temper, and passion. In the best, it is oftentimes caprice; in the worst, it is every vice, folly, and passion, to which human nature is liable. "So much for this sort of discretion in the general. But, perhaps, it may be supposed, that in the case now before us, some special grounds of exemption from the general principle may be applicable to those reverend persons, for whom this discretion is arrogated. "I am sensible that I now approach tender ground-incedo per ignes, suppositos cinere doloso. "I feel what respect is due to high place, what tenderness to living reputation, and what veneration to genius and learning. And I trust that I shall not give just offence, to any of whom I am about to speak, by a temperate expression of my sentiments, on a point of deep and extensive concernment. Many reasons then, over and above that I have not yet seen any proof of cause for the repeal of the statute 21 Henry 8th, strongly impress upon me, that the inforcement of the residence of the parochial clergy, should not be wholly committed to the voluntary interposition of the bishops.* "First, in the human character is universally acknowledged to exist (and it may, with perfect freedom from guilt, exist in a very considerable and effective degree) a principle of esprit du corps; a principle, which, in its mildest operation, is apt to subject a man to a more lively sensibility of the rights, and a less acute feeling of the duties of those, with whom he is, either by profession or by habits of life, assimilated, than of others. From this principle, most unquestionably, the body of the clergy is not exempt." "Secondly, I find not, that the successive bodies of bishops, notwithstanding the anxiety on the subject, from time to time exprest by individuals among them, have been very active in enforcing that residence, which I hold to be of such great national consequence, and of which it is now proposed, that they alone should have the compulsion." "Thirdly, supposing all our bishops to be completely purified from every gross taint of mortal corruption, yet we cannot expect them to be entirely free from the frailties of humanity. Some will be indolent, some will be timid, some will be too easy tempered. Their very virtues may subject them to misconduct in occasions which would occur. In private life, in the character and conduct of an individual, few qualities are more auniable or more valuable, than a lively, tender, active sympathy for the hardships of others. In a judge, this very same quality becomes a miserable, disgraceful, mischievous weakness." "Fourthly, length of days weakens the pow. er of resistance, and disables and disinclines from exertions of trouble. In reward for the regularity and temperance of our prelates, their lives are ordinarily extended to very long * It has not been made appear, that their lordships desire such a change in the law." Christ. Observ. No. 8. periods. Of the existing twenty-six, one fifth, I believe, have seen more than fourscore years. Is it safe, is it decent, to impose upon the infirmity and decrepitude, on the languor and irresolution of such advanced age, the new task of combating the pertinacious importunity of every clamorous claimant for indulgence, throughout an extensive diocese ? "In fine, quis custodiet ipsos custodes? It is by no means absolutely impossible, that a bishop himself may be obnoxious to the charge of neglecting the duty of residence. And how then would he interpose to enforce the performance of it in another?" We have given more room to this publication in our review than we could well afford to a pamphlet of this size. But the importance of the subject seemed to require it. We recommend the pamphlet to the perusal of our readers, as an energetic and yet temperate performance. It is worthy of their attention likewise, as having a more remedial which it reats, than the pamphlet of with respect to the evil of tendency wi Dr. Sturges. The author evidently has the welfare, the efficiency, and the permanency, of our ecclesiastical establishment at heart. He is not for relaxing those laws which our ancestors conceiv ed necessary, to ensure the due performance of its offices. If its ministers be aggrieved, he is not for relieving them at the expense of the Church at large. He points out a better way; a way in which the clergy may have less to complain of, and the Church more to rejoice in. Instead of extending the permission of non-residence, he is for diminishing the necessity of it. He is for increasing the means of supporting those who are appointed to discharge the duties of the pastoral office, by augmenting the revenues of the smaller benefices; and instead of proposing any law that might occasion the greater neglect of the people at large, he is for making further provision for their instruction and edification, by erecting new parochial Churches and Chapels, under episcopal ́ superintendence, wherever there is an increased inhabitancy. We conceive that it is only from some arrangements calculated to ensure the attainment of these ends; that our excellent ecclesiastical establishment can derive an accession of strength. We must expect, in times like the present, that if only those feeble measures shall 3 X be adopted, which tend more to facili tate the neglect of its offices than to increase the quantity of efficient labour in the Church, the evils already so much complained of will be greatly enhanced; and we shall feel the truth of Bishop Horsley's words, which have been taken by our author for the motto of his pamphlet, "The sectaries take great advantage of this; and, what is much worse, the Devil also takes advantage of it." XL. Religion without Cant; or a Preservative against Lukewarmness and Intolerance, Fanaticism, Superstition, and Impiety. By ROBERT FELLOWES, A. M. of St. Mary Hall, Oxford, Curate of Harbury, Warwick shire. 