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vulgar Scotticifms, may need explanation: and which ought to have been explained in marginal notes, or by a gloffary at the end of the pamphlet. For instance, what will the generality of readers on this fide the Tweed, understand by malicious alledgeances, by relevant, relevancy, and irrelevant; compeared, and compearance; inftructing a fact; a perfon being inhabile to be received as a witnefs; caufe remove the faid Anne Clerk from the room where the and the other two women are presently staying;' the clashing people of the country;' you daft dog,' and are you daft?' condefcending on defects," condefcendence relative to the malice of, &c.' afbake-down for the deponent's lying all night in Mrs. Ogilvie's room; he would fend her a phial of laudanum, how foon his cheft fhould arrive; the laigh room, a laigh word, and the laigh council houfe; fynding the bow! with water, or with broath; rouped the flocking upon the farm;' remeid of law-this laft may be eafily gueffed at by every reader;

but what are filling-feeds, happings, biggings, and penny-flone caft diftance? what trade is a portioner? and what is meant, p. 46, by Mrs. O. being troublefome to her paramour? Thefe might all have been as eafily explained as the fwarf, that happened to Mr. Ogilvie on the hill: i. e. he had fwarfed or fainted. But our greatest objection is to the form of the criminal indictment raised and purfued at the inftance of Thomas Miller, Efq; his Majesty's advocate, for his Majefty's intereft, against Katherine Nairn, &c.' What must foreigners, efpecially fuch as have the misfortune to live under arbitrary and oppreffive governments, think of this open declaration of his Britannic Majefty being interested in the iffue of a criminal profecution? and what may they not be led to conclude when they read, at the bottom of the fentence, that all the moveable goods and gear,' of the perfon doomed to fuffer death, be efcheat and inbrought to his Majesty's ufe? One of our English poets fays wretches hang, that jurymen may dine; and, from what is above quoted, may not the world be led to imagine, that in Scotland, as in Turkey, wretches hang, that their moveables may move into the royal coffers?

CORRESPONDENCE.

H. F.'s letter in relation to Mr. Jeacocke's Vindication of the Moral Character of St. Paul, appears to have been quite unneceffary. Nobody, we apprehend, could ever have drawn, from the Reviewers account of that publication*, any inference to the prejudice of the writer's character, as a real believer in Christianity;' for fuch Mr. Jeacocke undoubtedly (as H. E. remarks) appears to be, through the whole of his pamphlet.' What was faid of the apoftle Paul's being vindicated at the expence of St. Peter, was rather pleasantly than fe verely obferved; and the paffage on which the obfervation was founded, was fairly quoted: from whence every reader might judge for himself, both as to the propriety and tendency of Mr. J.'s argument, and of what the Reviewer faid on the fubject. -On the whole, the Reviewers do entirely concur with H. F. in his opinion, although the thought is not a new one, that it is a great evidence of the integrity, of the facred writers, that they have recorded the faults as well as the excellencies of the characters they have mentioned.

* See Review for August last, p. 156.

THE

MONTHLY REVIEW,

For DECEMBER, 1765.

An Illuftration of feveral Texts of Scripture, particularly thofe in which the LOGOS occurs. -The Subftance of Eight Sermons preached in the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, in the Years 1764, and 1765. At the Appointment of Mrs. Heathcote, and by Permiffion of the Lord Bishop of London; for the Lecture founded by Lady Moyer. To which are added, Two Tracts relative to an Intermediate State. By Benjamin Dawfon, L. L. D. Rector of Burgh, in Suffolk: 8vo. 4s. Millar, &c.

