The qualities of the mind may indeed have fuffered for want of the gifts of fortune; but when thefe are fupplied, the mind willunfold and expand itself; and, conformably to this known and experienced truth, as well as to the foregoing conceffion of our Effayift, fentiments, though debafed and vitiated by poverty of fituation, may be refined and elevated by the perfon's advancement. May!'-fays an advocate for the marriage-act, that is a poor chance to trust to in fo important a concern; what if this may not happen? The obvious reply is, that all married perfons must abide by the choice they have made, and that marriages, the refult of mature and fyftematic prudence, are by no means diftinguished by the future happiness or profperity of the parties, even in the moft exalted ftations. Parental authority, may be willing to infer this, but experience will not con firm it.

The injury done to families, is the next private confideration, There is a family on each fide, affected by an unequal marriage.. The rich or noble family is affronted by the ignoble connection : the avaricious or aggrandizing schemes of a parent, al eady dead to the tender fympathies of youth, are broken; the malevolent qualities of the mind which remain, awake and exert them clves under the difappointment, in making the young couple feel the determined refentment of cold-blooded age: and because the views of pride or avarice are fruftrated, the young people, unless affection and good fenfe prevail, are to be configned to ruin in reality. But who is in fault, where fuch unnatural determinations are fuffered to ft p the effufions of paternal tenderness?

The family, on the other fide, reaps a proportionable share of comfort and fatisfaction at the happy event; and, if things take their natural course, which we muft fuppofe all along, the younger branches of it will receive fome affiftance in their advances and establishment in life, and the elder, fome alleviation of their neceffities: that is, fuppoling as great an inequality to take place, as can well happen, which feldom occurs to fuch an extreme. Here then is the total eftimate in a private view; the young couple please themfelves, one family is hurt in opinion, the other is benefited in effentials: the refult is obvious.

The next enquiry is, How unequal marriages affect the pub

lic?

Where parents form avaricious fchemes, they tend to the accumulation of enormous property in the hands of few individuals; and fuch very unequal diftributions of the public stock of wealth, is pregnant with the greatest evils fociety can experience. As often as the paffions of the young operate in connecting thofe who are poffeffed of great property, with thofe who have little or none, fo often do they tend to reduce overgrown

states,

eftates, to render the diftribution of property more general, and to raise up useful and industrious members of the community.

After a difcuffion of this nature, the expediency of a law to prevent unequal marriages, may be investigated with propriety :when it will appear, whether education, common fenfe, and parental influence, are not the most reasonable fecurities against youthful indifcretions; and whether legal remedies are not more grievous than the diforders they are defigned to prevent. We now proceed to the fecond of the Effays.

The guilt and danger of contracting debts might be clearly difplayed in a fmall compafs; but the fubject is here rendered. intricate and confufed, by too laborious an elucidation, and wire-drawing it into a number of fubtile diftinctions.

The Effay on a prifon is divided into two parts. The first contains many loose hints for the better fecurity of creditors; but it may admit of a queftion, whether it would not be more political, and it would certainly be more humane, to reftrain exceffive credit by increafing the hazards of it, rather than to enlarge and ftrengthen the power of creditors over the unfortu nate: this would operate alike to check folly and knavery. The fecond part of this Effay offers fome obvious and good hints, for the better regulation of prifons; but they appear in a very defultory and unconnected manner. As a fpecimen of the Author's abrupt tranfitions, we may inftance the concluding paragraph of this Effay.

A good furgeon and careful nurfes fhould be provided for the fick. If the county allowance will not be fufficient for thefe purposes, fuppofe a double tax fhould be paid at all turnpikes by thofe that travel on the Lord's day indeed it is much to be wifhed, that all travelling upon that day was forbidden, except in cafes of abfolute neceffity. But this age will not admit of fo ftrict a regulation. Men do not attend to the wifdom and benevolence of this divine inftitution; which is defigned as a day of refreshment to the poor, of inftruction to the ignorant, and of recollection to all.'

As to the appointment of chaplains to all jails, which is recommended, it may be obferved, that fuch appointment would not be the most defirable species of ecclefiaftical preferment, and that therefore none but men the leaft proper for fuch cures, would perhaps be found to undertake them. But if the due performance of religious duties in these places, could be fettled upon a plan of rotation among the neighbouring clergy, the odium would be thus taken away, the charge of course be accepted with leis reluctance, and be more carefully executed. The Effay on the dearnefs of provifions contains nothing new on the fubject, but comprehends a digreffion on the balance of power

D 4

power in England, and the balance of power in Europe and concludes with a propofal for inclofing land in every parish, for the endowment of charity-fchools, and the augmentation of poor church-livings.

N.

A free Addrefs to Proteftant Diffenters, as fuch. By a Diffenter. Price 1 s. 6d. Pearch, 1769.