8vo. 8s. London. White. 1801. WE have already had occasion to introduce this Author to our readers as the writer of a pamphlet, entitled The Anti-Calvinist; wherein he inculcated doctrines diametrically repugnant to the word of God, and to the spirit and letter of the Articles of our Church. The main design of the present work appears to be, that of giving a more particular and laboured representation of those doctrines; and of thus filling up those outlines of heterodoxy, which were merely sketched in the former publication. These two works correspond also in another particular; they both abound in that species of cheap and convenient abuse, which consists in using hard names and coarse epithets, without being at the trouble of shewing the applicability of either. In this circumstance, the work now before us rather exceeds its predecessor; and those flowers of Billingsgate (as they are denominated by a writer in the Anti-Jacobin Review) which appeared to be just budding in the Anti-Calvinist, present themselves full blown in this later production. Among the many false doctrines which Mr. Fellowes maintains, there is no one which he is more dogmatical in asserting, than that of the Gospel being nothing more than a rule of life. With this doctrine the whole of the spirit and language of the present publication accords. It is a doctrine which has been raked up from among the dregs of Socinianism; which, if followed through its consequences, would bring us to the very threshold of infidelity; and which, in its simplest form, possesses a direct and positive tendency to paganize Christianity. It is, however, a doctrine which has no chance of being adopted by any persons, who, to a tolerable acquaintance with the Sacred Scriptures, add a cordial belief of their truth. Its falsehood will be detected, without any effort of examination, by all who consider the Gospel in that light, in which St. Paul viewed it, when he declared, that "the Gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation unto every one that believeth." In the Preface which Mr. Fellowes has prefixed to his work, there is one passage, which it would be highly improper to pass without some notice. We do not mean that, in which he supposes a connection between Christian benevolence and a good dinner; for we believe that the idea of our being feasted into philanthropy will rather awaken the mirth, than offend the feelings of the reader. The passage to which we refer, occurs in the 19th page, where Mr. Fellowes having occasion to mention the act of adultery, expresses it, not in such terms as mark the criminality of the deed, but in such as are ordinarily employed to describe it, by the most light-minded among the vulgar. A considerable part of the work which we are considering, is of a polemical cast; and the object of attack appears to be twofold. On some occasions Mr Fellowes assembles a hideous group of what he calls the fanatics, to whom he ascribes, ad libitum, a plentiful portion of absurdity, which he seriously and triumphantly sets himself to answer. On other occasions he takes a higher aim, and attempts no less than to overthrow some of those doctrines which have been heretofore considered as essential and fundamental parts of Christianity; which have been embraced and maintained by the wisest and best of men ; but which Mr. Fellowes happening to dislike, condemns as false in themselves, and immoral in their tendency, and which he, therefore, labours per fas atque per nefas, to discredit and destroy. In his assault on the fanatics, we should feel no difficulty in unreservedly wishing him success, if the weapons which he brandishes were better suited to the hand of a Christian minister; and we should, moreover, be ready to commence hostilities ourselves against the fanatics whom he has described, if we knew where to find them. Where Mr. Fellowes discovered them he has not informed us, and, therefore, we can only wish, that if his chastisement can possibly prove beneficial, it may speedily reach them; although of its benefiting them we, ourselves, have no expectation, since, from Mr. Fellowes's descriptio, they appear to be among the number of either the incurably idiotic, or the irrecoverably insane. Of this last circumstance our readers will judge, from the few following extracts from Mr. Fellowes's account of them :- The Fanatics make even religion itself the foundation of unrighteousness" (p. 4.) They make holiness to consist more in turbulence of sensation, than in rectitude of action." (p. 7)—"They make the delirium of sensation a substitute for integrity of character;" (p. 27,) and yet, strange inconsistency indeed! "make great pretensions to superior sanctity." (p. 29.)" They throw wide the gates of heaven to the sin ner, and shut them against the righteous;" and "with them salvation depends upon the impulses of feelings." (p. 51.) They ascribe to faith a power, superseding the necessity of instruction, and the use of inquiry." (p. 97.) They confine the seat and habitation of faith, the bounds of its existence, and the sphere of its influence, to the sensations, within whose gaseous atmosphere they circumscribe its power, and to whose invisible operations they restrict its evidence." (p. 120.)-They feign that "man's depravity is incurable ;" and represent God as angry with us, for no other reason than because we are born." (p. 151.)