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point out to the difcerning reader that Bithop Newton ufes the very argument to prove that the laft plagues are laft in point of time, which Mr. W. ufes to prove that they are not laf in point of time. Which has the belt of the argument let even Mr. W's friend, Dr. Ogilvie, decide, as he feems to make him a kind of umpire, by addrelling his pamphlet to him.” (p. 77, n.) Bifhop Newton fays, If there last feven plagues fynchronile with the feventh and laft trumpet, they are all yet to come. This was perfectly true when his Lordship wrote. The question is, whether they are not fince begun to be poured out upon the earth, or Roman empire? The fixth trumpet is not yet pait, fays the Bishop; nor the woe of the Turkish or Othman empire yet. At the time, fays Mr. F. which I fix for the founding of the Seventh trumpet, namely, the year 1792, no politician will be inclined to deny that the power of Turkey, confidered as a woe to Chriftendom, was no longer any way formidable. It is wonderfully remarkable, that the war between Rullia and Turkey, which has rendered the latter a mere political nonentity, terminated in the year 1790. Thus fingularly does the termination of the fecond woe in the Eaft fynchronife with its termination in the Weft; for, the firft fhock of the great earthquake, which overthrew the tenth part of the Roman city, or the French monarchy, was in the year 1789; and the laft on the 10th of August 1792. Immediately after which, the feventh trumpet founded on the anarchical 13th of Auguft, and introduced the undifguifedly and atheistical horrors of the reign of the great Antichrift, whofe predicted badge is that he fhould deny both the Father and the Son." (p. 78.) Mr. F. having "followed his refpectable antagonist, ftep by flep, through his defence of himfelf, next follows him, with equal pleafure, through his attack on him." (p. 88.) "I love the truth wherever it can be found, whether in the writings of a Papift or a Proteftant. While I think Cornelius à Lapide quite miftaken in referring the character of the wilful king primarily to Antiochus, I believe him to be very right in referring it ultimately and properly to the great Antichrift. It is a curious, circumflance, that, long before the French Revolution took place (for his Com mentary was printed in 1634), he pro

nounced, merely from a view of the propbetic character of the wilful king, that, whenever he fhould be revived, he would be an Atheift, and would abolith not only the worthip of Chrift, and fuperftitious idolatry of Paganifm, but even the very name and adoration of the true God. Such was the language of applicatory expofition previous to the French Revolution, Let us now attend to the remarkably fimilar lan-' guage of applicatory expofition after the commencement of that awful political and religious convulfion. I fear I too clearly fee the rife inftead of the fall of the Antichrift of the Weft, who thall be neither a Proteftant nor a Papift, neither Chriftian, Jew, nor Heathen; who fhall worthip neither God, angel, nor faint; who will neither fupplicate the invifible Majefty of Heaven, nor fall down before an idol.' Horsley on Ifaiah xviii." (pp. 105, 106.) “Infiead of three great leaps in chronology and topography, which Mr. W. fpeaks of, the prophecy, according to my expofition of it, advances equably and uniformly through three remarkable periods, not to the wretched individual, Buonaparte, but to the atheistical horrors of the French Revolution." (p. 95.) The other objections of Mr. W. being fo numerous and minute that Mr. F. could not comprefs his anfwers in less room, it will not be expected that we fhould follow them in their full extent. He corrects his own differtation in feveral points, and concludes in thefe terins: "With fo awful a profpect, both of things prefent and of things future, what fentiments are we to entertain of the fate of England? I fee nothing in prophecy that need drive us to defpair, or induce us bafely and traitorously to lay down our arms and crouch at the feet of the ufurper*. Some great maritime nation is un doubtedly to be preferved to the time of the end, and is to take the lead in converting and reftoring the Jews†;

"What," it has been asked, "were the fentiments of thofe who fent out the late Negociator, and could crouch to the Ufurper, by being the first to open a negociation with him, and expofe themselves to his artifices?"-We anfwer, Perufe the truly British Manifefto in our laft Magazine, p. 961. EDIT.

