Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

the petitions which were received from the merchants, complaining, that the noft flagrant depredations were made on our commerce by the Spaniards, who not only detained our fhips, but ufed the mafters and crews in the moft inhuman manner: after a very close inveftigation of the fubject, the house of commons addreffed the King, praying him to ufe his endeavours to procure fatisfaction, and to guard against the like depredations in future. The ufual fupplies were granted, as were 115,000l. to defray the deficiencies of the civil lift revenues, though a warm debate enfued, in which Mr. Pulteney greatly fignalized himself on the fide of oppofition. The lords alfo had a warm feffion, wherein the promife of George I. to Spain, of the reftitution of Gibraltar, underwent a clofe examination; and a motion was made, that, in the treaty then on foot between the nations, Spain fhould be obliged to renounce her claim on that fortrefs in plain and explicit terms; but this was over-ruled by the majority, though the oppofition entered a ftrong proteft on the occafion. The addition to the civil-lift was alfo ftrongly combated; but, as the hiftorians of the time have remarked, all the arguments, and ftrong and plaufible objections against this unconscionable and unparliamentary motion, ferved only to evince the triumph of the miniftry over.fhame and fentiment; their contempt of public. fpirit; and their defiance of national reproach.

The parliament being prorogued, and the King intending to vifit his German dominions, he appointed the Queen regent during his abfence; and, on the 17th of May, 1729, fet out for Hanover, to regulate the affairs of the Electorate.

lefs difputes, than to procure fatisfaction to the injured fubjects of this realm; but, as in the houfe of commons, the minifiry brake through all oppofition, and carried every motion with the most high and determinate hand.

Nothing of moment occurred till the opening of the parliament in the beginning of the following year; when his Majefty informed them, that he had concluded the treaty of Seville, wherein Spain had agreed to an ample reftitution and reparation for the unlawful feizures and depredations; and that the treaty was fo intirely in favour of England, that not one conceflion was made to the prejudice of his fubjects. But, upon inveftigation by the lords, it was found to be fo defective, and fo contradictory of feveral articles in the quadruple alliance, that the oppofition declared, that it was much more cal'culated to embroil the nation in end

The remainder of this, and the whole of the fucceeding year, was not remarkable for any occurrence of moment, though the Emperor, being diflatisfied with the treaty of Seville, made fome preparations for war; but which ended in the following year (1731), in a treaty concluded between his Majefty and the Emperor at Vienna. From this time to the fpring of 1732, the attention of the nation was principally directed to the debates in parliament, which chiefly confifted in the oppofition made to the number of troops to be employed for the defence of the kingdom, to the different fupplies, and on the

ways and means of their being raifed. But, before the clofe of the feflion, Sir Rob. Walpole produced his memorable excife bill; which, though it had to encounter the most formidable oppofition that the houfe had for fome feflions beheld, yet it was countenanced by a majority of 61 voices, and probably would have paffed into a law, had it not been for the tumult which was raifed against it almost throughout the nation; fo that the minifter, even fearing for his perfon, gave up the meafurc, and poftponed the fecond reading of the bill to the 12th day of June. So great were the rejoicings of the people on the occation, that their triumph was celebrated with bonfires, ringing of bells, &c. and with burning the minifter in effigy. Nothing elfe of confiderable moment having oc curred, the feffion was closed on the 11th day of June, with a fpeech from the throne, wherein his Majefty took notice, and lamented the wicked endeavours that had been lately ufed to inflame the minds of the people, by the most unjuft mifreprefentations, &c. T. MOT, F. S. M. (To be continued.)

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]

HAVE feen with much fatisfaction the remarks of your correfpondent, Mr. Langton, on the happinefs of future ftate. I admire his car did and fenfible mind; but I beg leave to difagree with him when he fays, that we rife again with the fume body, (vol.

[ocr errors][ocr errors]

P.