A'

LTHOUGH the fpirit of controversy in religious matters feems to be much on the decline; (and perhaps the illiberal manner, in which it has been too often conducted, may have difpofed moderate perfons to wifh a speedy end of it) yet, while mankind think religion to be of importance, and while it is found fo greatly to affect the welfare of every fociety, we fhall have little caufe to expect its abfolute termination; nor, in reason, can we hope that those we are connected with in fociety, will be totally indifferent to that which must ever fupport our most effential interefts. Mankind are certainly formed for religion. This is fo manifeft, that we need no other proof of it than the very argument generally made ufe of against it, viz. that the moft fubtle politicians, as well as the wifeft and greatest legiflators, have ever encouraged fome fpecies of religion in their different plans of civil polity, having always found it ready to their hand, interwoven, as it were, in the very frame of government. Priestcraft is but the abufe which narrow-fighted politicians have made of this religious propensity, so natural to the human mind; and it would be more wifely brought as an argument for free enquiry, in order to prevent impofition, than for rejecting all religion, as meer artifice and contrivance.

Polemic divinity, which engages in fcholaftic queftions and metaphyfical fubtilties, is juftly confidered as the most unproVOL. XXXIII.

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fitable fpecies of writing. But freedom of debate, and even a decent expreffion of zeal on the capital points of Christianity, will always be looked upon in a very different light, by the fenfible and judicious. As to those who are the profeffed guardians of religion, in them, a total indifference to its intereft would appear highly culpable; and an ignorance of those queftions which have exercifed the pens of the ableft divines, extremely fhameful.

In that part of the prefent work more immediately before us, the Author, though he is far from appearing lukewarm on the fubject, difcovers no unbecoming zeal for the doctrines he maintains; but rather feems defirous of a cool confideration and impartial comparison of them with the principles of the New Teftament. On this account he is certainly entitled to that indulgence from the public which he fo reafonably hopes to meet with from his diocefan, the Bishop of Norwich; to whom, in a fhort dedication, he hath expreffed his defire of serving, by this publication, the intereft of religion in general, and of the eftablished church in particular.

Serving the church, however, has very different ideas affixed to it by different people; and the Doctor may probably enough, in the opinion of fome of his readers, be prejudicing and betraying its intereft, while, according to the idea which others may entertain, he is doing it real honour, and effential service.

That our Readers may judge for themselves, we fhall proceed to lay before them the plan of this work, with fome fpecimens of the manner in which it is executed.

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In the course of the following lectures (fays the Author) I have undertaken to prove from fcripture thefe three pofitions: ft, That he who redeemed us was very God manifested in the flesh, not the firft of created beings united to an human body, nor a mere man in whom the fulness of the godhead dwelt not. 2d, That Jefus Chrift was indeed perfect man, of a reasonable foul and human flefh fubfifting,' but that man in whom God himfelf and no other being, in nature inferior, dwelt. 3d, That the Holy Ghaft is of a nature perfectly divine; not a distinct and Jeparate Being from the Father Almighty, inferior both to him and the Son, but true and very God; or, in other words, that he who hath fanctified is one and the fame God with him that created and redeemed us.

The Reader will obferve with us the careful and guarded manner in which our Author hath expreffed himself in opening the defign of his performance. Aware of the difficulties in which his predeceffors on this fubject involved themselves by the ufe of metaphysical terms and fcholaftic forms of expreffion, hẹ

The fubftance of the Lady. Moyer's Lectures.

has

has judiciously avoided the neceffity which they lay under, of anfwering fuch objections as are often drawn from a faife conception of the terms themselves.

If our Readers think it worth their while to confult Dr. Waterland's fermons preached on the fame occafion with thefe of our Author, they will be abundantly convinced of the juftness of this remark; though our Author hath thought proper to take no notice of this great champion in the caufe, having in his eye ftill more exceptionable writers.

The first of the forementioned pofitions the Doctor propofes to evince from the reprefentation given of what is generally termed the incarnation of the Son of God,-from the teftimony of the evangelifts and apoftles, and from the teftimony of Chrift

himself.

After having briefly obferved, from the fcripture account of the incarnation, that no mention is there made of any other than two natures, viz. the one perfectly human, the other perfectly divine, he concludes, against the Arians, that there is no ground for fuppofing that a Being who, in a pre-existant state, was diftinct from and inferior to God, was united to humanity.

