the world respecting it, and in conclufion, he proposes remedies against the temptations to this fin. The following judicious obfervations will furnifh a good fpecimen of this practical difcourfe, which we take upon us to recommend with earneftness as being an excellent monition to youth. "There is a species of conversation too general in the world, which, though perhaps it does not come directly under the head of "filthiness," yet is almost, if not altogether, as corrupting, yea I may say more corrupting, and therefore certainly forbidden under the term of "corrupt communication,"-I mean where good or palliating names are given to gross ideas and actions, where impurity is rather insinuated than openly avowed, and where the double meaning, in some degree sparing the ear the shock of indecent language, sinks the deeper into the heart, and there performs the work of corruption more secretly, but more certainly but hear the words of the prophet-" Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter." (Isaiah v. 20.) "Of the same nature with indecent conversation is the singing or attending to indecent or corrupting songs. The practice indeed were worse, were it as general as conversation; since, when heightened by music, by wine, and by company and mirth, the impression is more strong and lasting, and the mind becomes more fully and fatally polluted. Deadly is the crime of administering poison to destroy the body of another; greater is his wickedness, who shall poison the well-springs from which multitudes drink, and from which they should receive nourishment and health; but deep is the damnation of contaminating and killing the soul, of poisoning that fountain out of which should arise the issues of life, spreading like a fruitful stream, and diffusing joy, health, purity, and fertility to all within the influences of its course. "Nearly related to this mode of corruption is the indulging in the sight of indecent or voluptuous pictures. If it be true, that Segniùs irritant animos demissa per aurem, Quàm quæ sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus, et quæ (Horat. de Art. Poet. l. 180.) then is the danger greater; and he who shall indulge himself in them, purchases temptation, and retains it to his perdition. The holy Job, lest he should be tempted to sin, "made a covenant with his eyes;" (xxxi. 1.) and, as the indulgence of the eye, or of the thought, in impurity, is the first step towards committing it, our Saviour has said, (according to a former quotation,) that the impure look is the commission of sin. (Matt. v. 28.) "In lessen ing the fuel of the passions (says a venerable prelate,) "In lessening the fuel of the passions, you pluck a faggot from the fire of hell ; in withdrawing from the eye (and ear) of youth every incentive to unchaste desire, you keep the mind pure and the body unpolluted; you prepare an holy temple, in which the Spirit of God may not disdain to dwell for ever;" agreeably to the words of the apostle, "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy: for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are." (1st Cor. iii, 16, 17.) "Blessed are the pure in heart, (saith our Saviour,) for they shall see God." (Matt. v. 8.) And again, "If a man love me, he will keep my words; and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." (John xiv. 23.) In the enumeration of examples of continence, the worthy preacher might have been more particular and entertaining. What he fays of Milton's vindicating himself from an afperfion brought against him by bishop Hall, is not correct; the person who accufed Milton with having been vomited out of the univerfity, for impurity and other immoralities, was fuppofed to have been the son of that venerable prelate, but even this was never proved. SIX SERMONS on the Church Catechism, originally delivered in the parish Church of High-Wycombe, Bucks, 17971801, at the Busby Lecture; now first revifed and publifhed with Notes critical and expofitory. By the Rev. W. B. WILLIAMS, M. A. Minister of Ram's-Chapel, Homerton. 8vo. 4s. The Author. pp. 132. WE HEN a man founds a trumpet before him, we have great authority for awakening our fufpicions, for fo fays our Saviour, the hypocrites do. This reflexion was involuntarily fuggefted to us on reading the conclufion of note 2, at the bottom of the third page of the work before us, where the author, very obtrufively and with confiderable parade, gives us to understand that he is "a determined churchman ;" and that he has never, knowingly, fwerved. from the doctrine or difcipline of the communion in which he hopes to live and die.' And yet before we had reached the conclufion of his fecond lecture, we had abundant conviction that our fufpicions had not been awakened in vain; for, for, with the Catechism in his hand, and in the very act of expounding it, he has the prefumption to lay this down as the doctrine of the Church of England; that Baptism and Regeneration are diftinct from each other, the former being but the fign of the latter and neglecting this text-book which affirms, that the inward and fpiritual grace, is as much a part of the facrament, as the outward fign, he garbles both our 27th article and our Baptifmal fervice to prove it; and with the fame affurance, he has denied that there are any conditions in the Baptifmal covenant at all: though the Catechifm, upon which he profeffes to found his pofitions is rebuking him all the while for denying that, which either directly, or by inference, it afferts in almoft every queftion and anfwer. The fact is, that this Lecturer is one of Mr. Overton's difciples, and as "determined a churchman" as his mafter. He has all the zeal, and all the artifice of that doughty champion of modern calvinifm, but he falls far beneath him in ability. His lectures are very ill written. There are few pages which will not furnish inftances of falfe grammar, and fewer fill which will repay the reader for the perufal of them, with any thing but falfe doctrine or common place obfervations. As a fpecimen of the file of thefe lectures, we extract the following, and if any of our readers can understand or explain it, he is a