and either contrive to bring down their town friends to vifit them daily in their folitude, or else foon return to the place from whence they came. Some indeed, being quite difgutted, or not being able to breathe in the fmoke of town, yet not finding that happiness which they expected in the country, shift the fcene from one place to another, till death overtakes them in their career, and lodges them quietly in their grave; entitled to the well-known epitaph,

"Hic quiefcit, qui nunquam quievit;"

"Here refs the man, who never was at reft."

"In short, these restless, unfettled fearchers after happiness, are not unlike the ungodly in king David's time, whom he had feen flourishing like a green bay-tree: "But I went by, fayshe, and lo he was gone: I fought him, and his place could no where be found." His place is no where to be found! that is, his Chinese rails are demolished by a perfon of an higher and more exquifite tafte; a blank wall is erected to conceal the houfe from the gaping traveller: and in fhort, his place is fo entirely new-modelled by fome new candidate for retired happinefs, that it has loft its identity; we feek for it in vain, and it is no where to be found."

• Columella fmiled at his friend's vehemence, and owned he himself had obferved one remarkable inftance of this inconftancy of mankind in their researches after happiness. "A fellow, fays he, who kept a little ale-houfe in the fuburbs of Bath, where I have found it convenient to put my horfe for these ten years, whenever I go thither; this man having a well-accustomed houfe, had made a tolerable competence by the time he was fifty; and being an old bachelor, retired to a neat box which he had bought, about half a mile out of town, on the moft dufty part of the Bristol road. Here, by gaping about and fmoking his pipe all day, he contrived to pafs one fummer in tolerable fpirits: but on the approach of winter, he grew dull and melancholy, and before Christmas took a lodging at a gingerbread-fhop in the fuburbs, next door to his own alehoufe; and by looking out at his window during the winter, and fitting at the door in the fummer, he feems again to enjoy a tolerably comfortable existence.

"However, adds Columella, with a more serious air, I hope you would not draw any argument against an elegant and philo. fophical retirement, from fuch inftances as thefe; from people that are incapable of thinking, or perhaps of reading, and fupplying the want of company with the converfation of poets and philofophers, and the greatest men of antiquity."

Why, fays Atticus, this philofophical retirement appears plaufible enough in fpeculation; but, I am afraid, you have found it very unfatisfactory in practice. You fancy yourself an hermit and a philofopher; but I am afraid your vulgar neighbours look upon you as an enthusiast at least, if not a madman."

"Yes,

"Yes, fays Hortenfius, people may talk of their Arcadias and their Elyfian fields, and I am fure we have spent a very happy fortnight in Columella's delightful retreat, and I should with to spend a few months every fummer in the country; but rather than be confined the whole winter to fo abfolute a folitude, I had rather live in Wapping or in Petticoat Lane, and dine every day at the three-penny ordinary, where the knives and forks are chained to the table, and the ladder removed for fear the faturated guest should make his escape without paying his reckoning."

Though it must be confeffed our ingenious author has made the most of his argument, yet we cannot help thinking that chearfulness and tranquility of mind depend more upon dif pofition than fituation, provided that fituation be unattended with pofitive evils. Were Columella to have exchanged fituations with Hortenfius, as a lawyer he would have been inattentive, dilatory, and irrefolute; or if, with Atticus, he had prefided over a feminary of learning, it is equally probable that he would have been unfteady and capricious. To impute, therefore, to retirement evils originating from an habitual indolence, which probably in no fituation would have been effectually fhaken off, is a mode of reafoning not altogether juftifiable. That retirement and indolence are neceffarily connected, is a fuppofition not founded in fact. It is very wifely ordered by Providence, that to every station, whether public or private, are affigned active duties fufficient to fill up the full measure of our time. The man, who, like Columella, retires to the enjoyment of a moderate fortune with which he is contented, has it in his power, if it be but in his difpofition, to render very important fervices to mankind. If he act as a magiftrate, a very spacious field for the display of activity is laid open to him, from which the community may reap confiderable benefit. If he amufe himself in rural improvements or affairs, he will find employment for the poor, and be the means of contributing to their comfortable fubfiftence; by extending to thofe amongst them who are regular and induftrious, his protection and friendship, he may alleviate their diftreffes and add to their enjoyments.-Nor is this all-by the influence of his example he will infenfibly diffufe a civility of manners amongst the rude and unpolifhed of his neighbours; and though we will not be fo fanguine as to fuppofe the contemplation of his moral character, however excellent, would reftore the golden age of virtue, yet at least there can be no doubt but it would be the means of rendering her refpectable.

The

· The Church of England vindicated: or, a Defence of the visible Church of Chrift, as established by the Legislative Authority of this Realm: in Answer to all Objections, which have been offered by Diffidents of every Denomination. With a Prefatory Addrefs to the pious and learned Prelates of Great Britain and Ireland. 8vo. Wallis.

THIS

HIS writer affirms, that every religious doârinal propofition in the xxxix Articles, if we deal fairly with them, as we do with Horace, Virgil, Homer, or any claffical author, may be interpreted, even according to a literal conftruction of words, in a fenfe, which is agreeable to the common experiences of nature, and to the revealed will of God.'

This is a bold affertion, which no man, who duly confiders the weakness of human judgement, would venture to maintain. Our first reformers were wife and learned men; but having been born and educated in the errors and fuperftition of popery, we cannot fuppofe, at their firft emerging out of that profound darkness, their minds were, at once, completely ilJuminated. They rejected many grofs errors; but who can fay they left none remaining? They made no pretenfions to that infallibility, which they had lately difclaimed.

