can be produced, and which no wellformed ear can tolerate. Thrice, at least, the term concerning occurs as a participle: the concerning truth of a future judgement, page 81, a short axiom concerning in its substance, page 128; and in page 187, we read, "in a sorry manner indeed, would the ministers of the gospel fulfil the concerning duties of their profession, &c.” In page 165, we are told, "that we must be content to sit down in disap. pointment, though not in disconsolation;" and, in another place, "the cottage of the labourer is the residence of disconsolation and want." If we had not met with such an unusual application of words, we should have supposed mortal to have been inserted in the following passage by some mistake on the part of the printer: "Is it not criminal in him to make this difference a plea for withdrawing from his brother mortal love and charity?" Having, in the faithful discharge of our duty, thus freely censured, we turn to the more pleasing part of our office. We can sincerely recommend this volume, as containing a brief, but well arranged, and ably executed view of some of the leading proofs of the divine origin of the gospel. Notwithstanding the occasional blemishes which we have noticed, these discourses are upon the whole well written, and contain many passages very forcible and eloquent. The volume is composed of nine sermons. The first is introductory to those on the evidences of christianity; the second is on the evidence arising from prophecy; the third on the evidence arising from miracles; the fourth on the internal character of christianity; the fifth on the evidence arising from the propagation and establishment of christianity; the sixth on the necessity of practical religion; the seventh on the christian spirit; the eighth a fast sermon preached during the last war; and the ninth a thanksgiving sermon on peace. As a specimen of the information and pleasure to be derived from these discourses, we present our readers with the following: "But the beneficent character of our Sa viour's miracles is not the only attestation of an heavenly origin with which they are impressed, and of the consequent truth of the system which he taught. Their number and their magnitude point to the same conclusions. They inclined the thinking party, even amongst the Jews, in spite of their general erroneous notions respecting the Messiah, to hesitate whether our Saviour might not be considered as that promised personage. When Christ cometh,' say they, will he do more miracles than this man hath done?" And if impartially investigated and seriously attended to, they must have the same effect upon every reflecting mind of the present day. "Turn to the sacred pages which record the wonders that he worked, and behold all Heaven fly to do his pleasure, and the raging nature subject to his power. The winds of of the sea subsides at his command. He wills the change, and immediately the simple element is converted into wine; and plenty is produced in the barren wilderness. He says, let there be light in those eyes which have been blind from their birth, and there is light. He says, let the tongue be untied which nature had bound down in silence, and instantly it is unloosed, and sings hosannahs to the Son of David. The devils themselves tremble at and obey the voice of Christ; at his word the evil spirit relinquishes the object of his malice; and the poor possessed wretch who was lately writhing under the agonizing paroxisms of demoniacal phrensy, is now seen in his right mind, sitting at the feet of his compassionate deliverer, and listening to the gracious words that fall from his mouth. Even the dead hear the command of the Son of God, and awaken from their deep repose. At his omnipotent word the last enemy disgorges his prey; the daughter of Jairus feels the genial tide of life return; the son of the widow of Nain, rescued from the cold embrace of death, is again restored to his weeping mother; and Lazarus, starting from the bed of corruption, acknowledges the power and beneficence of the Lord and Giver of life." ART. XXIX. Sermons preached to a Country Congregation. To which are added, a few Hints for Sermons, intended for the Use of the younger Clergy. By WILLIAM GILPIN, M. A. Prebendary of Salisbury, and Vicar of Boldre, in New Forest. Vol. III. 8vo. pp. 456. NO style of composition is attained with more difficulty by a man of learning, than that which prevails in the work now before us; yet no one is of equal importance to those who are situ ated as Mr. Gilpin is, or indeed to preachers in general. Plain, yet not inelegant; level to the meanest capacity, and yet pleasing to a person of most culti vated taste; adapted to a congregation, composed of "hewers of wood and drawers of water," and possessing attractions that would be felt in the court of a prince, or the school of a philosopher. In this style we cannot conceive of a greater proficient, than the vicar of Boldre; and we strongly recommend these discourses to the frequent perusal and the careful imitation of the younger clergy, especially of those who reside in country villages. We do not know any thing of the history of Mr. Gilpin's parish, but we are disposed to believe that no ignorant fanatical declaimer can have gained a hearing there. If they who "wander about from house to house, speaking the things which they ought not," have infected the parish of Boldre also, the worthy vicar must be sin gularly unfortunate in the flock over whom he presides. Twenty-five sermons are contained in this volume; twelve of these are upon the truth of the christian religion, the rest are