of the county, a few of whom had adopted strong prejudices against him on no other grounds than because the invariable rectitude of his conduct, furnished a perpetual contrast to their irregularities. He remarked, what he had been prepared to expect, a cold formality and reserve in their reception of him, little short of incivility. After a moment's deliberation, he requested their attention, explained all the circumstances of the transaction which had led to a correspondence with the officer, and addressed them in terms to the following purport:

"I have been given to understand, what it would pain me much to believe, that my refusal of a challenge has depreciated my character in the estimation of some to whom I have the honour to speak. I know that, even by the laws of honour, I was not bound to meet my challenger; but I dare not take refuge from reproach in such a plea. No, gentlemen, I am called upon publicly to avow, that in declining the challenge sent to me I acted from a superior motive, from obedience to the law of God, which admits of no compromise with the rules of honour. The master whom I profess to serve, not only requires my obedience, but the avowal of my allegiance, and disclaims the hypocritical service of a disciple, who is ashamed of the name of his Lord. I shall not expatiate on the absurdity, barbarity, and illegality of duelling: to a believer in the doctrines of christianity, it is sufficient that the practice is condemned by the positive command of the Almighty- Thou shalt do no murder,'-and that it is opposed not only by the letter but by the whole spirit of our holy religion, the essence of which is love to God and man. These are the principles upon which I have acted, and to which, by God's assistance, I am determined ever to adhere, through honour and dishonour, through evil report and good report. Eternity is of too serious importance to be staked against the opinion of the world; and professing to fear him who can destroy both body and soul for ever, I dare not offend him by the deliberate commission of a crime which may send me or a fellow-creature uncalled into his presence, with the dreadful consciousness of wilful sin, which cannot be repented of."

This address, of which I am enabled only to give you an imperfect sketch, was heard with great surprise, but with an effect much to the credit of those to whom it was offered. It was well known, that at no very distant period, Theophilus would not have declined a challenge, and those who were disposed to attribute his new principles to a methodistical bias, could not refuse their applause to his manly avowal of them, whilst all concurred in approving that conduct which had exposed him to the insult of an unprincipled libertine. Some of the company did not hesitate to express an unqualified approbation of his behaviour, and an old and respectable divine spoke with enthusiasm in favour of it, as affording an example which, under similar circumstances, all were bound to imitate, at the hazard of their immortal souls.

I now revert to myself. The period of my residence with Theophilus is nearly expired, and in a few days I must leave my invaluable friend and benefactor, and return once more to the mixed society of the world. I am too well acquainted with the power of long established habit not to feel some apprehension of danger from the temptations to which I may be exposed, on revisiting the scenes of my former dissipation. Of all my life, I can only reckon the last six months as in any degree devoted to God, and to the care of my own soul, and I feel therefore my want of constant aid from the society, encouragement, and example of those who live by the rules of the gospel. This aid I am not to expect from my old friends and associates. My newly acquired principles are, I trust, too firmly fixed, to be shaken by ridicule or sarcasm; on this account I have no alarms; but what I most dread is the contagious influence of the society of those, who though not professed infidels, and even nominal christians, live without God in the world. The danger of such a society is the greater because it is not as much suspected as it ought to be, and there is a natural tendency to accommodate ourselves to the dispositions and conversations of those with whom we associate, particularly when we are not disgusted by open profaneness, immorality, or indelicacy. Our principles are thus gradually undermined, for want of due care to in

vigorate and confirm them, for the daily recurrence of frivolous and worldly conversation naturally tends to produce idle habits of thinking, and in time, if not counteracted, to annihilate the very power of serious reflection and meditation.

I have explained my apprehensions to Theophilus, who is pleased to find that I entertain them; he tells me to be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, for the support of divine grace. He has promised to write to me frequently, and to introduce me to the acquaintance of a most respectable clergyman in London, as well as of another friend of his, with an assurance that I may depend on their assistance and advice, in whatever relates to my spiritual concerns. I shall leave him with unfeigned regret, but with this consolatory hope, that a few months will enable me to finish the business which calls me to the metropolis, and that I may then return to his society; for the benefit I have already derived from which I most devoutly return thanks to God.

March 24th.

EDWARD ASIATICUS.

