meant, in the body of the article, to inculcate the tenets of unconditional election, their subsequent caution is not only useless, but perfectly abfurd. "We must receive," say they, "God's promifes in fuch wife as they be generally fet forth to us in holy Scripture and in our doings, that will of God is to be followed which we have exprefsly declared unto us in the word of God." Now it would be fuperfluous to multiply quotations in order to demonstrate that the promifes of God, as fet forth in Scripture, are all general and conditional. "God will render to every man according to his deeds; to them who, by patient continuance in well doing, feek for glory, and honour, and immortality, eternal life; but unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteoufnefs, indignation and wrath; tribulation and anguish upon every foul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew firft, and alf of the Gentile; but glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and alfo to the Gentile. For there is no refpect of perfons with God." (Rom. ii. 6-11.) It were alfo needless to accumulate proofs that the Redemption purchafed by the death of Chrift is reprefented, in Scripture, as extending to the whole human race. The parallel which is drawn by St. Paul, (Rom. v. 15-19.) between the effects of Adam's tranfgreffion and thofe of our Saviour's fatisfaction, is full to the point. The fame Apoftle exprefsly affirms (1. Tim. ii. 6.) that "Chrift Jefus gave himfelf a ranfom for all;" St. John (1. Ep. ii. 2.) that he is the propitiation for the fins of the whole world;" and the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, (ii. 9.) that he "tasted death for every man." If, therefore, as our Apologift conceives, and as we conceive likewise, "Our established forms exhibit the plain and genuine doctrines of the Scriptures," (p. 368.) the election taught in the 17th article is conditional election; not the election of certain. individuals, without regard to their character and conduct; but of all thofe of whom God forefaw that they would believe, and obey the gospel. If this was the doctrine of our Reformers, their caution. in the conclufion of the article, is pertinent, fenfible, and to this effect: "The Lord knoweth them that are his; for though the gracious terms of falvation, through Chrift, are offered to all men, yet all will not accept here understands by the foreknowledge of God. He cannot, we prefume, in this place, confine it to the natural and simple attribute of PRESCIENCE: for that were to charge the Apostle with uttering not only nonfenfe, but blafphemy. It were not only making him fay that the divine prefcience extended to thofe who fhall be faved, which is nothing to the purpose, fince we know that it extended, in an equal degree, to thofe who thall be saved, and to those who thall be damned: but alio that thofe who fhall be damned were predeftinated by God "to be conformed to the image of his fon, to be called, juftified, and glorified." But we leave it to Mr. O. to adjust, at leisure, his fentiments on the subject. "Quo teream vultus mutantem Protea nodo ?" NO. LIX. VOL, XV, C them. them. But those who do, He, who feeth the end from the beginning, hath confiantly decreed to bring to eternal felicity. This decree, however, makes no alteration in the duty or deftiny of any individual. Let none, therefore, think that they are, by it, excluded from the benefits of the redemption through Chrift. Everlasting happiness is promifed, in Scripture, to every man who will fulfil the conditions on which the promife is made. Hence, although we may not be able to perceive how the certain foreknowledge of a future event is to be reconciled with its contingency; yet we are not, therefore, to remit of our exertions: fince we certainly know from the word of God, that our final falvation depends on thefe exertions, and that none will be ultimately miferable but through their own fault." Let us now fuppofe that the predeftination taught in the article, is the fame with that of our author and his friends, the moderate Sublapfarian Calvinifts, and, in that cafe, obferve the reafoning of the Church. "The Supreme Being hath, from all eternity, conftantly decreed, from the mafs of mankind to select a part, in confequence of which they shall infallibly be faved. The reft he hath as conftantly decreed to leave in a state of wrath and damnation, in confequence of which they must infallibly perith. But in thefe decrees of election and preterition, no refpect is had to the characters of the perfons; to the forefeen faith and obediener of the one clafs, or to the foreleen infidelity and difobedience of the other. Although, however, the divine decrees are thus arbitrary and abfolute; although all our endeavours to work out our falvation are useless and nugatory, because those who are not comprehended in the number of the elect cannot poffibly be faved; yet the word of God has exprefsly affured us, by making all its promises conditional and general, that every man may be faved if he will. We muft, therefore, receive these promifes