upon miscellaneous subjects; such as-the poor in spirit; communing with our heart; the children of the world; faith, hope, and charity; the widow's mite, &c. From the following quotations, the character of these discourses may be justly drawn: In the second sermon upon the words of the apostle, let every one that nameth the name of Christ, depart from iniquity,' Mr. Gilpin observes: "In the first place, let us consider how disreputable it is to act unsuitably to our profession. Even in common matters, in the business of this world, it is disgraceful. He who professes an art, or calling, and appears totally ignorant of it, is justly thought contempuble. You know how discreditable it is for a man to take a farm, for instance, when he knows not how to manage it. He sows wheat where he should sow barley. His grounds are ill prepared for either; and his neighbours see him carrying into his barn a plentiful crop of weeds, intermixed with his corn. They laugh at his ignorance. He feels it, and is ashamed. "Now, if our feelings were as strong in matters of religion as they are in the matters of this world, (and it is a grievous thing, and much to be lamented, they are not) we should think it as contemptible for a christian to fall short of his profession, as for a man in any kind of business to be ignorant of that business. A christian's proper distinction is a holy life. He does not pretend to have more genius, or more learning, than a Turk or a heathen; but he professes to be more chaste, more sober, more just, more charitable, more pious, and more resigned. And if he fail in these, he deserts the art he should live by. He is a mere pretender, plainly unskilled in his proper profession." The exordium of the sixth discourse afforded us much pleasure: "We often rest satisfied with a fair out side. To be born in a christian country-to faith, and to lead a life unstained by any nomake a public profession of the christian torious sin, is enough to make a good christian. If other people consider us in this light, (and we are very candid to each other) we are ready enough to take our religion on trust. There is a fashion in religion, as in every thing; and if we are in the fashion it is well. In ancient times, when men strictly followed the rules of the gospel, a different kind of religion was in fashion; and such people as now often pass for good christians, would then have been considered as shameful men. A man may now freely indulge the pleasures of life: he may give the world his heart: he need not trouble his head with the intention, the conditions, the promises, or the threatenings of the gospel, and yet he may be like his neighbours: he may be in the fathought a very decent christian: he may be shion. "In little matters all this is well. In the trifling affairs of life, we may conform to the manners and customs of the world: we may suffer fashion to make a change in our cloaths. But, for God's sake, let us consider that religion is exactly the same now it ever was it admits no fashion; and if we take our measures of it from what we commonly see practised in these declining days, we may call it christianity, if we please; but we may just as well call it any thing else. It is, in general, no more like christianity, than a modern man of fashion is like an apostle." To such passages as these, and of such chiefly is the volume composed, we give an unqualified praise; but truth com pels us to censure the worthy author, for having, in one instance at least, suffered his faith to overcome his charity. In the twenty-second discourse, speak ing of future punishments, after having quoted some of those passages of scripture which are commonly supposed to relate to that subject, he asks, "How are we to interpret these passages? Are we to conceive them as expressing only some long period of time; or are we to consi der them in a literal sense? and that their meaning is, that future punishments are really to last for ever? 66 Many people, it is true, have been led(but I apprehend chiefly by their own wishes) to consider them in the former sense. I own, I see no grounds for such an opinion from any rules of interpretation that I know." And again he observes, "Or are we to consider future rewards as eternal, and future punishments as temporal, though the very same word is used to express both? This, no doubt, in the opinion of many people, would be the most commodious way of interpreting scripture; but whether it would be most agreeable to the just rules of interpretation, I much doubt." We must be allowed to express our surprise, that any one who considers properly the character of God, the nature and design of his moral government, the condition of the constitution of man, and the idioms which prevail in the language of scripture, should strenuously contend for so dreadful a doctrine as never-ending torments, reserved for the wicked. And we cannot refrain from expressing our deep and sincere regret, that a christian minister should himself feel, and endeavour to infuse into the minds of others, such uncandid and unchristian sentiments concerning those who cannot be induced to maintain the same principles No one, sure ly, who speaks thus harshly of all who do not doom the frail and erring creatures of a day to everlasting and reme diless woe, can have read the pious, the benevolent, and the able work of Petit.pierre! The hints for sermons are, in general excellent, and may be used by the younger clergy with much advantage. ART. XXX. Sermons composed for a Country Congregation. By the Rev. EDWARD NARES, A. M. Rector of Biddenden, Kent. 8vo. pp. 410. OF a character very