Superior MS. Sermons. This day were publifhed price fixty fhillings, done up feparately for the pulpit, fixty original manuscript fermons, adapted for every Sunday in the year, and for the principal holidays, and extraordinary occafions; printed in a new fcript type, caft on purpose, in exact imitation of manufcript. By a Dignitary of the Church of England. Thefe original fermons are respectfully fubmitted to the clergy, as fuperior modern compositions better adapted to their avowed object, than any previous attempts of the fame kind. The author has himself preached every one of them, and he can therefore fpeak to their fuitable length and effect, he can alfo boaft of the fanction which they have received from very diftinguished ornaments of the church. N. B. Clergymen who may not choose to purchase the entire fet, till they have examined a few, may be accommodated with a score indifferently selected, for a one pound note, which may, if agreeable, be addreffed to the publisher by the post. The impudence of this pretended Dignitary is only to be equalled by his confummate ignorance. Sermons printed in fcript as it is called, or in imitation of Writing may with just as much propriety be termed "Manufcripts" as a printed volume of Effays may be denominated Manufcript Effays. But the advertiser takes upon him to fpeak confidently of the" fuitable length and effect of his fermons :" The firft is no doubt a confideration of great importance to thofe who have no higher ideas of religion, than of its being a mere mechanical fervice, to be measured out by the price and the time. As to the "boasted effect" of these elaborate compofitions, the writer even if he had preached them a thousand times could know nothing. The labours of the most confcientious and pains taking parish prieft, are frequently, to appearance, exercised in vain. At least he can but hope that his inftructions may fall partly on good ground, or upon hearts difpofed to receive and profit by them; but the effect on the generality he laments, is merely momentary, and the ferioufnefs excited proves but like "the morning cloud and the early dew which soon pafs away." But it is a wafe of words to enter farther into an examination of this fcandalous advertisement. The fermons recom. mended in it, with all the vulgar puff of impudent quackery, are beneath contempt, and wretched indeed must be the understanding of that man who would even undertake to read them them on Sunday evenings for the edification of his family. They are as empty of matter, as they are feeble in ftyle; and the few good things ftolen from writers of eminence are utterly fpoiled, by having been garbled and dislocated. If I thought that any clergyman could be fo loft to decorum, prudence, and a manly sense of duty, to fay nothing of his religious obligations, as to make any use of these pretended manuscript sermons, I should enter into a farther expofure of this dirty imposture, which is well known to be carried on not by "a Dignitary of the Church of England" but by a well known literary fcribbler who has been for years the hireling of the fpeculating book fellers, and is reckoned a ready hand at a Sermon, or an Effay, a Hiftory or a Poem, Abridgements and Compilations of all qualities and all fizes. ON THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF MR. WOGAN. TO THE EDITOR OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCHMAN'S SIR, THE MAGAZINE. HE motto to your last number gave me pleasure, because it reminded me of a very favourite writer, and to whofe incomparable "Effay on the Proper Leffons of the Church of England" I have been indebted for frequent fatisfaction and inftruction. But this pleasure has been al ways mingled with regret that I could never gain any information refpecting the life of Mr. Wogan. The first edition of his work appeared without his name, in four octavo volumes, in 1754; and the fecond, which mentions him as "William Wogan, Efq. late of Ealing, in Middlefex," 1764. The only variation between the two impreffions is, that the laft has a copious index, but it is furely extraordi nary that as the author was then dead, the editor did not prefix a biographical sketch of him to the new edition. The rich vein of Biblical knowledge which runs through this work, is only equalled by the unaffected piety and humility of the writer. He oftentimes throws uncommon light light upon difficult paffages of fcripture, and on no occafion does he fink into common place. His fentiments are strictly orthodox, and while he warms the heart by the ardour of his devotional reflections, he guards it carefully from the reveries of enthufiafm. As the work is now become very scarce, and is not likely to be reprinted, I fhall quote from the introductory address a paffage which fhews the author's view, and the fpirit by which he was actuated in the compofition and publication. "As to the clergy who fhall vouchfafe to perufe this work, the compiler prays leave to premife this declaration, that the publication hereof, proceeds not from any fond pretence of fetting up for a teacher: His firft and principal end, in ftudying and meditating on the Proper Leffons of our Church, was for his own private information, and that he might be the better enabled to inftruct his family. In publishing his thoughts to the world, he prays it may not be deemed an invafion of a province, which feems more properly to belong to our divines: he affects not to be wifer than his teachers; he rather acknowledges, that whatever found doctrine, or divine truths, may appear in these lucubrations, he owes them all, under God, to their inftructions; and that his highest ambition is to be their Bajulus (as lord Bacon's word is), to be one of the poor Nethinim in their fervice, a drawer of water and a hewer of wood for the