TH

HE Author of this fenfible and fpirited performance defires to lie concealed, but, if we mistake not, he is already pretty well known in the world by feveral publications. Should a reafon be required for witholding his name, he [in his preface] frankly acknowledges, that it was not because he was apprehenfive of making himself obnoxious to the members of the church of England. If they understand him right, they will perceive that his intentions towards them are far from being unfriendly; and if they understand him wrong, and put an unfair and uncandid conftruction upon what he has written, he trufts that with a good meaning, and a good cause, he will never be over-awed by the fear of any thing that men may think of him or do to him. Neither was it because he was apprehenfive of giving offence, either to the minifters, or to the people among the diffenters, because he has spoken with equal freedom to both; but, in reality, because he was unwilling to leffen the weight of his obfervations and advice, by any reflections that might be made on the perfon from whom they come. An anonymous Author is like the abstract idea of a man, which may be conceived to be as perfect as the imagination of the reader can make it,

This Writer confiders the diffenting intereft firft in a religious view, and then as it refpects civil policy. With regard to the former, he thinks it of the utmost importance, even to the cause of christianity in general, as the only means of freeing it from thofe corruptions which have been introduced, and with which all the establishments in Europe are more or lefs attended. With regard to the latter, he confiders the diffenting caufe as most favourable to it, fince, fays he, fo long as men continue diffenters, it is hardly poffible they fhould be other than friends to the civil liberty, and all the effential interests of their fellow citizens.' His remarks upon each of these topics, together with the judicious and feasonable admonitions contained in the following chapters to minifters and people, are well worthy of an attentive perufal; efpecially by thofe to whom they are immediately addrefled: but we will lay an extract or two before our readers, to give them fome view of the Author's fentiments and manner.

In

In the third fection, which principally regards the temptation some persons find to quit the diffenting intereft, because of the expence attending it,-after fome other animated exhortations, he thus proceeds; The intereft in which you are engaged, cannot be refpectable, unless your minifters be men of a liberal education, and feel themfelves in a fituation in which they may freely think and act, as themfelves fhall judge the caufe of Chriftianity, and your intereft demand. This, you must be fenfible, requires not only a liberal education, but likewife a liberal fupport. If you fay that the minifters of the laft age had fmaller falaries than thofe of the prefent, you fay what is true, but you deceive yourselves at the fame time. They did not receive fo much as a fixed ftipend; but in many cafes their families were almoft wholly maintained by the bounty of their hearers. If they had children, their people made a point of providing fome decent employment for them, and fettling them in the world; and few of the congregation made a will, without confidering their minifter, a place of worship, or both. In fhort, minifters in those days, being freed from all anxiety about the things of this world, either on their own account, or that of their families, were at liberty to give their whole attention to the proper duties of their function; and notwithftanding, minifters feem to have been more dependent upon their people, there never was a time in which minifters had more influence, and when their reproof and cenfures were more feared:At prefent, tho' the falaries of minifters have been confiderably advanced, in comparison of what they were formerly, occafional bounty, to which the ftated falary once bore but a small proportion, is, in many places wholly withdrawn, and in general greatly diminished. Where the custom is kept up, the tenure on which it is held, is in many places very precarious. How often has it been dropped for imaginary affronts, and fuppofed inftances of ingratitude and difrefpect; and if once a minister happen to have no occafion for this liberality, the habit of giving is often loft, by being fufpended, and has not revived in favour of the fucceffor, tho' in ever so much want of it.-Add to this, that the price of all neceffary provifions is prodigiously advanced all over England. Moreover, the taste of living is much higher than it was, fo that the expences which cuftom, at leaft, if not nature, have made neceffary, in their cafe, are more than double of what they were in the memory of man. The confequence of thefe difcouragements is a circumftance, which already begins to be very alarming to the diffenting intereft. Formerly, when the miniftry was more reputable, perfons of fome rank and fortune educated their fons for it-Few are now educated with a view to it, except young

per

perfons who have a turn for learning, and whose parents are unable to make any other provifion for them :-it is a low way. of life indeed, that will not produce more money, which is the thing that the generality of parents chiefly confider-so that it is now no eafy matter to find young perfons to educate for the miniftry, tho' it cost the parent little or nothing. What then is likely to be the confequence of this deficiency of minifters liberally educated among the diffenters? The interest must grow lefs refpectable, lay-preachers, and perfons of an enthufiaftic turn of mind, and fuperficially inftructed, will grow more numerous, or vacancies among us muft be fupplied from Scotland; and how they are fupplied from this quarter, let the state of the diffenting intereft in the north of England testify.'

The next fection is addreffed to miniflers, from which we fhall felect the following paffage ;- Having, fays he, difcarded every thing of fuperftition, and what is falfe and ufelefs in religion, let us be the more zealous in the obfervance of what appears, upon examination, to be genuine and ufeful. I cannot help thinking that, in this cafe, the apoftolic example, to become all things to all men; and his advice about the conduct of thofe who are ftrong towards those who are weak, should engage us to a conformity, at leaft for a time, in every thing that is innocent, to the prejudices of others. This we fhall certainly do, if we mean to give others a favourable opinion of ourselves, and of our principles, if we have any thoughts of winning upon them, and do not intend to exafperate them against us, and to induce them from the mere fpirit of oppofition, to perfift in obftinately holding their errors and prejudices. Do not fail to inculcate thefe confiderations on the laity, whofe fituation and circumstances lay them under lefs reftraint than ourselves, and whofe freedom from the prejudices of their ancestors is, in many cafes, by no means to be placed to the account of a love of truth, or can be called the relult of mature and serious examination. Many of them laugh at the strict obfervance of the Sabbath, and regularity in the times of public and private devotion, as fuperftition, and not neceffarily connected with moral conduct. They fneer at the doctrines of a Trinity in Unity, original fin, predeftination and atonement, &c. becaule, at firit view, they are myfterious and unintelligible; but from the fame fuperficial turn of mind, they neglect the Lord's Supper, difcard family-prayer, never catechize their children, and are apt to neglect devotion in all its forms. Because they think they need not mortify, they will not fo much as restrain their appetites; as if to avoid the imputation of being a roundhead, it was neceflary to become a cavalier. Too many of thefe

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