THE MONTHLY REVIEW, For MAY, 1766. The Confeffional; or, a full and free Enquiry into the Right, Utility, Edification and Success, of establishing Syftematical confeffions of Faith and Doctrine in Proteftant Churches. 8vo. 5s. Bladon. WHATEVER opinion may be entertained, or notice taken, of this work, by thofe whom it principally concerns to give it an attentive and ferious perufal, it will be read with pleasure, we are perfuaded, and with approbation, by every confiftent protestant, by every friend to civil and religious liberty. The great point our Author has in view, and for which he is an able and zealous advocate, is the reformation of our ecclefiaftical conftitution; a point in which the honour of Chriftianity, the interefts of religion, and the credit of the church of England, are intimately concerned. He does not seem to flatter himfelf, however, that any fteps towards a reformation will be taken by the prefent dignitaries of our church ;--and, poffibly, fome will fay they are in the right; that they are wife and difcreet men ;-Men well acquainted with the genius and temper of the times in which they live; and who, from the heights of their elevated stations, are enabled to take extensive views of things, and to perceive the dangerous tendency of thofe romantic schemes of reformation, which vifionary mortals, who know little of the world, are apt to entertain.'-The dangerous tendency, indeed, of every step towards the reformation of our eftablished church, hath often been urged; but for our parts, we cannot fee what it is that men are afraid of. It hath, indeed, been infinuated, that the dignified clergy are apprehensive, tha thould a farther reformation take place, it might poffibly extend too far, and affect their temporalities. But fuch an infinuation, we verily believe to be highly injurious to the general VOL. XXXIV. Z character character of our clergy: who, for candour of difpofition nerofity of fentiment, good fenfe, and manly spirit,, are be exceeded by any fet of ecclefiaftics in the world. then fhall we look for the true cause of their backwardr fecond the laudable motion made, a few years ago, by the l and worthy Authors of the Free and Candid Difquifitions Let us try whether we can difcover it, by the light held in the excellent performance before us. The author introduces his work with a long preface, is both entertaining and inftru&tive. The author following performance, fays he, freely confeffes himself one of thofe, who, in common with an eminent p "have been feized with that epidemical malady of idle a fionary men, the projecting to reform the public." Nor he have any reafon to be ashamed of clafling with so c cuous a character, were it not that he hath unhappily ta antipathy to that courfe of medicine, to which fo many of the fraternity owe the recovery of their health and fenf is ftill, alas! labouring to bring his project to bear, even all the world about him, is exclaiming at the folly of one who is engaged in fo defperate an enterprize. The honest truth is, he thinks the remedy worfe th difeafe; having feldom obferved any one of thefe patient fectly cured, but by the application of a charm, which operates in the other extreme; and, in the fhape of politic tacles, reprefents the public as too good to need reformat fort of vision which, of course, ends in a perfect conformit principles and manners in fashion, and not seldom pu restored fanatic in a hopeful way of recovering with adva whatever he was in danger of lofing, by perfisting former réverie. Our fage advisers will no doubt fuggeft that there is a way between the two extremes; and that a man of pr and probity, having tried his talent at reforming, with cefs, may well fit down contented, enjoy his own opinio practise his own virtue in fome corner out of the way of tation, and, for the reft, leave others, who are willing the public as they find it, to make their beft of it. To this fober counfel, I, for my own part, fhould ha lefs objection, could I be fatisfied, that a neutral charac matters concerning public reformation, where talen vouchfafed, though ever fo fparingly, were to be juftified particularly where, as in this country, every man may, decent restrictions, publish, as well as enjoy, his own opi There are certain provinces and stations, where, if th lic really w to be reformed, they who occupy them be at fo ftifling their own convictions, befor can lie down peaceably in the repofe of a neutrality. To many of these provinces belong confiderable degrees of influence and authority, fufficient to give weight and fuccefs to feasonable and fpirited remonftrances. And they who are in the lowest ftations of watchmen and labourers, may bear their teftimony, perhaps with more advantage than may be apprehended by thofe who confider not, from whom we are to look for the increafe of what is planted or watered by any hand. And wherever the obligation exifts, 1 fhould think it can hardly be removed out of view, without opening the prospect of fome difcomfort, at that awful period when every man's final account fhall be called for. But indeed, indolent neutrality is not a common, and hardly a poffible effect of the cure performed upon idle and visionary reformers of the public. Idlenefs, in the proper fenfe of the term, is not their failing. They are commonly perfons of active and lively fpirits, who are not eafy under want of employment. Their inexperience leads them into fanguine hapes, that fame, honours, and rewards must crown their labours. It is inconceivable to them, that where the public is fo grofsly and notoriously wrong, it should not acknowledge its obligations to those who intereft themselves to fet it right, by the moft fubftantial inftances of its gratitude. And this is the idle part of the character, in the figurative fenfe. - But when the aftonished vifionary finds his mistake, and perceives that public error of the most palpable kind, has its champions ready armed at all points, and prepared to dispute every inch of ground with him, that nothing would be got by the unequal conflict but difgrace, contempt, and poverty; human nature, and an impatience to be figuring with eclat, commonly bring him over, without much