Hence we may reason and infer; if God be fo gentle Leven in his corrections, fo kind even in his anger, how great muft his goodness, his munificence, and his recompences be? Of all evil the worst is fin; and yet if we had not finned, the clemency of God had not been manifefted, nor would he have had those titles, in which he feems to glory, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-fuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, and tranfgreffion, and fin. Sin is the occafion of repentance, and repentance produceth humility, diftrust of ourfelves, religious fear and caution, and when it ends in reformation, it is a powerful motive to affectionate gratitude towards God, according to our Saviour's remark, that he to whom much is forgiven, will love much; and at this happy change of one finner, there is, as he also fays, more joy in heaven, than over ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance. Shall we then continue in fin, that grace may abound? By no means; for even long-suffering hath its limits, and patience itself may be provoked too far. But the confideration of the eafy terms of reconciliation upon repentance and renewed obedience fhould teach us to adore the riches of the divine goodness, which thus cut of the greatest evil brings forth good.

As to temporal inconveniencies and troubles, they are not only of a short duration, and a mere nothing compared to eternity, but by God's appointment, they either produce defirable effects, or they are alleviated by many comforts, or they are compensated by many advantages. Labour, though it was at first inflicted as a curfe, feems to be the gentleft of all punishments, and is fruitful of a thousand bleffings: the fame Providence which permits difeafes, produces remedies; when it fends forrows, it often fends friends and supporters; if it gives a feanty income, it gives good fenfe, and knowledge, and contentment, which love to dwell under homely roofs; with fickness come humility, and repentance, and piety; and Affliction and Grace walk hand in hand. In general, the difagreeable events and the troubles incident to human life both wean us from an immoderate love of this world, and raise the hopes and defires to better objects, and foften the heart of man for the reception of the gentle affections, of affability, humanity, civility, pity, condefcenfion, and officious kindnefs; and prevent or remove a certain narrow, selfish, and uncompaffionate difpofition, which often attends great health and a flow of profperity.'

The author answers feveral other objections to the divine goodness, deduced from the doctrine of future punishments, and

and that of abfolute reprobation, from a fuppofed defect of Christianity, namely, its want of univerfality, and from the fufferings of the brute creation; and then concludes with fome practical inferences.

The tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth discourses are on the omnipotence, immutability, fpirituality, and impartiality of God; and are calculated to give us juft, honourable, and exalted fentiments of the divine nature.

The five fubfequent fermons contain many inftructive ob. fervations on the love, and the fear of God, on reliance, hope, and thanksgiving.

The last fermon in the first volume is an explanation of our Saviour's difcourfe with St. Peter, recorded in the 21st chapter of St. John.

We could, with additional fatisfaction to ourselves, make fome farther extracts from thefe valuable fermons; but the limits prescribed to this article will not allow us to enlarge. [To be continued. ]

IV. Sermons on the most Useful and Important Subjects, adapted to the Family and Closet. By the Rev. Samuel Davies, A. M. Late Prefident of the College at Princeton in New Jersey. Two Vols. 8vo. 8s. Buckland.

"HREE volumes of Sermons by this author, with Memoirs

THREE

of his Life, were published in 1766, by Dr. Gibbons. In our Review for September that year, we gave our readers the fubftance of thofe Memoirs, fome extracts from Mr. Davies's discourses, and our opinion of his literary abilities. We fhall therefore dispatch this article in a fummary way. The preface to the fourth volume contains a delineation of our author's character by the reverend Mr. Boftwick of New York. Mr. Davies was undoubtedly an amiable and ingenious man, and his difcourfes bear the marks of a warm imagination, and a benevolent heart. But furely Mr. Boftwick was actuated by friendship, rather than judgment, when he fays fublimity and elegance, plainnefs and perfpicuity, and all the force and energy that the language of mortals can convey, are the ingredients of almost all his compofitions.'

Let the reader judge. The prefident begins a fermon on the death of his late majesty in this flaming language. How are the MIGHTY fallen!- George is no more! George, the mighty, the juft, the gentle, and the wife; George, the father of Britain and her colonies, the guardian of laws and liberty, the protector of the oppreffed, the arbiter of Europe,

the

terror of tyrants and France; George the friend of man, the benefactor of millions, is no more!-millions tremble at the alarm. Britain expreffes her forrow in national groans. Europe re-echoes to the melancholy found. The melancholy found circulates far and wide. This remote American continent fhares in the loyal fympathy. The wide intermediate Atlantic rolls the tide of grief to thefe diftant fhores. And even the reclufe fons of Naffau-Hall feel the immenfe bereavement, with all the sensibility of a filial heart; and must mourn with their country, with Britain, with Europe, with the world-George was our father too. In his reign, a reign fo aufpicious to literature, and all the improvements of human nature, was this foundation laid; and the College of New Jerfey received its existence. And though, like the fun, he fhone in a diftant fphere, we felt, moft fenfibly felt his benign influences cherishing fcience and her votaries in this her newbuilt temple.'

"How is the mighty fallen!"-fallen under the fuperior power of death!-Death, the king of terrors; the conqueror of conquerors: whom riches cannot bribe, nor power refift; whom goodness cannot foften, nor dignity and royalty deter, or awe to a reverential diftance. Death intrudes into palaces, as well as cottages; and arrefts the monarch as well as the flave. The robes of majesty and the rags of beggary are equal preludes to the fhroud: and a throne is only a precipice, from whence to fall with greater noife and more extenfive ruin into the grave. Since death has climbed the British throne, and thence precipitated George the mighty, who can hope to efcape? If temperance, that beft prefervative of health and life; if extensive utility to half the world; if the united prayers of nations; if the colle&ted virtues of the man and the king, could fecure an earthly immortality; never, O lamented George! never fhould thy fall have added fresh honours to the trophies of death. But fince this king of Britain is no more, let the inhabitants of courts look out for manfions in the duft. Let thofe gods of earth prepare to die like men ; and fink down to a level with beggars, worms, and clay. Let fubjects" be wife, and confider their latter end," when the alarm of mortality is founded from the throne; and he who lived for their benefit, dies for their benefit too;-dies to remind them, that they also muft die.'

