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'ties,' fays he, ' are laws of friendship, and mutual advantages between nation and nation, whilft their interest continues the same, and whilst the benefits they receive from • each other are greater than the dangers they apprehend; as • municipal laws are treaties between subject and fubject, and • between magistrate and subject, for the mutual support and • convenience of themselves and of each other. And as free • states make laws for their own, that is, the general advantage; so they make public treaties, by the fame rule, for the public good. Arbitrary princes, indeed, who make laws for ' themselves, against their subjects, make treaties with the • fame view, and keep them private, or make them public, as ' they think fit: and no other can be expected from those • fort of governors, who live in a state of hoftility with their • own people: but in a free country, where the measures of equity and common sense are observed, and where the subjects are bound by nothing but known law, it is a mon• strous infult upon them, a bold denial of their liberty, and robbing them of their birth-right, to involve them in dangerous and chargeable treaties, of which they know nothing, and from which they can only reap lofies and expence. • This is to execute laws before they are published, and to • draw a nation, by means of its own power and money, into

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a snare against itself; it is a ready way to make a nation ' weak enough, and a government strong enough to seize its liberties.

• The nature of treaties, as well as all other laws, calls for ' their being made public, else they look more like conspiracies than treaties; and two courts, under the equivocal and • fallacious name of a treaty, may be engaged, and have been • engaged, in black designs, to enslave their own people, as ' well as their neighbours; and then indeed they have very great reason for making a very great fecret of these their • public transactions. But first to make a public treaty, for • the good of a nation, and then keep it a secret, for fear of the nation, is a contradiction that argues great guilt.

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When a treaty is made evidently for the honour and advantage of a nation, it is evidently for the honour and advantage of those who make it, to render it as public as ' they can. When men deserve well of a nation, they do • not use to be afraid of receiving its thanks; but when they • have wronged, sacrificed, or betrayed it, it is as natural to 'cover their deeds, as far as they can, with darkness. It is certain, nothing concerns a nation more, than to know its • own treaties, by which it must reap fo much good or evil.

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The pretence of keeping them a secret from foreign nations ' is a jest, after they are made, who will have an hundred ways to know them; and to keep them a secret from the 'nation, who is bound by them, and is to execute them, is ' fomething for which we cannot find a name bad enough in language. What shall we fay of treaties, which would coft ' a nation ten or twelve millions, for purposes which could ' never have brought ten groats to that nation; but, on the 'contrary, very probably, peril? What shall we fay of King Charles the second's treaties with his brother of France, which 'fo aggrandized that haughty monarch, that all Europe could ⚫ not fecure themselves from his ufurpations and designs, but ' at the expence of a war, which has almost bankrupt all Eu

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rope? These blessed treaties, most of them secret ones, have 'coft England, in particular, near an hundred millions of money, too much of it yet unpaid, but hanging, like a terrible cloud, over our heads, and threatening us with ruin. ‹ I hope this dreadful instance, so well known to every body, ' will prove a sufficient example and warning to us.'

In the third and fourth essays he treats briefly of elections; and in the fifth, of offices and corruption. In the latter, he confiders those measures that are necessary for the security of public liberty. With regard to public money, he humbly proposes, that it be strictly appropriated to the uses for which it is given, and that a standing committee be regularly appointed (of which no member to have a place or a pension) to enquire whether it has been disposed of accordingly. In the next place he offers, with all fubmiffion, that it be a capital crime for any person to give to a member of the house of commons, or for any member to receive, any pension, gratuity, or reward, from the crown, or from any person acting under the crown, or the ministry, or employed by them, directly or indirectly, unless the faid person, &c. be entered within so many days in a public office, (there named) to which every person may have resort; or for any perfon to give or take any office or pension in truft for another, or to pay any part of it to another, without entering the fame as before; and every perfon discovering, and making full proof, to have his pardon, and to hold the faid office, so purchased or procured, quamdiu fe bene gefferit. Thirdly, that it be capital for any perion or perfons to take a fum of money, gratuity, or promise, in order to obtain, or to use their interest to obtain, any office or preferment from the crown, or from any officer or minifter acting under it, with a proper reward for difcovery.

The fixth essay is a very spirited and humourous one; the subject of it is practicable men: a fort of Beings, who, like the inferior actors at the play-house, chuse no parts, but take their parts from the managers, and are politicians, officers, fiddlers, orators, poets, and buffoons, at the difcretion and command of their superiors. These practicable men, we are toid, have but one fixed rule of conduct, and that is an im plicit and ready fubmiffion to the word of command, and even to the nod of those who give it. They are bound to like and approve every thing that comes from their directors, or is done by them, and must help in doing it. They must fign a blank to espouse no opinion; but be ready to entertain all, and to oppose all. They must practice contradictions, and find reasons for them and against them, at the word of command. They must facrifice all for hire, their confcience, time, friendship, veracity, health, and all, and yet still remain obliged; and perhaps next day must tread backwards, and facrifice all these against that very thing, for which they facrificed them all the day before.

