the other is our common bond of religion, “To represent a man as immoral by his religion, perfidious by his principles, a murderer on a point of conscience, an enemy even from piety to the foundations of all social intercourse, and then tell us that we are to offer no violence to such a person, under favour appears to me rather an additional insult and mockery, than any sort of corrective of the injury we do our neighbour, by the character we give him." "I cannot by any means allow, that nen, when they wish to free themselves from the terror of penal laws, and the odium of being supposed the just object of them, when they earnestly solicit to have that stigma taken off, and to recommend themselves to their government by dutiful applications, can be said to bring their misfortunes on themselves, if, on that account, a furious and bigoted set of miscreants choose to rob them of their goods, and to burn their houses." How far Burke afterwards acted on these noble principles, especially towards Dr. Priestley, or whether the rioters of 1791 were not equally furious and bigoted with those of 1780, let the reader judge for himself. Dr. Erskine was of the popular party in the Church of Scotland, who wished a call from the elders to be considered as uecessary to the induction of a minister. In this he was opposed to Dr. Robertson, who wished the right of patrons to present to be always maintained. An Appendix to this book gives a sketch of the history of the Scotch Church, from the Revolution to the year 1780. It is by no means impartial, and in some parts obscure. Sir Henry is by no means so well qualified to write such a history as Mr. Cooke, whose conti nuation of his History of the Scotch When chiefly in the neighbourhood of Glasgow, a few Baptists, and the small number of Unitarians, whose congre gations must be well known to the readers of the Repository. All the Dissenters in Scotland, it is probable, do not exceed one fourth of the population. Sir Henry's style is very diffuse, often obscure, and full of Scotticisms. T. C. H. ART. IV. A Letter to The Protestant, occasioned by his Attack upon the Gentlemen of the Coffee-Room, and the Lower Classes of Society in Glasgow. By a Layman. Glasgow, Hedderwick. London, Hunter. 8vo. pp. 23. 1s. HE pamphlet bearing this title is an exposure of the prevailing system of Christianity, by one who, though not engaged in ministerial duties, has evidently made theology a favourite study. The Protestant appears to be one of those strait-laced believers whose standard of Christi see of that Church; but under the protection, and with the assistance of the civil magistrate, they all established church governments of their own, in which little conscience, and the promotion of that more regard was paid to the rights of liberty with which Christ hath made us free, than in the Church of Rome; while the fatal tree of Anti-christian superstition continued to be cherished and cultivated with the same zeal as formerly, stripped only of a few of those boughs which obstructed the exercise of that worldly wisdom and crafty policy, which was but too visible in the conduct of even Luther and Calvin themselves."-P. 19. M. ART. V.-A plain Discourse on Excommunication, occasioned by the Death of a Person under sentence of Excommunication, in the Parish of Wye, on the 17th of April, 1819, and preacked in the adjoining Parish Church of Godmersham, on Sunday the 25th of the same Month. By the Rev. Joseph Godfrey Sherer, M. A., Vicar of Godmersham, &c. 1819. Canterbury. anity is perfectly equivalent to a sub-the burial, occasioned this disperson whose death, or ra scription to all the articles of their cimen : course was a poor man, aged about 70, who died in the workhouse of the parish of Wye. His name was Tabrams, and about thirty years ago he was dealt with according to the rules of the sect established by law, and excommunicated. The grounds of this sentence have not come to our knowledge, but they are supposed to concern the administration of a will, Be they what they may, the poor man's body was buried at night, we suppose not in consecrated ground, without any funeral service being read over him, and the earth was levelled over the grave, so that no trace might remain of the spot where he was interred. The neighbourhood, we presume, was not a little shocked at this indignity offered to the poor man's remains; for the Author of this Discourse states, that though it did not take place in his parish, yet the fact fell under the knowledge of most of his parishioners, and as they seem to have entertained some misapprehensions of the case, he has been induced to notice it, and to shew that excommunication is enjoined, as a necessary measure of Christian discipline, by apostolical example and authority. As the subject also is but little regarded (in which he is quite right) and imperfectly understood, he has printed his discourse, with the hopes that it may prove acceptable to those of his sect, beyond the immediate sphere of his own ministry. What it may be to them we cannot pretend to say, but we are sure that, for those who have a regard for the Christian religion, it will be one among many proofs how the human mind may be perverted by prejudice and superstition: at the same time they will rejoice that, whatever indignity the sect might think it right to shew to a dead corpse, the power is happily taken from it in this country of exposing a living body to fire and faggot. The sermon is the usual tissue of sectarian reasoning, founded partly on misapplication of certain well-known passages