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mute to the unlearned, and of service only to linguists and critics, though they are those Scriptures alone, and not Dr. Campbell's, nor even the authorized, version, that can with truth be called the book of God! Again, is it possible, without great learning, to know that the Gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and are of course entitled to the veneration which they have drawn Or can this fact be ascertained but by linguists, critics, and antiquaries? If not, our author's reply (fee our last Review) to the objection urged against that course of study which he represents as necessary to confirm our faith in the Gospel, completely obviates his own objection to the system which exhibits the original conftitution of the church as a fact necessary to be known, though with respect to that fact revelation be perfectly mute to the unlearned. For the truth of both facts-the authenticity of the Scriptures and the original government of the church-the unlearned must implicitly rely on the fidelity of their teachers; and great will be the guilt of those teachers, who shall wilfully mislead them with respect to either.

The reader, who has been converfant with Dr. Campbell in the works published by himself, cannot fail to be surprised at such palpable contradictions in these posthumous volumes; but when a man fits down determined, not to investigate truth, but to fupport a particular cause, the most vigilant attention will hardly be sufficient to guard him against contradictions, if that cause is to be supported by various and complicated reasonings. The cause, which the Doctor seems determined to maintain, is a parity of order and office among the ministers of the church, and the supreme power of the people in the administration of church difcipline; but the power of the people, to cast offenders out of the church and re-admit them on their repentance, cannot be reconciled with the belief that our Lord committed the keys of his kingdom, not to the people at large, but to a particular order of men, whom in matters ecclesiastical the people are, of course, bound to bey. He therefore fets himself to prove, that no fuch order was intended to continue in the church; (for he seems to grant its originat existence in the perfons of the apostles) and that it is a matter of no confequence by whom a convert be baptifed, provided the person administering that sacrament act as the organ of some particular congregation.

As the advocates for the apoftolical institution of Episcopacy have been the most strenuous opponents of such democratical doctrines as this, our Lecturer, instead of tracing historically the practice of the church from the days of the apostles, selects one or two English divines, who have been honoured with the appellation of High Churchmen, and labours to overthrow their arguments for Epifcopacy, hoping perhaps that if he should prove successful against them, his popular claims would be admitted of course. He begins with Mr. Dodwell, whom he treats with the most supercilious contempt for being strongly attached to his own notions; for advancing very fingular notions, and for being an Irish non-jurer! It is true, Dodwell was all this; but he

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was likewise a man of worth and erudition of fuch profound erudition, that we fshould be puzzled, were we called upon to name his fuperior; and though he did refuse to transfer to King William the allegiance which he had fworn to King James, we cannot think that it would have leffened Dr. Campbell, in the estimation of the world, to have treated such a man with the respect that was paid to his learning and his virtues by Dr. Samuel Clerke, when oppofing the most dangerous and paradoxical of all his notions.

The opinions of Dodwell, which Dr. Campbell labours to overthrow, are, that without a commiffion derived from the apostles no man can be authorised to administer the Christian sacrament of baptism; and that those only have this commission, who have received ordination by impofition of the hands of a bishop or bishops, "Where, says our author, do you find this qualification specified? Scripture is filent. The spirit of God hath not given us the remoteft hint of it." Indeed! not even the remotest hint! No, continues he, "the terms of the gofpel covenant are no where, in the sacred pages, connected with, or made to depend upon, either the minifter, or the form of the ministry." This is a very extraordinary affertion. Had Dr. Campbell's footman instructed a heathen Negro in the first principles of Chriftianity, and then toffed him into a river without uttering one word either in prayer to his God or in exhortation to his convert, would fuch a plunge have answered the purpose of Chriftian baptifm to the poor favage? Nay, had the Doctor himself baptized his servant's convert, unto John's baptism; had he said, when he dipt the man or poured water upon him, " I baptize thee unto repentance;" or indeed had he used any other form of words than "I baptize thee in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghoft," would he have administered to the Savage the facrament of Chriftian baptifm? No man will fay fo; and therefore it follows, that the terms of the gospel-covenant must be connected, in this instance, with the form of the ministry.

(To be continued.)