With regard to the teftimony of the evangelifts, he has fhewn, that they never afcribe our redemption to any other Being than God himself, operating in the man Chrift Jefus. They were far, fays he, ((peaking of the people who had feen a miraculous cure performed) from giving glory to any other Being than the Maft High, nor could it ever enter their heads that it was not Ged, but fome angel or demigod united to humanity, that wrought the cure.'

In another place, on our Saviour's reftoring a dead person to life, he thus expreffeth himself: It was man, the man Chrift Jefus, that touched the bier and faid Young man arife; but it was God alone that gave life to the dead. It was the power of the Almighty, and not of any finite Being, which accompanied and gave efficacy to the command.'

Having cited many texts to this purpofe, from the evangelifts, he concludes his firft lecture with the following vindication of the worship of the church of England, from the unjust reflections (as he conceives them to be) of both Socinians and Arians.

From the reprefentation, therefore, which the evangelifts have given us of Jefus Chrift, and the power which manifefted itself in him, it appears, that we have good reafon to ascribe, to the author of our falvation, eternal power and godhead. The Socinians may declaim ever fo much against rendering to a mere mortal that worship which is due to God alone; and they are juftified in withholding it themfelves. But if they fuppofe our church warrants fuch kind of worship, they are under a grofs

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mistake; and, in representing her in fo odious a light, they want that charity towards her, which is above all faith, being the bond of perfectnefs. The church of England acknowledges no God but one only living and true God. She acknowledges the humanity of Christ, and has ever maintained that doctrine; at the fame time fhe difallows of divine honours being rendered to him on that account. Whatever gratitude be due to him as man (and the highest no doubt is due) her adoration neither terminates in, nor is in any measure directed to an arm of flesh, but respects the divinity itself, which was manifefted in the flesh, even him, by whose power the fick were healed, the lame walked, the blind faw, and the deaf heard; him whofe mighty power ftilled the raging of the winds and the waves by a word, which called forth Lazarus, after four days interment, from the grave, and (why need I mention any other inftance of its perfectly divine efficacy?) which raised the man Chrift Jefus from the dead: and which he exercises with full authority, to the well-governing of his church univerfal both now and ever.

Let the Arians, on the other hand, exprefs what abhorrence they will of the doctrine of the Trinity, as idolatrous; and ever fo great aftonishment, that any fhould believe it; it would be extremely aftonishing (but that we fee an intemperate zeal will admit no cool confideration of any point) that they fhould confider it in this unfavourable light, and not fee that their own notion borders more upon the error objected against. Which, I would afk, favours most of polytheifm? to fuppofe that there is. one God, the great creator and father of all, that the fame redeemed us in the perfon of Chrift, and fanctified us by his holy fpirit, being one and the fame eternal and uncreated being? or, that these are three diflinct beings and separately exiftent, the one uncreated and eternal, viz. our Creator; the other, a creature next to God in dignity, but not perfect God, viz. our Redeemer; and the third, a ftill inferior Being to either, yet above the angels, viz. the Holy Ghoft, our Sanctifier? I am fure the former is the doctrine of the church of England; and if the latter be not the doctrine of the Arians, I fhall be forry to have mifrepresented them: for in this view of it, the doctrine appears very unfcriptural, to fay the leaft of it. I mean not by this reprefentation to retort the invidious reflection which has been caft upon our church; nor is it my intention, my brethren, in mentioning the fame, to excite in you a fpirit of retaliation, but only to guard againft being misled by fo injurious an objection, importing the heaviest of charges, into unfavourable fentiments of the eftablifhed doctrines, which, rightly understood, will be found to be pure and fcriptural. And it is your duty, therefore, to receive what has been faid in the spirit of meeknefs and charity towards those that differ from us. Let us hold our holy faith, firm and unmoved by the fubtle devices of those that would undermine it, or the

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