holders; for such were Bostonians in 1766. he assented to the Repeal, he had given more pleasure to three million good subjects, than ever he or his Dr. Mayhew survived the delivery royal grandfather gave them by all of this discourse only a few weeks. the triumphs of their arms." These The concluding article in this collecgood subjects are exhorted "to pay tion is the discourse on his decease, due respect in all things to the British preached to his congregation" by Parliament" (p. 25). "I hope," says Charles Chauncy, D. D. A Pastor the preacher, (p. 26,) “there are of the first Church in Boston," Bosvery few people, if any, in the colo- ton, 1766. A passage in this disnies, who have the least inclination to course shews that Dr. Mayhew's disrenounce the general jurisdiction of order had affected his mental faculties. Parliament over them, whatever we The preacher having mentioned (p. 33) may think of the particular right of "his dependence on the mercy of God, taxation." He adds, (p. 29,) "It through the mediation of the only would be our misery, if not our ruin, Saviour Jesus Christ," adds, “in this to be cast off by Great Britain, as un- temper he lived, and in the same worthy her farther regards. What temper, I believe, he would have died, then would it be, in any supposable had it pleased the all-wise, righteous way, to draw upon ourselves the and holy Sovereign of the world, to whole weight of her just resentment! have permitted the free use of his What are we in the hands of that reasonable powers." It appears from nation, which so lately triumphed a Note (p. 28), that Dr. Mayhew had over the united powers of France and been represented in a pamphlet, as Spain!" The preacher, however, "an enemy to the atonement by Jesus qualifies this strain of humility, by Christ." Dr. Chauncy testifies that recollecting that Britain "did this," he never had the least doubt about in a great measure, by means of her commercial intercourse with, and aids from the colonies." From these passages it will appear that the language of "this transcendent genius," as a sensible and wellinformed scholar and divine is fondly panegyrized, (p. 297,) is not always suited to express the manly feelings of consistent Republicans. Dr. Mayhew will, I apprehend, be chiefly quoted in his country's history, to shew what poor and contracted views of civil policy, and what abject notions of colonial dependence were entertained in 1766, by an American patriot; though one who had "been initiated, in youth, in the doctrines of civil li berty, as they were taught by such men as Plato, Demosthenes, Cicero, and other renowned persons among the ancients; and such as Sidney and Milton, Locke and Hoadly, among the moderns" (p. 35). It would, however, be unjust not to mention a probable hint against negroslavery, which occurs at p. 4 of this sermon. Speaking of men "made slaves by the right of conquest in war," the preacher adds, "if there be indeed any such right." This doubt, was probably, all which could be endured by an audience of slave it." But the question returns, What did Dr. Mayhew or his friend understand by that equivocal term? Perhaps any thing rather than the Calvinistic scheme of satisfaction by vicarious punishment. SIR, YOUR N. L. T. Liverpool, October 9, 1819. YOUR Correspondent Dominicus, in your last Number, [p. 559,] has given sufficient evidence to shew what were John Calvin's notions respecting the observance of the Sabbath day. I am by no means inclined to "esteem one day above another," abstractedly speaking; but I have doubts which I should much like Dominicus, or some other intelligent reader, to solve. In the first place, some persons seem to be of opinion with Calvin, that the observance of religious ordinances, on any given day, is a mere matter of "utility and expedience," for, say they, unless some specific time is appointed, "how can they be observed?” Farther, Calvin is said to have expressed his "approbation of the conduct of the ancient Fathers in substituting the Lord'sday for the Sabbath," at the same time not wishing to be understood as supposing that "Christians, like Jews, were under any divine law, which had consecrated a seventh portion of their time for exclusively religious uses." I want to know where, in Scripture, we are left at liberty to consult our own convenience in this matter. Jesus Christ preached no such doctrine; but, on the contrary, observed the Jewish Sabbath himself, and declared that he came not "to destroy the law." Who were the "ancient Fathers," whose conduct Calvin approved for " substituting the Lord's-day for the Sabbath," thus taking upon themselves to do what Jesus Christ never did or taught? When and where did these "ancient Fathers" first introduce this innovation into the Christian system? I conceive that it is little to the purpose to say that the New Testament no where commands the observance of one day in seven, whilst it contains no revocation of the old law, which appears to have been binding on our Saviour, his observations respecting it, going only to condemn the superstition which had crept into it. Our modern Fathers have undoubtedly the same authority as the ancient ones to alter laws for "convenience or utility;" but till I am satisfied of the validity of their warrant, I shall continue to believe that the fourth commandment stands precisely on the same footing, and claims the same regard as the other nine. SIR, Cainscross, Gloucestershire, October 18, 1819. the pages of critical pub The British Critic" commenced an article in its Number for June, which was concluded in the subsequent Number, upon a subject particularly interesting to most of your readers: the Genevese controversy. Many parts of this article merit our attention, and, in my opinion, would be worth transferring to your pages. I leave this to your better judgment, while I drop a remark or two en pas sant. I took up the work with feelings of eager curiosity, to see how orthodox members of an Established Church would