! ' i i iiiai(uijuiiiiiili|ji«i|jjj|i L I B K, .A. E. -2- PIUXCETOX, X. J. The Stephen Collins Donsitinn KK 40 .rtJ3 V. 4 Hamilton, James, 1814-1867. Our Christian classics OUR CHRISTIAN CLASSICS: READINGS FKOM THE BEST DIVINES E^itlj foticcs giograpMtal m\^ CrititaL JAMES HAMILTON, D.I)., AUTIIOn OF "LIKE IN- EAKNEST," "MOUNT OF OLIVES," " r.OYAL rKEACIIEi;," ETC., LTC. IN FOUR VOLUMES. VOL. IV. NEW YORK: ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS No. 530 B E O A D W A Y . 1859. CONTENTS. PAGE PAGE The EronTEENTH Century- Biblical Critics and Expositors, 114 Apologists, 1 Bishop Lowth, . 115 Natural Theology, 5 Personification, 116 Dr Richard Bentley, . 5 The Sublime of Passion, 120 The Atomic Theory, . 5 Spontaneous Greneration, 7 Church Historians, 126 The Placing of our Planet, . 12 Bisliop Burnet, 126 William Derham, D.D., 14 Character and Death of Arch- On Birds, . 14 bishop Leigbton, , 127 Archdeacon Paley, 20 The Milners, . 131 Prospective Contrivances, . 23 Auselm, 132 The Diffusion of Happiness, 26 Dr John Jortin, 138 The Uses of Pain, . 29 Cyprian, 140 The Christian Evidence, 32 Joseph Addison, 32 Pulpit Orators, 145 The Constancy of the Early Bishop Atterbury, 147 Christians, 32 Dreams and Visions, 150 Bishop Butler, . 34 The Rainbow about the Throne , 153 The Mediatorial System, 36 Dean Swift, . 156 Bishop Newton, 42 On the Trinity, 156 Prophecies regarding the Deso- Jeremiah Seed, 163 lation of J udea, 43 True Heroism, 164 Bishop Watson, 48 Occupation for the Opulent, 164 The Virtues of the First Chris- Wit Misdirected, . 166 tians, 48 Daily Devotion, 167 Bishop Home, . A Dialogue on Philosophical 54 Bishop Sherlock, 170 Christianity and its Compe- Scepticism, Soame Jenyns, . 54 titors, 171 63 Archbishop Seeker, . 174 The Originality and Pre-emi- Antidotes to Anger, 175 nence of Christ and Chris- Set Thine House in Order, 180 tianity, 64 Laurence Sterne, 184 Theologians, 73 The Prodigal Son, . 185 Bishop Butler, . 73 Dr Dodd, 1S9 The Supremacy of Conscience, 74 Rules for Conversation, 190 On Love to Grod, 78 Anecdotes respecting Con- Bishop Warburton, 80 versation, . 193 Abraham's Sacrifice of Isaac, 82 Dr Ogden, 197 Bishop Horsley, 86 The Intercessor's Prayer The Lord come to His Temple, 88 coming back into his own The Risen Redeemer, 94 Bosom, . 197 Abraham Tucker, 99 A Socratic Dialogue, 201 Providence, . 101 The Lord's Supper, 202 Doing all for the Glory of Grod, 104 Philip Skelton, 207 Reason and Passion, . 107 Matrimonial Counsel, 208 Dr Convers Middleton, 109 Bishop Porteus, 212 Holy Water, . 110 The Centurion, 212 IV CONTENTS. PAGE PAGE The Great Revival, and its The Vanity of Science, 361 Evangelists, . 217 Castle-Building, 362 Specimens, 254 Alexander Pope, 363 George Whitefield, 254 Messiah, 364 The Offering up of Isaac, . 254 The Dying Christian to his What think ye of Christ \ . 256 Soul, 367 The last Farewell, . 260 Dr Edward Young, . 367 John Weslev, 261 The True Land of the Living, 369 On the Death of Mr White- The Awful Certainty, 369 field, 261 Dying Friends, 370 A Hymn, 267 Time, 371 James Hervey, 268 Piety, 371 T heron and Aspasio, 268 The Good Man, 372 The Treasures of Snow, . 271 John Gamboid, 374 Samuel Walker, 275 The Mystery of Life, 374 " God resisteth the Proud," 275 William Cowper, 375 John Berridge, 278 The Author Himself, 377 False Security, and Peace in The Pardoned Sinner, 377 Believing, 278 The Patriot and the Martyr, 378 William Romaine, 283 England, 380 Gospel Obedience, . 283 London, 382 Thomas Adam, 287 Patriotism and Providence, 383 Resignation, 287 The Pulpit, . 384 Practical and Experimental Epimaus, . 385 WpaTERS, . 289 Cruelty to Animals, 386 Bishop Beveridge, 289 The Restoration of all Things, 387 Flattery and Detraction, . 290 Hymns, .... 390 Lady Rachel Russell, . 291 Bishop Ken, . 390 Letters, 293 For Morning, 391 William Law, 296 For Evening, 393 A Father's Counsels, 297 For Midnight, 394 Bishop Home, 304 Joseph Addison, 396 The Psalms of David, 305 The Traveller's Hymn, 396 Henry Venn, . 307 Creation's Testimony, 397 Life in the Parsonage, 307 Joseph Hart, . 398 Letter to a Daughter, 308 Gethsemane, 398 John Newton, . 311 Augustus M. Toplady, 400 Things Lovely, 311 Assured Faith, 400 The Laity, 318 The Rock of Ages, . 401 Sir Isaac Newton, 318 A Meditation in Sickness, . 402 Periods of Prophetic Inspira- The Dying Believer to his Soul Edward Perron et, , 404 tion, 319 405 Sir Richard Steele, . 321 Crown Him Lord of All, 405 St Paul, . 321 Charles Wesley, 406 Daniel Defoe, . 326 The Day of Judgment, 407 The Squire and the Cottager, Samuel Johnson, 326 Wrestling Jacob, , 408 337 For the New Year, . 410 Prayers. 338 Gone Home, 411 Dr John Rutty, 339 Thomas Olivez's, 412 Diary, 339 The God of Abraham, 412 Hannah More. 341 William Cowper, 415 Diligent Dick, 342 AVaiking with God, 415 William Wilberforcc, . 353 The Fountain Opened, 415 Looking unto Jesus, 354 Light in Darkness, . 416 Sacred Poetry, 361 Matthew Prior, 361 Index, .... 418 Om CHRISTIAN CLASSICS. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. APOLOGISTS. " Holy Herbert," as men love to call tlie author of " The Temple," had an older brother Edward, who was created by Charles I. Loed Herbert of Cherbury. This older brother was a dashing soldier, a spirited diplomatist, and an accom- plished English gentleman. Besides representing King James at the Court of France, and distinguishing himself in the single-combats which were still the fashion of the age, under Maurice of Nassau he fought the Spaniards as recklessly as if he really wished to throw his life away. But, like his devout and gentle brother, Lord Herbert was a scholar and a genius, and his stirring career was interrupted by occasional fits of profound and careful meditation. There was a difference, however, betwixt the themes of the brothers. To the pure, meek spirit of George, the sayings of Scripture were conclu- sive, and he craved no truth more absolute than the utterances of the Great Amen. But in the mind of the warrior the place of faith was pre-occupied by philosophy. Instead of sitting under the Tree of Life, and eating the pleasant fruits, or group- ing in bright garlands the leaves and blossoms, he addressed himself to a different task. He analysed the soil, and experi- VOL. IV. A 2 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. mented on tlie sap, and came to the conclusion, tliat fruits as fair, and leaves as healing, could be manufactured by human alchemj^ Asking "What is Truth?" he found i^articles of it in every creed and worship, and by extracting them and re- combining them under the guidance of enlightened reason, he produced a system of natural religion, absolute, universal, and sufficient for all purposes ! 1 . That there is a Supreme Being ; 2. That He is to be worshipped; 3. That He is best wor- shi23ped by the exercise of virtue ; 4. That, if rejDented of, sin ^\ill be pardoned ; 5. And that there is a future state, vnih. punishments for vice, and with rewards for virtue : — into these five ultimate articles he crystallised the essence of all creeds, and as a substitute for more cumbrous systems, offered to the world his Eclectic Theism. It frequently happens that, whilst faith is shut out at the door, superstition gets in at the window. When Lord Her- bert had finished his book, one object of which was to bring into Cjuestion everything like special revelation, he could not persuade himself to publish it until he had personally received " a sign from heaven." " Being thus doubtful in my chamber," he tells us, " one fair day in the summer, my casement being open towards the south, the sun shining clear, and no wind stirring, I took my book ' De Veritate' m my hands, and kneeling on my knees, devoutly said these words : ' O Thou eternal God, author of this light which now shines upon me, and giver of all inward illuminations, I do beseech Thee of Thine infinite goodness, to pardon a greater request than a sinner ought to make. I am not satisfied enough, whether I ought to publish this book ; if it be for Thy glory, I beseech Thee give me some sign from heaven; if not, I shall suppress it.' I had no sooner spoken these words, but a loud though gentle voice came forth from the heavens — for it was like no- thing on earth — which did so cheer and comfort me, that I took my petition for gi'anted, and that I had the sign I de- HERBERT AND HOBBES. 3 mancTed : wherefore, also, I resolved to print my l3ook. This, how strange soever it may seem, I protest before the eternal God, is true : neither am I in any way superstitiously deceived herein, since I did not only clearly hear the voice, but in the serenest sky that ever I saw, being without all cloud, did, to my thinking, see the place from whence it came." Lord Herbert having thus received the special communication from heaven, which in the case of John and Paul he deemed im- possible, sent his book to Paris to be published. It appeared in 1624. Quarter of a century later — that is, in 1651— appeared the " Leviathan," — a treatise on the nature of a commonwealth, in which religion is referred to the will of the governor, and is declared to be a mere matter of political convenience. The production of one of the most powerful intellects wliich our country has ever yielded, distinguished by its marvellous sym- metry and system, abounding in caustic epigrams, annihilating those affections and better elements of human nature of which the writer himself knew nothing, with frequent apparent truth ascribing the best actions to the meanest of motives, and lay- ing the axe at the root of all religion — this work created a prodigious sensation, wliich outlasted the long life of its author, Thomas Hobbes of Malmsbury.