To the Editor of the Christian Observer. I KNOW not any department in which the vigilance of a Christian Observer may be more usefully exerted, than in the detection, exposure, and confutation of those noxious principles which too frequently find their way into our modern productions of literature and taste. It is a sufficient drawback upon the morals of the country, that those authors, who are generally referred to as standards of sound composition, should be liable to so much objection on points of decorum and virtue. This is, however, an evil upon which, while we may utter complaint, we cannot, to any effect, employ animadversion. Shakspeare and Congreve on the one part, and Swift and Sterne on the other, have gained the public suffrage; and are, therefore, likely to form, to a certain degree at least, parts of every liberal and popular education. Besides, these authors are not in being; they cannot, therefore, be benefited or put to shame by the severity of virtuous criticism: and as they cannot make a

tonement to outraged morality by correcting their works, no one thinks himself authorized to do it for them. The case of living authors is the exact reverse. They are adventuring their literary labours before a public, who have a full right to investigate the merits of every candidate before they affix to his works the stamp of fame. In this investigation there is every encouragement to employ the utmost freedom; for besides that preference which is due to the permanent character of religion and virtue over the dubious and unsettled pretensions of a recent production, the author is competent to controvert or acknowledge the justice of the strictures, and consequently, either to vindicate or amend the obnoxious parts of his performance.

Having premised these observations, I proceed to the more immediate subject of this letter. In reading Mr. Godwin's Life of Chaucer, I was particularly offended with certain sentiments; and could not but lament that a work, which embraces such an interesting portion of poetical and literary history, should be contaminated with remarks and expressions, which, if they do not wage open war against christianity, are yet perfectly irreconcileable with its doctrines and its spirit.

Among those parts of the work which, to a Christian Observer, must appear highly objectionable, are the reasonings which Mr. Godwin employs upon some of the peculiarities of the Romish Church. A representation of these peculiarities certainly formed a necessary part of that discussion, which purported to give a clue to the imagery of Chaucer. But surely it was not necessary in making such a representation to palliate, if not even vindicate, some of the most glaring corruptions of the christian faith; still less was such conduct to be expected from a Protestant writer of the nineteenth century, from a descendant of those ancestors who reformed the church from these corruptions at the expence of their blood, and least of all from Mr. Godwin.

On the subject of masses for the dead, and auricular confessions, Mr. Godwin is, at least, an apologist. On the first of these points he thus reasons.

"Prayer for the dead is unfortu

nately liable to abuses, &c. but if we put these and other abuses out of our minds, we shall probably confess, that it is difficult to think of an institution more consonant to the genuine sentiments of human nature, than that of masses for the dead." No intimation, it should be observed, is conveyed throughout the whole passage of the unscriptural nature of such a doctrine. The abuses specified in the sentences omitted relate only to the power of the priest and certain absurdities; and the other abuses are not explained. To a protestant reader it should, however, be suggested, that such a tenet is utterly anti-scriptural, and highly dangerous to the whole fabric of his hopes. If prayer for the dead could avail, why did our Lord state of the rich man, that he died, was buried, and that in hell he lifted up his eyes? Why did he tell the Jews "if ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins, and whither I go ye cannot come?" Nay, if death be not "the night on which no man can work," neither by himself nor (through bequests for such a purpose), by the medium of others, why did the apostles so press upon men to work out their own salvation, and to give all diligence that they might make their calling and election SURE?

On auricular confessions this author, among remarks tending to its apology, has the following.

"Devout men have pressed the continued recollection of the omnipresence of an all-perfect being." This, however, Mr. Godwin says, does not answer; for it " depends upon the abstruse and obscure image we may, frame of a being, who thus represented, is too unlike ourselves to be of sufficient and uniform operations upon our conduct*." To this observation it is natural to reply, that the unlikeness of the deity to us renders his uniform presence with us more credible than it would be upon any other supposition; that his unlikeness to us conveys him to our consciences as a less partial and flexible observer of our conduct, than the holiest of our species would be; and that if the appeal were made to fact, we might challenge the Church of Rome to shew, in that case, that the dread of auricular confession to a fallible crea

* V. I. p. 47.

ture ever wrought with more success than the sense of an omnipresent deity did in him, who said, under circumstances of singular embarrassment, "How shall I do this wickedness and sin against God?"

