve the atonement and divinity of Christ are not Christians? If he does, let him recollect that the same insinuation may be retorted,

and

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