Here is a warmth of fancy, and a copia verborum; but, in our opinion, extravagance and bombaft; and, at the last, a quibble.

The following are the principal fubjects of which our author has treated in these volumes, viz. An Enrollment of our names

foning; and that, in agriculture, it is fomewhat neceffary to act before we think. As much as the experimental part of husbandry occupied my attention even at fetting out; yet I omitted the first year a multitude of minutes, which I have regretted fince; many the fecond year, and not a few even to the laft: but the feries that ought to be carried on regularly are boundless; and every year of man's practice will open new worlds of enquiry.

Had matters foreign to agriculture permitted me to have continued my experiments on the fame land, I should not have publifhed this courfe of many years; for every one would have convinced me of the expediency of connecting in one chain a long feries of trials, that determinate conclufions might at last have been the refult; but a change of foil to one totally different, has quite broken the connection between the experiments I carried on in Suffolk, and those I am preparing for in Hertfordshire. Thus am I involuntarily led to make a pause in my inquiries, almost at their very beginning; and, after having formed the pleafing hope of being able to lay before the public a work fraught with decifive conclufions, the refult of many years experience, I blush at the imperfections of the prefent sketch, which is but the outline of what I wished to perform.

Let me, however, in palliation of the acknowledged fault of publishing a work whofe imperfections I am confcious of, venture to affure the candid reader, that he may depend upon the accuracy of all I have inferted in this courfe. My attention to form a regifter minutely genuine has been fo great, that fome experiments are inferted, from which fcarce any conclufions can be drawn; owing to unlucky accidents, or other caufes. I did not reject them, that my book might be the real tranfcript of my practice, and not a partial reprefentation of experiments, picked and culled to ferve the purposes of a favourite idea, or upon which to found a brilliant hypothefis. In numerous inftances, I have been a very bad farmer, and acted contrary to the dictates of good husbandry; but my faults are registered, and I hope condemned impartially.

The general principle upon which I began and continued this courfe of experiments, was to keep minutes of every thing; and though the many omiffions of the two first years were fomewhat in. confiftent with that defign, yet I was afterwards more attentive, and omitted fewer memorandums which were requifite for the draw ing up the experiments I wanted to regifter. I was never abfent from the farm, even a fingle week, without leaving a baliff I could fully trust, who gave me, on my return, every particular I demanded in writing, by which means my journals were complete; nor did my horses, men, or implements, perform the most trifling work without its being minuted; nor was a penny expended for any purpose without being carried to the account. I do not mention thefe particulars as proofs of an extraordinary or commendable attention; but merely the abfolute requifites and foundation of experiments, without which it would have been impoffible to register them with the leaft accuracy.

The many volumes upon agriculture which I have turned over, guarded me against a too common delufion, and ever fatal in an inquiry after truth; the adopting a favourite notion, and forming experiments with an eye to confirm it. There is fcarcely a modern book on agriculture, but carries marks of this unhappy vanity in the author, which muft render its authority doubtful to every fenLible reader. The defign of perufing fuch works, was to find prac

tical

more interesting annals of the British constitution, through the fucceffion of fovereigns fubfequent to the epoch which fixed its present form.

This volume commences with the tranfactions relative to the total abolition of monarchical government in England, in which, according to our author, the parliament of that period followed the example of the Romans after the expulfion of their regal tyrants. The democratical adminiftration, which fucceeded this event, is afterwards related by this hiftorian with all the triumph and partiality that might be expected in a writer of congenial fentiments. We muft, however, beg leave to diffent from Mrs. Macaulay, for reasons we have formerly intimated, in opinion that the fubfequent acts which buried the oligarchical government in the fame grave with the royal authority, ever proved the termination of the halcyon days of England; and however unjustifiable we admit the conduct of Cromwell to have been, in the measures which he pursued for obtaining the protectorship, it is certain that neither the glory nor ftrength of the empire fuffered any abatement from the elevation of that celebrated ufurper. There is even ground to imagine, that had the parliament retained much longer the power it had fo violently affumed, the people of England would have experienced the effects of a tyranny more intolerable than any to which the nation had ever been fubjected under the government of its most defpotic princes.

We shall here prefent our readers with a fhort extra& from this hiftorian, concerning the character of Cromwell.

From the lafting animofity of thofe numerous parties Cromwell had bafely betrayed; from the rancor of the Stewart faction, and the honest refentment of patriotism; from the general odium in which the ufurper ended his days; from the envied power he had with fo much guilt acquired and maintained, with the termination of that power in his family almoft with the termination of his life; it was to have been imagined that his character, to lateft pofterity, would have been handed down with all the reproach it deferved, and that, from a principle of felf-defence against the irregular ambition of individuals, the univerfal voice of all ages would have concurred in branding his name with infamy and contempt, Neither fo juft in their fentiments, nor fo fagacious in their conduct, are the children of men. The conftant attendant of great fortune, however wickedly, however perniciously to the welfare of the species, acquired and fupported, is the idolatry of the multitude. With this general difpofition of the vulgar, the peculiar ftate of the times was favourable to the character of Cromwell. Had the oppofition against Charles Stewart been carried on on thofe principles which ac tuate barbarous nations in their revolt from oppreffion, and the fame tyrannical fyftem of government transferred from the hands of one individual to another; had the block on which Charles fuffered been the immediate footstool which elevated Cromwell to the

throne