Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub
[ocr errors][ocr errors]

pointment, and declared themselves members of a certain ecclesiastical corporation, or whether they acted simply as men to whom heaven has given understanding and the New Testament, and who can acknowledge no other authority in religion. If the latter, not all the virtue and learning of Carey could obtain licence or toleration; if the former, the men would do perfectly well, though their qualifications should reach no further than the ability of reading, like the Major when he was chaplain, a number of printed prayers and sermons. He has no idea of religion, as a thing which exists, and can be taught, independently of the appointments of the state; and when its conveyance to a foreign country is the subject in question, the only view in which his unfortunate understanding is capa ble of regarding it, is that of an article of commerce, under the distinction of lawful and contraband. The exportation of Christianity from England in any other than English bottoms, and by any other than persons of the established church, is to be considered, he thinks, as a branch of the smuggling trade, and ought to be prohibited or punished accordingly. This really appears to be the whole extent of any conception that he has on the subject; so that when he says, (Reply, p. 80.) that Messrs. Carey and Thomas "were smuggled out to India," (he writes it in Italics) and when he somewhere applies the same term to the sending of a missionary to Buenos Ayres, he really does not seem to wish to be understood as adopting a figurative expression.

His anger at this last transaction breaks out afresh" in each successive pamphlet; and he takes the tromble to say over again, that it was a violation of the articles of capitulation, which engaged to the inhabitants of Buenos Ayres the free exercise of their religion. It would be hopeless to repeat to such a besotted understanding, that freedom is violated by nothing but coercion. But why does he not say again, what he said in the preface to his Observations, that the universal hatred of which the General and Admiral complain, is more likely to have been caused from the folly of sending out a "Protestant Missionary than by any other circumstance" (preface, p. 1xx). This vile absurdity was at first safely left to itself, in the absence of public and official documents respecting the circumstances in South America; but some of our readers will have observed, in reading the Report of General. Whitelocke's trial, that General Craufurd and Colonel Pack asserted the extreme irritation of the natives to have arisen from reported cruelties committed by the British.

It were easy, but very useless, to employ many pages more in exposing the folly and depravity exhibited in this pamphlet. We will dismiss it by applauding the honesty of one particu lar part, which would reveal the main principle of all that this

[ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors]

man has written on the present question, if that principle had not already been sufficiently apparent; he praises and recommends, without any hint whatever of exception, the pamphlet called A Vindication of the Hindoos, which pamphlet is no less than a downright and most vulgar and impudent defence of the collective abominations of the heathenisin of Hindostan. We are glad to see these men reciprocally adopting one another as congenial friends in the same cause. Mr. Twining, in his second edition, referred with approbation to Major S. W. Major S. W. referred with complacency and approbation to Mr. Twining and his production; the Vindicator of the Hindoos cited the Major as his ally, and now, the league is completed by the Major's applauding reference to the Vindicator. As if desperate both of his cause and his character, he has even claimed the "Barrister" as an associate...

No particular attention is due to the article called Dangers of British India. There is a great deal of rhetoric and cant about religious intolerance, persecutions, massacres, and so forth, from all which the reader, if the title page had not apprised him of the contrary, would have expected that the author was going to plead zealously for a system of the most enlarged toleration in India, protecting at once the Brahmins in the practice of their superstitions, and the Christians in proclaiming among the same people the knowledge of the true God. The object of it all, however, is to recommend one more act of intolerance to be added, to close the wretched history of the world thus far; and the part of the performance relating to this subject, ends with the following piece of nauseous profaneness.

us

For God's sake, for the sake of all we hold dear in religion and in liberty, of our friends and relations in India, whose existence hangs upon the question, of the justice and affection which we owe to our India subjects, which should deter from a hazardous experiment, even of good, in the moment of danger, and which calls upon us to defend them from the grasp of revolutionary despotism; let us guard against any measure which can diminish the confidence of the people of Hindostan. Then, under the protection of Providence, and with the united efforts of foresight, discipline, and public spirit, we may reasonably expect to plunge the whole invading hosts into the waves of the Indus, or to drive them back into the deserts of Kerman.' p. 49.

