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We find by experience a certain occult quality in the loadstone, which is not in a common pebble, and many wonderful fecrets in almoft every obje& around us, which we cannot explain.

This writer launches out into fevere and just invectives against fuperftitious and intolerant religions; but he obferves no medium: he raves against all ecclefiaftical establishments, and afferts, without limitation, that the virtues and happiness of a people are not the effects of the fanctity of their religion, but of the fagacity of their laws; that a religious spirit is deftructive of the fpirit of legislation; and that religions are useless, because crimes not punished by the laws, are daily committed. While he throws out thefe general reflections, he feems to take his ideas from the corruptions of men, and not from the pure and benevolent principles of Chriftianity, which are calculated to produce the amiable virtues of focial life, and the most fublime and rational piety.

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Sermons on the Parable of the Sower. By E. Harwood, D. D. 2 Vols. 12mo. 35. 5d. Johnson.

THE

HE wife Author of our religion frequently conveyed hisinftructions to the multitude in parables; because, as our author obferves, thefe concife moral ftories were more easily remembered than precepts of morality; because this method of inftruction was the fafeft, and the beft adapted to the moral ftate and difpofition of his hearers; and because it was calculated to fix the attention of the audience.-We may add, that this manner of inftru&ting and speaking by parables was familiar to the people of the country where our Saviour lived, as St. Jerome affure us*, and, as it appears by several parables in the Old Teftament; and, laftly, that it was a most delicate way of impreffing difagreeable truths on the mind, and, in general, more infinuating and fuccefsful than open and direat reproof. It is fufficient on this occafion to recollect the ftory of Nathan and David.

In the parable of the Sower, Mat. xiii. 3. the character of Jefus Chrift, as our divine inftructor is beautifully represented; and many excellent inftructions conveyed under very familiar, appofite, and ftriking images, which the author of thefe difcourses has explained and illuftrated in an able manner.

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The following extracts will not be disagreeable to our more ferious readers.

"A fower went forth to fow; and as he fowed, fome foll by the way fide, and the fowls of heaven came and devoured

In Matt. xviii.

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them." Our Lord here fully reprefents a heart rendered ob durate and callous with fenfual pleafutes, by a hard beaten path which nothing can penetrate. The word of God, which hath been liberally thrown upon fuch a mind, lies, naked and exposed upon its furface, incapable of entering and unable to : exert its active vital principles and genial qualities.... What impreffions can be made on a foul that breathes nothing but pleasure, fenfual fantastic pleafure! What impreffions can be fixed on a covetous, fordid, felfish, groveling heart, that is incrufted with a furface hard and impenetrable as adamant! What impreffions can the love of God, and holiness, and heaven, make on a mind that is one univerfal region, inhabited by no better spirits than the fiends of fenfuality, luxury, diffoluteness, and debauchery, with the great demon of luft prefiding over them, faying to one, Go, and he goeth, and to another, Do this, and he doth it! What impreffions can holiness and goodnefs feal upon a foul, that feems to live for no end but the gratification of its worst paffions-which knows, and which is determined to know, no pleasure, but what levels it with the brutes-I fhould rather fay, degrades it infinitely below the brutes! What impreflions can be made on a foul, whofe waking and whofe fleeping hours are employed in fondly contemplating the glare and glitter of pomp and splendourwho knows no pleafure, no happiness of life, but while it treads a giddy round of trifling amufements, is ideally for ever prefent in foft, delufive, idle fcenes, that diffipate every thing ferious and virtuous, and running an eternal circle of the molt abandoned gratifications that the moft abandoned of mankind ever invented! Can the heavenly feed, which God, and Christ, and weeping parents, and faithful minifters fow, find a reception in that bofom that is hardened by the deceitfulness of fin-poffeffed with a fatal perfuafion that fuch and fuch a purfuit is the only road that leads to true happiness-ridiculing every argument, and every perfon, that fternly pronounce the rigid interdiction and deliberately refolved to regard nothing that would four and leaven their miferable joys, or debar and avert them from their groveling and wretched indulgences. Virtuous inftruction, affectionately thrown upon fuch a mind, is beautifully defcribed by our blefied Saviour, as good feed, caft upon a hard beaten path-incapable of penetrating it-lying naked and ufelefs upon it-the food of every devouring paffion -the prey of every infatiable defire. With all the celestial qualities with which it is endowed, it is unable to impregnate fuch a worthlefs foil with any moral fertility-its furface, beaten by the light fantaftic foot of fuch an infini e tribe of gay, airy pleasures, for ever prevents its reception-its growth is pre

cluded

cluded—it finds nothing in a region, trampled by fuch a vain and visionary group, to enliven it, and unfold its vegetating principles and the good Being who fowed it, with forrow and regret fees it picked up by every unclean bird, and gradually devoured by every ominous and ill-boding fowl.

The feed which fell upon ftony places, flightly covered with mould, is a just and affecting reprefentation of the generality of Chriftians. What numbers of men, who attend public worship and read religious books, are here defcribed! At the time they are hearing or reading, they are affected and impreffed.... But the moment the fun of pleafure arifes upon them, the moment the great never-fetting luminary of nocturnal and diurnal pleafure throws his dazzling, infatuating beams around them, it is fcorched, and because their light fhallow minds did not afford it deepnefs of earth, it withers away.'

"Others fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit: fome a hundred fold, fome fixty-fold, fome thirty-fold.”