* Its irreligion, its contemp- tuous way of treating mankind, and its cleverness endeared it to Charles II. and his jovial courtiers j whilst, among general readers, at first carried along by its shrewd remarks and its plain and vigorous language, many found themselves at last involved in the meshes of its sophistry, and shut up to the conclusion that men are miserable mutually -exterminating machines, with no higher power to help or pity, and with no future existence to compensate the miseries of this one. From the dragon teeth sown by Herbert and Hobbes in England, and by Spinoza in Holland, a mighty crop grew up * Born April 5, 1588 ; died Dec. 4, 1679. 4 THE EIGHTEENTn CENTURY. in the following century, and it would be dreary work to follow through its varying phases, the infidelity of Blount and Toland, Collins and Woolcot, Tindal and Morgan, Shaftesbury and Bolingbroke, David Hume, Edward Gibbon, and Thomas Paine in Britain, coinciding Avith the brilliant scepticism of Voltaire, and the Encyclopedists in France, and the more dis- astrous, because more treacherous unbelief of the Neologians in Germany. The times were favourable. Throughout the greater part of this century, there was little faith in Europe, and both in our own country and on the Continent, men were glad of such apologies for debauchery, and such opiates to their consciences as were supplied by the sentimentalism of Rous- seau and the jests of Voltaire. It was the October of our modern Europe. The Beformation summer was past, and the harvest of English Puritanism and Continental Pietism had gone home to God's garner, and now the cold earth and damp air had only force sufficient for fungoid vegetation. A hot sunshine is fatal to toadstools, and so is frost : but the sunny days of faith and zeal had passed away, and the winter of war and revolution had not yet set in. Accordingly, the right of private judgment, the free discussion, the intellectual energy (^f the Bcformation passing into the sear and yellow leaf, from the soil strewn with the honours of that noble forest nothing sprang save poisonous boleti and mould of many colours — the Fhallus fcetidus of Gibbon and Tom Paine, the Trejnella, cold and clammy, of Hume and other life-destroying parasites. But if unbelief was the form in which ungodliness then ramped and rioted, an earnest contending for the faith was the characteristic of English theology. That century was pre-emi- nently THE AGE OF APOLOGETICS ; and without further preface, we hasten to give a few specimens of the way in which the faith was defended by its more distinguished champions. These may be divided into two classes — the exponents of Natural Theology, and the advocates of Bcvealed Religion. NATURAL THEOLOGY. DE RICHARD BENTLEY. Amongst numberless benefactions to the cause of religion and humanity, the Hon. Robert Boyle settled by his will an annual stipend so as to secure the preaching of eight sermons every year, proving the Christian religion against notorious infidels — viz.. Atheists, Deists, Pagans, Jews, and Mohamme- dans. The first series was delivered in 1692 by the acute, learned, and, we are sorry to add, litigious Richard Bentley.* With much of the wit of his contemporary. South, and not a little of his style, the lectures by the future Master of Trinity are the most brilliant in the three well-known folios. Even now they may be considered " light reading," and at the time when their hits at the " Leviathan " and Hobbism could be thoroughly appreciated, they must have been exceedingly amusing. EffZ atomic EJecrrg. If they will still be meddling with atoms, be hammering and squeezing understanding out of them, I would advise them to make use of their own understanding for the instance. ISTothing, in my opinion, could run us down more effectually than that; for we readily allow, that if any understand- ing can possibly be produced by such clashing of senseless atoms, it is that of an Atheist, that hath the fairest pretensions and the best title to it. We know, it is " the fool that hath said in his heart, There is no God." And it is no less a truth than a paradox, that there are no greater fools than atheistical wits, and none so credulous as infidels. No article of religion, * Bom at Wakefiekl, January 27, 1662 ; died at Cambridge, July 1 i, 1742. A 9. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. though as demonstrable as the nature of the thing can admit, hath credibility enough for them. And yet these same cautious and quick-sighted gentlemen can wink and swallow dov,ii this sottish oi^inion about percipient atoms, which exceeds in incrcdibihty all the fictions of ^sop's fiibles. For is it not every whit as likely, or more, that cocks and bulls might discourse, and hinds and panthers hold conferences about religion, as that atoms can do so ? that atoms can invent arts and sciences, can institute society and government, can make leagues and confederacies, can devise methods of peace and stratagems of war? A.nd, moreover, the modesty of mythology deserves to be commended; the scenes there are laid at a distance : it is once upon a time, in the days of yore, and in the land of Utopia, there was a dialogue between an oak and a cedar : whereas the Atheist is so impudently silly, as to bring the farce of his atoms upon the theatre of the pre- sent age ; to make dull, senseless matter transact all public and private affairs, by sea and by land, in houses of parlia- ment, and closets of princes. Can any creduHty be com- parable to this ? If a man should affirm, that an ape, casually meetmg with pen, ink, and paper, and falling to scribble, did hai)pen to ^^Tite exactly the Leviathan of Thomas Hobbes, would an Atheist believe such a story? And yet he can easily digest as incredible as that; that the innumerable members of a human body, which, in the style of the Scrip- ture,* " are all written in the Book of God," and may admit of almost infinite variations and transpositions above the twenty- four letters of the alphabet, were at first fortuitously scribbled, and by mere accident compacted into this beautiful, and noble, and most wonderfully useful frame which we now see' it carry. But this will be the argument of my next discourse, which is the second proposition drawn from the text, that the admirable structure of human bodies, whereby they are fitted * Tsalm cxxxix. IG. SFONTANEOUS GENERATION. 7 to live, and move, and bo vitally informed by the soul, is un- questionably tlie workmanship of a most wise, and powerful, and beneficent Maker : to which Almighty Creator, together with the Son and the Holy Ghost, be all honour and glory and majesty and power, both now and from henceforth ever- more. Amen. Spontaneous feneration. But, secondly, we affirm that no insect or animal did ever proceed equivocally from jDutrefaction, unless in miraculous cases, as in Egypt by the divine judgments, but all are gene- rated from parents of their own kind, male and female ; a disco- very of that great importance that perhaps few inventions of this age can pretend to equal usefulness and merit, and which alone is sufficient (if the vices of men did not captivate their reason) to exjDlode and exterminate rank Atheism out of the world. For if all animals be propagated by generation from parents of their own species, and there be no instance in nature of even a gnat or a mite, either now or in former ages, spontaneously produced, how came there to be such animals in being, and whence could they proceed ? There is no need of much study and deliberation about it ; for either they have existed eter- nally by infinite successions already gone and past, which is in its very notion absurd and imj^ossible, or their origin must be ascribed to a supernatural and divine power that formed and created them. Now, to prove our assertion about the seminal production of all living creatures, that we may not rejDcat the reasons which we have offi?red before against the first mechani- cal formation of human bodies, which are equally valid against the spontaneous origin of the minutest insects, we appeal to observation and experiment, which carry the strongest con- viction with them, and make the most sensible and lasting im- pressions. For, whereas it hath been the general tradition and 8 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. belief that maggots and flies breed in putrefied carcasses, and particularly bees come from oxen, and hornets from horses, and scorpions from crab-fish, &c., all this is now found to be fable and mistake. That sagacious 'and learned naturalist, Fran- cisco Redi, made innumerable trials with the putrid flesh of all sorts of beasts and fowls, and fishes and serpents, with cor- rui)ted cheese, and herbs, and fruits, and even insects them- selves ; and he constantly found, that all those kinds of putre- faction did only afford a nest and aliment for the eggs and young of those insects that he admitted to come there, but produced no animal of themselves by a spontaneous forma- tion : for, when he suffered those things to putrefy in hermeti- cally sealed glasses, and vessels close covered with paper — and not only so, lest the exclusion of the air might be supposed to hinder the experiment, but in vessels covered with fine lawn, so as to admit the air and keep out the insects — no living thing was ever produced there, though he exposed them to the action of the sun, in the warm climate of Florence, and in the kindest season of the year. Even flies crushed and corrupted, when enclosed in such vessels, did never procreate a new fly, though there, if in any case, one would have expected that success. And when the vessels were open, and the insects had free access to the aliment ^vithin them, he diligently observed that no other species were produced but of such as he saw go in and feed, and deposit their eggs there, wliich they Avould readily do in all putrefaction, even in a mucilage of bruised S2)idcrs, where worms were soon hatched out of such eggs, and cjuickly changed into flies of the same kind with their parents. And was not that a surprising transformation indeed, if, according to the vulgar opinion, those dead and corrupted spiders spontaneously changed into flics 1 And thus far we are obliged to the diligence of Redi ; from whence we may conclude, that no dead flesh, nor herbs, nor other putrefied bodies, nor anything that hath not then actually cither a vege- SHOWERS OF FROGS. 