peace, contentment, patience, joy; and crowning the martyr with its leaves."

In the three following fermons he answers objections made to the Christian faith by infidelity: thefe, and indeed all the difcourfes contain much found reafoning: his mode of treating every fubject is original; and upon every occafion the author thinks for himself. At the conclufion of the fourth fermon he breaks out in this impaffioned addrefs;

"Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath spoken and what he hath spoken who shall disbelieve, or disobey? Shall opinion dispute, shall prejudice contradict, shall passion oppose, or reason sit in judgment on his words? No! let us commune with our own hearts and be still, and know that he is God who speaks. Let all the earth keep silence before him. He is truth itself and great is his wisdom, and therefore he must be believed. His justice is infinite, his power boundless, and with him is terrible majesty; and therefore he must be obeyed. Lo! he doth send forth his voice, and that a mighty voice in the Holy Scriptures. At the sound of this voice, our ears have nothing to do but to listen, nor our apprehension but to conceive his meaning; nor our reason, but to believe in the wisdom, truth and goodness of all he inculcates or commands. God is a sun to all the world of spirits, and his word is the light of that sun to us. No previous opinions or prejudices must be suffered so much as to twinkle in the eyes of our judgment, when this sun of righte ousness ariseth on our minds. No wild passions nor inordinate affections, nor works of darkness, must presume to shew themselves in this light. No! when this sun ariseth, let those beasts of prey and violence lay themselves down in their dens, till they are so tamed that the child of God can lead them."

This is not empty declamation: it is eloquence; it is evangelical eloquence. We have not selected these paffages as poffeffed of peculiar excellence: for we cannot open a page where the author's merit is not eminently confpicuous.

The Claims of the Roman Catholics conftitutionally confidered; in a Letter to the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Norwich to which is added, a Supplementary Note on an Hypothefis advanced in the Hiftorical Work of Mr. Fox. By T. BASELEY, M. A. 8vo. pp. 87. 2s. 6d. Faulder.

THIS is a mafterly examination of the claims fet up by

the Romanifts to a participation of political power;

1

and the author has gone to the very bottom of the subject. The following argument is unanswerable:

"If the Romanist is injured, because he cannot obtain the object of is political or civil ambition, without taking oaths to w ich his religious scruples object, and if the statutes enacting those oaths are to be reprobated as obsolete, and founded in injustice; what are we to think of those statutes which have hedg d round the throne, and not only require the sovereign to profess and swear himself a Protestant, but to maintain the same as established by law?

"Now it is certainly very extraordinary, that while all other men are to have the liberty of professing what they please, without being prevented thereby from obtaining places of high trust and power in the state; the king, and those who are in the line of succession to the throne, should be the only persons excluded from that freedom and privilege.

"It should seem as if not only toleration were to be boundless, but the right of power also, with the exception of the reigning monarch, who must be confined to one profession, and to a particular faith, while his senators, his counsellors, and his represen tatives, may go to a church or a conventicle, a mass-house, or a meeting-house, as best suits their sentiment or convenience.

"If it be said that these acts were wisely provided to guard the protestant interest, by obliging the reigning sovereign to be a member of the Established Church, and to maintain the same, I confess that I see not, upon any fair principle of reasoning, why similar restraints ought not to be fixed and continued around the other branches of the legislature, at least so far as to secure, what those acts were intended to secure, the preponderance of the protestant religion in these realms. Now the assumption of a right in the Romanists to sit in our two houses of parliament, is the assumption of a right to legislate in all that concerns the Established Religion; while they are themselves enemies to it; which is power and liberty not granted to the king himself. If, therefore, that body of men, however respectable they may be, are "greatly injured" by their present exclusion from power, and the privilege of legislating for the Eatablished Church: the reigning monarch, and all who are in the line of inheritance, are equally injured, by not having the liberty to choose their own religion and way of worship, without a legal forfeiture of their high station.

a

"Upon balancing these pretended rights and wrongs, and weighing all the arguments that have been urged for the admission of Romanists to a participation of power, there is, if justice lies with them, neither consistency nor reason in imposing the present Test and Coronation Oath upon the Head of the Government; and with regard to danger, there is in reality no more in having a popish king than a popish senate; nay, considering how narrow

and limited the powers of the English monarchy are, the danger of the one would bear no proportion to that of the other.”

The reafoning on the queftion fo often agitated, concerning the Coronation Oath as applied to the prefent cafe, is no lefs ftrong.

"By that solemn obligation, the king pledged himself to maintain the Protestant Reformed Religion, established by the law, to the utmost of his power: whence it is inferred, that the grant of legislative power to Romanists is incompatible with the terms of

this oath.

"What degree of danger can be justly apprehended from the extension of this privilege, is another question; but certainly no man can deny, that the admission of an indefinite number of Romanists into the two houses of parliament, would abridge the power of the king to maintain what he has sworn to defend."

"If these two great branches of the legislature be thrown open to the professors of that religion which is directly hostile to the Ecclesiastical Establishment, and to the Protestant Religion altogether, the consequence is, that in proportion to their weight, numbers and influence, will be the force of their power in parliament, and the diminution of the sovereign's means to fulfil the terms of his oath.