In his last effay our author briefly touches upon the mischiefs of public prodigality, and the advantages of a frugal administration of the money of a nation. What he says upon this head, he illuftrates by examples, taken from our own history; and shews, throughout the whole, an honest zeal for liberty and public good, and a just indignation against corruption and corrupt magiftrates.

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ART. XIV. A View of Lord Bolingbroke's Philosophy; in four letters to a friend. Letter the fourth and last. 8vo. 2s. Knapton.

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UR author haying, in his last letter, confidered Lord Bolingbroke as a philofopher, ventures now into his lordship's own province, and tries his talents in his political capacity, as an analyser of states, a balancer of power, and a diftributer of civil and religious sanctions. And whereas, in his former letters, he had defended, not this or that body of divines, but the principles of natural and revealed religion, againft his lordship's calumnies, he makes it the whole of his business here to patronize a fingle clergyman; yet not such a one, he tells us, as he could have wished, a Cudworth, a Clarke, a Cum'berland, or a Tillotson; established names, which the public are ready to make their own quarrel; but a writer of very

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* ambiguous fame, the author of, The divine legation of Mofes, • and of, The alliance between church and flate.

Of this author he pretends to know little, but from the talk of his adversaries; for his friends, he says, poffefs him as they do a good confcience, in filence and complacency. There seems to be little reason, however, for charging Mr. Warburton's friends with filence, in regard to his character as a writer; for, not to mention others, who have spoke in very high terms of him, there are two of his friends (Mr. Brown and Mr. Hird) who have been lavish in his praises, and bestowed such encomiums upon him, indeed, as few besides themselves, we apprehend, and perhaps Mr. Warburton himself, think he is altogether entitled to.

It is diverting to observe the manner in which our author talks of Mr. Warburton; for after telling us, that he pretends to know little of him, but from the talk of his adverfaries, he takes care to acquaint us in the fame page, that he has been frequently translated and criticifed, both in Germany and France, and that foreign critics of the greatest name have spoken very highly of him. Notwithstanding this, as he judges of him from the reprefentation of his enemies, he allows him little other claim to literary merit than that very doubtful one, The dunces of all denominations being in confederacy against him. From all this it appears pretty obvious, that our author is to be ranked in the number of Mr. Warburton's warmest friends; indeed he seems to have carefully studied his manner, and to have imbibed his spirit; and tho' he affects to know little of him, but from what his adversaries have faid, yet whoever reads the View of Lord Bolingbroke's philosophy, will eafily perceive, that the author of it, and the author of The divine legation, are intimately acquainted, and pofless one another in great complacency.

Our author informs us, that he could find no other perfon fo proper for the purpose of displaying Lord Bolingbroke's political talents as Mr. Warburton; for tho' his lordship be very profuse in his ill language to all men, who have undertaken the defence of religion and church government, yet the author of The divine legation, he tells us, is the only one whom he does more than abuse on this account. His lordship, it is faid, thought himself personally affronted by Mr. Warburton; an anecdote in relation to which we have, in the conclufion, of the letter now before us, which we shall infert, after giving fome account of what our author has done in this laft part of his work.

He makes it the whole of his business, then, as we have already faid, to patronize Mr. Warburton, and to confider what Lord Bolingbroke has advanced against The divine legation, and The alliance between church and state. To shew his lordship's exploits in antient politics, he begins with The divine legation; gives a summary view of the argument pursued through it; points out his lordship's numerous contradictions and abfurdities, in what he has advanced against the Jewish lawgiver; and confiders particularly what is urged concerning the omiflion of a future state in the Jewish ceconomy. As he proceeds all along upon the principles of The divine legation, which we must suppose the generality of our readers to be acquainted with, there is no occafion for any extracts.

After endeavouring to defend The divine legation, he comes a little nearer to his lordship, and confiders his talents for modern politics. And here he labours to vindicate the principles of The alliance, which the noble author had attempted to over

turn.

The pains his lordship had taken, and the oppofition he had found from the argument of The divine legation, had, by the time he came upon this fecond adventure, so ruffled his manners, and difcomposed his temper, our author says, that he now breaks out in all kinds of opprobrious language, not only against the system, but even against the perfon of the author. To understand the nature of his provocation, if at least it arose from The alliance, he thinks it proper to say a word or two of the occafion of that book, and of the principles on which it is composed: hear what he says.

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• After the many violent convulfions our country had fuffer⚫ed fince the reformation, by the rage of religious parties, (in ' which, at one time liberty of confcience was opprefied, and at another, the established church ruined and overthrown) it pleased Divine Providence to fettle our religious rights on such principles of justice and equity, and to secure the civil peace on fuch maxims of wisdom and true policy, as most • effectually guarded both against the return of their respective • violations: and the means employed by this all-wife Pro' vidence was, the giving, on proper terms of security to the national religion, a free toleration to all who dissented from • the established worship. This seemed to be going as far towards perfection, in religious communion, as the long dif tracted ftate of the Christian church would suffer us to in' dulge our hopes,

But men had not been long in poffeffion of this blessing, before they grew weary of it, and fet on foot many inven tions, to throw us back into our old diforders. For it is to

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