9 table or animal life, can produce any insect. And if we should allow, as lie did, that every animal and plant doth natu- rally breed and nourish by its substance some peculiar insect, yet the Atheist could make no advantage of this concession as to a like origination of mankind. For surely it is beyond even an Atheist's credulity and impudence, to affirm that the first men might proceed out of the galls and tumours of leaves of trees, as some maggots and flies are supposed to do now ; or might grow upon trees, as the story goes about barnacles ; or perhaps might be the parasites of some vast prodigious animals, whose species is now extinct. But though we sup- pose him guilty of such an extravagant folly, he mil only shift the difficulty, and not wholly remove it; for we shall still expect an account of the spontaneous formation of those moun- tainous kind of animals and men-bearing trees. And as to the worms that are bred in the intestines and other inward parts of living creatures, their production is not material to our present inquiry, till some Atheist do affirm, that his own ances- tors had such an original. I say, if we should allow this con- cession of Eedi, it would do no service to our adversaries : but even here also they are defeated by the happy curiosity of Mal- pighi and others, who observed and discovered, that each of those tumours and excrescences of plants, out of which gene- rally issues a fly or a worm, are at first made by such insects, which wound the tender buds with a long hollow trunk, and deposit an egg in the hole with a sharp corroding liquor, which causeth a sv/elling in the leaf, and so closeth the orifice : and within this tumour the worm is hatched, and receives its ali- ment, till it hath eat its way through. And then, as to the vulgar opuiion, that frogs are made in the clouds, and brought down by the rains, it may be thus easily refuted : for at that very instant, when they are sup- posed to descend, you may find, by dissection, their stomachs full of meat newly gathered or partially digested; so that 10 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. tlicy had lurked before in tlie dcay-time in holes and bushes and gi-ass, and were then invited abroad by the freshness of a shower. And by this tune we may understand, what credit and authority those old stories ought to have about the mon- strous productions in Egypt after the inundation of the Nile, of mice and frogs and serpents, half flesh and half mud ; nay, of the legs, and arms, and other limbs of men, et quicqidd Grcecia mendax; altogether as true as what is seriously related by Helmont, that foul linen, stopped in a vessel that hath wheat in it, will in twenty-one days time turn the wheat into mice : which one may guess to have been the philosophy and information of some housewife, who had not so carefully covered her wheat but that the mice could come at it, and were there taken napping, just when they had made an end of their cheer. Corn is so innocent from this calumny of breed- ing of mice, that it doth not produce the very weevils that live in it and consume it ; the whole course of whose genera- tion and periodical changes hath been curiously observed and described by the ingenious Lewenhoeck. And, moreover, that we may deprive the Atheist of all hopes and pretensions of argument from this baffled opinion of equivocal insects, we will acquaint him from the most accurate observations of Swammerdam, that even the supposed change of worms into flies is no real transmutation ; but that most of those members, Avhich at last become \isible to the eye, are existent at the beginning, artificially complicated together, and covered with membranes and tunicles, which are aftei-^\ards stript off and laid aside : and all the rest of that process is no more surpris- ing than the eruption of horns in some brutes, or of teeth and beard in men at certain periods of age. And as we have established our assertion of the seminal production of all kinds of animals, so likewise we affirm, that the meanest plant cannot be raised without seed by any forma- tive power residmg in the soil. To which assertion we are PLANTS NOT SELF-CEEATED. 11 encouraged, first, from tlie known seeds of all vegetables, one or two only excepted, that are left to future discovery ; wliicli seeds, by the lielp of microscopes, are all found to be real and perfect plants, with leaves and trunk curiously folded up and enclosed in the cortex; nay, one single grain of wheat, or barley, or rye, shall contain four or five distinct plants under one common tunicle ; a very convincing argument of the pro- vidence and goodness of God, that those vegetables, that were appointed to be the chief sustenance of mankind, should have that multiplied fecundity above any others. And, secondly, by that famous experiment of Malpighi, who a long time enclosed a quantity of earth in a vessel, secured by a fine cloth from the small imperceptible seeds of x^lants that are blown about with the winds ; and had this success of his curiosity, to be the first happy discoverer of this noble and important truth, that no species of plants can be produced out of earth without a pre-existent seed ; and consequently they were all created and raised at the beginning of things by the Almighty Gardener, God blessed for ever. And, lastly, as to those various and elegant shells, that are dug up in continents, and embodied in stones and rocks at a vast distance from any sea ; which this Atheist may possibly allege for an instance of a plastic faculty of nature ; it is now generally agreed by the most diligent inquirers about them, that they are no sportful productions of the soil, as was formerly believed, but that all did once belong to real and living fishes ; since each of them exactly resembles some shell of the seas, both in its outward lineaments, and inward texture, and specific gTavity, and all other properties : which, therefore, are so far from being subser- vient to Atheists ui their audacious attempts against God and religion, that they rather afford an experimental confirmation of the universal deluge. And thus we have competently she^vn, that every species of living creatures, every small insect, and even the herbs of the 12 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. field, give a casting vote against Atheism, and declare tlie necessity of a supernatural formation. If tlie earth in its first constitution had been left to itself, what horrid deformity and desolation had for ever overspread its face ! Not one living inhabitant would be found on all its spacious surface ; not so much as a worm in the bowels of it, nor one single fish in the vast bosom of the sea ; not a mantle of grass or moss to cover and conceal the nakedness of nature. An eternal sterility must have possessed the world, where all things had been fixed and fostened everlastingly with the adamantine chains of specific gravity ; if the Almighty had not spoken and said, '' Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after its kind ; and it was so." It was God that then created the first seminal forms of all animals and vegetables, that " commanded the waters to bring forth abundantly," and " the earth to produce living creatures after their Idnd ; " that " made man in his ovra image after his own likeness ; " that by the efficacy of his first blessing made " him be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth ; " by whose alone power and conservation " we all live, and move, and have our being." 5r6e ^lacmtj of mx |5Imtct Let us consider the particular situation of our earth, and its distance from the sun. It is now placed so conveniently, that plants thrive and flourish in it, and animals live ; this is matter of fact, and beyond all dispute. But how came it to pass at the beginning, that the earth moved in its present orb? We have shewn before, that if gravity and a projected motion be fitly proportioned, any planet would freely revolve at any assignable distance within the space of the whole system. Was it mere chance then, or divine counsel and choice, that consti- tuted the earth in its present situation ? To know this, we POSITION OF THE EARTH IN SPACE. l3 will inquire if this particular distance from the sun bo better for our earth and its creatures than a greater or less would have been. We may be mathematically certain that the heat of the sun is according to the density of the sun-beams, and is reciprocally proportional to the square of the distance from the body of t]ie sun.