LXX. 1157). Now, if I underfland St. Paul, it is not the fame body, but the fame man. It is fown a natural body, it is raifed a fpiritual body: between thefe there is a great and effential difference, a difference which ought never to be loft fight of. This body is continually changing, as our cloaths likewife are; but the man remains the fame, becaufe the mind is unchanged. The fpirit is the real man. This continues the fame, although the outward covering may differ. Identity confifts in the mind, and not in the body.

I have no doubt of the doctrine of Guardian Angels; and fee no reafon, why our beft and moft intimate friends, if they go hence before us, fhould not become our guardian angels. Are not they who love us beft always the neareft to us in their minds? Is it not moft likely that their employments will be according to their affections?

This is confirmed to my mind by confidering that men and angels are most probably but one race of beings,, much nearer related than we at firft fuppofed. An ingenious writer has the following re-, mark; "It appears highly probable, both from Scripture and reafon, (fee Rev. xxi. 17. xxii. 8. 9. Gen. xviii. 2. comp. Heb. xiii. 2. Luke xx. 36.) that the angels of heaven were once human beings ; and that the friends of our pureft affections may become our guardian angels. The God of Mercy may choofe thofe who loved us beft to be the inftruments of his goodnefs towards us; to watch over us in our fickness and forrow, to fuggeft the pious thought, to confirm the feeble refolution, and to remove the impending danger. Time and fpace can make no alteration in genuine affection. Our departed friends may not only wean our affections from the earth, which becomes as a wilderness when we lofe them, but they are alfo ready to welcome our arrival in a better world." Now if this fuppofition be admitted, we fee another ground for the doctrine of Guardian Angels; and there can be no doubt but they advance their happinefs, and improve their natures, while watching over man, and imparting to him all the good he is willing to receive. As the great families of Heaven and Earth make one in the eyes of Divine Wifdom, fo there must be an intimate connection, if not a real union between them.

Yours, &c.

[blocks in formation]
[graphic]

THE reading. Mr. Wenman Lang-
ton's edifying letter, in your laft,
was the occafion of my putting upon
paper the following reflexions. If in
their imperfect ftate you deem them ad-
miffible, their infertion in a corner of
your ufeful mifcellany will oblige your
conftant reader,
E. D.

THE happiness of a future ftate cannot indeed be exactly defined by or to us: but as this is no argument against the purfuit of it, neither is it an argument againft our making ufe, with due humility and diffidence, of all the light that Scripture affords, in order to form the beft ideas we can of it.

Seek ye firft the Kingdom of God, is the exprefs command of Chrift. He thereby makes the eftablishment of that kingdom, the obfervation of its laws, the hopes of a participation of its bleflings, the great, the predominant objects of our lives, of our defires, and of our prayers: muft it not therefore be in the bleflings of that kingdom that our future happiness will confift? All the tenor of Scripture feems to confirm that idea,

Mankind was created by Almighty God, to form on this globe a family, a people of which he might be the father and the king; and to be happy, to us inconceivably happy, by their filial love, and grateful obedience to the laws given them by fuch a father and king. Man difobeyed, and thereby forfeited his glorious privileges, and incurred the punishment threatened to his infraction of the divine command. But the merciful compallion of his Maker and his God forfook him not, even in punishing.

A Redeemer was promifed who fhould reftore him to the favour of his God, and to the blissful ftate from which by his difobedience he had fallen, and with him all his pofterity born in that fallen ftate of difobedience and rebellion. A Redeemer was promifed; and all the word of God fpeaks his remembrance of that promife: it is frequently renewed, and in proportion as the time of its accomplishment advances the promnife is renewed more and more clearly; the whole hiftory of God's conduft towards mankind may be con-fidered as the hiftory of the preparation of all things towards the accomplishment of this great events

