Mafter, whofe eyes are too pure to bear the fight of evil. Vol. I. p. 65. This, however, is more, we apprehend, than the author had fhown, or could fhow. The acknowledgement of any perfections in the Divine nature, and confequently of the exiftence of a good principle and of a Providence, implies a power of moral difcrimination already exifting in the human mind. This moral faculty cannot therefore be faid to be founded upon our knowledge of the perfections of a God. On the contrary, it is only by attending to our own moral perceptions that we can form a conception of what the Divine attributes are; and nothing is more plain, than that, without fuch a power in ourfelves, we could not diftinguifh perfection from imperfection. We willingly_admit, indeed, that our belief in a God, in a fuperintending Providence, and in the other falutary doctrines inculcated by fcripture, or fuggefted by reafon, yields confiftency and great additional ftrength to our moral perceptions; but it cannot be urged that these perceptions are founded upon that belief. Although external objects exift independently of our fenfes, yet, without thefe fenfes, they would have no existence for our minds. M. Necker proceeds to one of the most important of all doctrines, the immortality of the human foul. He divides his proofs into two heads: 1. Those which arise from the perfections of the Divine Being; and, 2. Those which refer to the nature of the foul itfelf (vol. I. p. 97.) Neither of these is fyftematically followed out, nor indeed illustrated by any reasoning which deferves attention. He feems, however, to have forgotten this twofold divifion in p. 120, where we find him faying The nature of our mind (efprit), the mystery of our conscience, the involuntary homage we pay to moral ideas, the frequent oppreffion and mifery of good men, and, above all, the goodness, wifdom, and infinite power of the Supreme Being; these are the confiderations which fupport our hope in the precious doctrine of the immortality of the foul. Vol. I. p. 97. The arguments deducible from the nature of the mind itself, are not stated by our author in any order, or urged with any ingenuity. There is no topic, indeed, upon which he appears to lefs advantage, although it seems to have been his favourite fpeculation. Instead of dwelling upon our natural defire of immortality, the feelings of remorfe, the progreffive improvement of our faculties, or the analogy of the material world, M. Necker confines himself, in a great meafure, to the negative argument derived from the immateriality of the foul, and ment, which is of fo fingular a nature tha er arguibefore fore our readers in M. Necker's own words. He very properly calls it new, and announces it in this elegant fentence: Meanwhile, it is our duty to present you with a new motive of hope. We ftill fearch for it, and we ftill find it in ourselves, in this fublime nature, where so many phænomena are reunited, and where we diftinguish the impreffion of the Divine feal, better than in any other of its (nature's) magnificent conceptions.--We love !—we know,—we defire to love!' Vol. 1. 120. He goes on in this rapturous ftrain for a very long while, and ufes many high-founding fentences to fhew that the power of loving is a pledge and proof of immortality. Then he aiks, Is not this fentiment, which tranfports us into a beloved object, and which places in it all our interefts; is it not the image of a fecond life? Is it not the fymbol of our continuity with a new effence?' Vol. I. p. 122. This argument is certainly entitled to the praife of novelty. We cannot eafily determine, indeed, whether it has been exceeded, in point of puerility, by any former argument on a serious fubject. But it is not only to thofe who have had lawful opportunities of loving in this world, that the benefits of this new argument are to be extended. The humane preacher is pleased, very politely, to affure old bachelors and old maids, that they too fhall have their fhare in it. Ah! Ye alfo have fimilar vows to make: ye tender friends, loving fouls, and who have never been able to find on earth an affociate, worthy of the delicacy of your fentiments, confole yourselves; live in hope; there will be for you a futurity, in which the perfection of your nature fhall find its counterpart.' Vol. I. p. 126. If we turn from the author's reafoning to his style, we shall find that they are both equally defultory and unfuitable to the purposes of grave and manly