* Now, by this calculation, suppose the earth should be removed and placed nearer to the sun, and revolve, for instance, in the orbit of Mercury, there the whole ocean would even boil with extremity of heat, and be all exhaled into vapours ; all plants and animals would be scorched and con- sumed in that fiery furnace. But suppose the earth should be carried to the great distance of Saturn ; there the whole globe would be one frigid zone; the deepest seas under the very equator would be frozen to the bottom j there would be no life, no germination, nor anything that comes now under our knowledge or senses. It was much better, therefore, that the earth should move where it does, than in a much greater or less interval from the body of the sun. And if you place it at any other distance, either less or more than Saturn or Mercury, you will still alter it for the worse, proportionally to the change. It was situated, therefore, where it is by the msdom of some voluntary agent, and not by the blind motions of fortune or fate. If any one should think within himself, how, then, can any animal at all live in Mercury and Saturn in such intense degrees of heat and cold ? let him only consider, that the matter of each planet may have a different density, and texture, and form, which will dispose and cjualify it to be acted on by greater or less degrees of heat, according to their several situations ; and that the laws of vegetation, and life, and sustenance, and pro- pagation, are the arbitrary pleasure of God, and may vary in all planets according to the divine appointment and the exigencies of things, in manners incomprehensible to our imaginations. It is enough for our purpose to discern the tokens of wisdom * Newton, Principia, p, 415. VOL. IV. B 14 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. in the placing of our earth ; if its present constitution woukl be spoiled and destroyed, if we could not wear flesh and blood, if we could not have human nature at those different distances. WILLIAM DERHAM, D.D. Like his neighbour, John Eay of Black Notley, Dr Derliani'^ was a clergyman who cultivated with much zeal different branches of Natural History. In his parsonage at Upminster he collected a large museum, including an extensive series of ornitholigical specimens, and both by his own publications, and the affectionate zeal with which he edited the labours of others, he earned a just renown amongst investigators abroad, and amongst his brethren of the Eoyal fSociety at home. In 1711 he was invited to preach the Boyle Sermons, and he afterwards published them under the title, " Physical Theology ; or, a Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God from the Works of Creation." This work, with its companion volume, the " Astro-Theology," and Bay's " Wisdom of God in Crea- tion," long enjoyed a great and Avell-merited poiDularity, and all the three are interesting as the first specimens of a delightful literature in which British authorship abounds, and of which the Bridgewater Treatises are the most familiar, as well as the most finished specimens. Derham's work being originally in the form of sermons, his detailed illustrations are given in foot-notes. In the last of the folloAving notes it is hardly nccessaiy to premise that the fisherman's story about swallows hybernating under water is apocryphal. As this tribe hath a different motion from that of other ani- * Born at Stoughton, near Worcester, November 26, 1657 ; died at Up- minster, Essex, April 5, 1735. BIRDS. 15 mals, and an ampliibioiis way of life, partly in tlie air, and partly on the land and waters, so is tlieir l^ody accordingly shaped, and all theii' parts incomparably fitted for that way of life and motion; as will be found by a cursory view of some of the particulars. And the 1. First and most visible thing, is the shape and make of their body, not thick and clumsy, but incomparably adapted to their flight : sharp before, to pierce, and make way through the air, and then, by gentle degrees, rising to its fall bulk. To which we may add, 2. The neat position of the feathers throughout the body; not ruffled, or discomposed, or placed some this, some a con- trary way, according to the method of chance; but all arti- ficially placed for facilitating the motion of the body, and its security at the same time, by way of clothing : and for that end, most of the feathers tend backward, and are laid over one another in exact regidar method, armed with warm and soft down next the body, and more strongly made, and curiously closed next the air and weather, to fence off the injuries thereof. To which purpose, as also for the more easy and nimble gliding of the body through the air, the provision nature hath made, and the instinct of these animals to preen and dress their feathers, is admirable; both in respect of their art and curiosity in doing it, and the oil-bag* glands and whole apparatus for that service. And now, having said thus much relating to the body's motion, let us, 3. Survey the grand instrument thereof, the * Mr Willongliby saith there are two glands for the secretion of the unctu- ous matter in the oil-bag. And so they appear to be in geese. 13ut upon examination, I find, that in most other birds (such at least as I have in- quired into) there is only one gland : in Avhich are divers little cells, ending in tAvo or three larger cells, lying under the nipple of the oil-bag. This nipple is perforated, and being pressed, or drawn by the bird's bill, or head, emits the liquid oil, as it is in some birds, or thicker unctuous grease, as it is in others. 16 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ^^^ngs, — which, as they arc principal parts, so are made with great skill, and placed in the most commodious point of the body,* to give it an exact equipoise in that subtile medium, the air. And here it is observable, with what incomparable curiosity every feather is made ; the shaft exceedmg strong, but hollow below for strength and lightness sake; and above, not much less strong, and filled with a parenchyma or pith, both strong and light too. The vanes are nicely gauged on each side as made; broad on one side, and narroAver on the other; both wliich incomparably minister to the progressive motion of the bird, as also to the union and closeness of the wing.t And no less exquisite is the textrine art of the plumage X * In all birds that fly much, or that have the most occasion for their wings, it is manifest that their wings are placed in the very best part, to balance their body in the air, and to give as swift a progression as their ■wings and body are capable of. For otherwise, we should perceive them to reel, and fly unsteadily ; as we see them do if we alter their equipoise by cutting the end of one of the wings, or hangiug a weight at any of the ex- treme parts of the body. f The wise Author of Nature hath afforded an example of the great nicety in the formation of birds, by the nicety observed in a part no more considerable than the vanes of the flag-feathers of the wing. Among others, these two things are observable, 1. The edges of the exterior or narrow vanes bend downwards, but of the interior, wider vanes upwards ; by which means they catch hold, and lie close to one another, when the wing is spread, so that not one feather may miss its full force and impulse upon the air. 2. A yet lesser nicety is observed, and that is in the very sloping the tips of the flag-feathers. The interior vanes being neatly sloped away to a point, towards the outward part of the Aving ; and the exterior vanes, towards the body, at least in many birds ; and in the middle of the wing, the vanes being equal, and but little sloped. So that the wing, whether ex- tended or shut, is neatly sloped and formed, as if constantly trimmed with a pair of scissors. Z Since no exact account that I know of, hath been given of the mechan- ism of the vanes or webs of feathers, my observations may not be unaccept- able. The vane consists not of one continued membrane, because if once broken, it would hardly be reparable ; but of many lamina^, M'hich are thin, stiif, and somewhat of the nature of a thin quill. Towards the shaft of tho FEATHERS. 17 also ; wMcli is so curionsly -vvTonglit and so artificially inter- woven, that it cannot be viewed without admiration, especially when the eye is assisted with glasses. And as curiously made, so no less curiously are the feathers placed in the wing, exactly according to their several lengths and strength: the principals set for stay and strength, and these again well lined, faced, and guarded with the covert and secondary feathers, to keep the air from passing through, whereby the stronger impulses are made thereupon. And lastly, to say no more of this part, that deserves more to be said of it, what an admirable apparatus is there of bones, very strong, but withal light and incomparably wi'ought! of joints, which open, shut, and every way move, according to the occasions either of extending it in flight, or withdrawing the wing again to the body ! and of various muscles; among which the pecuhar strength of the pectoral muscles deserves especial remark, by reason they are much stronger in birds than in man, or any other animal not made for flying. feather (especially in the shaft-feathers of the wing) those laminae are broad, &c., of a semicircular form, which serve for strength, and for the closer shutting of the laminae to one another, when impulses are made upon the air. Towards the outer part of the vane, these laminae grow slender and taper. On their under side they are thin and smooth, but their up])er outer edge is parted into two hairy edges, each side having a different sort of hairs, laminated or broad at bottom, and slender and bearded above the other half. I have, as well as I could, represented the uppermost edge of one of these laminse with some of the hairs on each side, magnified with a micro- scope. These bearded bristles or hairs on one side the laminas, have straight beards; those on the other side, have hooked beards on one side the slender part of the bristle, and straight ones of the other. Both these sorts of bristles magnified (only scattering and not close) are represented as they grow upon the upper edge of the laminas. And in the vane, the hooked beards of one lamina always lie next the straight beards of the next lamina, and by that means lock and hold each other, and by a pretty mechanism brace the lamince close to one another. And if at any time the vane happens to be ruffled and discomposed, it can by this pretty easy mechanism be re- duced and repaired. b2 18 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. 