"Here then the question is brought to its proper i sue, and instead of being weak and futile,' it is of the utmost magnitude, and calmly demands an answer from every reasonable man, whether, when the king has sworn to maintain the Protestant Religion to the utmost of his power, he can, consistently with that pledge, yield up the means by which only he can efficiently perform what he has so solemnly promised?'

"A triumphant reference to the repeal of the Test Act in Ireland, and of various penal laws in England, has been made use of by various writers who have come forward on this occasion to prove that the Coronation Oath does not bind the king to maintain the Protestant Religion to the utmost of his power. But the appeal is as 'weak and futile,' as the objection it labours to set aside is rooted in every principle of law and conscience. In consenting to an act which released many of his subjects from penal restrictions, the king exercised a constitutional right, which he possesses in common with the other legislative branches; but he conceded none of that constitutional power with which he is en trusted, and which he has sworn to preserve for the maintenance of the Civil and Ecclesiastical Establishment of which he is the supreme head."

On the ftrange propofal, faid to be a device of Dr. Milner the cafuift, to give the king a fhare in the election of Catholic bishops, Mr. B. obferves:

VOL. XIV.

Chm. Mag. June 1808.

30

The

"The offer of submitting the election of the Catholic bishops to the king, and of allowing him to negative those persons whom he disapproves, appears so evidently a trick to place the Romish prelates in Ireland upon the footing of an equality with those of the Established Church, that it is surprising such a proposal could have been heard with patience by any sincere Protestant.

"If this proposal was accepted and acted upon, it would constitute an imperium in imperio, and we should have the wonderful spectacle of two ecclesiastical establishments in one kingdom, both possessed of an episcopal government, and both having bishops appointed, in one way or other, by the king. The great difference between these two rival powers at first would be, that the one possessed the privilege of sitting in the house of lords to legislate for the Church which they governed, and the other not: but how long such a line of demarcation would be permitted to remain, must depend upon the vigorous perseverance of the one, and the casual support given to the other. As a matter of conciliation and policy, it is not improbable both would at last occupy a seat in the same assembly, or, as is still more likely, if the spirit of democracy and infidelity should prevail, both would fall together.

"Were this proposal to be adopted, we may be treated with the curious spectacle of two primates of Ireland, and two archbishops or bishops in each diocese, all claiming a right to exercise their episcopal functions, by virtue of the royal appointment, with this remarkable distinction between them, that the one would be considered as the mere holders of temporalities, while the others assumed to themselves a superior spiritual character and authority. "How long after this a Protestant Establishment would continue, is a question which, requires no profound skill in the doctrine of probabilities to calculate. Hereby would be abandoned, in the first place, the fundamental principle of the Reformation of the English and and Irish Church, that "no foreign prince, person, prelate, state, or potentate, hath, or ought to have, any jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence, or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this realm."

"Now this scheme, so artfully contrived, of making the king a partner with the pope in the nomination to bishoprics, whether with or without temporalities, it matters not, has a direct tendency to subvert the entire letter and spirit of this declaration. Should it indeed be carried into effect, then as a thing of course, the oath of supremacy must be abrogated, for what justice would there. be in requiring the subject to swear fidelity and obedience to an authority which the Sovereign had himself renounced?"

In the courfe of the letter a view is given of the state of the Romanifts and of their practices, which merits the ferious attention of every Proteftant. The Supplementary Note contains an acute examination of a principle advanced

by Mr. Fox, and from him by Lord Holland in the upper house, that the object of James the fecond was not the reftoration of Popery but the establishment of an Abfolute Monarchy. It is fufficient for us to fay, that this pofition, for totally at variance with all historical teftimony, is completely refuted.

An Addrefs to the Archbishop of Canterbury, on the propriety and usefulness of Sunday Evening Lectures. By the Rev. GEORGE HENDERICK, Chaplain to the Countess dowager of Mexborough, and Curate of Harlaxton near Grantham, Lincolnshire. 4to. pp. 22. 1s. Rivingtons.

WE

E perfectly coincide with the author of this address in his opinion concerning the utility of Sunday Evening Lectures, particularly in thofe places where the fectaries abound: and the manner in which he has treated the fubject does great credit to his zeal and abilities.

After noticing the prodigious increase of the methodists, and the pernicious influence of infidelity, Mr. Henderick proposes as a remedy, the general establishment of Sunday Evening Lectures, especially in large towns and populous villages.

"The evening of the sabbath is, of all the week, that part which is most vacant and unoccupied. At that season, the lower orders of society, especially the manufacturing and labouring poor, are most at a loss for employment. Time then hangs heavy upon them, particularly in winter; and they readily embrace any object that promises to amuse the unoccupied hour-any thing that tends to divert the mind. Reading is not in the power of all; nor does he who can read, always find himself inclined to the exercise. The cares of a family, the noise of children, or perhaps the ill humour of his partner, render reading impossible and home unpleasant. The man is driven, as it were, reluctantly out of doors, and some other refuge must be sought in which he can either drown his cares, or enjoy a momentary peace till the hour of sleep.

In

* Even where this is not the case, we know there are many persons who feel a difficulty in confining their attention to reading on any subject, particularly on religion: and to such persons also, some occupation must be sought for the Sunday evening. Several instances have occurred within my own observation, of respectable

persons