treat a question in which ministers and professors of another establishment, charged with be terodoxy, were implicated. It is but justice to say, that the clergy of Ge neva are treated by the high Churchmen of England with much greater humanity, not to say liberality,* than by orthodox Seceders or Dissenters. The Reviewers appear to have been much hampered to reconcile canonical obedience with the obedience of faith; and a Calvinistic student, inclined to rebel against the authority of his Unitarian tutor, would find some difficulty in comprehending the line of conduct which English divines of the High Church would have him adopt. Did my time and your pages admit, I should like much to present your readers with an abstract of the article with remarks, but having called their attention to the subject, shall content myself with a quotation or two. Speaking of the Geneva edition of the Bible of 1805, a new translation, of the great merit of which many of your readers are well aware, the Reviewer remarks: "In proof of the general opinion WERR the Pots of corally sub- respecting it, it is alleged that the jected themselves to criticism, there would be no end to animadversious and replications, till the wearied readers ceased to become purchasers. Some persons may eveu object to an occasional notice of this kind of the ephemeral pages of a monthly publication; but of this sentiment the Reviewers in question evidently are not, since they devote many lines, in a subsequent article of the very Number which I shall presently have to notice, to an attack upon the Edinburgh Review. Bible Society of Geneva have refused to circulate it, while a reimpression has been promoted of the Bibles of Martin and Ostervald. In reply, it is urged, that the style of the new *We may say "liberality," for the Reviewer has most ingenuously pointed out a gross misrepresentation of Granus, one of the opponents of the clergy, a misre presentation which the Dissenting writer of an article in the Eclectic Review, was not ashamed to adopt and give farther currency to. We translation, though still defective in 46 as it regards both the beauty of the sense and nobleness of the style." Extract from the Avertissement prefixed to "La Liturgie, ou Formulaire des Prières Publiques, selon l'Usage de l'Eglise Anglicane."-à Londres chez Scatcherd et Letterman, &c. 1811. "Les Eglises Françoises Conformistes établies en Angleterre se servent dans le culte public, de la Liturgie Anglicane, d'après une traduction qui, pour le style, étoit bien inférieure à l'original. "La partie la plus importante étoit malheureusement la plus défectueuse. Dans tous les passages tirés des Livres Saints, on avoit à-peu-près suivi l'an cienne Version de la Bible. Version Ce sujet de redevable de cet éminent service aux Pasteurs et Professeurs d'Eglise de Genève. Ils ont profité de toutes les lumières qui dans cet intervalle de deux siècles, se sont répandues sur la critique sacrée, comme l'étude plus approfondie des langues Orientales,-la collation d'anciens manuscrits, les voyages faits daus les pays mêmes qu' avoient habitée les Ecrivains Sacrés, la connoissance des lieux, des lois, des coutumes, des mœurs, et les progrès de diverses sciences, qui ont indirecte ment servi à l'éclaircissement des Livres Saints. C'est avec tous ces secours et un zèle à les employer, digne de l'importance du sujet, que l'Eglise de Genève a enfin publié en 1805, une Version complète qui, d'après les suffrages les plus éclairés, est infiniment supérieure à l'ancienne. Nous nous sommes prévalu d'un si grand avantage dans l'édition que nous donnons aujourd'hui de cette Liturgie. Evangiles, Epitres, Pseaumes, Sentences, nous avons tout emprunte de la nouvelle Version. Nous l'avons généralement suivis dans les autres passages, tirés de nos Livres Saints. On s'apercevra par tout du grand avantage qui en resulte pour la beauté du sens et la noblesse du style. Ce travail est devenu interressant pour nous par l'espoir de contribuer à l'édification commune et de porter à la lecture de la Bible même; par les fragmens admirables qu'on en trouve ici." It has often been remarked that orthodox Christians, in classing Unitarians with Deists, &c., have only followed the example (would to God they had done so in no other point) of the Roman Catholics, who have constantly maintained, from Bossuet downwards, that Protestantism and Infidelity are synonymous, or nearly connected. The ministers of Geneva "have subscribed to no articles nor confession of faith for more than a century, because" (says one of their advocates)" such formularies are too often a fruitful cause of disagree. ment." The British Critic here remarks, "The Catholics have not failed to avail themselves of this argument. The Abbé Labouderie has published a pamphlet at Paris, of which the following is a translation of the first sentence: "All the world is now convinced that the religion of the Protestant Churches is little more than disguised Socinianism." Again, "There will be no schism between the clergy of Geneva and the Reformed Churches of France, Switzerland, England aud Germany, on account of this Socinian heresy. They are all alike," &c. What do you think of the pious Abbé's integrity and charity? Is it possible he can be so ignorant as not to know that "Socinians" are so lemnly anathematized in the Established Church of England twelve times per annum, and that too in the set form of words which his own church adopts; only translated faithfully from barbarous Latin, into English equally barbarous? When I read this I looked for a pretty severe castigation of the Abbé's temerity, with a solemn defence of the Critic's church against the odious charge of Socinianism; but judge of my surprise to find him parrying instead, the keen thrust of Boileau : "Tout Protestant est Pape, une Bible à la main," and the following sentence, in support of orthodox charity, is perhaps one of the boldest that ever proceeded from the pen of a defender of a "church, by law