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river called Lethe, the water of which makes one forget every thing that is past.. Now purgatory is a kind of river Lethe; God forgets that he was offended, and expunges his juftice. Purgatory may be alfo looked on as a proteft for finners against the power of the devil.

It is very hot in purgatory, but far lefs than in hell. Its flames burn, but without confuming; they are only of a purifying quality. At the end of fome centuries, the finner comes out as clear as crystal, and goes and takes his feat in heaven, as if nothing had been the

matter.

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Christianity has fcarce a project which comes up to this: at the end of the world, God would otherwife have been almoft alone in paradife; whereas purgatory is continually fupplying it with elect.

It is pity fuch a glorious plan fhould have any thing mercenary in it; but purgatory muft be purchafed; and the bonzes and ecclefiaftical mandarins have fet two prices: they, who are afraid of being burnt, buy it outright, and are releafed almoft in an inftant; but to go thus directly to heaven, with only being finged in their flight through Purgatory, requires a large fum: I have been told, that fome half-reprobate Chriftians have paid above fifty thoufand taels to redeem themfelves from thefe purifying flames.

As to thofe who cannot purchase a deliverance, they quietly broil from generation to generation.

Not a few European philofophers have reprefented riches as of little or no value; but it must be owned, that the inflitution of purgatory has made them good for fomething.

Every body is a gainer in this market. Continual collections are making for the fouls in purgatory; and thofe Chriftians who fide with the pope, are continually giving alms. Boxes fet up for this purpose fill every day; but the fouls in purgatory fee little of the money. Lafly, pagods, from being very poor, fince the invention of purgatory, are grown exceffively opulent.

This inftitution, however, is only for venial fins; had a purgatory been likewife erected for the mortal, it would then have been a good thing to be a chriftian. Such an inftitution is a rare encouragement for the finners of this fect. What matters it to offend the Supreme Being? Money will keep one from going to hell.

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Perhaps, there are not in the world greater calculators than the Europeans. I have been told of a computation, containing the number of fouls refcued from the flames of purgatory fince the inflitution thereof: the number is immenfe, and confifts of Chriftians of all ranks, callings, and conditions, except popes, except kings, except minifters of flate, except monks, except financiers, except devotees; all thefe folks go di rectly to hell.'

Our Readers will doubtless conceive the fubject of the above letter, to be a very trite object of fatire; they may find, in these fix volumes, nevertheless, many more that are equally hackneyed and unimportant. K-n-k Art. 24. The Geography and Hiftory of England: Done in the Manner of Gordon's and Salmon's Geographical Grammars. In Two Parts. In the First Part, each County is confidered under the following Heads-The Name, Situation, Air, Soil, Commo

.

dities,

dities, Rivers, Chief Towns, Noblemen's Seats, Curiofities, Remarkable Perfons, &c. To the whole is prefixed, a compleat Map, from the latest Obfervations; fhewing the chief Towns, Rivers, and Roads, both direct and across. Also, a feparate Map of the Roads, of the Channel, and a Plan of London. The Second Part contains, a Concife History of England; or, the Revolutions of the British Conftitution. And, by way of Introduction to the whole, a clear and diftinct View of our Conftitution, and every Branch of the Legislature. 8vo. 6s. Dodfley.

This is a new edition of the work entitled The Geography of England, first published by Mr. Dodfley, about 20 years ago. The work, as we are informed, for we have not the first edition at hand, is now improved in refpect of the maps; and the concife Hiftory of England, in the fecond part, is faid to be entirely new. It is carried down to the death of Will. III. and is written with fome degree of elegance, but with more precipitance than correctness.

Art. 23 Some Particulars relative to the Discovery of the Longitude; mentioning feveral foreign Premiums, and exactly narrating the Particulars of the British Acts of Parliament, refpecting that 8vo. Affair. With a Lift of the prefent Commiffioners, &c.

I S. Burnet.

The above title is abundantly fufficient to inform the Reader what he may expect to meet with in this pamphlet, which does not however appear to be the production of a very masterly hand.

CORRESPONDENCE.

B.

