.. r Having, in the Addrefs prefixed to this Difcourfe, (P.7.) introduced a few obfervations on church authority, which were not in the first edition, I now recommend to the reader's difpaffionate and attentive perufal, a fmall Treatife that has been reprinted fince the first impreffion of this Difcourfe, entitled, A Treatife on the Nature and Conftitution of the Chriftian Church; wherein are fet forth the Form of its Government; the Extent of its Powers; and the Limits of our Obedience.-By WILLIAM STEVENS, Efq.-A new Edition, published by defire of the Society for promoting Chriftian Knowledge, by the Rivingtons, duod. 1799.' I rejoice to fee the pens of learned Laymen thus ably and ufefully employed. This cannot even be called Prieftcraft. The truly venerable Society deferve well, for defiring the republication of this Treatife, on a fubject which is but very imperfectly understood, indeed almoft unknown even to many churchmen, though of the greatest import ance to every Chriftian, in giving him juft notions of the Chriftian Church. In this, as in various other inftances, they have expreffed their zeal for the glory of God, and the welfare of the Apoftolical Church of England, of which they are individually members, and moft of them the duly conftituted public guardians and teachers; by furnishing the proper antidotes to the poifon of infidelity, herefy, and fchifm. My refpect for the Author of the Treatife on the Church (to whofe merits I can no more do juftice, than I can exprefs, by words, my affectionate gratitude for his friendly offices) will not fuffer me to withhold the juft teftimony of a departed friend, who neither flattered any man, nor fuffered any to flatter him; than whom no man was ever more competent to appreciate whatever related to the Chriftian Church; who was the orthodox divine; the found churchman; the laborious and exemplary parish prieft; the impreffive preacher; the learned linguift and philologift; the able tutor; the acute philofopher; the friend and biographer of the great and good Bishop HORNE-the venerable WILLIAM JONES. But a few months before he closed a long, active, and useful life, he expreffed his approbation of Mr. Stevens's book, in a letter to that gentleman, in my poffeffion, from which Mr. S. muft permit me to make an extract, as a teftimony which renders fuperfluous all other commendation. My thoughts are full of you at this time. I confider you as one of the great Lay Elders of this Church; having just been reading attentively your Treatife on the Church; and, I must fay, I think and find it one of the best elementary treatises I ever read on any subject; and I rejoice that the Society are about to diftribute it." We can bear our teftimony to the truth of the affertion, that, in the praise bestowed on Mr. STEVENS, Mr. JONES was not guilty of flattery. Indeed it may, with great truth, be faid of both thefe diftinguished characters, that the better they are known, the more will they be valued. ART. XXII. A Sermon on the Origin of Government, and the Excellence of the British Conflitution; preached at the Affizes holden for the County of Southampton, on the 5th of March, 1800, before Sir Soulden Lawrence, Knt. and Arthur Palmer, Efq. By Daniel Lancafter, A. B. Curate of South Stoneham. PP. 22. 15. Cadell and Davies. 1800. 8vo. A TEMPERATE and judicious difcourfe in which the Origin of Government is traced to its only legitimate fource, the Will of the Creator; and the neceffity of obedience to the established authoritie is enforced by the precepts and example of our Bleffed Saviour and his Apoftles. If our fpeculative politicians and reformers would but confult the infpired writings, and take them for the guide of their conduct, they would learn to reftrain the intemperance of miftaken zeal, to check the fallies of a wild imagination, and to direct the artillery of réformation against their own hearts; in short, they would become better men and better subjects. ART. XXIII. A Difcourfe delivered on the Faf-Day in February 1799, in the Church of St. Laurence, Winchefter. By the Rev. Henry' Gabell, A. B. Rector, Second Mafter of Winchefter School. 8vo. PP. 38. Cadell and Davies. 1799. IT would be excefs of folly to deny the juftice of the propofition advanced by the preacher, in his "Advertisement," "that our political form an important claís of our moral obligations, and that it is the office of a Minifter to enforce the whole duty of man." Unquestionably it is fo, and he who fhrinks from the full discharge of all the duties of that office is unfit for the facred calling. From the words of the Pfalmift-"Why do the people imagine a vain thing," Mr. Gabell takes occafion to enter into a brief but mafterly difcuffion of the leading tenets of the modern fyftem of philofophy, the fallacy and folly of which he exposes with great ftrength of reafoning and eloquence of language. After examining the merits of the poisonous Tree of French Liberty, he fhews the glaring inconfiftency which exifts between the practice and the principles