hefitation, to the furer fide; where he fets himself to act the part of a true profelyte, that is to fay, to reform backwards, with a violence and precipitation proportioned to the fufpicions his new allies might entertain of his hankering after his old deviations, fhould he not give the moft (pirited proofs of his effectual converfion. Were not the fubject of too serious a nature, (for the particulars above are to be understood of reformation and reformers of religious matters) and were not the Dramatis perfonæ of too folemn a caft to be exhibited in Comedy, one might give very diverting inftances of this kind of frailty, in more than one of thofe who have affected, with a kind of philofophical grimace, to ridicule their own former conduct as idle and visionary, bus alfo, to fill up the meafure of their merit with their party, have been the forwardest to expofe, reprobate, and to the utmost of their goodwill, perfecute those who perfift in this epide mical folly. Z 2 The perffers indeed are but few; and no wonder. their difcouragements confidered, they may be faid, like ham, against hope, to believe in hope. In the first ranks of adverfaries appear thote who enjoy plentiful emolument the nature and conftruction of the establishment, who are the concerned to defend every thing belonging to it, not bec is true, or reafonable, or righteous in itfelf, or with refpect defign of the Gofpel, but because it is established. With of this complexion, arguments drawn from reafon, from ture, from the most notorious facts, are of no force. particular anfwers fail them, they have genera! ones at which do their business effectually. Public authority poffeffion, the concurrence of the majority, the danger lic peace from attempts to innovate, &c. &c. &c. have formidable appearance, even in the eyes of fome of the w friends of Reformation, that they will often fhudder atmerity of their own champions, when they confider with and with what they are to engage, and (fuch are the ef this kind of intimidation) will fupprefs their own fpecul to avoid fufpicions of being connected with a set of men, the nature and tenor of fuch anfwers, go near to fig with fomething more heinous than faction and fedition. This whole cafe with its feveral appendages, is fet f Mr. Bayle in fo mafterly a manner, that our Author can fift the temptation of giving his Readers a pretty long from him: this gives him an opportunity of making very pertinent reflections arifing from the cafe as ftated by compared with the conduct of the Anti-reformers in o country. The weakness of the few anfwers that have been ma he, to the important remonstrances of ferious and judicio on the article of a farther reformation, and the fupercilio tempt with which the most refpectful, as well as the mo fonable of them have been paffed by, muft detract fon from the estimation of thofe whom the thinking part o kind will fuppofe to be chiefly concerned to take no them. It will look like a combination to adhere to th blifhed fyftem, for fome political purposes not fit ewned; while no follicitude is perceived to relieve th Ronable fcruples of confcientious diffenters, or to confult neceffities of our own people by fubftituting, in the r bikneved, and not always juftifyable forms, more intel. as well as more animating methods of public worship, an hedication. to be plainer ftill, this temper and conduct in a many of whom make it appear, on other occafions want neither learning nor capacity to form an a jud judgment on fo interesting a case, will hardly allow us to think them in carneft in their weekly exhortations to chriftian piety and virtue, or the zeal they occafionally.exprefs for the proteftant religion and government. Their doctrine, contrafted by their practice, will look to the difcerning part of the public, as if nothing was meant by these terms, in their mouths, but mere conformity to an ecclefiaftical establishment, and a refolution to fupport and defend that at all events, with, or without reafon. But if ever the mask should fall off in fome future skirmish, (the probable and frequent effect of a rivalfhip for temporal honours and emoluments) and one of the parties fhould be reduced to the neceflity of leaning upon the friends of reformation, by way of balance to the other; 'tis then that the labours of thefe idle and visionary men may come to have their weight, and fome of thofe, at leaft, who are now pining away in a defponding obfcurity, under the frowns of their difobliged fuperiors, may poffibly live to fee the way they have been preparing, gradually opening to the accomplishment of what all well informed Chriftians and confiftent Proteftants have been fo long and fo ardently wishing for in vain. But let this happen when it will, the church will not get half fo much credit by a reformation into which fhe is compelled by an unwelcome neceffity, as would attend her undertaking it freely and of her own bounty.' Our very fenfible Author now proceeds to give his Reader a curfory view of the steps taken, by authority, to reform the church of England, after the fettlement of it by Queen Elizabeth's act of uniformity, with fome very pertinent remarks upon them. He goes on in the next place, to confider one interefting circumstance in our prefent establishment, which has not a little employed the fpeculations of men of the firft abilities of all parties, viz. the facramental teft, enjoined as a qualification for holding civil offices: and here the Reader will find fome very acute and judicious obfervations upon the Alliance between Church and State. After this he proceeds as follows. It may now perhaps be expected that I fhould give some account of a publication, which has in it fo very little of the complexion of the times, and which appears at a feafon, where there is but little profpect of engaging the attention of the public to fubjects of this nature and tendency. The Reader will perceive, that fome part of thefe papers were written at times very diftant from others, and not in the fame order in which they now appear. Perfons and facts are mentioned or alluded to, which, when they were noticed, were fill upon the stage, but have now many of them disappeared; Ꮓ 3 nor |