[ocr errors]

A considerable portion of the remainder relates to the projected French invasion of India over land. It is odd this man should have such an aversion to Bonaparte, after the privileges with which it should seem he has been honoured; for he. knows, to their minutest particulars, the secret plans of that despot's mind, particulars which we may venture to say he never condescended to impart to any body but our author.

We have room only to recommend in general and strong terms the second and third parts of Mr. Fuller's Apology. He takes, in the second part, a brief and sufficient notice of some of the Major's falsehoods and misrepresentations, such as his slander of Mr. Thomas, his assertion that no good con vert has been made, and his repeated assertion that the converts are obliged to be supported by the missionaries, his accusing Mr Ward of an impious perversion of the expression of our Lord, that he was come to send fire on the earth, and some other particulars. In answer to the Vindicator, he accumulates a very large mass of evidence of the extreme moral depravity of the Hindoos. He has added some papers furnished to him by a gentleman deeply versed in oriental literature, which afford a striking and indeed disgusting view of the immoral character of the Hindoo mythology, and the indecency of many of their superstitious rites.

Among many other topics very ably discussed in the third part, Mr. Fuller argues at considerable length, and with all his accustomed acuteness, the mixed question of the nature and limits of the duty which persons employed in propagating the gospel owe to the civil magistrate, and of the actual conduct in this respect of the missionaries in Hindostan; he also dispatches, by a few strong paragraphs, all the Major's idle cavils about the miraculous powers of the Apostles, as forming a prohibition of all efforts to spread the gospel by men not. endowed with these powers. The illiberal exhortations of Dr. Barrow to forbid all but clergymen to be missionaries in the East, are most ably exploded, both by argument, and by the strong fact that no clergymen have been induced to undertake the office. Two important letters are added, the one from Colonel Sandys, the other from Mr. Cunninghame, late assistant judge at Dinagepore, in testimony to the high character of the missionaries, whom the Major has presumed, unfortunately and disgracefully for himself, (if he can be further disgraced) to charge with " atrocious falsehood."

Art. XII. A Letter to a Barrister, in Answer to Hints to the Public and the Legislature, on the Nature and Effect of Evangelical Preaching. By Robert Hawker, D. D. Vicar of Charles, Plymouth. 8vo. pp. 50. Price 1s. 6d. Williams and Co. 1808.

Art. XIII. An Appeal to the Legislature and to the Public; in Answer to the Hints of a Barrister, on the Nature and Effect of Evangelical Preaching. By an Evangelical Preacher. 8vo. pp. 55. Price 1s. 6d. Williams and Co. 1808.

Art. XIV. A Defence of the principal Doctrines of Evangelical Religion, in a Letter to "a Barrister;" occasioned by his " Hints on the Nature and Effect of Evangelical Preaching." By a Layman, 8vo. pp. 112. Price 38, Williams and Co. 1808.

Art XV. Hints to the Public, and the Legislature, on the Nature and Effects of Evangelical Preaching. By a Barrister. Part the First. Second Edition. 8vo. pp. 147. Johnson, 1808.

THAT a pamphleteer so abjectly despicable as the "Bar

»

