The army was his original destination, and a cornetcy of horse' his first and only commiffion in it. Thus unaffited by favour or fortune he ad no powerful protector to introduce him into bufinefs, and (if I may ufe that expreffion) to do the honours of his parts-but their own ftrength was fully fufficient.

"His conftitution refufed him the ufual pleafures, and his genius forbad him the idle diffipations, of youth, for fo early as at the age of fixteen he was the martyr of an hereditary gout. He therefore employed the leifure which that tedious and painful distemper either procured or allowed him in acquiring a great fund of premature and ufeful knowledge. Thus by the unaccountable relation of causes and effects, what feemed the greatest misfortune of his life was perhaps the principal cause of its splendour.

His private life was ftained by no vice, nor fullied by any meannefs. All his fentiments were liberal and elevated. His ruling paffion was an unbounded ambition, which when fupported by great abilities, and crowned with great fuccefs, make what the world calls a Great Man.

He was haughty, imperious, impatient of contradiction, and over bearing-qualities which too often accompany, but always clog, great ones.

He had manners and addrefs, but one might difcern through them too great a confcioufnefs of his own fuperior talents.

He was a moft agreeable and lively companion in social life, and had fuch a verfatility of wit, that he would adapt it to all forts of converfation. He had alfo a moft happy turn to poetry; but he feldom indulged, and feldom avowed it.

He came young into parliament, and upon that great theatre he foon equalled the oldest and the ableft actors. His eloquence was of every kind, and he excelled in the argumentative, as well as in the declamatory way. But his invectives were terrible, and uttered with fuch energy of diction, and fuch dignity of action and countenance, that he intimidated those who were the most willing and the best able to encounter him. Their arms fell out of their hands, and they shrunk under the afcendant which his genius gained over their's.

In that affembly, where public good is fo much talked of, and private intereft fingly purfued, he fet out with acting the patriot, and performed that part fo ably, that he was adopted by the public as their chief, or rather their only unfuspected, champion.

The weight of his popularity and his univerfally acknowledged abilities obtruded him upon King George the Second, to whom he was perfonally obnoxious, He was made Secretary of State. In this difficult and delicate fituation, which one would have thought must have reduced either the patriot, or the minifter, to a decifive option, he managed with fuch ability, that while he ferved the King more effectually in his most unwarrantable electoral views than any former minifter, however willing, had dared to do, he still preserved all his credit and popularity with the public,

Hume Campbell and Lord Mansfield,

W om

whom he affured and convinced that the protection and defence of Hanover with an army of feventy-five thousand men in British pay, was the only poffible method of fecuring our poffeffions or acquifitions in North America.-So much eafier is it to deceive than to undeceive mankind.

His own difintereftednefs, and even contempt of money, fmoothed his way to power, and prevented or filenced a great fhare of that envy which commonly attends it. Moft men think that they have an equal natural right to riches, and equal abilities to make a proper ufe of them, but not very many of them have the impudence to think themfelves qualified for power.

Upon the whole he will make a great and fhining figure in the annals of this country; notwithstanding the blot which his acceptance of three thousand pounds per annum penfion for three lives, upon his voluntary refignation of the feals, in the first year of the prefent King, muft make in his character, especially as to the difinterefted part of it. However it must be acknowledged, that he had thofe qualities which none but a Great Man can have, with a mixture of fome of thofe failings, which are the common lot of wretched and imperfect human nature.'

The other characters are,

1. K. George I. who is reprefented as an honeft, dull German gentleman, as unfit as unwilling to act the part of a king, which is, to fhine and oppress—

II. Queen Caroline, an agreeable woman,'-of lively pretty parts, a quick conception, and fome degree of female knowledge.-After puzzling herself in all the whimfies and fantastical fpeculations of different fects, fhe fixed ultimately in Deifm, believing a future ftate, and dying with great refolution and intrepidity, of a very painful diftemper, and under fome cruel operations.

III. Sir Robert Walpole: a well-drawn portrait.

IV. Mr. Pulteney, its companion.

V. Lord Hardwicke, perhaps the greatest magiftrate this country ever had!'- A chearful, instructive companion, humane in his nature, decent in his manners, and unstained with any vice, avarice excepted.'