4. Next the wings, the tail is in flight considerable; greatly assisting in all ascents and descents in the air; as also serving to steady''^ flight, by keeping the body upright in that subtile and yielding medium, by its readily turnmg and answering every vacillation of the body. And now, to the parts serving for flight, let us add the nice and complete manner of its performance ; all done according to the strictest rules of mechanism. What rower on the waters, what artist on the land, what acutest mathematician, could give a more agreeable and exact motion to the wings, than these untaught flying artists do theirs? serving not only to bear their bodies up in the air, but also to waft them along therein with a sj^teedy progressive motion, as also to steer and turn them this way and that way, up and down, faster or slower, as their occasions require, or their pleasure leads them. 5. Next to the parts for flight, let us view the feet and legs ministering to their motion : both made light for easier trans- portation through the air ; and the former spread, some with membranes for swimming,t some without, for steady going, for * Mr Willoughby, Ray, and many others, imagine tlie principal use of the tail to be to steer, and turn the body in the air, as a rudder. But Borelli Lath put it beyond all doubt, that this is the least use of it, and that it is chiefly to assist the bird in its ascents and descents in the air, and to obviate the vacillations of the body and wings. For, as for turning to this or that side, it is performed by the wings and inclination of the body, and but very little by the help of the tail. t It is considerable in all water-fowl, how exactly their legs and feet correspond to that way of life. For either their legs are long, to enable them to wade in the waters : in which case their legs are bare of feathers a good way above the knees, the more conveniently for this purpose. Their toes also are all ])road ; and in such as bear the name of JMudsuckers, two of the toes are somewhat joined, that they may not easily sink in walking upon boggy places. And as for such as are whole-footed, or whose toes are webbed together (excepting some few) their legs are generally short, which is the most convenient size for swimming. And 'tis pretty enough to see how artificially they gather up their toes and feet when they withdraw their legs, or go to take their stroke ; and as artificially again extend or open LIMBS OF BIEDS. 19 l^erching, for catcliing and holding of prey,* or for hanging by the heels to gather their food,t or to fix themselves in their places of retreat and safety. And the latter, namely, the legs, all curved for their easy perching, roosting, and rest, as also to help them upon their wings in taking their flight, and to be therein commodiously tucked up to the body, so as not to obstruct their flight. In some long, for wading and searching the waters ; in some of a moderate length, answerable to their vulgar occasions ; and in others as remarkably short, to answer their especial occasions and manner of life, J To all wliich let us add the placing these last-mentioned parts in the body. In their whole foot, wlien they press upon, or drive themselves forward ia the waters. " Some of the characteristics of rapacious birds, are to have hooked, strong, and sharp-pointed beaks and talons, fitted for rapine, and tearing of flesh ; and strong and brawny thighs for striking down their prey. Wil- loughhy Ornith., 1. 2. c. 1. Haii Synoxis. Av. Method, p. 1. f Such bhds as climb, particularly those of the woodpecker kind, have for this purpose (as Mr Willoughby observes, 1. 2 c. 4) — 1. Strong and mus- culous thighs. 2. Short legs, and very strong. 3. Toes standing two for- wards, and two backwards. Their toes also are close joined together, that they may more strongly and firmly lay hold on the tree they climb upon. 4. All of them have a hard stiff tail, bending also downwards, on which they lean, and so bear vip themselves in climbing. X Swifts and swallows have remarkably short legs, especially the former, and their toes grasp anything very strongly ; all which is useful to them in building their nests, and other such occasions as necessitate them to hang frequently by their heels. But there is far greater use of this structure of their legs and feet, if the reports be true of their hanging by the heels in great clusters (after the manner of bees) in mines and grottos, and on the rocks by the sea, all the winter— of which latter, I remember the late learned Dr Fry told his story at the university, and confirmed it to me since, \\z. : — That an ancient fisherman, accounted an honest man, being near some rocks on the coast of Cornwall, saw at a very low ebb, a black list of some- thing adhering to the rock, which when he came to examine, he found it was a great number of swallows, and, if I misremember not, of swifts also, hanging by the feet to one another, as bees do, which Avere covered com- monly by the sea-waters, but revived in his warm hand, and by the fire. All this the fisherman himself assured the doctor of. 20 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. all somewhat out of the centre of tlie body's gravity,* but in such as swim, more than in others, for the l^etter rowing their bodies through the waters, or to help them in that and diving too. ARCHDEACON PALEY. One October evening, a hundred years ago, the master of Giggleswick school was musing in his quiet study — more quiet than usual, for he had just deposited at Cambridge the hope of his house, his first-born William. The silence was broken by his remarking to a youth, his only boarder, " My son is now gone to college. He'll turn out a gTeat man — very great indeed — I 'm certain of it ; for he has by far the clearest head I ever met with in my life." The clear head was attached to a very clumsy body. On his first journey to Cambridge he dropped from his pony so often, that at first his father was afraid of his breaking his neck ; but after a time he became such a proficient in falling, that when the old gentleman heard a thump on the road behind him, he would only turn aside his head and say, " Get up, lad, and take care of thy money." And, as is often the case with clear heads and clumsy bodies, he was profoundly indolent. At college, the undergraduates were allowed to omit attendance at chapel twice a-week, and he used to exhaust his privilege on Sunday and Monday morn- ings, lying in bed till late in the day; and after he got up most of his time was spent in useless company. At last, and at the commencement of his third year, after leaving a party late at night, he was awakened at five in the morning by one of his companions, who stood at liis bed-side and said solemnly, " Paley, I have been thinking what a fool you are. I could do * In birds that frequent not the waters, the wings are in the centre of gravity, when the bird lies along, as in flying ; but when it stands or walks, the erection of the body throws the centre of gravity upon the thighs and feet. PALEY. 21 nothing, probably, were I to try, and I can afford tlic life I lead ; yon conld do everything, and yon cannot afford it. I have had no sleep dnring the whole night, on account of these reflections, and am now come solemnly to inform you that, if you persist in your indolence, I must renounce your society." He was so struck mth the visit and the visitor, that he lay in bed most of the day revolving the matter. He formed his plan. He ordered his bed-maker to prepare his fire every night, and he himself rose and lighted it at four every morn- ing. The whole day he devoted to study, except the hours required for chapel and hall, till nine at night, when he went to a neighbouring coffee-house and regaled himself on a glass of milk-punch and a mutton chop. As the result of these ex- ertions, his friendly monitor was rewarded by seeing his pro- tege come out senior wrangler, and his father lived to find his prophecy fulfilled. He lived to see his son a dignitary of the Church, and celebrated throughout Europe as the author of '' Hor£e Pauline^," and " A View of the Evidences of Chris- tianity." For his success he was mainly indebted to his " clear head." He looked direct into the heart of things, and had a wonder- ful faculty of extricating the main point from its accessories or its encumbrances, and in plain, unadorned language, he pre- sented to other minds what he saw so vividly. As an investi- gator of truth, it was his advantage to have little emotion or passion, and he had just imagination enough to suggest every possible alternative in the course of the inquiry, without that seductive fancy which might have carried him from the path of a severe and self-denying demonstration. In the days of his boyhood he had witnessed at York the trial of Eugene Aram — " a man who," he used to say, " got himself hanged by his own cleverness f but whilst, in common with most Englishmen, he felt that innocence does not need to be ingenious, liis mind was greatly excited by that trial, and thenceforward the laws 22 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, of evidence and jirobability so absorbed his thoughts, that he would have made a first-rate judge or pleader. But as the- ology was his profession, he gave to its supremely urgent ques- tions the results of his experience and the powers of his sturdy and straightforward understanding. His first essay was a con- tribution* to the Christian evidence, as acute as it was novel ; and, especially now that the "undesigned coincidences" be- twixt Paul the epistoliser and Luke the historian have been followed up by similar latent but exquisite harmonies between the different evangehsts, as also between different Old Testa- ment -wiiters,* the mutual but uncollusive agreements of the sacred penmen give token of a truthfulness which no honest mind is able to gainsay, and to unlearned readers the proof is peculiarly acceptable, as lying within the four corners of the Book, and needing to be supjolemented by no extrinsic or scien- tific evidence. The labours of Lardner and other investigators had accumu- lated a mass of liistorical and documentary confirmations of the Christian revelation absolutely overwhelming ; but their very amount was in some degree fatal to their efficacy. Few had patience to plod through successive tomes of Latin and Greek quotations ; and so slowly did the cumbrous masses converge to a conclusion, that a disappointed, not to say distrustful, feeling was left on the mind of many a reader. Like the launch of a " Leviathan," it was weary work to watch the slow pressing of the hydraulic rams. With his engineering eye, Paley struck out a more excellent way. Laying down as ful- crums the first principles Avhich should be equal to any pressure, by way of levers he selected a few of the most bril- liant and decisive facts, and in a few moments the gallant vessel was afloat. To some it may be interesting to know the mature convic- tion of this cool and cautious investigator. Towards the close * In the works of J. J, Blunt, Birks, kc. PALEY S NATUEAL THEOLOGY. 