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mas were added against the adversaries of that doctrine: however, twenty-two or twenty-three prelates refused their assent to this canon. Mod. Un. Hist. vol. xxvi. p. 349.

The Cardinal of Lorrain, on the 10th of May, 1563, in a general congregation held at Trent, presented a letter from his niece, MARY, queen of Scotland, by which she declared that she would submit to the council; and promised, that, if she should ever succeed to the crown of England, she would subject both kingdoms to the authority of the Roman see. Mod. Un. Hist. vol.xxvi. p. 354.

There are three things to be considered wherever a sum of MONEY is mentioned in antient times: first, the change of denomination, by which a pound has been reduced to the third part of its antient weight in silver; secondly, the change in value by the greater plenty of money, which has reduced the same weight of silver to ten times less value compared to commodities, and, consequently, a pound sterling to the thirtieth part of the antient value; thirdly, the fewer people and less industry. Allowing, then, that England has now six times more industry and three times more people than it had at the conquest, and for some reigns after that period, we are, upon that supposition, to conceive, taking all circumstances together, every sum of money mentioned by historians as if it were multiplied more than a hundred fold above a sum of the same denomination at present. Hume's Hist. append. i.

How long a time MIRACLES continued in the church is a question that cannot easily and needs not critically be determined. Thus much, however, the nature of the thing itself will suggest; that, as miracles were conferred in order to evince the truth of the Gospel and to promote its reception at its first setting out, so were they continued for as long a time as it stood in need of such credentials. When the prejudices of mankind began to abate, these extraordinary manifestations, which were designed to conquer them, we may well suppose, abated likewise, and at length totally ceased when Christianity was thoroughly established; miracles were then of no farther use. Owen's Serm. vol. ii. p. 273.

Henry VIII. at different times, suppressed 646 MONASTERIES, of which 28 had abbots that enjoyed a seat in parliament. Ninety colleges were demolished in several counties, 2,374 chantries and free chapels, and 110 hospitals. The whole revenue of these establishments amounted to £161,100. It is worthy of observation, that all the lands, and possessions, and revenue, of England had, a little before this period, been rated at £4,000,000 a year, so that the revenues of the monks, even comprehending the lesser monasteries, did not exceed the twentieth part of the national income, a sum vastly inferior to what is commonly apprehended. The lands belonging to the

convents

convents were usually let at very low rent, and the farmers, who regarded themselves: as a species of proprietors, took always care to renew their leases before they expired. Hume's Hist. vol iv. p. 182.

A statute was passed, in the reign of Henry VIII. 'to fix the price of MEAT, beef, pork, mutton, and veal.. Beef and pork were ordered to be sold at a halfpenny a^ pound, mutton and veal at a halfpenny half a farthing, money of that age. The preamble of the statute says, that these four species of butcher's meat were the food of the poorer sort. Hume's Hist. vol. iv. p. 277..

How much better did the poor live then than they do now; and how much stronger must the principles of religion act upon men's minds now than they did then, if another observation respecting robberies be true, for which see the letter R. .

Upon the MARRIAGE of the clergy, Courayer, in his notes upon the ninth book of Sleidan, remarks thus: "Quoique le mariage des prêtres n'ait rien en soi de criminel. ni d'illégitime, et qu'il ait même eu lieu dans les premiers tems de l'église, on ne peut désavouée néanmoins qu'il n'entraine après soi plusieurs inconvéniens dans l'exercice des fonctions ecclésiastiques. La nécessité de vaquer à des soins domestiques, et de: pourvoir à l'éducation et à l'établissement d'une famille; l'impossibilité de se soustraire autant qu'il conviendroit à l'embarras des intérêts seculiers; les scandales qui arrivent quelquefois par les fautes d'une femme et des enfans; la nécessité ou l'on se trouve reduit de solliciter des avancemens, ou d'accumuler, contre les règles de l'église, bénéfice sur bénéfice; ou pour soutenir une famille pauvre et nombreuse, ou pour fournir à la vanité et au luxe d'une plus riche; sont autant de suites presqu'infaillibles du ma-. riage, et qui ne servent qu'à distraire les ecclésiastiques de leurs fonctions, qu'à dimi-nuer le respect dû a leur ministère, et qu'à discréditer les ministres, lorsqu'on les voit sujets aux mêmes passions que les seculiers, et que même ils paroissent plus mondaines parcequ'on s'attend à les trouver plus spirituels. Le milieu qui propose François I. qui étoit, non qu'on interdit le mariage aux ecclésiastiques, mais que s'ils ne pou-voient s'en abstenir, on les exclut de l'exercice du ministère ecclésiastique, tient une sorte de milieu entre les deux extrêmes, et par là paroissoit a ce prince préférable à tout autre."