rister," should be honoured with a prompt reply from three respectable writers, is more to the credit we think of their zeal, than of their wisdom. From the attacks of such an enemy, Christianity could only derive new victories. Next to the approbation of the worthy, we should covet the enmity of the vile; nor can we think it a trifling honour to any system or person, to the cause of truth and the character of its defenders, to be insulted by such an individual as this, whose virtue consists in courage, and whose talents in misrepresentation, who has scoffed at the poetry of Cowper, and defamed the reputation of Bunyan, who has held up to scorn the sentiments and phraseology of Isaiah, who in the fervour of his zeal for God and against Mr. Toplady has proved St. Paul to be "an infidel" and "one who cannot believe the Gospel to be true," and hath literally counted the blood of the covenant which cleanseth from all sin an unholy thing, even "the element of" man's "corruption!"-an individual, in short, who has made the Socinianism he worships, and the disguise he wears, unspeakably disgusting to the intelligent public, and has only to unmask his portentous front in order to receive the indelible consummation of his ignominy. It was almost superfluous, we think, to defend any cause which such an adversary might attack, or to stigmatize any system which such an advocate might defend. The single method to be pursued was to expose him; and in this view only we are inclined to admit the claim of these writers to the public gratitude. There are some readers on all subjects, who have neither industry to examine, nor perspicuity to discern, who might admit the Barrister's" ridiculous charges without thought, who might receive his perversions and garbled extracts without suspicion, and might read his blasphemies without astonishment. For the sake of such readers, and for the sake of all who would be eager to believe that the doctrine of the righteous over much" tends to licentiousness, we are not sorry for the publication of these sensible and convincing

answers.

.

There was apparently a peculiar propriety in Dr. Hawker's undertaking this task, as the "Barrister" had "endeavoured to blacken his character, as if the magistrate's authority would be incompetent to keep due order in the metropolis, while his publications were suffered to circulate." (p. 40.) Having calmly expressed his confidence that "in the parish where the last thirty years of" his "life have been spent, none can or will come forward to impeach a line of conduct engaged, for

the most part, in the humble and peaceable, but laborious office of a parochial minister," he proceeds to refute the charges alledged against his sentiments and writings. In answer to the absurd pretence that Evangelical sentiments are a "new religion," Dr. H. appeals to the Scriptures and the established articles of faith; and in answer to the hoarse and hoary imputation against the tendency of such preaching, he argues demonstratively from its effects.

We be slanderously reported (saith the we say, let us do evil that good may come. add? Whose damnation (saith he) is just. would do well to pause over them.

[ocr errors]

Apostle,) and some affirm that
But what doth he immediately
These are awful words. You

• We contend, sir, and upon the most convincing evidences we prove also, in the lives and conversation of all that are real partakers of grace,, that it is a doctrine after godliness. Every thing that is amiable is included in it, as referring to all the great branches of moral and religious practice. And we challenge the world to the strictest scrutiny into the conduct of those who really, and truly, and heartily receive the doctrines of grace, so as to live under their blessed influence, whether they are not examples of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.' pp. 12, 13.

The result of such a scrutiny would form an impressive contrast with the gross misrepresentations and virulent aspersions of our moral" Barrister." In reference to the calumny, that Dr. Hawker's "Prop against all Despair" encouraged the murderer, the robber, and the seducer to sin, he says:

Do not fancy, sir, you have hurt me by this attempt to murder my character and reputation. It is yourself, sir, that is most hurt, not me; I really feel sorrow that any man should be such a bubble to himself, as to fancy himself highly moral, highly conscientious, in keeping the commandments, while defective in the lowest instances of morality, and break. ing a positive commandment, even where there seemed to be no temptation.' p. 44.

[ocr errors]

The manner of Dr. H.'s letter is commendable: he has treated his unworthy reviler with a calm and superior dignity, which becomes the clerical and Christian character, and which belongs to conscious uprightness; a dignity which in a philosopher would be sedately contemptuous, but in an evangelist is mildly forgiving and solemnly compassionate.. Having considered his defence of evangelical preaching as gratuitous, we shall not complain that it is incomplete. Neither shall we mention any blemishes in his style; since it in general surpasses the level which a writer, who studiously adapts himself to an inferior class of society and to a compass of mind not extending much beyond the sentiments and diction of the Scriptures, could fairly be expected to maintain.. It was not necessary, in replying to an opposer of the Christian Faith in its. essential tenets, that Dr. H. should state and defend any pes

« ПредишнаНапред »