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• Remember, where God in the courfe of his Providence hath fown with fo bountiful and capacious an hand, he expects a proportionably rich and ample harveft. The produce of an hundred fold he expects from you-and you difappoint his reafonable expectations, when his generous foil and generous feed only yield the fcanty, difproportionate pittance of twenty or thirty fold-Much more do you fruftrate his providence, and blaft his defigns, when, instead of making his diftinguished bounty to you fhine forth in the fair and heavenly fruits of public beneficence and usefulness, you fteal away from the view of the world with thofe fplendid talents that have been entrufted to you-tie them up in a napkin-deposit them in a mean miserable hole of your own digging, whether it be your own congenial dirt, of in the public funds-then live as fome have lived, and will live, on the intereft of the intereft of their immenfe fortunes--not the heart to give a poor ftarving wretch, or a poor ftarving family, the leaft mean pittance to cover their nakedness, and buy them a morfel of bread-or, what is almost as bad as this but is a comparatively happy perverfion, as it circulates wealth-to keep a magnificent table, fpread with every thing opulence can purchase, imagination fancy, or art modify-to live in luxury, fenfuality, epicurifm, pampering a frail dying body, and gratifying a palled faftidious appetite with every delicacy that ranfacked nature can fupply-and yet all this while have the heart to repulse a poor wretch that only folicits for the crumbs that fall from the luxu ricus board.'

In the course of thefe Sermons the author has not only given us a ftriking view of our Saviour's moral inftru&tions; but very ingeniously explained and illuftrated the beauty and propriety of all thofe images and allufions, which are introduced into this excellent parable.

Moral and entertaining Dialogues, in English and French. For the Improvement of Youth. By Mrs. Vauclufe. 2 vols. 12mo. 6s. Dilly.,

THESE Dialogues are conducted upon the following plan. Nine perfons of a fentimental turn form a fociety, and enter into a conversation on the paffions. One of the number undertakes to be the hiftorian of the evening, and to relate fome entertaining narrative tending to point out the danger arifing from an improper indulgence of that particular paffion, which is the fubject of debate. Thus the fentiments of the company on curiofity, envy, vanity, love, friendship, anger, cruelty, avarice and floth, are refpectively illuftrated by the allegory of Cupid and Pfyche, the Story, of two Unfortunate Lovers, the fingular Education of Sefoftris, the Marriage and Amours of Marc Antony, the Hißory of an Athenian and a Roman Family, the Adventures of a Frenchman of Quality, an eaftern Tale, the Story of two Genoese Merchants, and the Inhabitants of Two Inlands.

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The feventh on Cruelty, is the only ftory in this colle&ion, of which we can give our readers an adequate idea in a few words. The fable is built on the following ingenious thought. In an island in the Indian fea lived a people, towards whom nature had been profufe of all the gifts, which conftitute human happiness. The men were robust and comely, the women beautiful and modeft; both fexes had a fprightly wit, a lively imagination, and no defpicable fhare of good fenfe. Their country was a terreftrial paradife. . . . . No venomous or ferocious animals had ever haunted this charming abode; but the laborious ox, the indefatigable camel, the tractable elephant, the noble horse, the peaceful heep, the faithful dog, with all the frifky herds of fawns, antelopes, ftags, and deers, obfequioufly obeyed the lordly fpecies, in which reafon has the advantage to exprefs itself through the organ of fpeech. Here the ears were charmed with the mufic of tuneful and fociable birds, while the sportive and fearless fish, gliding along a thousand rivulets, amufed the eyes.'

But pride, the fore runner of a thousand evils, infatuated this people. They began to look upon themselves as the only

inhabitants of the earth, who deferved the care of heaven, The presents of nature seemed to them an offering due to their worth; and, in this intoxication, throwing the eyes of contempt around, they imagined, that the animals, which their forefathers had treated as intimate friends, were born to be. their flaves, and ought to be treated as such.

The fpur was invented to animate the horse, the goad to excite the ox, and the whip and chains to deal round their chaftifements.

The best and swifteft fteed could not flacken his pace, through weariness, or ftumble accidentally, without having his flanks torn to pieces by the cruel iron. The ox could not endeavour to breathe under the weight of the yoke, without being pierced through by the fharp fteel. The watchful dog was oft beaten from the threshold he used to guard; and the quiet fheep which inadvertently ftrayed from the flock, groaned all her way back under the ftrokes of the unpitying fhepherd's crook.

This unjust people stopped not there in the defpotic use of the power they had ufurped. They now found no better, no nobler diverfion, than that of torturing all these creatures, which they were bound to protect. They forced the fearful natives of the forefts, whom their ancestors, had rendered fociable, to follow again their favage life, merely for the barbarous pleasure of chacing them, and difturbing their peace.

They spread fnares against the inhabitants of the air; and found more delight in seeing them vainly endeavouring to break through the unnatural prifon in which they detained them, than in all the charms of their fweet melody. They no more admired the nimbleness of the fish; to fee them panting in the nets, or agonizing upon the fand, was a fpectacle infinitely more agreeable to their fight, or rather to their vanity; for they gloried in having the art of tyrannizing over the animals in every element.'

The cries of thefe innocent fufferers at laft provoked the divine wrath. A celeftial meffenger was dispatched to a fage, with orders to inform his deluded countrymen, either to behave towards the foft and mild animals with the kindness that all beings owe to each other, or to be deprived of their fociety and fervices within five days.

The fage delivered this decifive meffage, and left them in an aftonishment, which kept them from giving vent to their indignation. At laft Cabul, whofe overbearing temper had got the afcendency in their meetings, rose up and faid... Shall we give up the dignity of our nature for fome inconve niencies, which our ingenuity can easily supply? No, rather

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