modern dioceses in England; and had the writer of this paper lived under the government of Titus, in primitive times, he would probably have found himself in a situation not much different from that which he now fills, as an English clergyman, under his proper diocesan. He must then have been subject to the authority of his bishop, in spiritual matters, and he therefore submits with pleasure to a mild ecclesiastical authority in his own country.

These reflections are made without the least intention to offend persons of any denomination or profession: but we certainly have a pleasure in being able to derive from the word of God a sanction for our own system.

BISHOP WARBURTON'S OPINION OF TILLOTSON'S, TAYLOR'S, AND BARROW'S SERMONS.

"AS a preacher, I suppose Tillotson's established fame is chiefly owing to his being the first city-divine who talked rationally, and wrote purely. I think the sermons published in his lifetime, are fine moral discourses. They bear, indeed, the character of their author; simple, elegant, candid, clear, and rational; no orator, in the Greek and Roman sense of the word, like Taylor; nor a discourser, in their sense, like Barrow: free from their irregularities, but not able to reach their heights. On which account, I prefer them infinitely to him. You cannot sleep with Taylor; you cannot forbear thinking with Barrow; but you may be much at your ease in the midst of a long lecture from Tillotson; clear, and rational, and equable as he is. Perhaps the last quality may account for it."

At another time he expresses his sentiments of Bishop Taylor and Dr. Barrow, in the following manner. "Taylor and Barrow were incomparably the greatest preachers and divines of their age. But my predilection is for Taylor. He has all the abundance and solidity of the other, with a ray of lightning of his own, which, if he did not derive it from Demosthenes and Tully, has at least as generous and noble an original. It is true, they are both incompti, or rather exuberant: but it is for little writers to hide their barrenness by the finicalness of culture."-Letters to Bp. Hurd.

A NOBLE SENTIMENT.

This same learned prelate, speaking of Dr. Conyers Middleton, who wrote the Life of Cicero, and was an amiable man, and elegant scholar, but tinctured unfortunately with latitudinarian principles of a very dangerous tendency, expresses himself in a manner equally honourable to his head and his heart. "I hear Dr. Middleton has been lately at London, and is returned in an extremely bad condition. The scribblers against him will say, they have killed him: but, from what Mr. Yorke told me, his brick

layer will dispute the honour of his death with them. Seriously, I am much concerned for the poor man, and wish he may recover with all my heart. Had he possessed, I will not say piety, but greatness of mind enough, not to suffer the pretended injuries of some churchmen to prejudice him against religion, I should love him living, and honour his memory when dead. But, good God! that man, for the discourtesies done him by his miserable fellow-creatures, should be content to divest himself of the true viaticum, the comfort, the solace, the asylum from all the evils of human life, is perfectly astonishing! I believe no one, (all things considered,) has suffered more from the low and vile passions of the high and low among our brethren, than myself. Yet, God forbid it should ever suffer me to be cold in the Gospel interests, which are indeed, so much my own, that without them I should be disposed to consider humanity as the most forlorn part of the creation.Ibid.

INTERESTING ANECDOTES FROM BP. HORNE'S THOUGHTS, &c,

IT will be hereafter with a wicked man, when he is punished for his sins, as it was with Apollodorus, when he dreamed that he was flayed and boiled by the Scythians, and his heart spake to him out of the caldron "I am the cause of these thy sufferings."

LYSIMACHUS, oppressed with thirst, offered his kingdom to the Getæ, to quench it. His exclamation, after drinking, is wonderfully striking-"Ah! wretched me! who for such a momentary gratification, have lost so great a kingdom!" How applicable is this to the case of him who, for the momentary pleasures of sin, parts with the kingdom of Heaven!

WE should be ashamed, that a little business and few cares should indispose and hinder us in our religious exercises, when we read that Frederick, king of Prussia, at a time when all his enemies were upon him, and his affairs seemed absolutely desperate, found time to write a philosophical testament in French verse.

WHEN the bill was brought into the English parliament, during the usurpation of Cromwell, to abolish Episcopacy, Mr. Harbottle Grimstone, one of the most zealous advocates of the measure, gravely argued thus: "That archbishops are not jure divino, is no question; ergo, whether archbishops, who are not jure divino, should suspend ministers, who are certainly jure divino, I leave to you, Mr. Speaker." To this whimsical logick, that prodigy of learning, Mr. Selden, immediately made this witty reply:-" That parliaments are not jure divino, is out of the question; that religion is jure divino, is past dispute: now, whether parliaments,

He had probably removed into a newly plastered house.

which, without question, are not jure divino, should meddle with religion, which, without doubt, is jure divino, I leave to you, Mr. Speaker."

ANECDOTE OF LÍDEROT.

IN the account which the Abbè Barruel gives of the closing scene of Diderot's life, is the following interesting anecdote.

This infidel philosopher had a Christian servant, to whom he had been kind, and who waited on him in his last illness. The servant took a tender interest in the melancholy situation of his master, who was just about to leave this world, without any preparation for another. Though a young man, he ventured one day when he was engaged about his master's person, to remind him that he had a soul, and to admonish him in a respectful way, not to lose the last opportunity of attending to its welfare. Diderot heard him with attention, melted into tears, and thanked him. He even consented to let the young man introduce a clergyman; whom he would probably have continued to admit to his chamber, if his infidel friends would have suffered the clergyman to repeat his visits.