of the boasted regenerators of the human race. "The Deceivers and Oppreffors of mankind not, only violate, but in fome inftances feem to difown their own principles. Individuals, who in their former low condition were the loudeft in the cry of Equality, having rifen into place and power, and gotten by rapine what others poffeffed by law, have changed their principles with their fortunes, and renounced the doctrine of Equality. The word, indeed, ftill rings in our ears; it ftands confpicuous as a formulary at the head of their edicts; it waves on their military banners in letters of gold. But the fubftance they have explained and quibbled away. By equality, they no longer mean equality; by a term general and abfolute, without refervation or restriction, we are now to underftand, forfooth, fomething particular; fome particular 1 particular fort of Equality; equal law, equal liberty, equal rights to unequal things, any thing or nothing, juft as their able commentators on this fide of the water fupply them with sophistries to juftify their treacherous tergiverfations. Jugglers, and Impoftors! You have duped and fooled mankind by a ftudied and fraudulent ambiguity! You govern the world by an equivoque!" You have founded your republic on a lie! "Thus, if we may judge of their other principles from thofe we have examined, whether, we appeal to reafon, or the experience of modern philofophers, modern philofophy is alike vain and impracticable." On one point alone do we difagree with this able Divine. He comments with great propriety on the danger of perpetually harping on "the right of refifting government under particular circumftances;" but concludes with the following remark, the fubftance of which is taken from Paley." As the doctrine of Revolution is gone forth, and the mischief done, it may be fafer to admit, than to deny, what indeed feems to be philofophically true, the right of refifting our civil governors, then, and then only, when refiftance. is conducive to public happiness." We contend, on the contrary, that fuch a conceffion would not only not be fafer than a denial, but that it would be alike contrary to truth, and incompatible with the fecurity of the focial fyftem. Who are to judge when refistance will be conducive to public happiness?* The people? how are their *We are well aware of Dr. Paley's anfwer to this question, “Every man for himfelf;" but without entering into all the abfurdities which this antwer feems to involve, we will just ask, hou and by whom the question is to be submitted to every individual member of the community? In what manner, by what procefs, is the judgement of every man to be pronounced and made known? What is to be done, if, in a population of eight millions, it fhould happen (which is not merely a poffible but a highly probable cafe) four millions and a half fhould vote for refiftance and three millions and a half for obedience? In such a state of things the majority can have no poffible right to controul the minority. For, when every man is left to judge for himself, the focial bond must be diffolved, and all law annihilated, it being the primary object of law, which is the only cement of fociety, to prevent every man from judging for himfelf, on every queftion which affects the interefts and the welfare of the community. In fhort, it is both idle and dangerous to maintain the existence of a right, fubverfive of all law, to which Dr.' Paley, in contradiction to his own principles, is obliged to acknowledge, in a fubfequent Chapter, devoted exclufively to the British Conftitution," all appeal ought to be made, and by which every conftitutional doubt and question can alone be decided;" (Paley's Principles of Moraland Political Philofophy, Vol. II. chap. vii. P. 191.) -a right which cannot poffibly be exercifed without producing anarchy, bloodshed, and all the accumulated horrors of civil warfare, F3 their their opinions to be collected?-The two Houfes of Parliament ? They can perform no legal act without the confent of the King; and the King, of course, is to be the object of refiftance. This loote, indefenfible doctrine can answer no other purpose than to fet the perturbed fpirits of the difaffected in a ferment, and to hold out an encouragement to rebellion. As to the abstract question of the right of refiftance, which is full as abfurd (though not so harmless) to difcufs as it would be to argue upon the beft means of remedying the defolation to be produced by fome future earthquake,--if it be true, as here stated, from Paley again, that the New Testament throws no light upon the fubject, but leaves fociety, in this refpe&, where it found it a question which we mean not now to examine it cannot be denied, that Englishmen can poffefs no right to do that which is exprefsly prohibited by the laws of the land. Now, it is clear, that refiftance to civil governors is an act of rebellion, and, as such, liable to capital punishment. To fay then that the people have a right to refift, in particular cafes, is to advance a pofition, which