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The most excellent Bishop Berkeley entertained the fame notion of the trinity, and alfo declares it to be the chriftian doctrine of the trinity. And for the truth of thefe affertions I appeal 'to his Siris.

But, fay you, if the attributes Goodnefs, Wisdom, and Power be perfons, God is not three perfons only, but three times three or more. God is infinitely merciful, infinitely juft, omniprefent, &c.

I anfwer, the divine nature being immutable, it now is what it always was: God always was infinitely good, wife, and powerful; but if by merciful be meant any thing diftinct from thefe, mercy feems to have a relative existence, and confequently like other relations cannot be without its correlate. God, for inftance, had not mercy before there exifted beings on whom he could have mercy. Neither was God juft before there exifted objects to whom he could be juft. Unless by juftice, be meant that which pondereth, diftinguifheth, judgeth; which bath weighed The mountains in fcales, and the hills in a balance: In which cafe juftice and wifdom feem to be the fame. Nor was God omniprefent before any thing was made.

You boast of a formidable army of texts, which, you fay, entirely overthrow the Athanafian doctrine, and which no man has yet ventured to oppofe in the London Magazine.

It would, indeed, be bold in any man to oppofe texts before he knows the precife point they are brought to prove. Pray, Sir, are these texts brought to prove that the Godhead doth not confift of three diftinct intelligent agents? Or, are they brought to prove that the wildom of God is not eternal, and confequently, that God was not always wife? Or are they brought to prove that God is wife without his wildom? I fhould be glad to see a candid answer to thefe queries; but I almoft defpair of this pleasure, having a ftrong fufpicion that this difpute grows very irksome to you.

I will now dare to congratulate the publick on a period being put to the Trinitarian controverfy. If the Arians do not perceive themfelves in an error, it ought furely to be imputed to the infenfibility and impenetrability

of their heads.

July

To the PRINTER, SIR,

A. B.

HAVING feen fome pretty live

ly remarks, on the prefent fashionable way of dreffing ladies heads, I take the liberty to fend you fome advertiments which appear. ed in the Dublin Univerfal Advertifer, about twelve years ago. Signior Florentini and Mr. St. Laurent were the two rival frizeurs, and had practiced fome years with pretty equal fuccefs and reputation. The Frenchinan, however, by his talent at agreeable fatire, with which he entertained every lady under his hands, at the expence of her abfent acquaintance, during the time of his operation, had mani feftly gained a great afcendant over the Italian. This induced Florentini to make a bold effort to raise his own reputation, and ruin his rival, whose great character he envied, and whom he wished to be undone.

Advertisement I.

"Signior Florentini, having taken into confideration the many inconveniencies which attend the method of hair-dreffing, formerly ufed by himself and fill practifed by Mr. St. Laurent, humbly propofes to the ladies of quality in this metropolis his new method of fuccorving the head in the most fashionable tafte, to laft, with very little repair, during the whole feffion of parliament. Price only five guineas. FLORENTINI.

N. B. He takes but one hour to build up the head, and two for baking it."

Anfwer by St. Laurent.

"Whereas dere have appear vone fcandaleuse avertisment of Signior Florentini, moch reflectin on Mr. St. Laurent's capacite for hair-dreffing; he defy faid Signior Florentini to tell any inconvenience dat do attend his me thode, odervife he thall confider faid Florentini as boute feu and calumniateur.

ST. LAURENT.”

The following is handed about as the Speech made by a certain Great Lawyer in a Court of Judicature, at the Time of the Reversal of an Outlawry. Have now

ever som goed through the fever, and which have been ingeniously argued, and confidently relied on, by his counsel at the bar: I have given my fentiments upon them, and if upon the whole, after the closest attention to what has been said, and with the ftrongest inclination in favour of the defendant, no arguments which have been urged, no cafes which have been cited, no reafons that occur to me, are fufficient to fatisfy me in my confcience and judgment, that this outlawry fhould be reverfed, I am bound to affirm it--and here let me make a paufe.