WE takworth, June 8th, and a more early notice would have been

E take in good part the letter figned Philalether, dated from

taken of it, but that the gentleman, to whofe province it more immediately belonged, has for fome time been abfent upon a journey.—

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Mr. Bulkley, in his Oeconomy of the Gefpel, fays, The death of Chrift was a clear, authentic, public, and most awful declaration of the divine displeasure against fin; and defigned in the wifdom of divine providence to be an everlasting memorial of it.' In our Review for last April, p. 261, animadverting upon the chapter of Chriff's Atonement, we took the liberty to fay, that we did not remember any one paffage in the New Teftament that declares this to be the end or intention of the death of Chrift; and tho' this notion had been often advanced, by those who are efteemed rational divines, we confidered it as no more than an hypothefis to throw a veil over the difficulties which attend this fubje&t.'This, it feems, hath given great offence to our Correfpondent, on account, he fays, of the many great names it afperfes; and is a remark that ought not to have been made without many and clear convictions of its truth.

After all the veneration that is due to the many refpectablenames, which the Letter-writer hath in his view, we prefume we are not to be cenfured for paying a greater veneration to truth, than to their authority: we think the remark was not made without clear conviction

of

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of its truth, and was the refult of careful examination; at least nothing
that our Correfpondent hath said, hath, as yet, had weight enough with
-He fays, the death of Chrift
us, to induce us to alter our opinion.————
was intended to reconcile finful man to God; now where there is no difplio-
fure conceived, there can be no need of reconciliation; therefore the death of
Chrift was a clear, authentic, public and most awful declaration of the di-
vine difpleafure against fin.

It will be readily allowed that the divine difpleasure against fin, in the way of reafoning and inference, may be deduced with great probability, from the death of Chrift: and fo it may in general from his manifeftation in the world; from the doctrines he taught, and from the high offices he fuftained, as the prophet and meflenger of God. The fame might likewife be deduced from the inftitution of the law of Mofes ; from the conftitution of the human mind; from our natural approbation of virtue, and disapprobation of vice; from the natural confequences of virtue and vice in the prefent world, and indeed from all the difpenfations of the providence of God, which have the interests of virtue and religion material difference very for their object. But we apprehend there is a between a direct and pofitive declaration and a probable deducible confe quence: from the death of Chrift we may deduce an excellent argument for the divine displeasure against fin: but it doth not from hence follow that a declaration of this was the principal and ultimate intention of God in the death of his Son.

But, to put the matter out of debate, the Writer produces a text, which, he apprehends, exprefsly declares this to be the end and intention of the death of Chrift, viz. Rom. viii. 3. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God fending his own Son in the likeness of finful flesh, and for fin, condemned fin in the flesh; and then asks with great confidence, what can the ftrong word Kalexu be, but an awful declaration of the divine difpleafure against fin, by ibe miffion and death of Jesus Chrift?

And thus

Confequentially it may be; but pofitively and directly by no means: for the obvious intention of the apoftle, in this place, is to affert the fuperior efficacy of the Chriftian inftitution above the law of Mofes, in deftroying the power of fin in the minds and lives of men. that able critic, the late Rev. Dr. Taylor, hath paraphrafed the verse, For whereas the law could not deliver from the dominion of fin and restore to a new life of holiness, because it was weak, and all the perfect rules of action it prefcribed were ineffectual through the prevalency of flefhly lufts; God, by fending his Son to live, as we do, in flesh, frail and liable to fin; and by fending him about the affair of fin, to fanctify and redeem us from all iniquity, hath mercifully fupplied the defect of the law, by a plentiful provifion of means for deftroying of fin, for put. ting it to death in our flesh, or for enabling us to get the mastery over our flefhly propenfities.'

If our Correfpondent be at a lofs for an authority to juftify the fenfe here given of the word Kalaxpw, he will meet with several, taken from St. Paul's own writings, referred to by Mr. Locke, in his notes upon this paffage, an attention to which might have faved himself, and us, this unneceffary trouble.

We will not retort the charge of precipitation upon the Letter-writer; but beg leave to recommend it to him, to extend that candour to others, which by this time perhaps he may think he fometimes stands in need of himself.