In pursuing his apology for these errors, this author, among other remarks upon extreme unction, observes,

"

Nothing can be more obvious than that to inform an expiring man, that he is at the point of death, partakes something of the nature of administering to him a dose of poison;" and shortly after he proceeds, Death, in the eye of sobriety and reason, is an inevitable accident, of which we ought not to make too anxious an account. Live well would be the recommendation of the enlightened moralist, and die as you can: it is in all cases a scene of debility and pain, in which human nature appears in its humblest and most mortifying aspect: but it is not too much. Let not the thought of death taint all the bewitching pleasures, and all the generous and heroical adventure of lifet." In this extraordinary passage we have a demonstrative proof of the darkness into which men are thrown, and the degradation to which they are reduced by forsaking the light, and renouncing the hopes, of the gospel. Whatever may be the fact on Mr. Godwin's principles, 'Nothing can be more obvious upon christian principles," than that to inform an expiring man that he is at the point of death, partakes, in no degree, "of the nature of administering to him a dose of poison;" for if he be a real christian it cannot alarm him, if he be not he ought to be alarmed. The possible attainment of mercy, even at the point of death, is an imperious reason for informing every "expir ing man" of his condition; and it is not, therefore, he who informs, but he who withholds such information, that administers the deleterious dose.

But what shall be said of this delineation which Mr. Godwin has given of death, as of "an inevitable accident of which we ought not to make too anxious an account?" or to what school of wisdom shall we refer the admonition, which he ascribes to "an enlightened moralist?" If, by "an inevitable accident," Mr. Godwin means only an inevitable event, it

+ V. I. p. 51.

would have been as well if he had employed a mode of expression better suited to that scheme of religion which acquaints us that "it is appointed unto all men once to die." If he had also considered, that "after death" cometh "the judgment," he would, probably, have thought it diflicult "to make too anxious an account" of an event which conducts a fallible being to the tribunal of a righteous and infallible judge. If this enlightened (or rather illuminated) moralist, whose counsel Mr. Godwin brings forward, had taken a lesson from the humblest of those who have “seen the visions of the Almighty," he would have held a language more honourable to God, and more consolatory to man. He would have learnt, that if death be in all cases a scene of debility and pain, (which is yet questionable,) still the death of the righteous is such, as even the wicked wish to die. He would have learnt that they who live well, in the christian sense of the term, are not left to die as they can; but that when flesh and heart fail, then God is the strength of their heart, and their portion for ever.

Again-If there be a sense in which death represents "human nature in its humblest and most mortifying aspect," Mr. Godwin must be told, that there is yet another sense in which it represents human nature, when sanctified by divine grace, under an aspect the most dignified and sublime; as putting off the burden and defilement of the flesh, and ascending at once to happiness and glory. Nor are these representations founded upon mere sentiments and theories; they have been vouched for and illustrated by innumerable witnesses; they have been supported, not only by scriptureinstances, but by examples of the most unquestionable authenticity, in every condition of life, and in every age of christianity: in a word, if Mr. Godwin would describe a dying scene in such a manner as to show how much the terrors of death may be subdued, and this "inevitable accident," this "scene of debility and pain," most magnanimously encountered, he must not choose for his subject the infidel, exchanging "the bewitching pleasures" of life for an awful uncertainty, or a gloomy annihilation; but from the christian departing in peace, in hope, in joy, to “a building CHRIST. OBSERY. No. 28.

of God, an house not made with hands eternal in the heavens."