They could not indeed fuppofe, that they had not been guilty of fome errors and inadvertencies in ftating, at least, two or three hundred propofitions, of which the Articles confift. They acknowlege, that whatever is not read in fcripture, nor may be proved thereby, is not required of any man, that it fhould be believed as an article of faith. This is a modeft. and prudential exception.

The first article in this publication is an Address to the pious and learned Prelates of Great Britain and Iteland, containing remarks on Mr. Wilton's fpeech in the Irish houfe of commons, against the expediency of all civil and religious tefts; on a plan of reformation taken from a pamphlet, intitled, an Addrefs to the rational Advocates of the Church of England; and on the Sentiments of fome other Writers. But the work, which he more particularly attacks throughout his whole Vindication, is the Confeffional; and the objections, which he attempts to refute are thefe :

First, that the church has no right to determine controverfies of faith, or to establish any particular modes of public worthip, which, upon Chriftian principles, fhall be confcientiously judged moft acceptable to Almighty God, for whofe immediate honour and fervice it is intended.

Secondly, That all the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England have no literal or grammatical fenfe in which they

can

can be understood, but will admit of different fenfes, meanings, conftructions, and interpretations, which are repugnant to reafon and scripture, and have an immoral tendency.

Thirdly, That the church's fenfe of the articles, and that of the articles themselves, difagree from each other ; that the compiler and defign of the articles is not evident; and that it was the view of the king's declaration, which is annexed to the articles, to keep things in a ftate of uncertainty.

Fourthly, That the defign of the articles, which is faid to have been intended to prevent a diverfity of opinion, is abfurd; because the thing propofed to be done is impoffible, and of confequence impracticable.

Fifthly, That no fuch things as articles, creeds, confeffions, liturgies, formularies, fyftems, ought to be received into a Chriftian church, even though they contain no propofitions but what are agreeable both to reason and scripture.'

It would carry us too far into a dry and barren wilderness to attend the learned author through his various enquiries; we must therefore refer the reader, who wishes to enter into the fubject, to the prefent publication, in which he will find much reputed orthodoxy and polemical zeal; and some obfervations not unworthy of his attention.

In the course of this work, the author attempts to prove, that there is the highest probability, that bishop Jewel was principally concerned * in a compilation of the Articles, from a fimilar ty of fentiment and expreffion which occurs in the bifhop's Apology for the Church of England.'

In fome places we grant there is a fimilarity of fentiment and expreffion. But it does not from hence follow, that the bishop was concerned in compiling the Articles. It was, on the contrary, highly improbable that he should. King Edward's Articles were compofed; and, as fome writers tell us,` brought into the upper house of convocation in the year 1552, when Mr. Jewel was but thirty years of age; too young to be either confulted or employed in a matter of the highest importance to the Proteftant church. They were published by the king's authority, both in Latin and English, in 1553. These were afterwards revifed by archbishop Parker, and paffed the convocation in their prefent form, in 1562.

*Speaking of Mr. Jewel's acquaintance with Dr. Edwyn Sandys, archbishop of York in 1576, he says: A Compilation of the Articles, in all probability, was the joint labour of thefe two great geniuffes.'

In the reign of queen Mary, Mr. Jewel retired into Germany; and, returning upon the acceffion of Elizabetḥ, he was made bishop of Salisbury in 1559. In 1562 he published his Apology: but the most probable inference to be drawn from these circumftances is, not that the bishop was concerned in the original compilation of the Articles; but that in representing the doctrines of the church of England he chose to make use of her own expreflions, taken from the only eftablished formulary of her faith, then fubfifting.

The author of the Confeffional fays: The Articles were compiled by Cranmer, and at the moft with the help of one or two of his particular friends.' This is the most probable fuppofition, in a point where we have no clear and authentic teftimony.

Two Differtations. 1. On the Preface to St. John's Gospel. II. On Praying to Jefus Christ. By Theophilus Lindsey, A. M. With a foort Poffcript by Dr. Jebb. 8vo. 2s. 6d. Johnson. ABOUT the latter part of the year 1773, Mr. Lindsey re

figned the vicarage of Catterick, and withdrew from the communion of the church of England; because, being perfuaded, that there was but one God, the Father, the fole object of prayer and religious worship, he could not continue to offer up, or to join in prayer to Jefus Chrift, or to any other perfon, whom he did not look upon as God, or to be worshiped. However, as he was defirous to preserve the good opinion of the world, at leaft of his friends and acquaintance, aud was not without fome hopes of serving the caufe of trath, he gave the public his reafons for the step he had taken, in an Apology, and a Sequel to that Apology. But fome of his friends having intimated, that his interpretation of the preface of St. John's gofpel, and his proofs of the unlawfulness of all religious addreffes to Jefus Chrift, were not fufficiently fatisfactory, he has, in the prefent publication, added further fupport to what he had before advanced on thefe fubjects, and anfwered the moft material objections, which have been fince alleged against his opinion.

The following are fome of the proofs, which he has produced that Jefus Chrift is not the Word, which St. John calls God, by which all things were made.

I. Jefus never ftyles himself God, in any of his fayings and difcourfes that are recorded by the four hiftorians of his life; nor does he ever drop the leaft intimation that he was the perfon by whom all things were created.