as true, though we know them to be false; and act upon them in our conduct through life, though our actions are of no manner of consequence one way or other." This is the legitimate import of the doctrine which even Mr. O.'s moderate principles would attach to our venerable Church; and we appeal to every reader of fenfe, whether any doctrine can be imagined more abfurd or impious. The doctrine, indeed, of abfolute decrees, in every light in which it can be viewed, is attended with confequences which are equally at variance with the deductions of reafon, the known courfe of provi dence, and the uniform tenor of revealed religion. How contingent events, which depend upon the will of free moral agents, can be certainly forefeen, we have, it is true, no faculties to understand. It has, indeed, been well obferved, that predeftination, prefcience, election, &c. are words accommodated to human capacities, and cannot, in at ftrict or proper fenfe, be predicated of God; for with him there is neither paft nor future: all things are prefent. But the truth is, that of the natural attributes of God, as they have been called, fuch as his eternity, omniprefence, &c. we comprehend almost nothing; and, therefore, whenever we attempt to scan them, our reafon is apt to be bewildered and loft. But, with regard to his moral attributes, the cafe is is widely different. We are certain that, in God, juftice, veracity, goodness, and mercy, though infinitely higher, in degree, are the fame in kind with what they are in ourselves. Of thefe, therefore, we have clear and diftinct ideas; and we can argue from them with fafety and precifion. Were it not fo, the fituation of man would be an ænigma altogether inexplicable; and to talk of a moral government of the univerfe were nothing better than downright nonfenfe. Now the Calvinistic tenet of abfolute decrees is deftructive both of the juftice, and of the goodness of God. It is juftice to punish the wicked, as well as to reward the righteous. But that being cannot poffibly be just who difpenfes happiness and mifery by caprice: nor can he be either juft or merciful, who, when a ranfom has been paid him for the deliverance of a thousand prisoners, chufes, for no other reafon but the gratification of his own whim, to condemn five hundred of them to dungeons and to death. In the ordinary economy of human affairs relating to the bufinefs of the prefent life, we know from the best of all evidence, that of experience, that, without induftry, and the exertion of our own powers, no great or valuable acquifition is, in general, to be expected. Though every bleffing which men enjoy is rightly confidered as the bountiful effect of divine beneficence; yet the labourer or mechanic were an absolute madman who should truft to providence for the fupply of his wants, whilft he paffed his time in habitual idlenefs. We are taught, indeed, to pray for our daily bread; but we may chance to ftarve, if we do not work for it. The cafe is the fame in what concerns our everlasting interefts. The redemption of the world, by our Lord Jefus Chrift, is truly represented, in Scripture, as a scheme of free and unmerited grace; but, although it be true that "by grace we are faved," we muft yet "work out our own falvation with fear and trembling, giving all diligence to make our calling and election fure." It could not poffibly, indeed, have been otherwife, fuppofing this world a ftate of probation, and man, a moral, accountable creature, the proper fubject of reward and punishment. (To be continued.) A Tour through feveral of the Midland and Western Departments of 6s. VERY book which tends to convey true and just information refpecting the actual ftate of France, must be confidered as forming an acceptable addition to our general stock of useful knowledge; but we have to lament that hitherto the task of conveying fuch information has not been undertaken by any one (as far as we know) who knew that country in its priftine ftate, and who, from C 2 fuch fuch knowledge, would be enabled to direct his inquiries with better effect, and to give a comparative view, of a nature highly interefting, inftructive, and important. The intelligence which Mr. Hughes attempts to communicate to his readers has little to recommend it either from its novelty or its usefulness; it contains little to amuse and still less to inftruct; and it is fo enveloped in affectation and felf-confequence, as to be extremely offenfive and difguiting. The pert flippancy of the author's ftile, contrafted with his dogmatical tone of decifion, exhibits a strange mixture, that might indeed excite a laugh, if all propenfity to mirth were not forcibly reftrained by indignation, at a perpetual recurrence of ignorance, vanity, mifreprefentation, and injuftice. The firft inftance of mifreprefentation and injuftice occurs in the description of the first town reached by Mr. H. on the coaft of France. Dieppe, he deferibes, and we dare fay with great truth, as the moft miferable of all miferable places; "Spiders," he fays, "and vermin of a hundred different forts, have