established:" "The Protestant Confessions of faith, differ from the Catholic in this important point, that it is not pretended that those who affirm any of them to be erroneous, are rejected from the pale of salvation, nor are they proposed as infailible, but as acts of reference," &c. (The word “infailible" is the only one which the Reviewer has thought fit to distinguish by italics, but there are others in the sentence which equally merit that distinction, and I respectfully solicit it on their behalf.) I cannot allow myself to trespass further by com menting on the last-cited passage; perhaps it needs none, but such as must suggest itself to every reflecting mind. Or scorn'd where business never intervenes." le, a collection of Essays, the AKING up "The Round Tachief part of which is ascribed to the pen of Mr. Hazlitt, my eye fell upon the following passage: "All country people hate one another: there is nothing good in the country, or if there were, they would not let you have it." This, the beginning of a very strong philippic against the country, and the hapless dwellers therein, afforded me some amusement, but concluded by leading me into a train of thoughts, of which the following, perhaps, have fixed themselves the most strongly in my mind. There cannot be a more egregious mistake, it seems to me, than that into which many individuals have fallen in their views of the happiness to be derived from retirement. There is, indeed, a spur, an impulse given to the mind by an abrupt transition from the sameness of cities to the wild liberty of nature, which, while it lasts, is delightful. That freedom may exist in the busiest scenes, is certain. But yet are we so much the creatures of association, that we cannot separate the idea of mental from that of bodily subjection. We cannot persuade ourselves that our wills are so free, that our spirits can take so wide a range where custom has prescribed certain modes of speaking, living and acting, as in scenes which are placed beyond the controul of fashion and fancy. Personal liberty, a freedom from those restraints which in large towns are for ever crossing our inclinations, is unspeakably precious to unsophisticated man: yet this idea of liberty, delicious as it is, will never remain long upon the mind. It may be the first and the most powerful thought which presses upon us when we begin a life secluded from the observation of the world, but it must soon share the fate of all other solitary feelings, and cease to impart either comfort or delight: for the pleasure of doing what we like, is, after all, nothing more nor less than the most solitary and sensual of the beasts of the forest may con test with us; and the less the desire of serving, pleasing and improving others, mingles with our daily habitudes, the closer is our approximation to them. Freedom, to be duly enjoyed by a rational being, must be a rational and active freedom. Man is degraded as soon as he tries to live above the sympathies of human nature, quite as surely, though not perhaps so obviously, as when he voluntarily places himself below them. So with regard to religion. I do not wish to revive the ancient dispute between the recluse and the dweller in this world: but I cannot help just O mentioning, that one sect of our mo =dern poets has thrown a degree of sacredness over its tenets by pretend ing to a much more intimate communion with the Deity than is allowed to the members of its rival contemporary sects. I cannot forbear entertaining great doubts as to the foundation on which this pretension rests; for, taking a survey of what has been, it does not seem that the holiest among men have been those who have lived in the abstract contemplation of the Deity. It is easy, it is natural, when we come forth among the works of God, to lift up our hearts at ouce to the source of beauty and blessing, for then no intervening object seems to inter pose between earth and heaven. Continued communion with the world lowers the tone of our minds: there is a worldliness contracted by intercourse with the great and vain, which it is well to, set right, and to send the "life and blood" of virtuous enthusiasm once in a while through the heart. A view of the works of God, apart from the ways of man, commonly does this. It purifies, rectifies and refines. Yet we have many proofs that the attempt to live above the world is as unnecessary to the perfection, as it is fatal to the usefulness of a character. "Men ought to know," says Bacon," that on the theatre of the world it is only for God and the angels to be spectators." But is the view which revelation and reason lead us to take of even the Divine Being, that of a passive and quiescent spectator? Or, is he not rather continually operating to produce and perfect the harmony of creatiou? And shall we think ourselves at liberty to remain enraptured, but indolent spectators of his work, when he calls us to lift up our feeble hands in its support? So with regard to genius.-I very much doubt whether thought is ever so lofty and inventive, as it is in the minds of those who enjoy a pretty large, or, at least, an active communion with their fellow-creatures. Would Milton have written better had his mind been less worked upon by the passing events of his time? Would Shakespeare have described the most simple and secluded scenes of nature with more beauty, had his whole life been past in the contemplation of them? Would Franklin have thought more profoundly, or, in general, to better purpose, had he retired from the cares of the world to indulge in solitary reflection? Perhaps, too, the habits of inaction, which female education often engen. ders, have a strong tendency to keep down the powers of mind possessed by that sex, below their natural level. The sickly dreams of sentiment in which they are led to indulge, often from a dearth of better employment, prove the little connexion which a life of leisure and speculation has with strong and inventive genius. However, it must be confessed, to |