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ORIGINAL CRITICISM.

292 What a delightful and chearing profpect is here prefented to the enraptured eye! But how is that profpect blafted, if the fell monfter Adultery gain admiffion into this blissful family! What a dreadful reverfe is then exhibited! The brightest scene of felicity, which it has pleafed Providence to difplay in this part of the creation, then vanishes entirely, and is fucceeded by another fcene, infinitely the most distressful that can occur in the numerous viciffitudes of focial life. The hearts which before were the refidence of joy, harmony, and love, are torn and tormented by the most painful and furious paffions. The kindred feelings of conjugal and parental fondnefs, no longer fympathetic and congenial, now wage open war, and diftract the foul, by the fiercenefs of their conflict. But who fhall defcribe the misfortune of the innocent and helplefs offspring, who look, with mute aftonishment, on the dreadful change which they are unable to comprehend? Alas! poor unfortunate babes,`little do you think how deeply you are interested in the mysterious event, which has damped the joys of your hitherto happy abode; little do you think how baleful an influence that event must have on your future life; you are no longer to witnefs the fond effufions of maternal tendernefs; you are no longer to experience that fostering care, to which Providence had kindly entrusted your infant years; no, you are torn from the stock which gave you birth; from the foil which alone could cherish your growing vir tues; you are about to be expofed to the fad confequences of chilling neglect, and to the ftill more dangerous contagion of vicious example.”

The neceffity of legal coercion for reftraining, by the means of punishment, a fin fo heinous, and thus making human laws, what they fhould always be made, whenever it be practicable, auxiliaries to the denunciations of divine vengeance, for the purpose of reforming) a guilty world, is ftrongly enforced; fuitable comments are made on the glaring defect in our penal code, which does not confider Adultery as a crime, a defect alike difhonourable to the legiflature, and dif graceful to the nation; and the provifions of the bill which was rejected last year by the junior part of the Commons Houfe of Parlia ment, are truly reprefented as alone adequate to the attainment of this moft defirable object.

"To punish, as a mifdemeanor, a crime which endangers the very ex iftence of fociety, if an error, is certainly one on the fide of lenity. But the extremely corrupted state of morals which prevails, (in confequence chiefly of the long impunity of that crime), renders it impoffible, now to punish it as it deferves. By claffing it in the lift of mifdemeanors, the punishment of which is in a certain degree difcretionary, due coufideration may be had, if not to the heinoufnefs of the offence, at least to the various shades of guilt of which it is fufceptible.

"The other provifion of the Bill, which was brought forward laft year, had for its object, to prevent the intermarriage of the offending parties, after a Divorce for Adultery. This provifion I conceive to be as neceffary as the one already noticed. It would operate beneficially in two ways. First, it would cut off one grand fource of temptation to the commiffion of Adultery. When good principles are implanted by education, they naturally produce fome struggle before they yield to the force of temptation. When a married woman is engaged in fuch a ftruggle; when honour and fame are combating in her breaft, with unlawful paffion and licentious defire; what can afford fuch effectual & her tottering viznę, as the certainty that its fall will be

attended

attended with inevitable mifery, and indelible difgrace? On the other hand, what can be fo likely to make her give up the contest, and to violate her vows, as the expectation that the fhall regain her credit, and even encrease her happinefs, by marrying with her feducer? Such an expectation the man, who is bafe enough to corrupt her fidelity, will not fail to fet full in her view, if it be neceffary to the accomplishment of his purpofe. To take away this inducement to fin, to remove this auxiliary to vice, would, therefore, afford fupport and fecurity to female chastity at the moment of the greatest peril.

"Another effect of the above provision would be to destroy a moft dangerous fpecies of example. The impunity of crimes is one great cause of their frequency. But how muit they prevail if they be allowed, not only to escape punishment, but to be rewarded with refpect and apparent happiness? Is it poffible to conceive a feene more calculated to relieve adultery of all its odium, and even to recommend it to favour, than that of two perfons, who, after being guilty of that offence, nay, in confequence of their very crime, intermarry, and live together in connubial felicity? Before fuch a fcene adultery lofes all its horror; it ceases to he infamous; it even acquires a semblance of refpectability. Such a fcene robs marriage of its fanctity, and profanes that mot facred inftitution; it is an infult upon female honour, and a moft dangerous foare to female chaftity. The more happiness it exhibits, the more dangerous it is to fociety. It is a temptation of the most feductive kind to the married woman who does not think herself happy-nay, it is an icducement to her to magnify her unhappiness-to brood over every cause of domestic inquietude--to refent more keenly every flight she may receive from her hufband-to indulge her fancy in the contemplation of the blifs the might enjoy with a more attentive and affectionate yoke fellow-to think lightly of the nuptial tie, and to confider the diffolution of it as in her own power; with thefe impreffions fhe is prepared to listen to the wily addreffes of the feducer, and to believe that, by a venial offence, the may enfure her felicity without a facrifice of her honour.. The practice of adulterous marriages, of "impudica matrimonia," tends alfo to break down the barrier between vice and virtue. The woman who is thus raised, by means of her fin, from the depths of guilt, to a fituation which entitles her to all the rights of unfpotted fame, is a link in the chain of fociety, which connects honour and difgrace, fo that the diftinction between thefe oppofite fentiments is in danger of being loft; the blends virtue and vice in fuch a manner, that it becomes impoffible, as in the colours of the rainbow, to fay, where the one ends and the other begins."