tenanted, undisturbed, every corner; and the accumulated filth of generations, long fince mouldering in the duft, almoft renders the glafs impervious: in fhort, the toutenfemble is poverty in the extreme." But left any one should be led from this horrid picture to deduce any confequences unfavourable to the revolution, he immediately affures us, with a confidence uniformly displayed in exact proportion to his own ignorance of the fubject, that to account for all this, we must look to a higher fource than the revolution. It is, by no means, the effect of any thing modern; it is the refult of abufes which flourished under the Bourbons; but, for the oppreffions of the antient government, there is no reafon to be affigned why an English port fhould bear the afpect of comfort, a French port the afpect of mifery." What these abuses, and thefe oppreffions were, which rendered the inhabitants of Dieppe fo filthy and fqualid in their habitations, this intelligent traveller has left us to conjecture. It might have occurred, we fhould think, to a lefs confident writer than Mr. H. that the abufes and oppreffions of the last twelve years were as well calculated to check the spirit of commercial enterprize, to destroy all habits of industry, and to palfy the exertions of the people in every refpect, as any abufes or oppreflions which could have exifted before. But to put an end to his ingenious hypothefis by a plain matter of fact, we can affure him, that in the year 1786, when one of the Bourbons occupied the throne of France, the town of Dieppe exhibited a very different appearance to that which is here given of it; the place itfelf was (with an exception as to one particular) as neat and clean a fea-port as we recollect to have feen in France, and the oppreffed inhabitants were as gay, lively, and contented, as any race of beings with whom we ever affociated or converfed. We were forry to find this fame fpirit of mifreprefentation pervading the greater part of the book; and a conftant effort on the part of the author to justify the regicides at the expence of their fovereign. fovereign. Rouen, if his description of it be accurate, is nearly as much altered as Dieppe. Mr. H. juftifies the plunder of the Church, and though a priest himself, feems to think the robbery of ecclefiaftics no crime. If he had condefcended to point out the difference between the validity of lay property, and that of church property, he would, at leaft, have accd more confiftently, than by a gratuitous juftification of plunder, on the jacobinical plea, urged in the language of Golden Lane, (one fubject of his elegant comparifons) in which he appears to be a proficient; that the property fo feized was that of which quaking guilt and credulity had been gulled." It is but juftice, however, to obferve, that with all this prejudice against ecclefiaftical eftablishments of every defcription, and with all his malevolent invectives against the Roman Catholic clergy, he decidedly prefers the flaves of popery, as he calls the French before the revolution, to the faves of The philofophers as he terms them fince that epoch. "The Frenchmen, as long as the Ancien Regime endured, were men of gentleness and urbanity-from the moment they fell into the hands of the modern fage philofophers they became dæmons-flaves of popery: many an amiable virtue endeared them to furrounding nations, and prompted the figh as often as their degradation became the fubject of reflection-the flaves of the philofophers, not a folitary qualification remained, to foften the fhade of the enormities they hourly perpetrated-from objects of pity, they became the objects of univerfal hatred and detestation. Humanity is, indeed returning-order and decency begin to raile their perfecuted heads again; in the provinces they will flourish with recruited vigour. At Rouen it will be long ere the happy change takes place; the prelent generation muft first wear away." And again, "As might be expected, the difpofition of the inferior orders has been bat little meliorated by the revolution: the perverfe and prepofterous notions of equality with which the abettors of anarchy and deipotiim com-, bined to din their ears, have completely poitoned the antient French mildnefs and urbanity, and their rudenels and incivility are intolerably offenfive." As confiftency, however, is not an indifpenfible qualification in a modern tourist, any more than in a modern philofopher, we find, though humanity was only returning in June, when Mr. H. began his tour, that order and decency were then only beginning to raise their perfecuted heads, and though, at a fubfequent period, even the antient French mildness and urbanity were completely poifoned, yet before. the completion of his philofophical excurfion in September, fuch was the rapidity of their progrefs, that they had totally recovered their health, had actually established their reign, and were in pofleffion of plenary power. "The French are, upon the whole, ah amiable people-there is an urbanity-a good nature-a readinefs to oblige which is highly intereffing-- C 3 politeners |