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Marriage not to be forbidden priests proved from the great evils which ensued from the imposition of celibate on the clergy. For a remedy to which, in the time of Pope Pius II, dispensations for concubinate became so common, that, instead of giving scandal by them, they were rather considered as the characters of modesty and temperance. Burnet on. Article 32,

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Confusion of progeny constitutes the essence of adultery; and, therefore, a woman: who breaks her marriage Now is much more criminal than a man who does it. A nian,: to be sure, is criminal in the sight of God, but he does not do his wife a very inaterial injury,

injury, if he does not insult her; if, for instance, from mere wantonness of appetite, he steals privately to his chamber-maid, sir, a wife ought not greatly to resent this, Boswell's Life of Johnson, vol, i. p. 302.

Such morality as this does not become a strict professor of Christianity. See, also, vol.ii. p. 302.

Let any man but weigh impartially how much it conduces to the felicity of human bife that this institution, both with respect to a single and indissoluble marriage, should be observed, he will need no farther arguments to convince him. Nothing, certainly? can equally contribute to that entire friendship and confidence which ought to be between a man and his wife, and the comfort and satisfaction that follows thence; nothing so much to the careful and wise education of their offspring; nothing so much to the peace and good order of the whole family; and, consequently, nothing so much to the welfare of the public, which is begun in and founded upon that of each family in particular. Bradford's Boyle's Lect.

The marriage-union was at first a religious institution, as is expressly declared by our blessed Saviour, who informs us, that, immediately after the creation of Eve out of the rib of Adam, God himself acted as the priest, and said, i. e. God said, " Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they two shall be one flesh." Polygamy, then, and divorce were prohibited from the very beginning, as is clear from the conclusion of Christ himself: "What, therefore, God hath joined together let no man put asunder," Matt. xix. 6, but in the case of adultery, which dissolves the marriage-tie: see v. 9. But, supposing the former words to be spoken either by Adum or by Moses, as Lucas Brugensis has observed, "Certe hoc dipinitus inspiratum fuit." See Poole.

The MOSAIC CONSTITUTION, which was introduced with a glorious triumph over doi-deities even in Egypt, the principal seat of Idolatry, and was attended with such circumstances as were peculiarly fitted to awaken and engage the attention of mankind, was designed as a farther preservative against the spreading Idolatry. The people, among whom this constitution and polity were erected, were not placed in a remote aud obscure corner of the earth, but in such a situation as was admirably fitted for diffusing the knowledge of their religion and laws. They were placed in the centre of the then known world; between Egypt and Arabia on the one hand, and Syria, Chaldea, and Assyria, on the other, among whom the first great kingdoms were erected, and whence knowledge and learning seems to have been derived to the western nations. And they were also in the neighbourhood of Sidon and Tyre, the greatest emporiums in the world, whence ships went to all parts, and who planted colonies in the most distant parts. And their peculiar polity, together with the extraordinary acts of the divine Providence towards them, had a natural tendency to put the neighbouring people upon making an inquiry into their religion and laws. And that this was really

E e

part

part of the design which the divine wisdom had in view, in his dispensations towards
the people of Israel, appeareth from several express passages of Scripture. Vide
Exod. vii. 15; ix. 16; xiv. 4. Num. xiv. 13, 14, 21. Deut. iv. 6. 1 Kings, viii. 41,
&c. Ps. xxi. 27; lxvii. 23; lxviii. 29, 31, 32. Leland's Christian Revelation, 4to,
vol. i. p. 437.
And a considerable part of the heathen world had opportunities, by means of the
Jews dispersed among them, of attaining to the knowledge and worship of the one
true God, and discovering the error and vanity of their Idolatry and polytheism.
And that many were by this means brought over from their Idolatries we have good
reason to believe, both from several passages in Josephus and from the number of
devout Gentiles in many cities of note when Christianity was first published, of which
we have an account in the acts of the apostles. Idem, p. 448. See letter L.