different from that of the preceding article, is the volume now before us. Composed with the same view, and preached, we suppose, in similar situations, there are no points in which the discourses agree. In the one prevail chasteness and simplicity of diction, not without much elegance; in the other there appears consciousness of superiority, ill disguised and imperfectly concealed by poverty of sentiment, and meanness of expression. Mr. Gilpin is a country clergyman, who without any restraint, or any violation of the most polished manners, can talk to his parishioners upon equal terms. Mr. Nares is the gentleman of high breeding, who seems to be out of his proper sphere when not in the drawing room, and who stoops with difficulty and awkwardness to converse with a villager. His disCourses justify the remark we have already offered, respecting the difficulty of addressing the less cultivated classes of society, and demonstrate the necessity under which country clergymen ought to consider themselves, of studying the models of this most useful style of pulpit composition, exhibited by the vicar of Boldre. In condescension, no doubt, to the vular capacities of his rustic hearers, Mr. ares does not scruple to violate the Plainest principles of English grammar: zhus, in page 26, he says, "to a second, Perhaps, who she sees striving hard to raise himself above his fellows, religion will in cry out, to bumble himself, &c ;" and Page 272," turn then to the idle, he thinks it better to set in the sunshine and sing." How judicious the preacher, who striving, we suppose, to become all things to all men, thus accommodates his style to the unpolished minds of an illiterate congregation! "The poor man will be chearful and gay; the sick man patient and full of hope; the lowly, humble and submissive, and so on.". Page 145. Again, "We must allow it to be pardonable, while they are not taught better; but few are so destitute and forlorn, as to have no aged friend belonging to them who should teach them better. The sin must rest with these if they take no pains to teach the young better," &c. What the lowest of his village hearers could have written, the lowest must certainly have understood. Serious as was the subject, we much doubt whether the preacher did not excite a smile even amongst his rustic pa rishioners, by the following most pathetic passages: "And first, to weep for the dead, is very natural indeed, for we are of course left behind to lament their loss! They are gone and have left this troublesome world; and, alas! have left us to struggle through the difficulties of it unfriended and alone!" And again," Weeping and grieving are very painful and distressing!" From the same principle, we suppose, of accommodation to the prejudices and the ignorance of the unlearned, Mr. Nares misinterprets the language of scripture. "Jesus, (he observes, page 352,) existed before the tempter, through whose seductions our first parents fell This also, in no obscure terms, he intimates himself: I beheld Satan, says he, as lightning fall from Heaven.-Luke x. 18!" The whole passage in which this occurs we recommend to the reader's notice, as an admirable specimen of the bathos or art of sinking; a finer descending climax we do not recollect ever to have seen, excepting indeed that the order is in one instance violated: Christ is said to have existed before Abraham, before the tempter, before David, and before John. These may serve to demonstrate the truth of the observations with which we opened this article. The volume abounds with similar marks of the want both of judgement and of taste. From the following quotation, however, the reader will be induced to conclude, that if Mr. Nares had not mistaken the nature of the composition best adapted to a country congregation, he would have produced discourses not only more worthy of the public eye, but more likely to please and to benefit a country audience: "But, though it may seem more remote, the liberties we take with our lives, through a wanton abuse of health, is not less irrational, or more to be defended. There are many excesses men run into, the certain effects of which are well known to be, the positive destruction of health, and a premature bringing on of decay and decrepitude. Because it does not happen that life is apparently brought into immediate danger by every single act of intemperance, we are heedle effect do withdraw from our post, contrary t ART. XXXI. Sermons upon Subjects interesting to Christians of every Denomination By THOMAS TAYLER. 8vo. pp. 455. The subjects of these sermons are more interesting than the sermons themselves, we apprehend, will prove. The preacher has done little to attract and to fix the attention: he has delivered plain truths in a plain manner, and addressed himself to the judgement, rather than to the feelings; but whatever may be the general opinion of these discourses, they will prove, without doubt, acceptable to the members of the church and congregation of protestant dissenters in Carterlane; to whom they were formerly delivered, and are now dedicated, and with whom the author has had, as he himself says, "the honour and happiness to be connected for more than thirty-six years.". -The following subjects are here discussed in twenty sermons: The moral government of God; accountableness to God for our religious opinions; genuine religion distinguished from that which is counterfeit ; the superior excel lence of the righteous; the wisdom o doing every thing in its proper season the present our only state of trial; the duty and obligations of religious wor ship; the divine authority