One leading feature in the character of this liberal age is holden forth in a very proper point of view, and proves that the author not only closely obferves but truly eftimates the fpirit, the manners, and the morals of the time. There is but one radical cure for this wretched perverfion of philanthropy, this miserable mockery of virtue, this bafe counterfeit of Chriftian compaffion; let the Scriptures be rendered the fole ftandard of human actions, and the ever-erring judgment of the finful creature be no longer oppofed to the fupreme will, and irrevocable fiat of his all-juft, all-wife, and all-powerful

creator

"But notwithstanding the extremely mifchievous tendency of the practice of intermarriage between the guilty parties, after a divorce for Adultery, the provifion, which had for its object the prevention of fuch a practice, excited the disapprobation of fome perfons, who admitted the indifpenfable neceffity

of fubjecting Adultery to legal punishment. The objections to that claufe have affumed a moft interefting form. They affail the virtuous and the manly heart where it is moft fufceptible. They reprefent the adulterefs, not as a criminal, but as a helpless and unfortunate female-as an object of pity rather than of cenfure. A lively intereft is excited in her future fate. Should the not be allowed to marry her paramour, what, it is said, must be her lot, but infamy and proftitution? Nay, fome extreme cafe of forced marriage, and of unconquerable attachment, is prefumed, in order to difplay, in the ftrongeft light, the cruelty of a law, which would confign to fhame and mifery the woman who violates the moft facred of ties.

"It is the peculiar difpofition of this compaffionate age to liften, attentively, to fuch appeals. The heart, relaxed by the indulgent principles of the new philofophy, is feelingly alive to all the woes of guilt. It generously effaces all recollection of the crime, and is only anxious left the criminal fhould fink under thofe fufferings, which the laws of God and man have doomed him to undergo. In the exercife of this refined fpecies of fenfibility, not a feeling, not a thought is beflowed on the injury fuitained by fociety, or on the danger to which the public morals must be expofed, by the fpectacle of vice fecure from mifery, and loaded with careffes. All fuch confiderations vanish before the pleafing, the generous, tafk, of foothing the guilty heart, and of rendering inamy andable and vice interefting.

I humbly conceive, with all due deference to modern fyftems of ethics, that this pity is unkind, that this companion, like the tender mercies of the wicked,' is cruel. I humbly conceive that the plan of Providence is infinitely more humane, as well as inexpreffibly more wife. The connection, visible in that plan, between vice and mifery, is established for the fake, not mely of the innocent, but also of the guilty. While the former are warned by ex mple, the latter are amended by difcipline. While thofe are preferved from talling, thefe are raifed up and conducted, through fuffering, to penitence, reformation, and pardon. The correction may, indeed, be fevere, but af is falutary, it is merciful. It affords the only means by which, accord. ing to the conflitution of human nature, the heart can be purified from guilt.

the law of affociation (already noticed), the crime, which occafioned the fuffering, becomes an object of loathing and abhorrence; and thefe fentiments, when confirmed by reflection, afford a folid bafis for good refolutions, for virtuous difpofitions, and for real reformation.

On the contrary, the new and refined fyftem of feeling, fympathyfing with that arrogant philofophy, which promifes perfect happiness to imperfect iman, cannot endure that vice fhould be miferable. It pours balm into the guilty breaft, and forbids the finner to be forrowful. This vain attempt to improve upon the order of nature, will, if perfifted in, receive the reward due to fuch prefumption. It will greatly encrease the corruption of human nature, and the fum of human mifery. It will encompafs virtue with new fnares, by rendering the path of vice apparently fafe, as well as flowery. It will render guilt impenitent, and prevent the criminal from reaping the falutary fruits of compunction and repentance.