match for Oedipus; "Did not the profane themselves believe there was a God, their impious scoffing and blasphemous wit would lose its sting and sharpness. It would not please, were it not surprising; and it would not surprise, were it not terrible; and it were not terrible, were it not against all truth!” In the notes, the lecturer refers to a great variety of authors, with an intent, no doubt, of making it believed that his reading is prodigiously extensive, and that in his explanation of the Catechifm, he has carefully attended to the beft guides. But though many of the names mentioned are unexceptionable; others are the very reverfe, and they are all fo frangely grouped, that we are firmly convinced, fcarcely any other fources have been applied to for the selection, than fome catalogues of theological books. In an orthodox illuftration of the Church Catechifm, who would have looked for fuch names as Madan, Draper,* Alfop, *This man has just become the head of a Methodistical seminary for rearing schismatical preachers, in consequence of which, he Alfop, M'Ewen, Goodwin, Edwards, John Owen the Independent, George Whitfield, Claude, Toplady, Bogue, &c. &c. One thing we own furprized us--and it is this, that the work fhould be dedicated, by permiffion, to the bishop of Lincoln. Surely our prelates fhould perufe the works they patronize, and not fuffer fentiments to iffue with their fanc tion from the prefs, which are calculated if not intended for the fubverfion of the church, and are really, (as in this inflance, a reference to the Elements of Chiiflian Theology will prove) an attack upon the orthodox fentiments which they have themselves published. he has been obliged to relinquish the situations he held in the metropolis. Yet this same doctor is one of the goodly authorities referred to in these lectures, and associated with such names as Bisse and Atterbury. the A Letter to the Governors, Legislatures, and Proprietors of 8vo. OF F this truly important publication, we cannot give a more correct account than by an extract or two, in which the venerable author ftates and enforces his benevolent object. "By the Act of Parliament which has passed, prohibiting any further importation of Negro Slaves from the coast of Africa, you have now evidently no other resource left, for keeping up a stock of slaves sufficient for the cultivation of your lands, but the natural increase of the Negroes at this time in the islands. Your great object therefore, must of course be to promote and encourage this increase by every means in your power, Now of these means, the most practicable and most effectual, beyond all controversy, will be the very expedient here proposed; namely, the careful and assiduous instruction of your slaves, both children and adults, in the principles of the Christian Religion, and a strict attention to the regulation of their moral conduct. This may perhaps appear at the first view a strange assertion, but it is nevertheless perfectly true, and capable of the strictest proof, from the most authentic documents transmitted from the islands themselves to this government. "These "These documents are to be found principally in that large and valuable body of evidence, the report of the committee of privy council, appointed in the year 1788 to examine into the nature of the Slave Trade. In them you will find it asserted, by a great number of most respectable West-India Proprietors, and in a variety of official letters and papers laid by them before the Committee, that one of the greatest and most fatal obstructions to the natural increase of the Negro Slaves in the British Islands, is the promiscuous and unbounded illicit commerce of the two sexes, in which the Negro Slaves are permitted to indulge themselves without any check or restraint. This is a fact universally admitted; and it is equally admitted, that unless an effectual stop is put to this licentiousness of manners, the increase of the native Negroes by births will never be sufficient to keep up that stock of Negroes which the cultivation of the islands requires. This obstacle, then, must in some way or other be removed; and in what way can this be most effectually done? But "Penal laws may certainly be enacted by the colonial legislatures, prohibiting illicit connections among the Negroes, and requiring them to be united by legal matrimony to one wife. human laws, it is to be feared, will be but a feeble barrier to the ardent and impetuous passions of an African constitution, and very incompetent to contend with the strength of inveterate and long indulged habits of vice. "These can only be subdued by moral restraints, by new principles infused into the mind, by the powerful influences of divine grace, by the fear of God, and the dread of future punishment, strongly and early impressed upon the soul. These are the only incentives that can prevail upon your Negro Slaves to submit to the restraint of having only one wife; and as this restraint is indispensably necessary to that increase of their numbers by birth which the cultivation of your plantations demands, it is most evidently your interest, as well as your duty, to render your Slaves not merely nominal but real Christians, in order to obtain a sufficient supply of labourers, and to prevent the total ruin of your plantations, or at least a great diminution of their produce. It is on this ground that you find so many of the most eminent West-India Planters, in their examinations before the privy council above-mentioned, recommending in the strongest terms the instruction of the Negroes in the rudiments of morality and religion; it is on this ground that it was so strongly enforced by his majesty's secretary of state, in his letter to the West-India Goverors, in the year 1797; and it is on this ground, that the planters in the Island of Antigua give such countenance and encouragement to the Moravian missionaries in that island, who have (as I have been informed) converted there at least 10,000 Slaves to the Christian religion. "Taking it then for granted that you will be influenced by these considerations, to bestow the blessings of Christianity on your Slaves |