cently established in the author’s neigh- 
bourhood. ‘This subject is connected 
by the preacher with the present alarm- 
ing situation of public affairs ; and his 
object isto shew that a devotional spirit 
is of the greatest importance to the 
welfare of communities in general, and 
in particular to the welfare of our own 
country at this critical season. 
_ After a delineation of the horrors of 
war, Mr. Hughes concludes, notwith- 
Arr. XLVIII. 
York. By Cuagres WELLBELOVED. 
MR. WELLBELOVED pleads the 
haste with which this discourse was com- 
posed, and the short and unfrequent in- 
tervals of stated engagement which were 
allowed for its revision, in extenuation of 
the imperfections which he supposes will 
be discovered in it; and which, he says, 
under any other circumstances than those 
which attend its publication, would have 
prevented it from meeting the public 
eye. We may, however, venture to state 
our opinion, that his discourse will 
maintain a respectable rank among the 
many publications to which, from mo- 
tives similar to his own, the services of 
the day appointed for national humi- 
liation have naturally given birth. 
Mr. Wellbeloved has chosen the ap- 
posite history of the invasion of Judah 
by Sennacherib, as the passage of scrip- 
ture with which his reflections are con- 
nected. After a relation of that event, 
extracted from the accounts afforded by 
the sacred historians, he remarks the 
similarity which it bears to the present 
situation of our own country, and the 
menaced enterprize of our enemies. We 
extract the following passage, which 
contains the political creed of the author 
_ respecting the nature and object of the 
‘important contest in which we are en- 
gaged. 
__ * Although I confess myself to be one of 
those who think that it would have been 
ore advisable to have abided by the very 
Jetter of our treaties, and not to have afforded 
‘the enemy either the slightest pretence for 
‘the renewal of hostilities, or the possibility 
of justifying their conduct to the powers of 
urope; yet | cannot close my eyes against 
the evidence which has been produced, to 
prove that the present ambitious ruler of 
Z. tumult of war, was, during the short 
Season of peace, before the cession of a rocky 
sland was demanded and refused, unceas- 
Ann. Rey. Vor; Il. 
WELLBELOVED’S SERMON. 
France, who exists only amidst the noise | 
177 
standing, that defensive war is, on the 
principles of christianity, justifiable; and 
that as such the present contest may be 
regarded, at least in reference to the 
project of invasion. : ‘ 
The excellence of the leading senti- 
ments of this discourse is such, that we 
shall not dwell on some subordinate 
blemishes, which might, perhaps, be 
pointed out. 
A Sermon preached on Wednesday, October 19, 1803, the Day of 
National Humiliation, to a Congregation of Protestant Dissenters in St. Saviourgate, 
8vo. pp. 37. 
ingly and extensively employed, in what may 
be justly considered, not merely as the pre- 
parations for a future contest, but as viola- 
tions of the peaceful character which he was 
bound to maintain. His military missions 
to the East, under the specious pretext of ex- 
tending the commerce of France; the powers 
with which his pretended commercial agents 
in Our own country were invested ; the en 
couragement he gave to the disaffected in our 
sister kingdom, and the assurance which 
they appear to have received of his support 
in their attempts to overthrow her govern- 
ment, are to my mind, most powerful and 
convincing proofs of a hostile spirit utterly 
inconsistent with his open professions of 
amity, and demonstrate that tie was ready 
and determined to seize any pretence to renew 
the war which had been so lately terminated. 
The contest on the part of our foe, I am 
fully persuaded is not now carried.on, nor 
was it at first undertaken to secure the pos» 
session of a barren rock in the midst of the 
Mediterranean sea, but to humble the only 
powcr that remained prompt to watch, deter- 
mined and able to arrest the rapid strides of 
lawless ambition; and to reduce to the same 
abject state in which the once most free and 
generous people of Europe are now lying, a 
nation, Shick, by its example and its influ- 
ence, presents a constant and a formidable 
obstacle to the progress of tyranny and op- 
pression. The nature of the war then af- 
fords us some ground for hope; it is a defen- 
sive war. Even to those who cannot fully 
approve of its origin, it must now appear a. 
contest of no ordinary nature, and affording 
no ordinary reason to hope for the Divine 
protection. So far as the menaces of our 
enemy are to be belicved, our extirpation is 
the object which animates all bis efforts: his 
rage is boundless as his ambition, insatiable 
as the grave. Upon the issue of the present 
war, depends not the possession of a few 
islands on a distant ocean, or of rich pro- 
vinces, in a distant continent; but our 
existence, as that free people who have been 
Jong the admiration of he world. How- 
ever trivial the pretext for entering upon the 
war may have been, the cause for which it is 
Pi 
