Point 88°,6, or last point, of the third quadrant. Apparent error of the dot under trial Real error By these means, all the real errors are computed and arranged in a table; and Mr. T. makes use of the table of errors in the process of dividing the circle. If the roller were accurately marked off into arcs of 1° 20′ each, one of these divisions would correspond to 5′ on the circle, since 5′× 16 = 1o 20': but, instead of dividing the roller, and of transferring the divisions to the circle, the author employs a small sector attached to the upper part of the roller. This sector is divided into 16 spaces of 1° 20' each, and subdivided at each end into 8 parts of 10 each: so that, if 16 divisions on the sector are transferred to the circle, the arc will be 1° 20′: but the 256th division of the circle, or the mean in→ terval between two dots, is 1° 24′ 22′′,5 = (1° 20′) + 4′ 22′′,5• Now 4′ 22′′,5 = 5′; and hence, if the apparatus be car 7 ried forwards of a division, the division on the sector 8 ought to agree with the true place of the dot but the true place of the dot is not marked: nevertheless, the table of real errors answers every end which the true dotted place could serve; because, if by such table the error should be found -4,8 divisions of the micrometer head, the cross wires of the microscope, by which the work is examined, must be set back to -4,8 divisions. Therefore, the table of real errors serves the purposes of verification: so that, if the action of the roller should in any part not be true, the error thus introduced cannot be extended to any distant interval. B b REV. DEC. 1809. We We have been obliged to be very brief in the mention of the sector; partly because plates are wanting to an adequate explanation of it; and in some degree, we must confess, owing to our not completely understanding the mode of adjusting and fixing the sector to the other portion of the apparatus. In a subsequent part of his paper, Mr. T. describes, according to his principle, the method of dividing a circle on its broad edge perpendicular to the plane of the circle; and also the method of dividing a circle. In speaking of the economy of time, as dependent on his method, he observes : It is somewhat difficult to give a comparative estimate of the time which the different methods of dividing require. I know that thirteen days of eight hours each, are well employed in dividing such a circle by my method; about fifty-two days would be consumed in doing the same thing by Bird's method; and I think I cannot err much when I state the method by adjustment, supposing every dot to be tried, and that two thirds of them want adjusting, to require about one hundred and fifty of such days. The economy of time (setting aside the decided means of accuracy) which the above estimate of its application offers to view, will, I think, be considered of no little moment. By the rising artist who may aspire at excellence, it will at least, and I should hope, with gratitude, be felt in the abbreviation of his labours. To me, indeed, the means of effecting this became indispensible and it has not been without a sufficient sense of its necessity, that I have been urged to the progressive improvement and completion of these means, as now described. It is but little that a man can perform with his own hands alone; nor is it on all occasions, even in frames of firmer texture than my own, that he can decisively command their adequate, unerring, use. And I must confess that I never could reconcile it to what I hold as due to myself, as well as to a solicitous regard for the most accurate cultivation of the science of astronomy, to commit to others an operation requiring such various and delicate attentions, as the division of my instruments.' The present paper must place Mr. Troughton very high in the rank of distinguished English artists; and he will deserve h's elevation not for the skill of his hand only, (in which, however, he is surpassed by no modern,) but for contrivance of head. It has been properly rewarded by Sir Godfrey Copley's Gold Medal being assigned to its author, at the late anniver sary meeting of the Royal Society. Part II. of the Transactions for this year has just been issued. ART. ART. IV. The Nature and Guilt of Schism considered, with a parti cular Reference to the Principles of the Reformation, in eight Sermons, preached before the University of Oxford, in the Year 1807, at the Lecture founded by the Rev. John Bampton, M.A., Canon of Salisbury. By Thomas Le Mesurier, M.A., Rector of Newton Longville, Bucks, and late Fellow of New College, Oxford. 8vo. PP. 443. Ios. 6d. Boards. Longman and Co. 1808. SCHISM is a most aukward subject for a protestant ecclesiastic to discuss. Who is to decide? If the answer be, The Church from which the separation is made, then the Papist will take "the 'vantage ground" in his condemnation of all the Reformed communions; or, if the right of deciding be acceded to the Parties separating, then it will be impossible to convict the sectary of guilt. The case is nearly the same with Heresy. When in the last century a controversy was maintained on the latter topic between Drs. Stebbing and Foster, the wits of the day remarked that Stebbing was a heretic to God and Foster to the church. This dispute, and also the celebrated Bangorian controversy, ended where it began; and little inducement can be presented for renewing the agitation of questions, in which the parties debating are not agreed on a common principle. We suspect that most of Mr. Le Mesurier's readers will impeach his prudence in reviving with zeal the arguments against Schismatics, and will think that in many places he has laid himself open to a severity of animadversion, which he can scarcely have failed to foresee. On his own ground, he has certainly displayed considerable ability, and has spread his matter out into eight long sermons with the ingenuity of a professed orator but, the reasoning is not benefited by this diffusion; and, in spite of all his caution and adroitness, the very defence which he makes for the Established Church of this country, in separating from the church of Rome, must be fatal to his own argument. It is in vain to say that our forefathers at the Reformation had very substantial reasons (which no protestant doubts) for withdrawing from the church. of Rome, but that modern Separatists are not justified in their secession from the church as now by law established. The Separatist will ask on what principle did the Reform proceed,on that of submitting blindly to Authority, or on that of an appeal to Reason and Scripture? He will farther ask whether the right of private judgment was not recognized by the Church of England in her rejection of that dominion over conscience, which was claimed and exercised by the Court of Rome; and whether individuals of the present day have not the same right as the original reformers to dissent from Bb 2 that that which they disapprove, and to reform, as far as they themselves are concerned, the reformed religion? Mr. Le M., in a tone of dictatorial authority, may endeavour to silence the dissenter by reminding him that he is bound to adhere to the sound part of Christ's church established in this country' that this is his proper church;' that he is born within her bosom ;' that it is dangerous for men to be indulged with that complete liberty for which some persons would stipulate; and that a total freedom from-churchgovernment and external ceremonies is not a state particularly favourable to the increase of religion :-but all these assumptions will be as strenuously resisted as they are magisterially urged; and if, in addition to these remonstrances, the preacher, with all gravity of face, proceeds to represent the sectary as committing a grievous and heinous sin for which he must be deeply accountable at the day of judgment,' we suspect that the poor sectary will be more amused than alarmed by this brutum fulmen, or would-be anathema. Indeed, we should not be surprized if he should be so indecorous as to burst out into a downright laugh, when Mr. Le Mesurier (intending, no doubt, to produce a contrary effect,) quotes one of the Fathers to prove that Schism was a reason for the power of working miracles having ceased in the church. Of as little avail is the lecturer's view of the state of the Jewish Theocracy; for he surely would not compare a human with a divine institution, or even claim for a modern Bishop that power which belonged to the Apostles in consequence of miraculous gifts. It would afford us infinite pleasure to perceive more hatmony and less acrimonious division prevailing among profes sing christians but we are at the same time thoroughly persuaded that this preacher has not adopted the true mode of effecting that object. Indeed, we fear that it will be retarded rather than promoted by violent and presumptuous declamations against Schism. The sectary can have no objection to argument, but, like the spirits in Macbeth, "he will not be commanded." He cannot object to submit the matters at issue between him and the advocate for the Articles and Liturgy of the Church of England to a fair examination, in the very same way that Mr. Le M. brings the doctrines and discipline of the Church of Rome under review in order to vindicate the Protestant's rejection of such a mass of corruptions but he will not be told that his religious belief must be decided by his geographical position; and that the church of the country to which he belongs is, because he was born in it, his proper church.' Such logic will not pass current among Protestants in the nineteenth century. Whe ther the clergyman of our church argues with the Romanist or the Methodist, with the Arian or the Socinian, we should advise him to enter into the merits of each case, and fairly to discuss the acknowleged grounds of difference; because, if by this mode of amicable controversy he can win the dissentient back to the national fold, he most effectually cures the Schism in question; and if he cannot, it will be completely nugatory to charge him with a guilt of which he is not conscious. Since the passing of a toleration-act, the agitation of the question respecting the guilt of Schism is in a great measure set aside. Can the legislature be supposed to tolerate guilt? The established church has its rights and privileges secured to it by Parliament; while Parliament at the same time allows every man to think in religious matters for himself, and to worship God in that way which is most agreeable to his own conscience. Mr. Le M. is aware that he is treading on tender ground; and no advocate at the bar, who had received a special retainer, could be more adroit in making a strong case for his client: yet still we cannot congratulate him on his suc cess. We have adverted to several points of his argument, and do not consider it as necessary to follow him regularly through each discourse: but we shall transcribe his own sum, mary, given towards the conclusion of Sermon IV.; We do most firmly believe that Christ will be with his church to the end of the world; that, under whatever cloud he may suffer the light at any time to be obscured, whether through the malice of outward enemies or the corruptions of Christians them selves, it will always, in due season, break forth, it will, sooner or later, enlighten the world far and near. In particular, we acknowledge it to be an effect of that gracious Providence which thus watches over the faithful, that we have been enabled to free ourselves from the shackles which had been imposed upon us by the church of Rome, and from the corruptions and abominations with which we had been contaminated in the course of our communion with her bishops. We also believe, that there has always been a church of Christ existing and visible upon earth, though not always easy to be distinguished. Nay, we allow that church to have existed even under the papacy; for, as it has been truly said, a man infected with a leprosy is still a man; our church, therefore, was always subsisting, even in the dark ages, though diseased. God gave us grace at length to shake off the diseases with which we had thus been infected; we rid ourselves at the reformation of our many heresies, the most pestilent of which, because it was the source of all the others, was this supremacy of the popes. Thus the English church is, and has con tinued essentially the same, from the first conversion of the Britons to Christianity down to the present hour. She has, indeed, suffered Bb 3 from |