inftruction. In the beginning of a fermon upon Death, for inftance, we have a fpecimen of his manner of introducing himfelf to his audience. Death! Death! What a name I am pronouncing! Death! All flies, all difappears before it. What a difimal and terrible image am I about to offer to your thoughts! The fpring has painted our fields, the earth is adorned with new fplendour, the flowers, the plants, the bushes, our gardens, our meadows, all is animated; all is embellished ! Death! and shall you,' &c. Vol. III. p. 152.. What shall we fay of this introduction to a ferious fermon upon Death, by an aged philofopher and man of the world? One would almost be tempted to reply to the boyish preacher, in the language of Malherbe, La • La Mort a des rigueurs à nulle autre pareilles ; La cruelle qu'elle eft, fe bouche les oreilles, Et nous laiffe crier. ' In truth, the greater part of the difcourfes, we are afraid, will be deemed, by fevere critics, mere common-place fermons; remarkable for nothing but an unusual quantity of truifms, filly exclamations, barren thoughts, entangled with metaphyfical fophiftries, and hyperbolical phrafes, beyond even the prefent puerile ftyle of French declamation. It is unpleafant to dwell on the omiffions or absurdities of a well-difpofed man; and more particularly in cafes where he profelles to promote the caufe of good order, religion and morality: but it is a duty to refcue that venerable caufe out of the hands of unfkilful advocates, and to point out to others the untenable poft in which they were defeated: Quid enim tam neceffarium quam tenere femper arma, quibus vel tectus ipfe effe poffis, vel provocare integros, vel te ulcifci laceffitus? Whether men contend with the weapons of argument or of steel, judgement and arrangement are equally indifpenfable; and in both cafes it may be truly said, that an open enemy is lefs to be dreaded, while ftanding in the hoftile ranks, than a cowardly or undifciplined friend in our own. Necker, by his injudicious difputations, has expofed to the scorn of every fneerer, his arguments from reafon, on the very important doctrines of The Existence of a God;'The Foundation of Morals; and the Immortality of the Human Soul.' We do not know that religion could have been more injured, by a direct attack upon the evidences of revelation. While, however, we regret that M. Necker fhould have wafted fo much of his time in writing fermons; and while we condemn his declamatory ftyle, and reprobate his unphilofophical reafonings, we acknowledge, with pleasure, that fome detached paffages have renewed our old feelings for the boneft man, and the man of virtue and genius. If his fentiments are not always expreffed with the precifion, arrangement, and accuracy, which we might expect from a regularly trained preacher, or even from an accomplifhed financier and statesman, like Necker; yet they are always amiable and humane. Humanity is the characteristic of his writings; and it is impreffed on all the fermons contained in these volumes. The eloquence and fpirit of the following paffage claim our refpect. They, (the violent revolutionists of France,) they have made of merit a fubject of profcription; of the laws, an inftrument of hatred; * Vide Gibbon' AS. 4to. Vol. I. p. 213. 222. of of Equality, a preparation for tyranny; of the word Liberty, the badge of flavery of maxims of morality, a language of hypocrify; of religion, an infult to the Supreme Being; and of the pureft blood, the mot execrable orgies. Political paflions, how terrible ye are! Nothing retrains you; nothing retards your impetuofity; and you reckon the lives of men but a trifling facrifice for the object which you wish to attain. Liften to thofe orators, who, with hands recking in blood, would infpire a whole nation with their own deftroying fury! One faid, we cannot offer too many victims to Liberty; another faid, too many cannot be facrificed to Equality; another, to the principles of the rights of man; another, to the myftic dogma of the fovereignty of the people: and, finally, another profeffing, from lips foaming with rage, the love with which he feels himfelf inflamed for pofterity, will facrifice to this pretended love, to this hypocritical fentiment, every individual of his contemporaries.' Vol. I. p. 138. Nor is it merely in fuch defcriptions, and in the reprobation of revolutionary and political violence, quorum pars magna fuit,' that M. Necker is lively and interefting. There is fomething very