23 of life, and wlien Christianity was becoming more and more an affair of serions personal urgency, he remarked to an intimate friend, " There can be no deceit in this matter. I have exa- mined it with all the attention of which I am capable, and if there had been a cheat in it, I think I must have found it out." From his earliest boyhood, Paley had a mechanical turn. He delighted in observing the operations of skilled artizans ; and in all the contrivances by which difficulties were overcome, and beautiful results were arrived at, his curious mind found a pleasing excitement. It is still among the traditions of Sun- derland how eagerly he watched day by day the erection of the iron bridge over the Wear ; and Lord Landsdowne still remem- bers how the invalid rector bestirred himself to explain to his visitor the various ingenuities of this engineering masterpiece. For this mechanical instinct he found a worthy outlet in the work which closed his useful labours, " Natural Theology : or, Evidences of the Existence- and Attributes of the Deity, col- lected from the Appearances of Nature." Paley was born at Peterborough, August 30, 1743; and died at Bishopwearmouth, May 25, 1805. His " Hora3 Paulinre" appeared in 1790; the "Evidences" in 1794; the "Natural Theology" in 1802. It is from this last work that the ex- tracts immediately following are taken. I can hardly imagine to myself a more distinguishing mark, and, consequently, a more certain proof of design, than 2>'>'^- 2Kiratio7i, i.e. the providing of things beforehand, which arc not to be used until a considerable time afterwards : for this implies a contemplation of the future, which belongs only to intelligence. Of these prospective contrivances, the bodies of animals fur- nish various examples. 24 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUHY. I. The human teeth aftorcl an instance, not only of pro- spective contrivance, but of the completion of the contrivance being designedly suspended. They are formed ■udthin the gums, and there they stop; the fact being that their further advance to maturity would not only be useless to the new- born animal, but extremely in its way; as it is evident that the art of sucldng, by which it is for some time to be nourished, will be performed with more ease both to the nurse and to the infant, whilst the inside of the mouth, and edges of the gums, are smooth and soft, than if set with hard-pointed bones. By the time they are wanted, the teeth are ready. They have been lodged "vsithin the gums for some months past, but detained, as it were, in their sockets, so long as their further protrusion would interfere ■v\ith the office to which the mouth is destined. Nature, namely, that intelligence which was employed in crea- tion, looked beyond the first year of the infant's life; yet, whilst she was providing for functions which were after that term to become necessary, was careful not to incommode those which preceded them. What renders it more probable that this is the effect of dgsign, is, that the teeth are imperfect, whilst all other parts of the mouth are perfect. The lips are perfect, the tongue is perfect ; the cheeks, the jaws, the palate, the pharynx, the larynx, are all perfect : the teeth alone are not so. This is the fact with respect to the human mouth : the fact also is, that the parts above enumerated, are called into use from the beginning; whereas the teeth would be only so many obstacles and annoyances, if they were there. When a contrary order is necessary, a contrary order jDrevails. In the worm of the beetle, as hatched from the e<^'^, the teeth are the first things which arrive at perfection. The insect begins to gnaw as soon as it escapes from the shell, though its other parts be only gradually advancing to their maturity. . . . III. The eye is of no use, at the time when it is formed. It is an optical instrument made in a dungeon; constructed PP.0SPECT1VE COKTRlVANCEb. 25 for tlie refraction of liglit to a focus, and perfect for its pur- pose, before a ray of liglit lias had access to it ; geometrically adapted to tlie properties and action of an element with which it has no communication. It is about indeed to enter into that communication: and this is precisely the thing which evidences intention. It is j^^'ovidinff for the future in the closest sense which can be given to these terms ; for it is pro- viding for a future change ; not for the then subsisting con- dition of the animal; not for any gradual progress or advance in that same condition; but for a new state, the consequence of a great and sudden alteration, which the animal has to undergo at its birth. Is it to be believed that the eye w\ns formed, or, which is the same thing, that the series of causes was fixed by which the eye is formed, without a view to this change; without a prospect of that condition, in which its fabric, of no use at present, is about to be of the greatest ; without a consideration of the qualities of that element, hither- to entirely excluded, but with which it was hereafter to hold so intimate a relation ? A young man makes a pair of spec- tacles for himself against he grows old ; for wdiich spectacles he has no want or use whatever at the time he makes them. Could this be done Tvithout knowing and considering the defect of vision to which advanced age is subject? Would not the precise suitableness of the instrument to its purpose, of the remedy to the defect, of the convex lens to the flattened eye, establish the certainty of the conclusion, that the case, after- wards to arise, had been considered beforehand, speculated upon, provided for? all which are exclusively the acts of a reasoning mind. The eye formed in one state, for use only in another state, and in a different state, affords a proof no less clear of destination to a future purpose ; and a proof i:)ropor- tionably stronger, as the machinery is more complicated, and the adaptation more exact. VOL. IV, c 26 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. It is a liappy world after all. Tlic air, the earth, the water, teem with delighted existence. In a spring noon, or a summer evening, on whichever side I turn my eyes, myriads of happy beings crowd ujjon my view. " The insect youth are on the mng." fSwarms of new born^i^s, are trying their pinions in the air. Their sportive motions, then- wanton mazes, their gratuitous activity, their continual change of place -wdthout use or purpose, testify their joy, and the exultation which they feel in their lately discovered faculties, A hee amongst the flowers in spring, is one of the most cheerful objects that can be looked upon. Its life appears to be all enjoyment ; so busy, and so pleased ; yet it is only a specimen of insect life, with wliich, by reason of the animal being half domesticated, we happen to be better acquainted than we are with that of others. The wJtole winged insect tribe, it is probable, are equally intent upon their proper employments, and, under every variety of consti- tution, gratified, and perhaps equally gratified, by the offices which the Author of their nature has assigned to them. But the atmosphere is not the only scene of enjoyment for the insect race. Plants are covered with aphides, greedily sucking their juices, and constantly, as it should seem, in the act of sucking. It cannot be doubted but that this is a state of gratification. What else should fix them so close to the operation, and so long ? Other species are running ahout, with an alacrity in their motions which carries with it every mark of pleasure. Large patches of ground are sometimes half covered with these brisk and sprightly natures. If we look to what the 2vaters produce, shoals of the fry of fish frequent the margins of rivers, of lakes, and of the sea itself. These are so happy, that they know not what to do with themselves. Their attitudes, their vivacity, their leaps out of the water, their frolics in it (which SHRIMPS MERRY-MAKING. 