In the appointed time, the Chrift, the Lord, the Redeemer of man, is anCLERICUS. nounced by his preeurfor, who invites

the

[ocr errors]

the world to repent, because the king-be eftablifhed nor defended, as are the
dont of heaven (or of God) is at hand, earthly kingdoms of this world, by force
The Redeemer appears. Jefus of Na- and violence; for, had that been the
zareth is proclaimed by a voice from cafe, his difciples would have fought
Heaven as the Son, the beloved Son of that he should not be delivered to the
God, in whom he was well pleafed and Jews, but that his kingdom is not from
he fhortly after begins his miniftry by bence.
a public declaration, the time was ful-
filled, and that the kingdom of God was
at hand. After which he ceafed not to
preach, more or lefs openly, the good
news that the kingdom of God was
come; manifefting himfelf, by his doc-
trine and by his mighty works, to be
the Chrift, the Son of the living God,
by whom it was God's pleasure to ex
ercife his foxergign authority in the
world. His difciples he fent out be-
fore him, to preach this gofpel, not with
violence or force of arms (the means
by which the kingdoms of this world
and the authority of earthly Kings are
eftablished), but as fheep among wolves,
to declare to the world that the king
dom of God was come, that the time
was arrived in which it pleafed God no
longer, to wink at the times of ignorance
in which he had fuffered all nations to
walk in their own ways, but that all men
fhould repent and believe the gospel that
is, acknowledge for Lord and Christ,
for the promifed Redeemer, Jefus of
Nazareth, whom the Jews refufed to
acknowledge; whom they blafphemed,
and at length caufed to be condemned
and crucified, as a blafphemer and as
mover of fedition, becaufe he made him-
Jelf the Son of God, faying that he him-
felf was Chrift a King; but whom God
hath raifed from the dead, and exalted
with his right hand to be a Prince and
a Saviour, whom the Heaven must receive
until the times of reftitution of all things,
for to give repentance to Ifrael, who
had fo rebelliously rejected and flain the
Prince of Life, and, on their repen-
tance, alfo the remiffion of their fins.

"

Jefus not only by his doctrine and his miracles, but by the good profeffion (as St. Paul terms it) which he witneffed before Pontius Pilate, declared that he was a king, that to this end (to reign as king) he was born, and for that caufe he came into the world, to bear witness to the truth. And he declared alfo that his kingdom is not of this world, i. e. that his kingdom did not originate with the world; that, born and manifefted in the world, to reign and to govern the world, it was not from the world that he received his royal authority, but from God; and that his kingdom was not to

After his refurrection, Jefus com→ manded his difciples to go into all the world, and preach the gofpel to every creature: and what gofpel but that which he had fealed with his blood, which he had fo often named the gofpel of the kingdom of Heaven, or of God, and which, before Pilate, he called his own kingdom? And that kingdom is reprefented as to be established on earth. It is on this earth that we are to rife from the dead, when the Lord himself fhall defcend with a fhout, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God and the dead in Chrift fhall rife first. We are taught, according to his promife, to look for new heavens and a new earth; wherein dwelleth righteouf nefs: and this promife, first made in the prophecies of Ifaiah, is again reprefented in the 21ft chapter of the Revelations of St. John; to which he adds, And I John faw the holy city, new Jerufalem, coming down from God. And I heard a great voice out of Heaven saying, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself fhall be with them, and be their God. The fame St. John reprefents the twenty-four Elders, &c. falling down before the Lamb and finging a new fong, faying, Thou art worthy to take the book and to open feals thereof, for theu waft flain and haft redeemed us to God by thy blood, out of every kindred and tongue, and people, and nation, and haft made us unto our God kings and priests and we shall reign on the earth.

.

:

the

When we reflect on the condition of our firft parents, in their glorious flate of innocence and happinefs, blefled with the communication of their Creator and of his holy angels, bewildered at the thought, who hath powers fufficient to conceive adequate ideas of it?