Sketches of the State of Manners and Opinions in the French Republic, towards the Close of the 18th Century; in a Series of Letters. By Helen Maria Williams. 2 Vols. 8vo. Robinsons. London. 1801.

TN this work we have the strongest poffible proof, how liable the A heart is to corruption when it affociates with iniquity. The au thoress began her literary career with a few poetic trifles, which were not only harmless but amusing; the then adventured a little farther, and attempted a skirmish or two in the field of politics. Even here, although her opinions were fufficiently reprehenfible, yet was she endured on account of her youth, her real ignorance of such subjects, notwithstanding notwithstanding the plausibility of the shape in which they appeared, and the hope that with age would come wisdom. Had she passed her days in this country, this hope of her friends might have been realized; but what good can be expected from "one who has lived amidst the scenes of a French revolution," and been the admirer and eulogist of almost every act of tyranny, but that which endangered the safety of herself and "her cavalier." But to use her own words, " it is the curse of revolutionary calamities to indurate the heart." Where is then the wonder, if we find this writer, in the work before us, degraded into the fulsome panygerift and mean sycophant of Buonaparte, and his measures? As we foresee that our comments, on these mifchievous letters, will necessarily be somewhat long, we shall not lose time by any further observations; but proceed to the object we have in view, namely, to offer an antidote for the wound her poisoned "darts," may inflict on folly and imbecility; for, on fenfe and found principle, we are satisfied they will strike " harmless." The ist, 2d, and 3d letters are on the subject of the Swiss revolution. The real insensibility, with which the discusses the neceffity of a change of government in that unhappy country, is truly disgusting; and her affected forrow over the crimes and miseries it introduced is more insulting to the sufferers, than all the fetes celebrated by the conquerors. Is it poffible to read such refined condolence, as the following with patience?

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"Haften, my dear Sir, to chear us with tidings of confolation; and although you cannot restore the waste of life, and

"Back to its manfions call the fleeting breath;

" let us at last be informed that you have paffed through all your honors; and that brighter prospects open themselves before you."

And all this fine stuff in the very heat and flaughter, occafioned by the overthrow of the Swiss confederacy!!!

The conclufion of the 3d letter is an affecting account of the fufferings and death of the Abbot of Engelberg; what a pity he did not survive the wreck of his country, had it only been to have read her lamentations.

Letter the 4th is on the Loss of her Sister. We do not intrude into the forrows of domestic life; if she felt half she has expressed, she is entitled to commiseration; but we are apt to think the shallowest streams make the loudest noife.

Letters the 5th and 6th are on the subject of the privileged Orders, Priefts, Negro Slavery, Peafants, &c. On which fruitful topics, she descants with her customary fluency and intelligence.

"Every day," says she, "fome fuperanuated prejudice drops off the scene, and encreases the mass of happiness to the republic;" indeed, what before Buonaparte's reign ?

"The kneeling slave no longer lifts up his fettered hands and enquires, am I not a man and a brother; at the returning periods of toil, the harth

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NO. XXXIV, VOL, VIII.

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call of the tyrant's lash no longer grates upon his ears, &c. &c. • While in this country his fable representative seated amidst senators, his tawny visage peeping out from his robes of gold and fcarlet joins, with his former masters, in directing the concerns of the country by which he is adopted.' And yet her hero has put an end to this beautiful exhibition, and we are without one pathetic groan!

"Look at that extended empire which bordering close on the humanized countries of Europe, &c. &c. Look at that unhappy race under the dominion of that magnanimous sovereign,' who stands forth at present, the avenger of regular governments against the barbarism and anti-focial irruptions of the French republic. Does your blood flow in its wonted current? does no swell of indignation heave your bofom?" &c. &c.

This is all very pretty; but you must change your note, or you will not be admitted even into the antichamber of Madame la Premiere Conful. Woe be to those in Paris, who, now even dare to raise a finger against " turning loose the barbarous hordes of the North;" (P. 59.) the scene is altered; and in a next publication, we may expect to fee these " barbarous hordes" changed into the mild and gentle promoters of the " mass of human happiness."

Letters 7th and 8th are an attempt to refute Mallet du Pan's account of the destruction of Helvetic liberty; and a feeble one it is; it is the contest of the mole with the lion; and excites only astonishment at the impotent audacity of the former.