This story may furnish us with a useful lesson. We are often deterred from an endeavour to do good, by conceiving that the attempt will be vain. Yet surely it becomes us to beware, that we lose no opportunity of being serviceable to another, especially in his highest concerns, by an idea of the improbability of success. We may be mistaken in that respect. Christian charity, let it also be remembered, is not that cold calculating spirit which weighs exertion before it makes it, and which fears to venture upon an act of benevolence, lest it should be thrown away. True charity has its eye more on what its object may lose for want of assistance, than on what itself may expend in vain.

The anecdote above related, furnishes a reproof to those overprudent persons, who are afraid of saying a word in season. Such a word, uttered in a becoming spirit, may have more effect than we may think we have reason to expect. The words of truth, spoken in simplicity and love, have power even in cases which appear to be desperate. The hardest heart may be softened by them; the most learned and philosophick man, the man whose mind is fortified by a whole life of prejudice, may not be able to resist their force. Let the Christian remember this, and however low his situation in life, let him be desirous freely to impart what he has freely received. But especially when he sees a fellowcreature in the last extremity, then let him recollect, that as the dying man's opportunity of receiving is near its close, so is the living man's opportunity of communicating. Let him call to mind the faithful servant of Diderot; and amidst his other kind offices to the sick and dying, let him endeavour to do something for the benefit of the departing soul.

REVIEWS.

FROM THE QUARTERLY REVIEW.

The Works of the Right Rev. William Warburton, D. D. Lord Bishop of Gloucester. A new edition. To which is prefixed, a Discourse by way of general Preface; containing some Account of the Life, Writings, and Character of the Author. By Richard Hurd, D. D. Lord Bishop of Wor

cester.

We trust that the following account of the character and writings of this extraordinary man, will prove highly gratifying to our. readers. He was raised up by Providence to be the scourge of atheists, deists, and fanaticks, at a time when these enemies of religion were uncommonly numerous, and active; but the blaze of his talents was occasionally obscured by many human frailties, as if to console the bulk of mankind for the inferiority of their endowments. ED.

THE learned and celebrated author of these volumes, died in the year 1779. In 1788 a magnificent edition of his works, of which only 250 copies were printed, issued from the press of Mr. Nichols; and after a lapse of six years, a "Discourse, by way of General Preface, containing an Account of the Life, Writings, and Character of the Author," was added by his confidential friend and admirer, the late Bishop of Worcester.

In that interval the learned and eloquent author of a most malignant attack on the right reverend biographer, ironically complimented the editors on their discretion in not venturing upon a larger impression; but as the members of the Warbur tonian school died off, the fame of their founder revived; and the growing demands of publick curiosity are now gratified by the works of this extraordinary man in a less expensive and more tangible form.

Warburton was a kind of comet which came athwart the system of the Church of England, at a time when all its movements were proceeding with a uniformity extremely unfavourable to the appearance of such a phenomenon. Accordingly, the disturbing force was strongly felt, and it was long before his eccentricities were regarded without a degree of terrour and aversion, which precluded the operation of curiosity, the VOL. I.-No. II.

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chief feeling which his airy and fantastick motions ought to have excited. About the same time the tranquillity of the established Church was disturbed in another quarter, and by causes of which the effects have been far more permanent. For while Warburton was speculating, and his adversaries replying; while the attention of the clergy was directed to the nature, rights, and authority of a church, to its connexion and alliance with the state, or to a new and revolting theory, which founded the revelation given to Moses on the exclusion of the doctrine of a future state, practical religion was in a manner forgotten; preaching had degenerated into mere morality, and the influence of the clergy over their people diminished in proportion. In this state of frigid apathy, as the most tremendous volcanos issue from the region of snow, a violent eruption of fanaticism took place; and the formal, the timid, and even the sagacious within the pale of the establishment, were now contented to receive as an ally against the common enemy, the fantastick but powerful speculator, who had so long been the object of their terrour.

The fortunes of this singular man were no less extraordinary than his talents and temper. Though born to a narrow, or rather to no fortune, and at the usual age articled to a country attorney in a remote village, it might indeed have been foreseen, that a genius like his, accompanied with indefatigable perseverance, a strong constitution, and an unblushing front, would at no long interval elevate him to the next rank of his profession, and ultimately, perhaps, to one of its highest honours.

The transition is neither unusual nor difficult; and some of the great ornaments of the judicial bench, within our recollection, have risen from beginnings equally unpromising. But under circumstances, which in almost every diocese of the kingdom would now preclude a candidate from holy orders, for a man to have started aside into that jealous and exclusive profession, to have rendered himself, by pertinacious application in the solitude of a country benefice, the first theologian of the age, and without servility, turbulence, or political connexions properly so called; in short, without any moving cause, but his own transcendent talents, to have raised himself to the highest rank in the church, may well be considered as a phenomenon unparalleled in tranquil times. We say, in tranquil times, for there have been in the history of the English Church, periods of revolution in which talents far inferiour to those of Warburton, successfully exerted in favour of the prevailing party, have been allowed to supersede all the claims of merit purely professional. Under circumstances like these, within