When we read the glowing defcriptions (and of these there are many both in the Old and New Teftament) of the glory and blifs of the kingdom of our God and of his Chrift, after his fecond coming, after the reftitution of all things, when man fhall be reinftated inthe happinefs for which, in the benevolent intention of his Maker, he was

created;

[ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

perly fo called, a kingdom, more efpecially a kingdom compofed of fubjects fit to form the people of the Lord, of the great, the eternal King, cannot be a congregation of individuals uncon

Created when all the kingdoms of this world fhall have become the kingdom of our God and of his Chrift, when he fhall reign for ever and ever; when moreover we reflect on the certitude of that faying, on the ftability, the immunected, infenfible or inattentive to the tability, and the veracity of hun who hath faid, that whoever fuffers or is prepared to fuffer with him, and for him, fhall alfo reign with him; how can we not exclaim with the holy Apoftle, eye hath not feen, nor ear heard, nor-have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his fpirit.95

Chrift promifes the inheritance of the earth to the meek can that beatitude be contradictory to, or different from, the heavenly kingdom which he promifes to the poor in fpirit, and to thofe who are perfecuted for righteounefs fake? And hath he not taught and commanded us (conformally to his injunction, to feek fir, or before all things, the kingdom of God) to pray to our heavenly Father, even before we afk of him our daily bread or the for giveness of our trefpaffes, that his name inay be hallowed, honourably diftinguished and exalted above every name, fe that his kingdom may come in fuch wife as that his will may be done on earth as it is in heaven. Who, in this frail mortal ftate, can conceive the blifs, the glory, the exalted happinefs, that will be the portion of all who fhall be admitted as members of fuch a kingdom! What a change in the heart, in the difpofitions, in the fentiments, in the way of thinking and in the converfation, muft the contemplation of fuch a fiate, and the well-founded hopes of participating its happines, produce in all thofe who truly prepare their hearts to feek the Lord, to obey him, and to believe in his word! who feel with the beloved difciple, that even now we are the children of God, and though it doth not yet appear what we shall be, yet we know, that when he shall appear, we Shall be like unto him; when Chrift shall appear, then Shall we also appear with him in glory,

[ocr errors]

Hence we perceive the fhare that the Social affections will have in our future happiness; and in our preparation for admillion into that heavenly kingdom; inafmach as they will contribute to the order, to the peace, to the joy, to the gratitude, to the unanimity with which the will of God will then be done on cuth as it is in heaven. A people pro

[ocr errors]

happiness of each other. Far different are the fentiments every where reprefented as animating thofe bleffed Spirits whofe obedience to the will of God is propofed as our model. But it is only in the kingdom of God, the entrance of which is opened to us by the death and refurrection of Jefus Chrift, and into which he invites us to enter by faith in him, by an obedient acknowledgement of his fovereignty, and by our zeal for promulgating the knowledge of it, regulated according to his precepts, which will be the natural effect of fuch faith and obedience, that the focial affections can produce their due effects. To procure us fuch undefcribable felicity by reconciling us to God, Chrift gave limfelf a facrifice for the fins of mankind: he fhed his blood, he died and rofe from the dead to open. the kingdom of heaven to all believers. But, excluded by unbelief and difobedience from his prefence, rejected from his kingdom, what will avail all we call the focial affections? They undoubtedly may exift without Chriftiapity. All the word of God fuppofeth then in man. If there be a man who knows them not, unhappy is he beyond the common lot of human beings. But fovereignly unhappy alfo are those who, poffefling them, are not led thereby to liften to the word of God, to receive, when he is announced to them, Jefus as the Chrift, to acknowledge him openly and joyfully as fuch, to obcy and love him above all things; him in whom is every thing moft benevolent, moft worthy of our love, of our obedience, and, of our firmeft confidence; him who gave himself for us that he might redcem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works. But what good works, properly fo called, can proceed from the heart that is capable of rejecting Jefus Chrift; of refufing him the juftice due to him, by difbelieving his moft folemn declarations; of refufing to receive and obey him whom God has exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour; to whom every knee thould Low, and every tongue fhould confefs to be the Lord, to the glory of God the Father?

Yours, &c.