of Scripture, and partly on the traditions of those sectarians who, having got power into their own hands, converted the precepts of the practised in the first and purest ages of the Christian Church, ought still to have place in every congregation of Christian people." We should be obliged to some of our Correspondents in Kent to inquire into the nature of the case, what was the horrid crime or sin of which this pauper was guilty, what proceedings were had upon it, where the sentence of excommunication was read, and what, if any, punishment followed it, besides the denial of those rites which the sect established by law allows to be performed over felons of every description, adulterers and sodomites. F. ART. VI-A Sermon delivered at the Old Meeting-House, Walthamstow, August 2, 1818, on occasion of the Death of Elizabeth, Daughter of Isaac Solly, Esq. By E. Cogan. 8vo. pp. 27. 1818. R. COGAN here considers the gospel into rules of political expedi. Madaptation of Christianity to ence. We will not waste the time of our readers on such trash: the spirit of it may be seen by the following extract: "Sins of ignorance and infirmity are best cured by tenderness and compassion, sins of wilfulness and stubbornness by terror and alarm. There is, indeed, no ordinance so just, but it may possibly be abused, even the very sacrament; but are we to forbear the pious and proper use of them? No doubt but excommunication, if used against any without sufficient cause and well-considered counsel is wrongly used, but where occasion justly and indispensably calls for it, then surely that discipline which was appointed by Christ, enforced by the apostles, and VENICE: the condition of humanity, and ably and satisfactorily shews its inestimable value to man as a being who is destined to death and exposed to suffering. The sermon is characterized by a seriousness of spirit and plaintiveness of tone well suited to the melancholy occasion. After the copious Review which we have taken of the Author's two volumes of Sermons, [pp. 257 and 323,] we cannot better describe or more effectually recommend this discourse, than by saying that it is in his best manner. POETRY. An Ode by Lord Byron, just published with "Mazeppa, a Poem.” I. Oh Venice! Venice! when thy marble walls Are level with the waters, there shall be A cry of nations o'er thy sunken halls, A loud lament along the sweeping sea! If I, a northern wanderer, weep for thee, Oh! agony-that centuries should reap No mellower harvest! Thirteen hundred years Of wealth and glory turn'd to dust and tears; And every monument the stranger meets, Church, palace, pillar, as a mourner greets; And even the Lion all subdued appears, And the harsh sound of the barbarian drum, With dull and daily dissonance, repeats Of gondolas-and to the busy hum Were but the overbeating of the heart, And flow of too much happiness, which needs The aid of age to turn its course apart From the luxuriant and voluptuous flood Of sweet sensations, battling with the blood. But these are better than the gloomy errors, The weeds of nations in their last decay, When Vice walks forth with her unsoften'd terrors, And Mirth is madness, and but smiles to : For 'tis our nature strikes us down the beasts Slaughter'd in hourly hecatombs for feasts Are of as high an order-they must go Even where their driver goads them, though to slaughter. Ye men, who pour your blood for kings as water, What have they given your children in return? A heritage of servitude and woes, A blindfold bondage, where your hire is blows. What! do not yet the red-hot ploughshares burn, O'er which you stumble in a false ordeal, And deem this proof of loyalty the real; Kissing the hand that guides you to your scars, And glorying as you tread the glowing bars? All that your sires have left you, all that Time Bequeaths of free, and History of sublime, Spring from a different theme!-Ye see and read, Admire and sigh, and then succumb and bleed! Save the few spirits, who, despite of all, And worse than all, the sudden crimes engender'd By the down thundering of the prisonwall, And thirst to swallow the sweet waters tender'd, Gushing from Freedom's fountains-when the crowd, Madden'd with centuries of drought, are And trample on each other to obtain chain Heavy and sore,-in which long yoked they plough'd The sand, or if there sprung the yellow grain, 'Twas not for them, their necks were too much bow'd, And their dead palates chew'd the cud of pain : Yes! the few spirits-who, despite of deeds Are kept apart and nursed in the devotion Of freedom, which their fathers fought for, and Bequeath'd-a heritage of heart and hand, And proud distinction from each other land, Whose sons must bow them at a monarch's motion, As if his senseless sceptre were a wand Full of the magic of exploded scienceStill one great clime, in full and free defiance, Yet rears her crest, unconquer'd and sublime, Above the far Atlantic!-She has taught Her Esau-brethren that the haughty flag, The floating fence of Albion's feebler crag, May strike to those whose red right hands have bought Rights cheaply earn'd with blood. Still, still, for ever Better, though each man's life-blood were a river, That it should flow, and overflow, than creep Through thousand lazy channels in our veins, Damm'd like the dull canal with locks and chains, And moving, as a sick man in his sleep, Three paces, and then faltering :-better be Where the extinguish'd Spartans still are free, In their proud charnel of Thermopylæ, Than stagnate in our marsh,-or o'er the deep Fly, and one current to the ocean add, |