-They hold that grace 66 "is often withheld from the contrite, and often lavishly accorded to the hypocrite." (p. 189.)-They "confine the agency of grace within the volatile gas of the sensations." (p. 191.)—And, lastly, (to complete the picture) we are assured, that "the Fanatic puts the victims of his rage to every torture, which he can contrive in this world, and then breathes fervent wishes to heaven for their eternal damnation in the next!" (p. 130.) Of this delineation of fanaticism, we may now take our leave for the present; and proceed to the important task of noticing the attack which Mr. Fellowes has made on what we consider, and what our Church has ever held, to be among the essential doctrines of the Gospel of Christ. The doctrine of original or birth sin is pronounced by Mr. Fellowes to be totally false. We pretend not to add to the authorities and arguments by which this doctrine has been, and still may be proved to be true. We shall, therefore, for the present, only trouble Mr. Fellowes with a request, that he will attentively consider these two practical questions-How can any man, with a pure conscience and an upright mind, declare in the sanctuary, in the presence, and in the adminis. tration of the ordinance of God, that "all men are conceived and born in sin," when he himself, at that very moment, is persuaded, that all men are born innocent and upright ?—and how can he in that same ordinance, and on his knees before that same God, who seeth the heart and abhorreth iniquity, address a prayer to him, that he would grant to the infant, whom he is about to baptize, "remission of his sins by spiritual regeneration," when he, at the same time, believes, that the infant neither wants such remission, nor is capable of such regeneration? It may also be useful to consider, how far it is consistent with that morality, for the interests of which Mr. Fellowes professes so much zeal, that he should instruct the children of his parish in a Catechism, which affirms, that we are "born in sin, the children of wrath," when he thinks, and publicly declares, that such an affirmation is a falsehood; and not merely that it is a falsehood, but that it is such an one as is of the very worst moral tendency. Mr. Fellowes talks much of the dishonesty and falsehood of the fanatics. But is he not apprehensive, that if any one of them, who retains any portion of his wits, should read the work before us, and compare some passages of it with others in the Common Prayer Book, he would find materials for a severe and irresistible retaliation? may, without formally repealing any of the Articles, put any construction upon them which they think best, and that construction is the legal doctrine of the Church in their time; and in that sense, and according to that construction, the Articles may and ought to be subscribed; and he, who thus subscribes them, maintains what it is so necessary to maintain, an unity of doctrine with the majority of his brethren; and is, consequently a better friend to the Church of England, than he who may subscribe the Articles in a sense more agreeable to the letter, but more adverse to the general construction of the clergy: and, consequently to the received doctrine of the Church." We really think that Mr. Fellowes can scarcely for a moment suppose, that such absurdities will impose upon any man of common sense, or that such dishonest sophistication will be acceptable to any man of common honesty. Mr. Fellowes has discovered, that the Ninth Article of our Church is not very favourable to his sentiments on the subject of original sin; and he even confesses that it in some degree sanctions this doctrine; but adds, that "this article admits of an explanation that will entirely do away the mischievousness of the doctrine." He also says, (p. 33.) "Though the doctrine should be more expressly authorized by the Articles than it appears to me to be, yet it cannot well be called the doctrine of the Church of England, when it is not the doctrine of the majority of the members, who compose that church." Again, "When we wish to ascertain the true doctrine and belief of the Church of England, we are not to inquire so much what was the doctrine TAUGht, WITHOUT ANY CANT OR and belief of its clergy in past ages, as what is the doctrine and belief of the clergy, or the church, at the present day. That which was the doctrine and belief of the clergy in past ages, was the doctrine and belief of the Church in their time; and that which is the doctrine and belief of the clergy in this age, is the doctrine and belief of the Church in our time."-Again, As the majority of the living members, and particularly the most learned, upright, and judicious members of the Church of England, constitute the Church of England, they *We were taught just before, that the clergy at large constitute the Church of England. Now we are told, that the majority of the liv. ing members, and particularly the most learned, upright, and judicious members of the Church of England, constitute that Church! If the latter of these contradictory opinions be admitted, it will be necessary for a conscientious candidate for. ordination, who wishes to subscribe the Articles in the sense which, accord In a note at the bottom of p. 131, Mr. Fellowes says, that governments should be taught "to labour to prevent these hell-born fiends, (the Fanatics and Atheists) from spreading their venom among the people; and this," he adds, “ 6 only be done by compelling the ministers of the Establishment to teach NOTHING BUT THAT