hurch, book 3, chap. 2, page 232. any body lies a passing, so that hore hope of life in him, the prieste him with holy oil, bless him with crosses, and conjure him with certain wordes, "and then hee can never come in hell; for all "the devills will runne away from before the

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crosses, lyke a dogge before a flitche of bacon, "and therefore must hee take up his lodging

eyther in the suburbes of hell, or in purgatory, "where hee shal have his house-hyre and fire "wood free, till such time as hee (with soule masses and pope's pardons) have gotten a "plotte of ground in heaven, to builde a house thereuppon of merit and good workes."

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REVEREND MR. MADAN.

This worthy gentleman advocated the cause of polygamy, in his Thelypthone, 3 vols. 8vo. published in 1780; he resolving all marriage to consist in the actus coitus. He unaccountably states, as the law of God, that there is no audltery in a man's defiling himself with a score of unmarried women; but if a wife have an intrigue with any other man beside her husband, although he had as many wives as Solomon, she is an adulteress, and ought with her gallant to be put to death. One Langford took the Rev. Mr. Ma

dan's advice, and married no less than seven wives; however, he, as it is not the custom of this country, was tried at the Old Bailey for this offence and transported for seven years, a year for each wife.

SAINT LAWRENCE.

In the South aisle of the church at Tuxford, beneath a flowery arch, is a very rude relief of St. Lawrence placed on the gridiron. By him is a fellow with a pair of bellows, blowing the fire, and the executioner going to turn him. The zealous Fox, in his Martyrology, has this very thought, and makes the martyr say, in the midst of his sufferings, This side is now roasted; turn me, O tyrant dear.

TERTULLIAN.

Tertullian, has two books on the ornament and attire of wives. In the second, he labours to prove that a christian wife, cannot, in con. science, endeavour to please by her beauty, which she knows to be naturally liable to raise loose desires: and that she ought not only to avoid all affected beauty, but even to conceal and cover her natural beauty! Women are better judges of these things than saints.

CURIOUS EPITAPHS.

In Grantham Church yard,

John Palfryman, which lieth here,

Was aged twenty four year;

And near this place his brother lies,

Also his father, when he dies.

On William Lawes a musician killed at the

siege of Chester.

Concord is conquer'd; in this urn there lies,

The master of great music's mysteries;

And in't a riddle is, just like the cause,

Will Lawes was slain by those whose wills are laws.

PURGATORY.

Dr. Smollett relates the case of a poor gentleman of Nice, whose great grandmother had founded a perpetual mass for his soul, at the rate of fifteen sols (about ninepence English) per diem, which at length was all that remained of the family estate. This gentleman remarked the greatness of the hardship, by observing "that as she had been dead upwards of fifty

years, her soul had in all probability, been re"leased from purgatory long before; and that "the continuance of the mass was become an " unnecessary expence, though it would be im

"possible to persuade the church to relinquish her."

Lord Gardenstone states, that, at Nancy, repose the ashes of the family of Lorraine, which are deposited in a beautiful mausoleum, in the great church of the Cordoliers, "where twenty, "five priests are maintained to say daily masses "for the repose of their precious souls."

PRELATES.

In the earlier ages of the church we meet with bishops who sign their name with a x, because they could not write, and yet any one would have expected more than usual qualifications in the heads of the church, even so early as the seventh century. But it appears by Dr. White's Bamp.. ton Lectures, that they not only could not write, but that they recorded their ignorance. "I, "A. B. (bishop of have subscribed by

"the hand of C. D. because I cannot write." And again, "Such a bishop having said that he could "not write, I whose name is underwritten, have "subscribed for him." This is from the acts of the Council of Ephesus and Chaledon. In the tenth century, as Mezeray observes, bishops and abbots, notwithstanding the repeated prohibitions of princes and councils, bore arms and went into the field; which custom at last became a law.

The dignified clergy at that time lived like princes, rather than like apostles of Christ, and ministers of the Gospel: they were ambitious, proud, and immersed in all kinds of vices.

MICHAEL STIFELIUS.

A Lutheran minister of Wirtemberg, by name Michael Stifelius, foretold that the world would be at an end on the third of October, 1533, at ten in the morning. It appears that he made this admirable discovery by a calculation of the square numbers, or as others say, by the numeral letters of a passage in Scripture, i. e. collecting it from these words, VIDebVnt In qVeM transfIXerVnt (they shall look upon him whom they have pierced), the numeral letters of which contain the number 1563. Is it not a melancholy circumstance, that the mind of man should be exposed to such gross illusions? and that those should be of so catching a nature?

ILLUSTRATIONS OF SCRIPTURE.

We have seen a print designed by an artist for the Scripture allegory. "Thou fool, who "seest the beam that is in thy brother's eye, and "cannot discover that which is in thine own," very strikingly illustrated by a beam of timber, projecting out of the eye! And again a very un