His Lordship juftly confiders thofe fchifmatics, who today hold forth from the pulpit of the Church, and to-morrow perhaps from the tub of the conventicle, as much more dangerous to the establishment than the old Diffenters, fuch as Prefbyterians, Independents, and Anabaptifts, because the ground of the old diffent was diftinctly marked and well known; whilft of thofe modern diffenfions it is not easy to make out any affignable limits. He then traces thofe fanatical preachers, who arrogate to themselves exclufively the title of evangelical minifters, through all their jefuitical tergiverfations; and animadverts with great propriety on fome late attempts to introduce preachers of this stamp as Lecturers into the London Churches. The general con clufion which he draws from all this is, that the times particularly demand from the Clergy firmness and unremitted vigilance, which, as he juftly obferves, may infenfibly accomplish more than the present circumstances may feem to promife. One favourable circumftance, which affords a good foundation for hope, is the fenfe which the ftate at large, and our prefent rulers in particular, have lately displayed of the value of the labours of the established Clergy, by a liberal donation in aid of Queen Anne's bounty for the augmentation of fmall livings. The bishop having fhown, at fome length, the care that has been taken for the equitable diftribution of that bounty, adverts to the general and too well founded complaint of the want of Churches, or of fufficient accommodation in them in proportion to the number. of inhabitants. This he juftly confiders as one caufe, and the principal caufe, of the increafe of fchifmatic meetinghoufes among us; but, "However this be, it is a difgrace to the country that many of its inhabitants fhould have no means of public worship, or be driven to fuch, rather than lofe all public exercife of religion, as neither they themselves, nor the flate for them, approve of. The more fo, fince we fee the meeting-houses and tabernacles of thofe who diffent from us fpring up on every fide, as foon as their congregations are gathered." Then obferving that the preffure of the times may have retarded the building of new Churches, where they are wanted, at the public expence, he adds, with great truth, that where the population is opulent, the burden would be light when divided among the inhabitants. 'E ERIT, CRIT. VOL. XXXVII. JAN. 1811. "In "In the mean time," continues he, "I have even a fplendid example to lay before you in what has lately been done in one of the parishes in this Diocefe, that of Hackney; where, befides the late erection of a spacious new parochial Church, the inhabitants, without any foreign or public aid, of their own free will, and at their own cost, have undertaken to build two new Chapels for the convenience and accommodation of their increafing numbers, and have actually finished one, and have furnished the fame unfparingly with every proper decoration externally and internally, and have provided a permanent endowment for the Minifter *." The laft thing on which, in this valuable Charge, the Bishop animadverts with becoming feverity, is the practice, too prevalent among the Clergy in London and its fuburbs, of having recourfe to Regifter Offices, as they are called, for the occafional fupply of duty. "Confidered in itself, it is furely difgraceful, that a Clergyman fhould fend into his Church, to adminifter any one of the facred offices given to him in charge, a perfon, of whose character he has no knowledge, nor any proper recommendation; he cannot tell to what unhallowed hands he may commit them.- -He can have no means of ascertaining whether the perfon hired be fit to officiate, or even whether he be in facred orders; of a defect in which qualification, I am told, there are frequent examples; fo that the very validity of the fervices fo adminiftered becomes queftionable." These are falutary obfervations, and fuch as would have been made on the fame fubject by Sherlock and Gibson, when Bishops of London. Indeed the whole Charge is worthy of its author's talents and ftation, and deferves to be read by every parochial Clergyman of the United Church of England and Ireland. * For this permanent endowment, the congregation which affemble in the Chapel at Hackney is chiefly indebted to the munificence of an individual, well known to us; but as his name is not mentioned by his Diocesan, we likewife forbear to men. tion it : "Who builds a Church to God, and not to fame, and yet it is a pity that the name of this respectable man is not made public, for the general benefit which might refult from the example. Rev. ART. ART. VII. An Analytical Abridgement of Locke's Efay concerning Human Understanding. 12mo. 307 pp. 5s. 6d. Lunn, London; Barrett, Cambridge; and Blifs, Oxford. 1808. ART. VIII. An Analysis of Mr. Locke's Effay concerning Human Understanding. By Edward Oliver, D.D. Formerly Fellow of Sydney Suffex College, in Cambridge. 4to. 49 pp. Rivingtons. WE E clafs these two works together, becaufe, though the nature of the one is very different from that of the other, the object of both is the fame. That object is to facilitate the understanding of Locke's celebrated Effay, which, both authors inform us, has always been regarded as a ftanding book of liberal education, particularly in the University of Cambridge, where a thorough knowledge of it is confidered as among the indifpenfable requifites for attaining the first degree in arts. Both authors profefs the moft unbounded veneration for Locke; and the Abridger seems even to unite with Horne Tooke, whom he calls the moft diftinguished philofopher of the age! in " reverencing him on this fide of idolatry." Yet this femi-idolator confeffes, that Locke's style and method are not faultless. "In proportion," he fays, " to the intrinfic value of a work, it is to be regretted that it fhould lie under any dif advantages from its ftyle or method; and it is hard to fay, whether an obfcure