+ Not Buonaparte, who aims to collect and unite the Jews only to serve his own defigns, and certainly has no Naval power wherewith to aflift them,

nor will all the machinations of Antichrift be able to fruftrate its purposes, and to involve it in deftruction. That England is the great maritime nation intended we have no right to affert; but, by comparing prophecy with prophecy, we may afcertain, with a confiderable degree of precifion, both the region in which that nation is to be fought, and the religious character of that nation. This comparifon is drawn out at length in my unpublifhed work On the Refloration of the Jews, and the refult of it is as follows: that the maritime power muft not only be fought for generally in the Well, but particularly in the illes of the Gentiles, or Europeans; and again, not only generally in the ifles of the Gentiles, or Europeans, but particularly in the believing ifles of the Gentiles, or Proteftant Europe. Farther than this I cannot find that we have any authority to advance; and therefore I will not advance any farther; but I fhall content myfelf with refting on the conclufion, that the maritime power will be a ftate of Protefiant Europe, which fhall poffefs a decided fuperiority at the time when the 1260 years fhall expire. This mighty maritime power, and other finaller Proteflant maritime powers, its allies, defcribed by the Prophets under the general name of the Ifles of the Gentiles, will clearly be the agents in converting and refioring thofe Jews who are not under the influence of Antichrift. Such is all the pofitive knowledge which we can now attain to refpecting the great naval power which will act fo confpicuous a part at the time of the end. Every perfon who attends to the subject will doubtlefs have his own private conjectures; but he is not, I think, warranted in making thofe conjectures public, becaufe, at the best, they are mere conjectures, and because he cannot have hofe certain data to go upon which almoft indifpenfably attach to France the character of Daniel's infidel king dom, and, more recently, the additional character of the Carlovingian beaft, head of the Roman empire, which is to control and direct the Antichriftian expedition into Palestine. This, however, he may fafely fay, that the more true piety increafes among us, the more likely it will be that England is the great maritime power in queftion; and, on the other hand, GENT. MAG. November, 1806.

he may no less fafely fay, without pretending to the gift of prophecy, that, if iniquity increases, and righteoufnefs. decreases among us, we cannot be that naval power which the Lord will delight to honour, by delegating to it the venerable office of carrying the Gospel to his antient people. So great a labour of love will require proportionate purity of heart and converfation, and proportionate devotedness to the fervice of God. A wicked nation can be expected to furnish no very fuitable miffionaries; and it might be well, in the prefent tremendous crifis, if we fully confidered how far the buyers and fellers of human flesh are calculated to be the fwift meffengers of the Moft High, and to turn the millions of unbelieving Jews to righteoufnefs." (p. 180.) Even fo coine, Lord Jefus !!

187. The Unity of the Chriftian Body fated. A Sermon, preached in Lambeth Chapel, on the 28th of April, 1805, at the Confecration of the Right Rev. Henry Bathurft, LL. D. Lord Bishop of Nor wich, and published at the Command of his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury. By Richard Proffer, D. D. Prebendary of Durham.

THE defign of this difcourfe is, to fhew that the Unity of Chriftians as one body, under their legitimate head Jefus Chrift, was the grand object of the Chriftian Miniftry; "that authorities of the National Church, in all their degrees, kinds, and places, are rendered venerable by the fanétion they derive from our firft Fathers in Chrift, and from, the fuccefsful ufage of all Chriftian ages, and alfo that they are such more for the fake of the Christian body than their own, and that the proper action of them is indifpenfably neceffary, needed by every fingle power in it, and that of every power by them all." But when he fays, "how much of wifdom and Christian spirit there is in recollecting that agreement as to points of the higheft value and moment affords better reafon for holding together the Chriftian body than any difagreement as to matters of external and formal concern can yield for tearing it afunder," he forgets how much human nature delights in oppofition, both in civil and religious concerns.