E. D. Mr,

[ocr errors]

Mr. URBAN,

Jan. 22.

I WENT to Weftminster Abbey during the holidays with my young folks to fee the monuments; and, though. we were hurried through thefe venerable manfions by our too active guide, we had nearly reached our dinner-hour, when, enquiring whether we had feen all, we were told there were fome reliques of antiquity and fome models of Gothic architecture difcovered, eighteen months ago, fomewhere in an unexplored cell, or crypt, and which were, by the order of the right rev. the Dean and Chapter, fubmitted to the infpection of the publick. Not having time enough to fee what they were, we deferred the enquiry into them till another opportunity. Yet, in the mean time, I would thank any of your friends to inform us, what they confift of? whence they come? and by what means they were brought to light? Yours, &c. L. B. M.

undates our stage, and pours in torrents

from the prefs. I would ask

with of undefiled tafte, if he could read with pleasure, a fecond time, many of the new pieces which are faid, in the titlepage, to have been acted with applause at either of the theatres, and I fhould be certain of being anfwered in the negative. I am not, Mr. Urban, for confining the stage to what are called stockplays. To them I would have occafional recourfe; but I would encourage men of real talents to cultivate the dramatic art. And, in order to this, I would propofe, that an author, who had finished a drama which met with the approbation of his friends, fhould commit it not to the judgement of the manager, but, to the prefs; and, in cafe it fhould be thought worthy reprefentation, any manager who should get it up in the course of ten years after publication, without allowing the author the customary benefits, fhould be liable to an heavy penalty. This would afford the publick an opportu nity of judging for themfelves, and relieve them from a flavifh dependance on the choice of men who only study their own intereft. It would alfo relieve the poet from the mortification of dancing attendance on the manager, and bearing with his contumely. It would ferve too to open a wide field to talents, and probably be the means of faving our finking ftage.

Mr. URBAN, Chefter, Jun. 12. PERMIT me to hope, that, when the Imperial Parliament thall have maturely confidered the political interefts of this country, they will turn their attention to the promotion of literature; particularly to that branch which has a powerful influence on the moral character of the nation, I mean the DRAMA. I moft earnestly hope, fir, that Mr. Wilberforce, or fome other able and independent member, will step forth as the advocate of that injured clafs of writers, DRAMATIC AUTHORS; and emancipate them from the flavery in which they have been fo long held by the managers. To the tyranny of the managers, fir, we may attribute the depraved flate of the ftage at this day. They, fir, arrogate to themfelves the office of Lord Chamberlain; and the Green-room is their Starchamber. But it is not the unfortunate poet only that is fubject to them; the bookfellers too feem to feel and acknowledge their fway; for they, I am told, refufe to print any play that has not been brought out at Drury-lane, or Covent-garden. Thus the publick are deprived of the opportunity of judging of the merit of a piece, until the manager has determined whether or not the reprefentation would be likely to fill his coffers. He firft depraves the tafte, then minifters to the vitiated appetite in a manner moft likely to promote his own pecuniary views. Hence the inceffant flow of nonfenfe that in

[ocr errors]

"The greateft effect of a play in reading (fays Sir Richard Steele,) is to excite the reader to go fee it.". If this obfervation be juft, and I think it is, the publication of a play would not leflon the intereft in reprefentation, or blunt the edge of curiofity. And I am confident, Mr. Urban, that, had fome of the new pieces, which have been lately gotten up at an immenfe expence, been in the hands of the publick before they infinuated themfelves into the green-room, they would never have been reprefented. The intelligent reader will eafily difcover the pieces to which I allude. I fhall not name any of them, as I fhould be forry to be fup-pofed to write under the influence of prejudice or malice. I am equally unacquainted with the managers, and fa vourite dramatic authors of the day; nor am I a poet myself.

As a farther proof that the tyranny of the London managers fhould be con trolled, I fhall beg leave to obferve, that they prohibit the reprefentation of

any

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors]
« AnteriorContinuar »