of the chris tian sabbath; the piety and fortitude o Daniel; Daniel's miraculous deliver ance; the authoritative manner in whic our Lord delivered his doctrine; th perfect purity of our Saviour's charac ter; the crucifixion of our Lord; th conduct of the disciples in desertin their master; the duty and obligation of imitating Christ; the peculiar affec tion which christians owe to each other and Jonah's gourd. The following extracts will afford specimen of the author's manner: In the second sermon, upon being ad countable to God for our religious op nions, he observes, state of flesh and blood, cannot always, "The most upright minds, in this fra any methods which they are capable of adopting, certainly secure themselves from falling into error. They may not enjoy the proper means of information; or, they may labour under innocent prejudices, even upon very interesting subjects, which will as unavoidably darken the eye of the mind, as a film, or a disorder of the nerves, does the eye of the body. And God, we may be sure, will not charge that, upon any man as a crime, which ought really to be considered as his calamity. The censure, now intended, does not extend to the involuntary, and unavoidable mistakes of a humble, upright, teachable mind, who wishes to know the path of truth and duty, and diligently uses every mean in its power to find it. A person of this excellent temper, has no hing to dread from the sentence of his merciful and righteous judge. No, Ars, such serious and impartial inquirers, may look up to him with an assured hope, that their unwilling mistakes, shall never be brought in charge against them. It is indolent and superficial inquirers, who are so enamoured with the pleasures, and profits of this world, that they care not what judgment they form upon religious subjects; it is the proud and selfconfident, who are so vain of their own knowledge and penetration, that they refuse to accept the assistance of that wisdom which is from above; in fine, it is men of corrupt minds, whose judgment is blinded by evil prejudices and passions, to whom the guilt of error belongs; and upon whom, even the knowledge and belief of the truth, confers no praise." In a discourse upon religious worship, the preacher observes: "We live in an age, when the ordinances of religious worship have undeservedly lost much of that respect and veneration, in which our pious ancestors held them. By some, it is pretended, they are not expressly enjoined; and by others, that they do not need them. One man thinks it sufficient, if now and then, when a convenient opportunity offers, and no other engagement lies upon his hands, he pays a complimental visit to the house of God; and another thinks he has fully discharged his duty, by attending there once a day; the remaining hours, he supposes, may be very lawfully given up to his own disposal. But I would ask persons of this description, what have you, or your fathers found in God, that you should be thus sparing and reserved in the time and labour you devote to his worship? You are lavish enough of both, in all other pursuits and engagements; and why so niggardly here? Is God so liberal in his grant of mercies; and can you think it grateful or just, to be so scanty and contracted in your returns of duty and praise? or, will you review such a waste of sacred time with approbation, and pronounce it wise, when eternity, with all it's interesting scenes, is just opening to your view? Admitting, for a moment, that the public worship of God, is not expressly enjoined; (though I know not how that can well be supposed) yet, surely, a just sense of our immense obligation to him, will lead us to consider it as an indispensible duty. And since it is good for us, in every way that we can adopt, to draw near to God; we should lose no opportunity that offers for approaching him. The obligation of an express command, should not be thought necessary here: the duty recommends itself, by it's own reasonableness and importance." From these quotations our readers will be able to form some judgment of the style and manner of the author. The seriousness and piety which prevail in these discourses, must have rendered them beneficial to those who heard them, ́ and they cannot be read without producing some similar good effects. ART. XXXII. Practical Sermons on several important Subjects. THEOPHILUS ST. JOHN, LL.B. pp. 394. IN an advertisement prefixed to these sermons, we are informed "that they have already been printed in imitation of manuscript." We are also informed of the occasion of their having been thus printed. "A bookseller of great respectability represented to the author, that sermons, resembling manuscript, were offered for sale by different writers. He therefore requested his friend to print some in the same manner, in the persuasion that they would put a stop to what he termed, such disreputable traffic. That end being soon answered, the bookseller ceased to advertise and disperse them." Of his intentions in By the Reverend offering them to the public, the author thus speaks: he hopes "that they may not be altogether useless," and "he entreats the reader to consider them as sermons calculated for a popular auditory, such as a clergyman, ardently desirous of doing good, would write for the use of his congregation." With this character these discourses corrcspond. They are impressive, serious, pious, and liberal. They are twentysix in number, and chiefly practical. As a whole, we were particularly pleased with the twenty-second sermon, on the uncertainty of life; and we shall not do our author wrong, by submitting to the |