188. The Forbidden Tree. A Sermon,

preached at the Church of St. Lawrence, Reading,

A VINDICATION of the literal interpretation of the Hiftory of the Fall, the objections to which are confidered as reducible to thefe fuppofitions: 1. that our firft parents ought not to have been put under any teft of obedience; in anfwer to which, it is fhewn that God had a right to bestow his bleffings on what conditions he chofe: 2. that a better teft might be fuggefted; when fome firong reafons are given why a moral teft, under the circumftances of our firft parents, would not have been preferable: 3. that the particular teft recorded was weak, unreasonable, and improper.

189. A Sermon, preached in the Parish Church of St. Paul, Covent Garden, at the primary Vifitation of the Archdeacon of Middlefex, May 20, 1806. By James Cowe, M. A. Vicar of Sunbury. PLAIN, pious, and practical.

190. Thoughts on many Tranfactions and

Events in very early Periods. IN this illuftration of the Mofaic account of the Creation and Flood, we fee an ingenious developement of the great Experiment, if we may dare to call it fo, made on the human race during the whole period of the Jewifh Hiftory-on the children of God, or Righteoufnefs, and the offspring of the Devil, or Sin. We are exprefly told, that the Hebrews were fet apart as a peculiar people, whofe obftinacy and incorrigibleness held them up as an example to all who fhould hereafter walk ungodly; while the race that had departed from the knowledge of the true God and his religion were fenfibly and feverely punished by the hand of his chofen people. The deductions throughout this performance are fupported by very plaufible reafonings, and well deferve the attention of this fceptical age, when men profelling themfelves wife become fools from their avowed ignorance and conceit in not acquainting themselves with the language in which the events in queftion are treated, and the analogy between hiftorical relation and hiftorical facts, which may be faid to be the hiftory of human nature, written with the finger of God. It

offers but few facts in a long feries of chronology; but thofe facts are pointed ones. The Book of Genefis makes us acquainted, in fimplest narrative, with the origin and introduction of every crime, its effect and punishment; and we trace thefe through the hiftory of the world after the Flood; which catastrophe, infiead of operating as a cure for fuch enormities, ferved only to increafe them in the human race, bewildered in their natural imaginations, which foon funk into abfurdity and obfcurity; the pure revelation preferved in the ark, but corrupted by a fon of the very Patriarch, who was the depofitary thereof.

191. Britannus and Africus; or, An At tempt to inftruct the untutored Mind in the Principles of Chriftianity, in Courfe of Converfations fuppofed to take place between the Companion of a Mif fionary and a Native of Africa. By the Author of "Sacred Hiftory, in familiar Dialogues," &c. Published for the Benefit of a Society for propagating the Gospel among the Heathens.

THIS is all very well; and we here find, for once, the Quakers coalescing with the Church.

192. The Proteftant Diffenter's Catechifm containing, 1. A brief History of the Nonconformists; 2. The Reafon of the Diffent from the National Church. Defigned to infiruct and establish young Perfons among the Diffenters in the Pri ciples of Nonconformity.

THIS is an infidious work; for, af ter acknowledging that the benefits of the Toleration Act were granted to Proteftant Diffenting Minifters and Schoolmafters, 1779, upon the eafy condition of their taking the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy, making the Declaration against Popery, and declaring their belief of the Holy Scriptures, as containing a Divine Revelation, they are fill clamouring for farther toleration, fecretly combining against the Establishment, and openly controverting fome of its fundamental doctrines; fo little hold have declarations on them. They plead for peace, liberty, and charity, and the interest of Chrift at large; and 66 argue againft thofe impofitions on confcience which ftrike at the headship of Jefus Christ;" while they deny his very effence, divinity, and offices. This Catechifm does not breathe the fpirit of the Affembly,