27 I have noticed a tliousand times with equal attention and amusement), all conduce to shew their excess of spirits, and are simply the effects of that excess. Walldng by the sea-side, in a calm evening, upon a sandy shore, and with an ebbing tide, I have frequently remarked the appearance of a dark cloud, or, rather, very thick mist, hanging over the edge of the water, to the height, perhaps, of half a yard, and of the breadth of two or three yards, stretching along the coast as far as the eye could reach, and always retiring with the water. When this cloud came to be examined, it proved to be nothing else than so much space, filled with young shrimps, in the act of bounding into the air from the shallow margin of the water, or from the wet sand. If any motion of a mute animal could express delight, it was this : if they had meant to make signs of their happiness, they could not have done it more intelli- gibly. Suppose then, what I have no doubt of, each individual of this number to be in a state of positive enjoyment ; what a sum, collectively, of gratification and pleasure have we here before our view ? The young of all animals appear to me to receive pleasure simply from the exercise of their limbs and bodily faculties, without reference to any end to be attained, or any use to be answered by the exertion. A child, without knowing anythuig of the use of language, is in a high degree delighted with being able to speak. Its incessant repetition of a few articulate sounds, or, perhaps, of the single word which it has learnt to pronounce, proves tliis point clearly. Nor is it less pleased with its first successful endeavours to walk, or rather to run (which precedes walking), although entirely ignorant of the importance of the attainment to its future life, and even with- out applying it to any present purpose. A child is delighted ■with speaking, without having anything to say, and with walk- ing, wdthout knowing where to go. And, prior to both these, I am disposed to believe; that the waking hours of infancy are 28 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. agreeably taken up -with the exercise of vision, or perhaps, more properly speaking, with learning to see. But it is not for youth alone that the great Parent of crea- tion hath provided. Happiness is found with the purring cat, no less than with the playful kitten ; in the arm-chair of doz- ing age, as well as in either the sprightliness of the dance, or the animation of the chase. To novelty, to acuteness of sen- sation, to hope, to ardour of pursuit, succeeds, what is, in no inconsiderable degree, an equivalent for them all, " perception of ease." Herein is the exact difference between the young and the old. The young are not happy, but when enjoying pleasure ; the old are happy, when free from pain. And this constitution suits with the degrees of animal power which they respectively possess. The vigour of youth w\as to be stimu- lated to action by impatience of rest ; whilst to the imbecility of age, quietness and repose become positive gratifications. In one important respect the advantage is with the old. A state of case is, generally speaking, more attainable than a state of pleasure. A constitution, therefore, w^hich can enjoy ease, is preferable to that wiiich can taste only pleasure. This same percejDtion of case oftentimes renders old age a condition of great comfort, especially when riding at its anchor after a busy or tempestuous life. It is well described by Rousseau, to be the interval of repose and enjoyment, betw^een the hurry and the end of life. How^ far the same cause extends to other ani- mal natures, cannot be judged of with certainty. The appear- ance of satisfaction, with w^hich most animals, as their activity subsides, seek and enjoy rest, affords reason to believe, that this source of gratification is appointed to advanced life, under all, or most, of its various forms. In the species with which we are best acquainted, namely our own, I am far, even as an observer of human life, from thinking that youth is its happiest season, much less the only haj^py one : as a Christian, I am warning to believe that there is a great deal of truth hi the TTSES OF PAIN. 29 followdng representation, given by a very pions writer, as well as excellent man : " To the intelligent and virtuous, old age presents a scene of tranquil enjo}Tnents, of obedient appetite, of well-regulated affections, of maturity in knowledge, and of calm preparation for immortality. In this serene and dignified state, placed as it were on the confines of two worlds, the mind of a good man reviews what is past with the complacency of an aiDproving conscience ; and looks forward, with humble confidence in the mercy of God, and with devout aspirations towards His eternal and everlasting favour." mjz mses of Pain. [The foregoing extract, as well as the following, is taken from the chapter " Of the Goodness of the Deity." Like most of the work, it was interrupted by paroxysms of a painful disorder, which eventually proved fatal. Paley's physician, Dr Clark, " often expressed his admiration at the fortitude mth which he bore the most painful attacks, and at the readiness, and even cheerfulness, Avith which, on the first respite from pain, he resumed his literary labours. When Dr Paley speaks of the power which pain has ' of shedding satisfaction over intervals of ease, which few enjoyments exceed j' and assures us that ' a man resting from severe pain is, for the time, in possession of feelings which undisturbed health can- not impart,' the sentiment flowed from his own feelings. He was himself that man ; and it is consolatory, amidst the nu- merous diseases to which the human frame is liable, to find how compatible they are with a certain degree of comfort, and even enjoyment. Something may, indeed, be attributed in Dr Paley, to a vigour of intellect which is allowed to very few ; but it cannot be doubted that resignation in suffering is less the gift of great intellectual powers, than of well-regulated re- ligious feelings." * '^ Meadlej's Memoirs of Paley, p, 205. c2 30 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. The subject litis been carried out with much ingenuity, and ■with many additional illustrations, in a work entitled " God in Disease/' by Dr Duncan of Dublin.] Of bodily 2)ctin, the j^rincipal observation, no doubt, is that which wx have already made, and already dwelt upon, viz., " that it is seldom the object of contrivance ; that when it is so, the contrivance rests ultimately in good.'' To which, however, may be added, that the annexing of pain to the means of destruction is a salutary provision ; inasmuch as it teaches vigilance and caution ; both gives notice of danger, and excites those endeavours which may be necessary to pre- servation. The evil consequence, which sometimes arises from the want of that timely intimation of danger which pain gives, is known to the inhabitants of cold countries by the example of frostbitten limbs. I have conversed -wdth patients who had lost toes and fingers by this cause. They have in general told me, that they were totally unconscious of any local uneasiness at the time. Some I have heard declare that, wliilst they were about their employment, neither their situation, nor the state of the air, was unpleasant. They felt no pain j they sus- pected no mischief; till, by the application of warmth, they dis- covered, too late, the fatal injury which some of their extremities had suffered. I say that this shews the use of pain, and that we stand in need of such a monitor. I believe also that the use extends further than we suppose, or can now trace ; that to disagreeable sensations we, and all animals, owe, or have owed, many habits of action which are salutary, but which are become so familiar, as not easily to be referred to their origin. Pain also itself is not without its alleviations. It may be violent and frequent ; but it is seldom both violent and long- continued : and its pauses and intermissions become positive pleasures. It has the power of shedding a satisfaction over intervals of case, which, I believe, few enjoyments exceed. A PLEASURE AFTER PAIN. 31 man rising from a fit of the stone or gout, is, for tlie time, in possession of feelings which undisturbed health cannot im- part. They may be dearly bought, but still they are to be set against the price. And, indeed, it depends upon the duration and urgency of the pain, whether they be dearly bought or not. I am far from being sure that a man is not a gainer by suffer- ing a moderate interruption of bodily ease for a couple of hours out of the four-and- twenty. Two very common observations favour this opinion : one is, that remissions of pain call forth, from those who experience them, stronger expressions of satis- faction and of gratitude towards both the author and the in- strument of their relief, than are excited by advantages of any other kind : the second is, that the spirits of sick men do not sink in proportion to the acuteness of their sufferings, but rather appear to be roused and supported, not by pain, but by the high degree of comfort which they derive from its cessation, or even its subsidency, whenever that occurs; and which they taste with a relish that diffuses some portion of mental com- placency over the whole of that mixed state of sensations in which disease has placed them. THE CHrvISTIAN EVIDENCE, JOSEPH ADDISOX. After his retirement fi'om liis brief and not very successful term of office as Secretary of State, Addison resumed those lite- rary labours in which he had gained for himself an almost peerless renown. One of his undertakings was a defence of the Christian religion. The portion which he had executed appeared after his death, and although it adds no new mate- rials to the proof, it possesses an interest of its own as the work of Addison.* Under this head, I cannot omit that which apjDcars to me a standing miracle in the three first centuries. I mean that amazing and supernatural courage or patience which was shewn by innumerable multitudes of martyrs, in those slow and painful torments that were inflicted on them. I cannot conceive a man placed in the burning iron chair at Lyons, amid the insults and mockeries of a crowded amj^hitheatre, and still keeping his seat; or stretched uj)on a grate of iron, over coals of fire, and breathing out his soul among the exqui- site sufferings of such a tedious execution, rather than renounce his religion, or blaspheme his Sa^dour. Such trials seem to me above the strength of human nature, and able to overbear duty, reason, faith, conviction — nay, and the most absolute cer- tainty of a future state. Humanity, unassisted in an extra- ordinary manner, must have shaken off the present pressure, and have delivered itself out of such a dreadful distress, by any means that could have been suggested to it. We can * Born at Milston, Wiltsliire, May 1, 1672: died at Kensington, June 17, 1719. coj^stancy of eaely christians. 