S.

THE

MONTHLY REVIEW,

For SEPTEMBER, 1765.

Conclufion of the Account of the new Edition of the Divine Legation of Mofes. See the Review for laft Month.

AVING, in our laft number, given an account of the

HAVI

most confiderable additions to the fourth and fifth books of the Divine Legation, we now proceed to the remaining part of the work. In a pretty long appendix to the fifth book, his Lordship confiders what Lord Bolingbroke has advanced in regard to the omiffion of the Doctrine of a future ftate of rewards and punishments, and the adminiftration of an extraordinary providence, in the Mofaic difpenfation. It is not worth while, however, to detain our Readers with a particular account of what is contained in this appendix, as the noble author's inconfiftencies and contradictions are too palpable to efcape the notice of any but the moft fuperficial reader. Our Author points out these inconfiftencies in a fpirited and agreeable manner, and fhews himself greatly fuperior to his antagonist in critical fagacity, learning, and knowlege of his fubject. This fuperiority to Lord Bolingbroke, and, indeed, to moft other writers, is readily acknowleged; but it is difgraced by that illiberal, that haughty, that infolent manner, in which he treats almost all those who differ from him; and of which the Reader will have a ftriking inftance before we conclude this Article. In this refpect, indeed, the noble Author is by no means inferior to him; but though arrogance and abuse reflect the greatest dishonour upon every gentleman, and every fcholar, yet we cannot but think that they are more inexcufable in the Author of the Divine Legation, than in his philofophic Lordship, as the former is a professed and strenuous advocate for a religion which most especially recommends meekness and humility; of which there are no traces in any of his writings. Little does he feem to confider, that the man, who adorns his character with the amiable virtues which Christianity fo VOL. XXXIII.

N

strongly

ftrongly recommends, will do his religion infinitely more fervice, than he, who, without these virtues, fhould write an hundred volumes in its defence.

In the fixth section of the fixth book, we find the following adddition in regard to that prophecy, wherein our Saviour, to ufe his Lordship's own words, hath embroidered into one piece the intermediate judgment of the Jews, and the final judgment of mankind.

• If St. Paul exhorted his followers not to be shaken in mind on this account; his fellow-labourer, St. Peter, when he had in like manner reproved the fcoffers, who faid, where is the Promife of his coming? went ftill further, and, to fhew his followers that the Church was to be of long continuance here on earth, explains to them the nature of that evidence which future times were to have of the truth of the Gospel; an evidence even fuperior to that which the primitive times enjoyed of miracles*; We have alfo a more fure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light which shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-far arife in your hearts. This evidence of prophecy is juftly qualified a more fure word ‡, when compared to miracles, whofe demonftrative evidence is confined. to that age in which the power of them was bestowed upon the Church: whereas the prophecies here meant, namely, those of St. Paul and St. John, concerning the great apoftacy, were always fulfilling even to the laft confummation of all things; and fo, affording this demonftrative evidence to the men of all generations §.

+ Ver. 19.

2 Ep. Peter chap. i. ver. 17.
Barigor, more firm, conftant, and durable.

The

See Sir Ifaac Newton on the Prophecies, c. i. of his Obfervations upon the Apocalypfe of St. John.

§ Mr. Markland has discovered a new fenfe in this paffage of St. Peter (concerning the more fure word of prophecy) with which his brother-critic is fo enamoured, that he fays, he may prophecy there will be no more dif putes about it. Mr. Markland's difcovery is very fimple," it is only placing a colon at the end of the 18th verfe, that the beginning of the 19th may connect with it; and fo lead to the true and obvious fenfe of a paffage, which of late has in vain exercifed the pens of many learned Writers, viz. This voice, faying, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleafed, [taken from Isaiah xlii. 1.] we heard in the mount, and we have by that means (prophecy or) the words of the Prophet more fully con firmed."

This interpretation fuppofes that Peter is here fpeaking of the fir coming of the Meffiah, and that the word of prophecy refers to a Prophecy already accomplished. Now, if it can be fhewn, that he is fpeaking of the fecond coming of Jefus, and that the word of prophecy refers to a long

feries.

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