Though I have trespassed so much upon the patience of your readers, I must claim their attention to another passage, no less heretical and pernicious than those which have been already produced. As the whole would be too long for extraction, I shall content myself with producing the concluding paragraph. The author had been controverting the received opinion upon the subject of martyrdom. Having questioned "the wisdom and even moral rectitude" of those who suffer death rather than renounce their faith, he thus concludes—“ I ought not to sign a paper containing sentiments opposite to my own, to obtain a sum of money or an office: but I would as willingly do this at the requisition of a chief justice, as of a highwayman, if, while he grasps the paper in one hand, he presents a halter or pistol with the other. The man who acts thus toward one, I regard as a ruffian; and there is no impropriety in temporizing, to a certain degree, with a person of that sort. Nothing ought to be refused by me, when death is the alternative of refusal, except that which would so destroy my character and honour as to make the further prolongation of my life a burthen and a curse*." А Christian Observer will not need to have it pointed out, how base and contemptible these shifting temporizing principles appear, when set beside the stern and unbending rules of conduct which Christ inculcated, and conformably to which himself and his apostles acted. If this may be taken as a specimen of infidel morality, the world must be blind indeed not to see what fatal consequences must result from its reduction to practice in society. According to the distinctions which this writer lays down, there is nothing worth contending for as a moral principle, as a sentiment of the heart, as a tenet of rectitude and truth. Reputation is every thing, conscience and God are nothing. It would be a waste of time to show the baseness and iniquity of a doctrine which modifies the immutable principles of truth, to suit the purposes of convenience; and renders them capable of an alliance (where security V. II. p. 293.

Ff

from personal danger requires it) with every species of prevarication.

If we had a difficulty in determining from what school of "enlightened moralists" Mr. Godwin derived his Theory of Death, we can have no such difficulty in regard to his Rules of Life. They evidently flow from that sect of instructors which teaches without conscience, and legislates without God; from that pernicious sect which. silences the peremptory tone of revelation, subdues the sternness of antient ethics, and reduces "all moral questions to a calculation of expedience." If any confirmation were wanting of what Mr. Hall asserted, that "the unholy speculations of Mr. Godwin were founded entirely on this basis," the passage above produced would supply it. The manner in which the former acute and eloquent writer has exposed this mischievous innovation upon morals, will, I trust, operate, in some degree, as an antidote to the poison which it is now so widely diffusing. It is, however, worthy of the consideration of Mr. Hall, whether he could render christianity a more essential service than by bestowing upon this spurious doctrine of expediency a distinct and elaborate discussion. It is notorious that, in one of our universities, a system constructed on this treacherous foundation is sanctioned by the highest authority in the place; and our youth, designed for the most important and responsible stations in life, are taught the elements of morality from a work which makes an indefinite and indeterminable expediency the basis of obligation, and thereby destroys the strictness, the uniformity, and the sanctity of virtue.

The connection which these remarks have with the subject of my letter, will be sufficiently obvious to every one who is at all acquainted with the popular writers of the present day in fact, the chain of evil, with which we are encompassed, has many links, and it is only by tracing these out, that we can determine its strength and dimensions. For my own part, I dread an accession to those writers, already too numerous, who form our taste at the hazard of our principles; and while they interest the imagination ensnare the heart.

* See C. O. for Feb. 1804, p. 96.

Should any thing I have said excite in men of leisure, talents, and scriptural piety, a disposition to pursue this subject to such an extent as its impor tance to the interests of society demands, I shall feel no ordinary gratification. At the same time I trust, that I shall not be considered as having performed a trifling duty in contributing my quota towards detecting the insidious progress of error, and fortifying the readers of our works of taste against a laxity of principle in religion and morals.

C. F.

To the Editor of the Christian Observer.

SOME religious persons are prejudiced against the study of the rules of oratory, with a view to the use of them in the pulpit; and St. Paul is occasionally quoted as an authority on this point. It is said, that he abjured the

66

wisdom of words;" that he preached "not with enticing words of men's wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power," in order that the "faith" of his hearers "might not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God."

I suspect that, under colour of disregarding the artificial rules of rhetoric, inattention to some things of considerable importance has often been allowed. It is, therefore, the object of the present paper to furnish a few remarks upon this subject, and, in particular, to guard young persons, who are intended for holy orders, against an error which may materially diminish their future usefulness.

First-I would observe, that although St. Paul should have neglected the aid of eloquence, when he was declaring the truths of God, (a point which is here admitted only for the sake of argument,) it by no means follows that a modern minister is justified in the same negligence. It was the plan of Providence to establish the gospel, in the first instance, by means apparently the most inadequate to their end, for the purpose of shewing that the work was truly divine. "The weak things of the world" were, therefore, chosen "to confound the things which are mighty:" fishermen were called to become evange lists: the son of a carpenter was the great founder of the church: the truth