PURE MORALITY WHICH CHRIST can ANY MYSTERY." Now is Mr. Fellowes sure that this expedient would avail? Is he certain that no better, no honester means can be devised for converting Atheists and Fanatics, and for restraining the propagation of their principles, than that of compelling the ministers of the Establishment to abstain wholly from teaching those mysteries of Christianity which they have solemnly engaged, and are expressly ordained to inculcate? That cant should be discouraged, we allow; although we could wish that the repression of it among the ministers of the Establishing to these rules, is the only legal one, to take an actual survey of the kingdom, and to poll all the existing individuals who profess to be members of the Church of England; at the same time taking with him a pair of intellectual and moral balances, nicely adjusted, in order to ascertain the comparative learning, uprightness, and judiciousness of these same. living members of the Church. ment were effected rather by their own good sense and discretion, than by the operation of political coercion. But when the suppression of those myste, ries, which, though unfathomable to our understanding, are, nevertheless, fit objects of our faith; such as "the Trinity of persons in the undivided Godhead, the Incarnation of the second Person, the expiation of sin by the Redeemer's sufferings and death, the efficacy of his intercession, and the mysterious commerce of the believer's soul with the Divine Spirit*-when a compelled suppression of these mysteries is proposed, as a panacea for the moral disorders produced by fanatics and atheists, we must beg leave to question the judgment and skill of the prescriber. And whatever Mr. Fellowes may say or think, our hearts desire and prayer to God is, that the clergy of the Establishment, of whom we are taught "to account, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God," may have "utterance given unto them, that they may open their mouths boldly to make known the mystery of the Gospel." It is a curious fact, and a striking instance of the inconsistency which at tends all attempts to evade the force of plain truth, and to quibble away the * See the Charge of Samuel, then Lord Bi. shop of St. David's, delivered at his primary Visitation, in the year 1790.-We earnestly recommend an attentive perusal of this Charge to Mr. Fellowes, and to every person who may be disposed to adopt his idea, of compelling the ministers of the Gospel to be silent respecting its mysteries. In this Charge Mr. Fellowes will find almost all his favourite principles pointedly condemned, and thoroughly exposed: and he will perhaps be taught to question, whether the maintenance of the doctrines of original sin, of "justification by that faith," which is "a gift of God, distinct from the natural faculties;" and of that "communion between the believer's soul and the divine Spirit, on which the whole of our spiritual life depends," be really characteristic of ignorant fanaticism; since he will find these doctrines plainly and forcibly inculcated by one, whose gradual and well-merited elevation from the Archdeaconry of St. Alban's to the see of St. Asaph, confers less honour on his name, than the ability with which he has illustrated the pure and primitive doctrines of Christianity, and the faithfulness and resolution with which he has defended them against the persevering attacks of Pelagian and Socinian antagonists. dictates of common sense, that although Mr. Fellowes would allow, and even persuade government to bind the ministers of religion, by an act of rigorous compulsion, to teach nothing but morality; he, nevertheless, deems it inconsistent with rational liberty, that these same ministers should be bound, by their own voluntary and most solemn engagements, to teach no doctrines repugnant to those which are contained in the confession, to whose truth they have subscribed their assent. But with instances of inconsistency and self-contradiction, the present publication abounds. In one place we are taught, that in the first verse of the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrew, the word faith means "those things which are revealed by God, but are invisible to our perceptions." (p. 104.) Fortunately, however, for truth, Mr. Fellowes afterwards changes his opinion, and quotes this very verse as referring to the act of faith in the mind of the believer. In p. 112 he tells us, that "the ceremonial laws of the Mosaic dispensation were intended merely to preserve unbroken the barrier be-, tween Jew and Gentile." And yet, in the very same page (as if impatient to contradict himself) he declares, that "the Redeemer was, indeed, seen through the rites of the Mosaic dispensation." Again, in p. 208, he says, that grace moderates the rigour of the law, and mitigates its penalties; and yet he asserts in the same page, nay, in the same period, that grace establishes the law; and moreover speaks in p. 210, of the moral law being "perfected by the sovereign excellence of Christian charity." Again, in p. 179, apostrophizing the Christian, he says, "It is only by personal acts of sin, hardening into habits of sin, that thou becomest a transgressor. subject to the wrath of God ;" and yet in p. 220, he declares that "the mo ment we have violated any one duty of truth, justice, and humanity, or any one saying of the perfect law of Christ, that moment we are polluted with guilt; and, without repentance, obnoxious to punishment." Of Mr. Fellowes's opinions on the subject of regeneration, it is unnecessary to say more, than that he maintains |