Many arguments have been fuggefted, both in and out of court, upon the confequences of eftablishing this outlawry, either as they may affect the defendant as an individual, or the public in general: As to the first, whatever they may be, the defendant has brought them upon himself; they are inevitable confequences of law arifing which he is thereby fubjected, is more from his own act; if the penalty, to than a punishment adequate to the not have brought himself into this uncrime he has committed, he should fortunate predicament, by flying from the juftice of his country, he thought proper to do fo, and he must taste the fruits of his own conduct, however bitter and unpalatable they may be; and although we may be heartily forry for any person who has brought himself into this fituation, it is not in our power, God forbid it fhould ever be in our power, to deliver him from it: we can't prevent the judgment of thelaw, by creating irregularity in the proceedings; we can't prevent the confequences of that judgment by pardoning the crime; if the defendant has any premust be urged, and that power exercised tenfions to mercy, thofe pretensions in another place, where the conftitution The crown will judge for itself; it has wifely and neceffarily vetted it: does not belong to us to interfere clare the law; none of us had any with punishment, we have only to deconcern in the profecution of this bufinefs, nor any wishes upon the event

of

1768.

fear them: It is not the genius of the worst of men in the worst of times to proceed to fuch fhocking extremities: But if fuch an event fhould happen, let it be fo; even fuch an event might be productive of wholefome effects; fuch a ftroke might roufe the better part of the nation from their lethargic condition to a state of activity, to affert and execute the law, and punish the daring and impious hands which had violated it; and those who now fupinely behold the danger which threatens all liberty, from the most abandoned licentioufnefs, might, by fuch an event, be awakened to a fenfe of their fituation, as drunken men are oftentimes stunned into fobriety. If the fecurity of our perfons and our property, of all we hold dear and va luable, are to depend upon the caprice of a giddy multitude, or to be at the difpofal of a giddy mob; if, in compliance with the humours, and to appease the clamours of thofe, all civil and political inftitutions are to be difregarded or overthrown, a life fomewhat more than fixty is not worth preferving at fuch a price, and he can never die too foon, who lays down his life in fupport and vindication of the policy, the government and the conftitution of his country.

To the AUTHOR of the LONDON MAGAZINE.

I

SIR,

Have ever read Andrew Marvel's Reheartal tranfprofed with infinite delight. The wit of it was to keen and pure, and the drollery so pleasant, that it pleafed and made all men laugh, fave the church bigots that were galled by it, from the monarch on the throne to the lowest mechanic. Bishop Burnet tells us, that the man who was the object of it, never forgave Charles H. preferring the incomparable wit of the Rehearfal tranfprofed, the beft fatire of our time, to that of Mr. Bays," the name with which Marvel had christened him.

The principles that run through the work, and with which it is replete, are those of pure, unadulterated chriftianity; and the civil and religious liberties of mankind, which that holy religion patronizes in their unoft latitude.

The immediate defign and motive of the author in writing, was to deJuly, 1768.

369

This Parker, at the turn of the times, upon the restoration, after trying in vain to trouble the waters again, finding things too well fetiled, and that no great matter was to be gotten but by deferting all the principles of his edu cation, determined all at once to fell himself over to the worst maxims of the worst men of those times, generally the most lucrative; and for whom, his learning and abilities, for he was not deftitute of a good measure of both, made him a fit inftrument. By various temporizing arts, aad by entering into, without fcruple, and forwarding the aims of the two Stuart brothers, to annihilate the English liberties, and bring in popery and very, this man rofe, through, the feveral inferior gradations, to the honour of a bishoprick, and feat in the upper house of parliament.

We must not fay, that he was burdened with no fcruples, For he had the grace left, as Burnet tells us, to write to James ii. to try if he could bring him back from giving headlong into the fordid fuperftition of popery and dragging his people after him, but when he found he could not fucceed, he went fairly over into all his meafures, at the end of his days. And had not he died in the nick of time, and his royal master been defeated in his convering and dragooning fchemes, Dr. Parker, in all likelihood, would have been promoted to the fee of Canterbury, and had paid for his archiepifcopal psllat Rome.