is neither philofophically nor morally true, and which ftands alike contradicted both by the pofitive laws of the land, which condemn rebellion without any qualification or exception whatever, by the general principles of the Eftablished Church,and, we will add, by the true fpirit of the Chriftian religion. We fhould like extremely to hear Dr. Paley's opinion of the doctrine inculcated in the Homilies, on this fubject. If all men, indeed, poffeffed the good fenfe and difcriminating powers of Mr. Gabell, the admiffion which we cenfure might be productive of no harm; but fo long as fociety is constituted as it now is, and man remains what man ever will remain upon earth, the promulgation of fuch doctrine cannot be innocuous. The pre warfare, in which nor reason, nor equity, nor juftice could decide the question, but that phyfical force alone which Dr, Paley is fo fond of holding up in terrorem over the heads of Kings and Governors. (See Vol. II. chap. ii. P. 120-125)-The Revolution of 1688 is evidently the will o' the wifp which has led our fpeculative political philofophers aftray, and plunged them into the bog of refiftance, which, like all bogs, has a tempting furface, but is dreadfully unfound beneath ;-woe be to the philofopher who fets his foot upon it for he will find no bottom, and he will, probably, be loft in the attempt to discover one. But that event will fupply Dr. Paley with no folid grounds for the defence of his doctrine Becaufe, then, "Every man" was not called upon to judge "for himself" No appeal whatever was made to the people. Strange! that men will not content themselves with the bleffings which they have enjoyed fince the Revolution, and the continuation of which is fecured to them by law, without feeking in that event for a precedent, an example, which it cannot afford. The Revolution is an anomaly in the British Conftitution; in contemplating its nature and effects, the well-regulated mind looks upon the past with aftonifhment, and upon the prefent with gratitude and joy. tended tended moral right of the people to cafhier their governors is very fuccessfully ridiculed by the author, in a note to P. 29. We fhall quote one other paffage from this very able difcourfe, in which, after fhewing what" are the fruits of our political con dition," the preacher bursts forth into a strain of forcible and eloquent interrogation. "What if the fovereignty of thefe realms were ufurped by the lower powers of the ftate? If all the vice and the faction of the country were organized into gangs of legiflators, with the whole wealth of the kingdom at their command, burdening our property with fines, requifitions, and confifcations; breaking our proud fpirits to the yoke by the rigours of long imprisonment, or delivering us over to military execution or judicial affaffination, without confronting us with our accufers, without form or colour of law? What, if in every diftrict of the kingdom, all who are kept honeft only by their own cowardice, and live in a state of conftant irritation against the wholesome coercions of law, were let loose upon good men, their natural enemies, to exercise private vengeance, under the mask of public juftice? What, if to complete our miferies, we had loft the liberty of the prefs, and were denied the laft confolation of the wretched, the fympathy of our fellow-fufferers? Answer to your confcience, every man that hears me. Is our's the worft of governments?. Is the British conftitution radically unfavourable to human happinefs? There is but one clafs of men, who are incompetent to. form a juft judgment on the cafe those who, in all deep and difficult queftions, want capacity or opportunity to think and judge for themselves. Are there any fuch among you? They are doomed by heaven to take their political opinions upon truft, rather than reafon. Do they prefume to justify apoftacy and difloyalty, by alledging the conviction of their confciences? How came Ignorance by fuch conviction? Have you thoroughly inveftigated the nature of civil government? Have you, of all theories, difentangled the most complicated? Of all sciences, fathomed the * "If there be any thing of abftrufe or difficult in the ftudy of politics, the ignorant can be no competent judges of our highest political controverfies. Hence it feems to follow, that a govern. ment founded on univerfal fuffrage is founded on ignorance, Reduced to the dilemma, either of denying the premises, or of giving up their favourite principle, modern republicans have chofen the former. They have entrenched themselves behind a propofition, that is contradicted by the experience of all ages, and by the common fenfe of mankind; that the art of civil government is eafily intelligible to a plain understanding, without the aid of learning, without much profundity of thought. A man of confiderable talents among them peremptorily alerts, that no greater capacity is requifite for governing a kingdom, than for managing the concerns of a private family. Similar fentiments have been echoed F 4 and |