house of God. And if his weak but fincere endeavours fhall ftir up any abler hand to improve or amend what is here offered and fubmitted to them, (and for that reafon ftiled an Essay) he fhall efteem their admiffion of him as an inferior labourer under them, in building or repairing the facred edifice of our Church, to be the greatest honour, and moft ample amends for all the time and pains, and even expence, this work hath coft him." Mr. Wogan appears to have alfo written a treatise intituled "The Scripture Doctrine of Chrift's Divinity;" but this I have never feen. If any of your readers can fupply a few notices of this excellent man and his writings, a confiderable service, I apprehend, will be rendered to the cause of literature and piety. I am, &c. Review of New Publications. A View of the Evidences of Christianity at the Clofe of the pretended Age of Reason: in eight Sermons, preached before the University of Oxford, at St. Mary's, in the year 1805; at the Lecture founded by the Rev. John Bampton, M. A. Canon of Salisbury. By EDWARD NARES, M. A. Rector of Biddenden, Kent, and late Fellow of Merton College, Oxford. 8vo. (Continued from page 56.)} HE third lecture treats of the Origin of Evil, and the T Scriptural Account of the Fall of Man. Here the Τ Manichean fyftem of two principles, and the Platonic doctrine of the neceffary imperfection of matter, are fuccefsfully combated and refuted. The mythological fcheme of interpretation which has been devised and adopted by many who admit the authority of Moses, is thus ably exposed; "In what light then can we regard the bold assumption of the celebrated translator, [Geddes] that to acknowledge the history of the fall to be no better than "an ingenious piece of ancient mythology, and to compare Moses to Pilpay and Æsop, is by no means to weaken the authority of Scripture?" To me it appears, I must confess, not only that the authority of Scripture would be weakened by such an interpretation, but that if the history of the fall is by any means capable of such a construction, we might as well be without any Revelation at all. For, as my text expresses it, "It were better that we were not at all, than that we should live still in wickedness, and to suffer, and not to know wherefore." When we take a Pagan mythology to pieces, we come perhaps to something like the truth. Osiris turns out to be the sun, and Isis the moon; but the sun and moon are realities, and we are content to rest where this solution of the allegory leaves us. But let the serpent stand for our unruly appetites, and the tree of knowledge for our consciences, and what do we learn thence? Still have we to enquire, why have we unruly appetites? why do our consciences so affect us? If the serpent is supposed to be a figure only, for temptations in general, and the tree of knowledge for VOL. XIV, Chm. Mag. April 1808. the the fruits and consequences of sin, we must look further for the literal sense of these very things so represented by allegory: for what could operate as temptations to the Protoplasts of man? How could compliance with any desires become sin? or how could sin produce pain? Pain of conscience I mean. We must still search for evil, such evil as should induce pain of conscience, in some contradiction to an express law; otherwise remorse of conscience, and pain, and sin, are all idle words. So that if these representations of Moses are but figures, they cover no literal truths: if the account of the fall be an allegory, it is an allegory without a key. It may seem to explain present appearances, while we consent to call sin the transgression of a law; but without the tree of knowledge there was then no law; without the serpent no temptation. Such a law as the Apostle represents to have been written in the hearts of the Gentiles by the finger of God, would in the case of the Protoplasts have been without an object. The rest of mankind must have been born, and civil society established, and property distinguished, before the first human pair could have become moral creatures, and then not the whole of the Decalogue could have applied to them. Before these events, not one law of the Two Tables could have applied to their conditions, as must be evident to any person capable of reflection. "Celsus then was much nearer the truth than he apprehended, when he alleged that the Mosaic history did not admit of being allegorized, or rather resolved into allegory; and his learned antagonist needed not to have been so forward to express his jealousy, that what was easily granted in the case of the Egyptian and Grecian mythologies should be denied to the cosmogony and fall, as described by Moses: for it is certainly not a fanciful representation of the creation of man, and the origin of evil, that we want; but the exact and positive history of those events, as the first and indisputable foundations of religious and moral responsibility." The variety of theories on fuch fubjects, and the neceffity of revelation upon them, are well stated; "The Gospel alone may tell us what we are to do; but it is only in conjunction with the Old Testament, from which it never should be separated, that it tells us what we are. Thus connected it gives us that account of the species, which it would not only be vain, but entirely absurd to seek for otherwise. No philosophical investigation of matters can ever instruct us thoroughly either in the origin of man, or the origin of evil. If we will not be informed of these matters historically, and I may add, in regard to the creation at least, supernaturally, we must be contented to be ignorant; and what is more, we should be contented to be silent; for surely we have great reason to complain, when metaphysicians pretend to instruct the world upon these points. If they can prove the Scriptures |