VI. Mr. Fox-An harfh likeness, but retouched by the Editor, (in the Preface) and brought to a more favourable refemblance of the original.

The Editor has alfo, in his Preface, defended the character of Q. Caroline, from the charge of the love of money.' He has also given, in a note, what would have been a very good ftory, as an inftance of Lord Bath's covetoufnefs,-had it been true:-but we are affured, that it has no foundation in fact.

U 4

G.

ART.

ART. XII. An Inquiry into the Opinions of the learned Christians, both ancient and modern, concerning the Generation of Jefus Chrift; in order to prove that it was the fame Word of God, who was in the Beginning with God before the Creation of the World, that fuffered for Mankind; and not any other Soul or Spirit that was afterwards created. Now first published by the Editor of Benj. Ben Mordecai's Seven Letters to Elisha Levi. 4to. 5 s. Wilkie. 1777,

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O fubject of controverfy in the Chriftian world hath been agitated with greater violence, or produced more melancholy effects, than that which concerns the nature and genera tion of Jefus Chrift. Words and phrafes have been introduced by different parties in the course of this difpute, which neither understood, nor, confequently, were able to explain; and yet these have been made the teft of orthodoxy, and the standard of fubmiffion, from which none were allowed to deviate, without incurring the charge of herefy, and expofing themselves to the anathemas of councils, and to all the penalties which, in their zeal and charity, they were able to inflict. The history of the Chriftian church for feveral centuries furnishes only a lamentable detail of fluctuating and unintelligible fyftems of faith; each of which, in its turn, was rigorously impofed, and none of which their most vehement advocates pretended to explain,

The recital of the contradictory hypothefes that have been adopted, of the unintelligible terms that have been used in order to fupport thefe hypothefes, and of the violence and persecution which they occafioned, is rather melancholy than pleafing; and we cannot but wonder at the patience of our ingenious and laborious INQUIRER, who hath taken the pains to trace the tedious and unedifying controverfy through all its revolutions, to the prefent time; more efpecially when we confider that liberality of temper which he fo eminently poffeffes, and which must have rendered the review of its rife and progrefs often mortifying and painful. But the end at which he aims, in this elaborate Inquiry, is of great importance; it is to re cover to the philofophical Chriftian a very fundamental article of faith; which, though univerfally believed by the common people, hath been explained away, ever fince the Council of Nice, in the theories of almost all the different fects which have undertaken to lay Chriftianity before the world as a fyftem.

The article I mean is this; that it was the Lord of Glory (1 Cor. ii. S.) or the Lord who bought us; or in other words, that it was the fame divine Perfon, Nature, and Subftance, which was in the beginning with God, that felt the pains of the crofs, and fuffered for mankind.

I his is the doctrine, which, in St. Paul's days, was to the Jews fumbling-block; and to the Greeks, folifonefs; 1 Cor. i. 23. and feems to have been looked upon in the same light, for thefe 1400

years,

years, by the Councils; and by almost all the different feats of Chriflians. The Corinthians denied it; out of a pretence, that the Divine Nature or Subftance, which they called Chrift, left the man Jefus at his death. The Sabellians denied it, by maintaining, that the Logos was God; and that Chrift had no existence, before his birth of the Virgin Mary: (alium effe Dei verbum, alium CHRISTUM) and that it was this Chrift who fuffered.-The Socinians denied it; by maintaining, that Chrift was a mere man; sanderos, actuated indeed by the Spirit of God dwelling in him; but his fufferings were only those of a mere man. And the Athanafians deny it; by afferting, that the effence of the Son of God is impaffible. And this is the doctrine of all European churches, whether Proteftant or Papift, who receive the four firft general Councils as the test of heresy.'

Our Author confiders the difficulties in which the present fyftem of orthodoxy has involved the Chriftian religion, as the main obftacles which for many ages have prevented, in a great meafure, the propagation of Chriftianity among the Jews, Mabometans, and Deifts.

