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gp'ic characfler. Even the Deity himfelf is impioufly pourtrayed, 

 a^ the infiij^ator and accomplice of human crimes. 



The tenet of hWv.A fatalifm and abfolute decrees, fo induflrioufly 

 diffeminated* b) the German writings, is a doilrine, which goes 

 diredly to make men forget, that they are rational and account- 

 able creatures ;. and to fubvert all the reftraints of confcience ; and 

 thus to promote a certain ferocity of charader, an unrelenting 

 hardnefs of heart, and an abandonment of the will to all the in- 

 citements of domineering paffion, all the fuggeflions of difordered 

 imagination. We have feen, both in Mahometan and Chriftian fa- 

 natics, the dreadful efFeds of this implicit belief in predeflination. 

 We may well conceive the pernicious effed of thofe productions, 

 which, while they tend to keep the mind in a ftate of effervefcence, 

 and wind up the paffions to fury, endeavour to perfuade us, that 

 any refiftance to their frenzy is an oppofition to the decrees of 

 God ; and, of courfe, that a blind indulgence of them is not only 

 juflifiable, but meritorious ; and thus combine the two moft dread- 

 ful and ungovernable fprings of human adion enthufiafm and 



fatahfm. 



■m 



In the German Plays, the moft abominable charaders, wretches 

 borne away by every irregular paffion, and plunged in every cri- 

 minal excefs, are introduced, as principal perfonagss, hold the 

 chief poffeffion of the ftage, and are made to utter fentiments fuit- 



able 



* See abundance of declamation to this effedl in Schiller. 