OF

and confiftency in practice. If we defcend ftill lower in the records of Antiquity, the evidence to the point in queftion increases with the increase of Chriftianity. There is fcarcely a page in Ecclefiaftical Hiftory which does not juftify the affertion, that the claim of authority in the Chriftian Miniftry is as old as the religion itself, founded on the broad bafis of regular fucceffion, and deriving its orisin from the immediate and folemn appointment of our Lord himself. It is not, however, only on the office itself that I would affert their juft pretenfion to public respect. I ground it, fecondly, on the actual, pofitive amount of profeffional fervice, and that too in times more critical, and under circumftances more embarraffing, than any that this Country ever experienced. If, in the firft place, we contemplate the conduct of the Clergy of the Church of England, with a reference to the civil and political ftate of this kingdom, there is no presumption in affirming that they have, in their collective capacity, manifefted a zeal, an ardour, an energy, in fupport of the Throne, and in defence of the Conftitution, which, amidft the fhock of ftates, and the diffolution of empires, have infused into every class of fociety a fpirit of loyalty, of patriotifm, and of perfeverance, which no difafters have fubdued, and no privations depreffed. At a time when an inundation of revolutionary principles threatened to overwhelm, in one general ruin, the dignity of the Crown, the honours of Nobility, the functions of Magiftracy, the miniftrations of Religion, the rights, the property, and the privileges of every order in the State; at that time of wild innovation and democratic tumult, the conduct of the Clergy of the Eftablishment was firm, Ready, manly, and determined. In the prefent awful fcene of peril and alarm, when a bloody and unprincipled Tyrant threatens to extinguish and annihilate us, as an independent nation, and we are to contend on British foil for every thing dear and valuable to a civilized people, are they not ftrenuoufly exciting in all ranks of men a patriotic enthufiafm, and animating them by every private, every public, every Chriftian motive, to a firm, a vigorous, and an united refiftance? Again, if we estimate their conduct with a reference to what more immediately attaches to their facred function', I mean, the maintenance of the pure and primitive doctrines and duties of the Chriftian faith, they have here too no weak nor infufficient title to public respect. Who were the men that, by their bold enquiries and their incomparable writings, ftood fift and foremost in the expulfion of Popery, refcued Religion from the difgrace

of Superftition, cleanfed it from the deep Iftain of maffacre and blood, and reftored it, at the peril of their lives, to its gemuine dignity, and to its native luftre? Were they not Minifters and Bishops of the Church, "Men famous in their generations, men of renown?" In our own times too, and in the memory of all who hear me, have not the Clergy of this kingdom ftood firm and unmoved against the fyftematic attempt of the whole affociated School of Scepticks and Infidels, to fap and to undermine the foundations of Chriftianity, to invalidate its evidences, to ridicule its myfteries, to throw contempt on its facraments, to counteract its influence, and to extinguish, if poffible, all private devotion and all public worship? Shall I overftep the bounds of truth when I hazard the perfuafion, that it is due, in a great measure, to their labours in the Miniftry, that this tremendous hydra of mifchief was crushed in its birth, before it had time to disperse and fix its peftilential principles throughout the land: that it is due to their unfhaken conftancy in the hour of danger, that our churches are ftill the feats of Piety, and the fan&tuaries of Peace: that this magnificent and aweful temple in which we are affembled is ftill dedicated to the service of God, and the adoration of a Saviour that its walls have not been profaned and polluted by the unhallowed rites of Republican Philofophy; and that it ftill remains, as I truft it ever will remain, a ftupendous monument of British attachment to the religion of their fathers? Need I recal to your recollection, that the most flagrant and blafphemous publication that ever iffued from the prefs, a publication intended and calculated to unfettle at a blow, the faith of thoufands, to fender Vice univerfal, and Infidelity popular, to root out the laft germ of Virtue, and to exterminate at once all veneration for the Scriptures, and all refpect to the Laws, was difgraced, defeated, and expofed by the masterly and unanswerable "APOLOGY" of an English Prelate? Thefe then are claims, if there can be any, to public refpect: but thefe are not all. In the refiftance which the Minifters of our Eftablishment have made, and are now making, to the progrefs of Fanaticism, they have rendered a most important fervice to Religion and to their Country. In the principles, if principles they can be called, of the modern Fanatick, there is a fpirit utterly fubverfive of all ecclefiaftical difcipline, all rational morality, all found and fober devotion. The giddinefs of the head is mistaken for divine illumination: the mind is fuffered to shoot, under the direction of chance, into wild irregularity; and the dignity of Religion