Du milieu de la superstition, qui couvroit alors la face entière de la terre, Moyse s'élève et prêche le Théisme le plus pur. - Est-ce là un philosophe qui ait trouvé, par la force de son génie, les grandes choses qu'il annonce? Il n'y eût jamais d'argument dans ses expositions. Est-ce un homme qui veuille se distinguer parmi ses compatriotes, soulever une nation, afin de s'en faire le chef et de regner sur elle? On connoit les menées de tels hommes, et il n'y eut jamais de menées dans la conduite de Moyse. Est-ce un enthousiaste, dont l'imagination échauffée ait créé des fantômes, et qui se croye tenu de les faire recevoir par ses contemporains? Mais aucun homme de cette classe ne trouva jamais ces vérités que la froide philosophie, avec ses longs travaux, a eu tant de peine à découvrir; et un enthousiaste, dont l'imagination ardente ne sauroit marcher à pas comprés, ne fit jamais ni généalogie ni chronologie. Enfin, est-ce un homme, qui, par des caresses étudiées, cherche à se concilier l'attachement d'un peuple, pourqu'au défaut des forces qui lui manquent il puisse le mener par le cœur? Mais il reprimande sevèrement ce peuple, il le punit même, quand il montre l'ingratitude, ou du penchant pour ses anciennes erreurs. Quelles sont donc les routes de persuasion qu'employe Moyse? Son histoire nous le dit, et n'en manifeste aucune autre. Il prouve sa mission par des miracles, et toute la reste de sa conduite 'n'est que bonté, sacrifice de lui-même, confiance dans sa mission et dans les vérités qu'il an

Avec ces moyens seuls, et sans secours étranger, il tire de captivité la nation à laquelle il est chargé de porter la parole; il lui fait quitter les dieux faux, et il la conduit près du pays qui lui est assigné par la Providence. Lettres Morales et Physiques par J. A. de Luc, tome v. partie 2e, adressées à la Reine de la Grande Bretagne, 1779.

That which at present goes under the name of METHODISM was, in the times of our forefathers, called puritanism. In its first appearance it occasionally put on the same meek exterior we see it wear at present. During the firm government of Elisabeth it disguised, and but barely disguised, its native ferocity in a forced and feigned

submission.

t

submission, But, in the weak and distracted times of Charles I. it ventured to throw off the mask; and, under the name of independency, became the chief instrument of all the dreadful disorders of that unhappy reign. Warburton's sixth Sermon, vol. i. Whoever reads the large accounts of the spiritual state of the regicides under condemnation, written by their friends, and compares them with the journals of the methodists, will find so exact a conformity in the wildness of their sentiments, and cant of expression upon faith, grace, regeneration, &c. as may satisfy him that they both came from one common stock. Time makes them differ in this only, that the metho dists are apostolical independents, and the independents were mahometan methodists. Idem.

The wit of man cannot, perhaps, devise a method for checking the progress of industry and population, in a new colony, more effectual than this of a MONOPOLY. The interest of the colony and the exclusive company must in every point be diametrically opposite; and, as the latter possesses such advantages in this unequal contest that it can prescribe at pleasure the terms of intercourse, the former must not only buy dear and sell cheap, but suffer the mortification of having the increase of their surplus-stock discouraged by those very persons to whom alone they are permitted to dispose of it. With the same vigilant jealousy that an exclusive company guards against the intrusion of the free trader, those overgrown monopolists endeavour to check the progress of every one whose encroachments they dread. A monopolist may acquire more, and will certainly hazard less, by a confined trade which yields exorbitant profit, than by an extensive commerce in which he receives only a moderate return of gain. Robertson's Hist. of America, vol. ii. p. 400, 403, 404.

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If these bad consequences attend the monopoly of the luxuries of life, how fatal must they be when they extend to the very necessaries of it, as corn, &c.

Anno 351 ab U. C. M. Camillus et M. Posthumius censores edicto Romanos coegere ad MATRIMONIUM mulctamque iis imposuere, qui cælibes ad senectutem pervenissent.

Voss. Univ. Hist.

A useful law in every state, and to this purpose Metellus Numidicus, anno urbis 652, habuit nobilem orationem illam, quâ castigat cives, in libidinem vagam diffusos, atque ad uxorem ducendam, certâque prole augendam remp. adhortatur; tantique habebatur ut etiam Augustus Cæsar in senatu recitaret. Voss. Univ. Hist.

MAHOMET anno Christi 611 et decennio proximo dogma suum spargit. Æra Mahumetica, quæ Hegira vocatur, initium sumit anno Christi 623. Idem.

The MYSTERIES and difficulties of the Gospel can be no real objection to any man that considers. what mysteries occur, and what insuperable objections may be started, Ee 2

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