Bishop Barnet, whom I quote verba tim, inform us. that one of Parker's maxims was ; That the people ought

to be brought into an ignorance in matters of religion-That preaching ought to be laid afide, for that a preaching church could not fand.”

Aaa

Another

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Another of his maxims, which he delivered in answer to one that afked him, "What was the beft body of divinity? Which was; "That which could help a man to keep a coach and fix horfes was certainly the best.

So much was neceflary to be faid of this Parker, bishop of Oxford, other wife defervedly to be forgotten, to illuftrate the merits and this work of Mr. Marvel's, who happily fucceeded in putting this dangerous man to utter confufion and filence.

It will hardly be needful to mention, for all know it, that know any thing, that this excellent perfon, Mr. Andrew Marvel, was member of parliament, for his native place, the town of Kingston upon Hull; that he is the laft inftance upon record of a member of that houfe, fupported and maintained by his conftituents, as were anciently all members of the commons house of parliament, and that, of many honeft men, never perhaps fat in that house one honefter man than Andrew Marvel. Many inftances of uncommon virtue in trying times, of great integrity in the midft of no great affluence of outward circumtances, are told from tradition, by his friends, and fome recorded by our hiftorians. And he was not only a good citizen; but, if we may judge, by his life, and writings, (and what elfe have we to go by?) he was a real chriftian; but of the largest and most generous principles.

Perfuaded that fuch was the deferved character of this truly noble Englithman and fenator, I could not, without indignation, read the page of a modern high-churchman and prelate, who, in a piece against the Lord Bolinbroke's philofophy, ranks this excellent perfon with fome other obnoxious names, and reviles him, in the decent terms, of vermin craruling upon the priest's furplice; an appellation which he could no otherwife merit, than for vanquishing, fubduing, and filencing, by fair truth, wit and argument, one of the vileft and mott venal of the clerical order. But it is with peculiar fatisfaction that we can oppose to the opprobrious cenfure of this critic, the better judgment of another dignitary in the church, the Rev. Mr. Mason, in whose ode on Independency, written on the banks of the Humber, where Marvel

July

was born 1620, we have the following fine and spirited picture of this excellent perfon.

Pointed with fatire's keenest steel,

The shafts of wit he darts around, Even mitred dulnefs learns to feel,

And fhrinks beneath the wound. In awful poverty his honeft mufe Walks forth vindictive thro' a venal land:

In vain corruption fheds her golden dews,

In vain oppreffion lifts her iron hand; He fcorns them both, and, arm'd with truth alone,

Bids luft and folly tremble on the throne. Sir, your humble servant,

VINDEX.

To the AUTHOR of the LONDON MAGAZINE.

SIR, Leigh, June 23, 1768.

A Cheap and ealy method to catch,

and kill, fleas, will doubtless be acceptable to fuch who are much infefted therewith.

But how fhall we catch them first, in order to kill them may be rationally asked, as it requires a dexterity every one is not mafter of.

As I think it not beneath me to direct the poor not only for their health but eafe alfo, I will tell them at once, both how to catch fleas by whole fhoals, and kill them likewife when fo catcht: It is what I have long ftudied for them, and am glad I have difcovered it at laft.

Only cover the floors of the rooms with the leaves of the alder tree, while the dew hangs on them: For they when budding contain a kind of pinguious, tenacious humour, to which the fleas adhering, as little birds do to bird lime, are furely detained, and killed thereby.

I recommend this neat, and excellent method of flea-catching from the authority of Barbarus in his comment on Vitruvius.

And now my hand is in, I will, tell the poor how they may speedily kill the other kind of vermin too, and that in a night or two's time, tho' ever fo numerous: It would be worth trying it for bugs likewife. To my own knowledge, the feeds of ftavesacre, brought from hot countries; fold at the druggift's, fprinkled in powder on the body, or bed, will deftroy live

on