touching in the following defcription of the concluding scene of a young foldier's life: Alas, had you feen thofe young men, ye tender fathers, ye affectionate mothers! Behold your fons thrown down, and lying trampled in the duft by the hoofs of their comrades' horfes: left bleeding amidft furious fquadrons, who pay no attention to their groans: carried at laft to hofpitals, where the numbers of the wounded render affiftance impracticable; where novices in furgery ferve the apprenticeship of their art, amidst hurry and interruption, and the agonizing cries of their unhappy patients. Your miferable fon wishes he had perifhed on the field of battle; regrets the fond tenderness you fhowed him in infancy he remembers the last embraces of the authors of his being : he looks about him, and fees, in the moment that remains of life, the mutilated limbs of his companions fcattered around-and that his own grave is preparing.' Vol. I. p. 153. If M. Necker deferves the cenfure which has been fometimes paffed upon him as a flatterer of the French nation or government, it is not, at least, in the following pallage: Ah, let us refpect the opinions of other nations, not in order to grieve us, but to fupport our wifdom and our modefty: Let us give no caufe to this reproach fixed on us by fome. You wifhed to dictate laws to the univerfe, and you cannot regulate your own domeftic concerus: You wished to give plans of government to all nations, and your own plan, full of the greateft errors and imperfections, is an inexhauftible fource of factions: You have indeed fhown yourfelves abroad as roaring lions, but you have been miferably tame at home, and you · · VOL. III. NO. 5. G crouch crouch under the rod of defpotifm: You have already called yourselves the Great Nation, and you fee no other people difputing this title: But the extent of a country, and the number of its foldiers, may ftrike its neighbours with terror, without creating refpect.' Vol. I. p. 281. The following paffage defcribes, in a natural way, the feelings of a man of nice fenfibility, immediately upon his fall from a ftation of high rank and power. To these feelings M. Necker was no ftranger: and we pity his mifery, when he anfwered Mr Gibbon dans l'état où je fuis, je ne puis fentir que le coup de vent qui m'a abbâtu. It is to you I addrefs myself-ye who were lately in poffeffion of the fureft means of pleafing, and of captivating men. You were believed to ftand on the fummit of authority; through you every favour was difpenfed: You were objects of univerfal purfuit and attachment; when, all at once, fortune overturned your pedestal: You are caft down into the crowd; you have neither rank, nor credit, nor power! How do your friends, even your real friends, then act? They come around you, condole with you, and perhaps redouble their cares and attentions:but there is a correctnefs in their care, an attentivenefs in their manner, and a measured proceeding in all their conduct. They delicately conceal the idea they have of their generofity towards you: meanwhile, you yourself either difcover or fufpect it; and you are ftung to the foul. You are conscious that, in the eyes, even of friendship, a change has taken place in you; and that you muft take care to be cautiously difcreet. Sad difcovery!' &c. Vol. II. p. 17. Of M. Necker's prefent work, the most useful part, in our opinion, is that which treats of irreligious fyftems. He dwells at confiderable length on the formidable arguments against Chriftianity, which are fupplied by the abfurdities and crimes of its profeffors. His endeavours to prove, that the abufes of that humane system do not militate either against its beneficent tendency, or its actual good effects, are not deftitute of ingenuity. He had affociated long and intimately with freethinkers, and knew the objections to the Gofpel, which they urged with moft triumph and most baneful effects on the minds of the young. Thefe he combats with fome energy; and he perfuades his readers to the reception of Evangelical morality with affectionate carneftness. The exaggeration and the abufe of ufeful truths, can exist only until thefe truths are profcribed or brought into difcredit: but when a poifonous plant attaches itfelf to a tree which yields abundance of good fruit and shelter, is it the tree we are to extirpate?' Vol. III. p. 262. We might felet many other refpectable paffages from the work before us; but thofe already quoted are a fufficient specimen of M. |