It is in vain (he fays) for the Chriftian divines to complain, as they do, of the increase of Deifm; whilft they themselves are determined to defend thefe errors, at all events; merely because they find them already introduced. Let but this fundamental article of Christianity be restored, that God fo loved the world, that he gave his only Son (and not the person of his only Son, abftracted from his fence; nor another Spirit, that was joined to him ;) to fuffer for mankind-and we fhould foon find it would now have the fame effect upon both the reafon and the paffions of mankind as formerly. But while we continue to be afhamed of this doctrine; and argue, that we must not think fo meanly of the Son of God, as to imagine bis effence to be fubject to the Sufferings of the flesh; we lofe the whole fpirit of the gospel difpenfation, and confound ourselves with metaphyfical fubtleties; and are not able to explain the Chriftian system, or even what is called the Apoftle's Creed, without loading it with a thousand inconfiftencies and contradictions; which it is impoffible for any man of fenfe to believe.'

The advocates of the Athanafian fyftem have long appropriated the term fundamental to their own opinion; infomuch that it is now become a kind of cant expreffion which has loft its terrors; our Author repeatedly adopts the fame term, though, we are perfuaded, without annexing it to their confined and uncharitable idea: he may, however, be thought by many to lay an improper ftrefs on a ftil difputable and undecided opinion, more efpecially when he says, that upon this article of faith,' as he understands and explains it, all our affurance of redemption and hope of immortality as Chriftians is built.'

In the first chapter of this Inquiry, the Author examines the origin of the difputes concerning the Antemundane generation of Jefus Chrift; and fhews, how the Homöoufian doctrine was established as an article of faith.

• The

• The Council of Nice, he obferves, was not contented with fuch proofs of the Unity, as were found in the word of God, and had been maintained in the church till that time; but chose to answer the Sabellians, upon the principles of the then-reigning philofophy; and accordingly they decreed, that the Son of God was of, or out of, the Subftance of God; and that the Father and Son were one God, because they were both of the fame indivisible substance and in their difputes with the Eufebians, inftead of keeping to the words of fcripture, that Chrift was, in O, of or from God; they fubftituted their own comment, in the place of the text; and required them to fubfcribe, as to an article of faith, under the penalty of anathema, that Christ was of or from God; in The Bolas TH 18 thus fetting their own opinions upon a level with the word of God.' In confequence of which the Athanafians were not contented with a fubfcription to the words of fcripture; which, they were confcious, was the only fubfcription they had any right to require; but infifted upon a fubfcription to their own interpretation and comment; which they knew they had no right to do.

This was the firit public and open apoftacy of the church, from the word of God to the determinations of men; and proved the feed, the root, the foundation of all the established errors, which have from that time to this infefted the Chriftian faith. The criterion of truth and orthodoxy was no longer confined to the scripture, or Chriftian verity; but another rule of faith fprung up, founded upon tradition and the decrees of Councils; which was called the Catholic religion and thefe two rules of faith frequently contradicted one another, in fuch material articles, as at length divided the church into what may be called two different religions.-The Papifts, adhering to tradition and the decrees of the church, maintained all the errors, that had been introduced by thofe means; fuch as prayers for the dead, prayers to faints and angels, the worthip of images, tranfubflantiation, and other errors unknown to the Chriftian verity, or fcripture. And the Proteftants, on the other hand, adhering to the Christian verity, rejected all thefe doctrines; and thereby got rid of numberless abfurdities and contradictions: but, as they did not keep ftrictly to the first principle of their reformation, in receiving the fcripture or Chriftian verity as the only rule of faith; but unadvisedly joined with it the decrees of the four firft general Councils (commonly fo called) and other articles of human compofition, not expreffed in fcripture terms; they ftill continue entangled in many inconfiftencies and contradictions, wherever thefe different rules of faith happen to difagree.'

In the fecond chapter our Author proceeds to fhew, that the Homöoufian doctrine is inconfiftent with the fufferings of Chrift, and his descent from heaven, as revealed in the New Testament, and understood by the primitive Christians; and that it is fupported only by the arbitrary decrees of the Homöoufian Councils.

On this fubject he obferves, 1. that, if the fame Jefus, who was in the form of God, could and did diveft himself of his glory, and take upon him the form of a fervant, he could not be of the fame

Substance