Letter 9th "on the National Institute" has no information on the subject.

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Letters the 10th and 11th are on the Revolution of the 30th of Prairial," and " on Jacobins and the Coalition." Of the former we now think little, and care less; it was too ephemeral to excite the flightest notice beyond the walls of Paris. The latter affords her an opportunity of much fine declamation on Paul the 1st and Suwarrow; and Goths, Vandals, Alarics, Attila's, and Odoacers "dance in confufion" through the writer's page.*

Letters 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, are an historical detail of the revolution, and counter-revolution, of Naples; in which, as might naturally be expected, glory, courage, patriotifim, forbearance, and virtue are heaped upon the French and the rebels; and shame, disgrace, cowardice, cruelty, and violation of engagement, are attempted to be affixed upon Britain and her Allies. More glaring injustice, falfhood, and partiality, we have never read in the fame space of narration. The hero of the Nile seems to be the particular object of the lady's malignity. The King is a fool, a knave, and a treacherous tyrant, and the Queen and Lady Hamilton are only equalled by a Margaret of the North, or a Semiramis of the East!!! The libel on Lady Hamilton, will, we hope, be sub

* Vide the Epilogue of Gen. Fitzpatrick for the theatre at Richmond

Houfe.

"While figures, such as 'squires don't often reach,
" Dance in confufion thro' their leader's speech," &c.

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jected to the cognizance of another tribunal. It would be a waste of time to controvert or disprove the wilful errors, flagrant misreprefentations, and gross falfhoods of her statements respecting this revolution in Naples. Pofterity will not be injured by them, for nothing the writes will ever reach it; and the present generation KNOWING their fallacy, will only feel contempt for the meanness of that mind, and the levity of that heart in which they were engendered. So utterly has she lost herself by this elaborate and studied defence of the unprincipled tools of the Directory, that we fincerely hope her " iron fate" will for ever detain her within the " rayon conftitutionel of Paris." (Ρ. 245.) Letter 18th, on Monuments, has in it nothing worthy notice. Letter 19 has fome consistent reflections on Suwarrow's passage of the Mountains, and Buonaparte's Adventures in Egypt; the usual execration of the one, and admiration of the other; and these mighty names are followed by a nonfenfical, abfurd story of Perourou a "bellows-mender, written by himself." This vile stuff occupies 50 pages; and thus are books made!

Letters 20 and 21 are of the usual trifling fort; they may eke out the volume in point of quantity; but as to quality they afford neither amusement nor instruction.

Letter 22, "Return of Bonaparte," Bonaparte returned! my heart beats quick with expectation! of what? new revolutions?" All fear of the coalition, of Paul, of Suwarrow, of Jacobins ! seems to vanish with the return of her hero, and she now laughs at former terrors. Her description of the late coalition and its heterogeneous particles is not ill done.

"It surely required no less an event than a French revolution, to have joined, in folemn league and covenant, the defcendants of John Knox and the modern Babylon; or to lead the northern bear, tricked out in the caft off infignia of the Knights of Jerufalem, to pay his softest homage to the palefaced crefcent, enamoured in its turn of this muscovite Endymion. No gift of political forefight is wanting to foretel the fate of fuch alliances."

True; neither is the fame gift required to foretel the fate of an alliance between her Corsican deity, and this Muscovite Endymion. Set the latter aftride on the walls of Valetta, and he will pay no more attention to the "foft homage" of the great Conful, than he now does to the wooings of the pale-faced Crefcent.

Letters 23, 24, and 25 on the revolution which placed her favourite on the throne of France, and on the constitution, are in the same light and trifling stile with those of the Bellows-mender, or any other of her fictitious works. For the real facts and transactions of that important period we will not rely on the authority of so prejudiced a spectator, of so partial an historian, of one who relates, as though the had an internal view of the Conful's heart, " that while he was impelled to do a strange and daring deed, by the irresistible impulse of acting for the falvation of his country, his first and most important duty, he regretted as fincerely, and as poignantly as the most enthusiastic friend of liberty, the means." Had it fuited his purpose to have affumed

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