It is true, in the loofe ftyle of the new fchool of morality, when the adulterefs, by marrying the partner of her crime, regains a kind of character, which, though not fterling, is current for all the purpofes of fashionable life; and when, fenfible of the danger which the has fo fortunately efcaped-or, perhaps, really attached to the man for whom the violated her firit vows-fie

avoids,

avoids, in her new nuptial connection, a repetition of her offence; this change is called reformation. But is it certain that this fkin-deep reformation will be accepted by that Being, who fearches the heart? Is there no danger that the woman, who is thus preferved from forrow, may fall very short of that repentance which is not to be repented of? that the may find it impoffible even to regret, much less to abhor the offence, which has produced fuch pleafing confequences? that, in fhort, by being prevented from atoning for her crime in this world, fhe may have to account for it in the next? Thefe, furely, ar enquiries of fome importance, unlefs to those who adopt the Gallic fcheme of infidelity, and recognize the infidel decree that death is an eternal fleep.' Without, however, reforting to confiderations of fo high a nature, one thing is certain, that it is better, both for the individual and the community, that a woman, who has been guilty of fuch a crime as Adultery, fhould hide her face in retirement, than that fhe fhould appear in the public walks of life, afferting her undiminished claims to character and refpect; and

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Every other objection to the prohibitory clause of the bill is proved to be equally falfe and futile; and many of our juvenile propounders of laws may here find much useful and neceffary information, as well refpecting their private conduct as their public duty. Our readers will have perceived that the author's ftile is as chafte and elegant, as his principles and fentiments are just and pure; and we should ill discharge our duty did we not most ftrenuously recommend this letter to the perufal of every man, who thinks that the religious and moral principles of the community are an object of importance, either to the prefent well-being of the ftate, or to the future happiness of its members. Copious as our quotations have already been, we cannot refift the temptation of extracting the clofing paffage of the book, which is calculated to imprefs the mind with the moft ferious, the moft awful refections; adding our fervent wish that these reflections may tend to promote those beneficial effects which it is the evident object of the author to produce. Having delineated the profligate state of manners in France, he thus concludes;

"Sir, it deferves our moft ferious confideration, whether, though we have not yet, thank Heaven! attained fo dreadfully corrupted a ftate of manners, we are not making faft approaches towards such a state. Of this, I fear, we exhibit fymptoms which are truly alarming. We exhibit the most alarming of all symptoms-a corruption of moral fentiment. It is certain, that Adultery no longer excites among us the fame abhorrence as heretofore. It is viewed every day with a more indulgent eye. It is connived at, and encouraged, even by fome, whofe perfonal conduct is irreproachable. It is holden out as an object of compaffion. It is growing into a fyftem. It is beginning to have its laws of honour. All this has been allowed--nay, it has even been urged by those who oppofed the attempt which has been made to reftrain it by law, and who pleaded, as a reafon against the probable effect of Legislative interpofition,t bat Adulteries are better received than heretofore !

X 4

Thus

Thus are we treading in the fteps of profligate France. May Heaven inspire our Legiflators with wifdom and refolution to interpofe, whilft it is yet time, to check our perilous career; left we fhare the fate of our Gallic neighbours, who would not have been the victims of Revolution, if they had not first been the flaves of vice."'

Sermons preached at Laura Chapel, Bath, during the Seafon of Advent, 1799. By the Rev. Francis Randolph, D. D. &c.

(Continued from p. 137.)

IN conformity with the plan which we laid down in our laft month's review, we shall now attempt an analysis of the fubject matter of thefe difcourfes, and of the doctrinal points which it is their object to establish, referving for our next publication the extracts which we propofe making as a fpecimen of the ftyle, the language, and the argumentation of no common author.

The firft fermon, which, as we have already obferved, is a kind of abftract of the whole work, has for its text the fublime declaration of the infpired writer concerning our Saviour, which of itfelf establishes all the facts infifted on in the volume under confideration. [Hebrews, xiii. 8.] JESUS CHRIST, the fame yesterday and to day, and for ever. On which text the author obferves, that nothing has done more harm to the cause of Chriftianity, than the idea which has been thrown out by fome and adopted by others; that it is of late original, a fcheme of religion entirely new till 4000 years had elapfed after the creation. This idea tends to impeach the unity of God's defign, to darken the promife of univerfal redemption, and to fhut on preceding ages the gates of mercy. mercy. By thofe who diligently fearch the fcriptures a different doctrine will be maintained: they will unite the promife with the performance-the prophecy with the completion-the anticipation with the event-they will fee that the faith which Chriftianity inculcates was one and the fame in all ages of the church; immutable as the divine Mediator, whofe religion it is. The enquiry, it is obferved, will lead to a wide field of difcuffion; but in the extensive furvey the path of life will be difcovered; from this chriftian eminence will appear the fubfifting traces of the Patriarchal and the Jewish Churches, all purfuing the fame road, all tending to the fame end; nay, in the wildeft digreffions of heathen mythology, the wandering footfteps of the idolater may be traced back to the very point of departure from the true faith.

Previously to this inveftigation, the general line of argument is propofed. The first revelation to Adam, made at the fall, is found to have been a promife of redemption; it is traced, through the antediluv an world, in the faith of Abel and of Enoch, to Noah, it is fhewn to be the bafis of the new covenant, made between God and man, at the restoration of the world after the flood; the principle on which Abraham obeyed the divine call, feparating him at once from his country and his kindred; by virtue of which he went forth, not

knowing

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