brevity or a tedious prolixity tends more to discourage the reader; for as the firft requires amplification by commentary, the fecond requires condenfation by analyfis. But an author may obfcure his thoughts as much by too diffuse as by too concise a ftyle; and if the fubject is new or difficult, may not perceive that he fometimes labours rather to exprefs himfelf than to imprefs the reader, and to compenfate for the feebleness by the frequency of his efforts: hence the reader is apt to become tired before the writer becomes intelligible. "Whoever reads the Effay with attention, will probably confefs himself fatiated with explanations and recapitulations, which for the most part are only repetitions in other terms. There feems, indeed, now to be but one opinion as to its merits and its faults; and perhaps no book is at the fame time fo much praifed and fo little read; for while the fubject invites all, the treatment of it repels moft. On its firft publication it laboured under the merits of the matter; it now labours under the faults of the flyle: it was then decried as novel and dangerous; it is now neglected as tedious and inmethodical," Abridgement, Pref. Dr. Oliver makes nearly the fame complaint of the dif fufe ftyle of the Effay, and of the interruptions and repetitions, by which its readers are apt to be difgufted; and it is to remedy these defects in fiyle and method that the two works before us have been given to the public. For this purpofe Dr. Oliver has made a moft fcientific analysis of the Effay, in the form of an Index; flating the order in which every fubject, difcuffed in that work, fhould be fludied, and pointing to the chapters in the original, which, if read with attention, may fuperfede the neceffity of reading other chapters, in which the fame difcuffions occur again in words fomewhat different. He has omitted the difcuffion, which makes the fubject of the first book of the Effay, altogether, "because the old doctrine of innate ideas and principles is now generally given up." This omiffion we think very improper; for though the old doctrine is given up by the difciples of Locke, it can with no propriety be faid to be either given up or retained by those who have not ftudied the queflion. It is likewife known, we fhould think to Dr. Oliver himself, that there are philofophers of defervedly high reputation, who, though they give up the old doctrine of innate idea of fenfation, yet maintain the doctrine of innate or inftinctive moral principles. Such were Shaftsbury and Hutchinfon with their followers; fuch was Dr. Beattic, whofe reputation as a philofopher and a poet was once very high; fuch was the late Lord Kames, a man certainly of refpectible talents; and fuch, to a certain degree and in a certain fenfe, was Dr. Reid, unqueftionably one of the profoundell metaphyficians of the age in which he lived. The anonymous author has purfued a very different method from that of Dr. Oliver. In the hope of extending the benefits of fo excellent a work as the Effay concerning Human Underflanding, he has ventured to offer to the ftudent of philofophy, not an analytical index to the original, but this epitome, in which he fays, that "He has endeavoured to give the fpirit, without fervilely copying the words of the original, and to comprife every fentiment of his author's, however inconfiftent it might feem with the tenor of the work, or however abfurd in fifelf. His purpofe has been to retain all that a judicious reader would wish to remember; reftricted however by the confideration, that he was not to curtail, but merely to comprefs the matter of the original, without without altering its arrangement. Where any paffage appeared too remarkable for thought or expreffion to fuffer abridgement, he has marked its infertion by inverted commas." Abridg. Pref. Each author feems to have performed with great accuracy the talk which he undertook. The analytical index of Dr. Oliver must prove a very ufeful key to the original Effay; and the Abridgement is a faithful fummary of the doctrines taught in that original. Were we called upon to fay which of the two works is the more valuable, we should, with fome hesitation, give the preference to the Abridgement; because a youth of good parts might by it alone be initiated into the fcience of metaphyfics, which he could not be by a mere index, however fcientifically conftructed. Neither of the works, indeed, is either intended by its author, or calculated in itself, to fuperfede the neceflity of ftudying the original. Dr. Oliver's is in fact nothing more than a feries of directions how to ftudy that original with the greatest advantage, and at the fame time with the leaft poffible fatigue to the mind. The anonymous author declares (Pref.) that it is not the purpose of his "Abridgement to fuperfede, but to recommend and promote the ftudy of the original; and to enable the reader to compre hend its fcope, by compacting thofe thoughts which lie fcattered and disjoined, and drawing forth thofe which lie hid in a thicket of words." As thefe two works do not fuperfede the ufe of the original, neither of them is of fuch a nature as to render the other useless. In the Abridgement, though generally very perfpicuous, the matter is fometimes too much com preffed to be readily apprehended by the young ftudent; and when that is the cafe, Dr. Oliver's Analyfis will direct him where to find it more fully detailed by Locke himself, without toiling through all the verbofity and repetition of the original. Or thould he begin with the ftudy of the original under the guidance of Dr. Oliver, a fubfequent perufal of the Abridgement will fix in his mind every thing of importance which he has learned from that work. As neither Dr. Oliver nor the anonymous author controvert any of Locke's opinions, we have no further concern with them than to flate the object of each, and to bear our teftimony to their fidelity; for the merits of Locke's Effay do not come directly under our cognizance. |