33 easily imagine, tliat many persons, in so good a cause, miglit lave laid down their lives at the gibbet, the stake, or the )lock ; but to expire leisurely among the most exquisite tor- ures, when they might come out of them, even by a mental eservation, or an hypocrisy which was not without a possibi- ity of being followed by repentance and forgiveness, has some- hing in it, so far beyond the force and natural streng-th of nortals, that one cannot but think there was some miraculous )Ower to support the sufferer. We find the Church of Smjnrna, in that admirable letter vhich gives an account of the death of Polycarp, their beloved )ishop, mentioning the cruel torments of other early martyrs or Christianity, are of oj^inion, that our Saviour stood by hem in a vision, and personally conversed with them, to give Jiem strength and comfort during the bitterness of their long- ;ontinued agonies; and we have the story of a young man, vho, having suffered many tortures, escaped with life, and told lis fellow-Christians, that the pain of them had been rendered ;olerable, by the presence of an angel that stood by him, and viped off the tears and sweat, which ran down his face whilst le lay under his sufferings. We are assured at least that the irst martyr for Christianity was encouraged in his last noments, by a vision of that divine Person, for whom he suf- fered, and into whose presence he was then hastening. Let any man calmly lay his hand upon his heart, and after reading these terrible conflicts in which the ancient martyrs md confessors were engaged, Avhen they passed through such iev»^ inventions and varieties of pain, as tired their tormentors ; md ask himself, however zealous and sincere he is in his reli- gion, whether, under such acute and lingering tortures, he ;ould still have held fast his integrity, and have professed his faith to the last, without a supernatural assistance of some kind or other. For my part, when I consider that it was not Ml unaccountable obstinacy in a single man, or in any par- 34 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. ticular set of men, in some extraordinary juncture — but that there were multitudes of each sex, of every age, of difFereni countries and conditions, who, for near three hundred years to- gether, made this glorious confession of their faith, in the midst of tortures, and in the hour of death; I must conclude, that they were either of another make than men are at present, or that they had such miraculous supports as were peculiar to those times of Christianity, when mthout them perhaps the very name of it might have been extinguished. It is certain, that the deaths and sufferings of the primitive Christians had a great share in the conversion of those learned Pagans, who lived in the ages of persecution, which, with some intervals and abatements, lasted near three hundred years after our Saviour. Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Lactantius, Arnobius, and others, tell us that this first of all alarmed their curiosity, roused their attention, and made them seriously inquisitive into the nature of that religion, which could endue the mind with so much strength, and overcome the fear of death — nay, raise an earnest desire of it, though it appeared in all its ter- rors. This they found had not been effected by all the doc- trines of those philosophers whom they had thoroughly studied, and who had been labouring at this great point. The sight of these dying and tormented martyrs engaged them to search into the history and doctrines of Him for whom they suffered. The more they searched, the more they were convinced ; till their conviction grew so strong, that they themselves embraced the same truths, and either actually laid down their lives, or were always in a readiness to do it, rather than depart from them. BISHOP BUTLEK. At the age of twenty-one, Joseph Butler wi'ote, "I design the search after truth as the business of my life." He was then a student in a dissenting academy. Before he died, he held the richest see in England, and had refused the primacy; BISHOP BUTLEK. 35 nd, had higlier honours been possible, posterity would gladly ave countersigned their bestowment on the greatest light ^hich has ever adorned the Church of England. But these istinctions were not of his seeking. He sought for " truth," nd to the searcher after truth came w^ealth, preferment, [ties ; and as they could not exalt him, so neither did they late him. In the lordly halls of Durham he was as simple 1 his habits and as lowly in his self-estimation as in the cademy at Gloucester; and it is the suffrage of mankind, ot the accident of individual patronage, which fixes the rank f men, like William Shakspeare, Francis Bacon, and Joseph lutler. He was born at Wansted, in Berkshire, May 18, 1692. 'he same village gave birth to Alfred the Great. Like his jllow-student, at Mr Jones's academy, Archbishop >Secker, aving seen reason to join the Church of England, his father mi him to Oriel College, Oxford; and, in 1718, after being rdained, he received the honourable appointment of Preacher t the Rolls. Here he delivered, when about thirty years of ge, those wonderful sermons which, by vindicating the supre- lacy of conscience, have found for ethical science a basis deep nd divine. They were published in 1726, and ten years fterwards, i.e., in 1736, appeared that master-work in modern pologetics — "The Analogy of ReHgion to the Constitution nd Course of Nature." Its place and function have been reU. described in the epitaph which Southey wrote, and which lay now be read in Bristol Cathedral on Butler's monument, -" Others had established the historical and prophetical rounds of the Christian religion, and that sure testimony of :s truth, which is found in its perfect adaptation to the heart f man. It was reserved for him to develop its analogy to hie constitution and course of nature, and laying his strong Dundations in the depth of that great argument, there to onstruct another and irrefragable proof, thus rendering philo- 3G THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY, sopliy subservient to faitli, and finding in outward and visible tilings the t}^3e and evidence of those within the veil." Butler was consecrated Bishop of Bristol in 1738, and was translated to the see of Durham in 1750. He died at Bath; June IG, 1752. The strength of the " Analogy" is its entireness, A bar of its iron can give no conception of the Menai Bridge — a chip of rock conveys no notion of the Jungfrau. A specimen can do little more than shew the unadorned simplicity of Butler's language, his candour, and his carefdness. To appre- ciate the full force of the mighty argument, one needs to be "an old inhabitant," familiar with it in all the changing moods of his own experience, and somewhat acquainted with those arcana which escape the casual visitor. To such a mind nothing can be more magnificent than its mass, more exhaust- less than its unpretending but suggestive details, or more cogent than its full and final momentum, which leaves so little choice between faith and absolute insanity. There is not, I think, anything relating to Christianity which has been more objected against than the mediation of Christ, in some or other of its parts. Yet, upon thorough consideration, there seems nothing less justly liable to it. For 1. The wdiole analogy of nature removes all imagined pre- sumption against the general notion of " a Mediator between God and man." For we find, all li^dng creatures are brought into the w^orld, and their life in infancy is preserved, by the instrumentality of others ; and every satisfaction of it, some way or other, is bestowed by the like means. So that the visible government which God exercises over the world, is by the instrumentality and mediation of others. And how far MEDIATIO^^. 37 Sis invisible government be or be not so, it is impossible to determine at all by reason. And the supposition that part of it is so, appears, to say the least, altogether as credible as the contrary. There is, then, no sort of objection, from the light of nature, against the general notion of a mediator be- tween God and man, considered as a doctrine of Christianity, or as an appointment in this dispensation ; since we find by experience that God does appoint mediators, to be the instru- ments of good and evil to us, the instruments of his justice and his mercy. And the objection referred to is urged, not against mediation in that high, eminent, and pecuKar sense in which Christ is our mediator; but absolutely against the whole notion itself of a mediator at all. 2. As we must suppose that the world is under the proper moral government of God, or in a state of religion, before we can enter into consideration of the revealed doctrine concern- ing the redemption of it by Christ ; so that supposition is here to be distinctly taken notice of. Now, the divine moral govern- ment which religion teaches us, implies that the consequence of vice shall be misery, in some future state, by the righteous judgment of God. That such consequent punishment shall take effect by His appointment, is necessarily implied. But as it is not in any sort to be supposed that we are made acquainted with all the ends or reasons for which it is fit future punishments should be inflicted, or why God has appointed such and such consequent misery should follow vice ; and as we are altogether in the dark how or in what manner it shall follow, by what immediate occasions, or by the instrumentality of what means; there is no absurdity in supposing it may follow in a way analogous to that in which many miseries follow such and such courses of action at present — poverty, sickness, infamy, untimely death by diseases, death from the hands of civil justice. There is no absurdity in supposing future punishment may follow wickedness of course, as we VOL. IV. D 38 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. speak, or in tlie way of natural consequence from God's ori- ginal constitution of tlio world ; from the nature He has given us, and from the condition in which He jDlaces us : or, in a like manner, as a person rashly trifling uj^on a precipice, in the way of natural consequence, falls down ; in the way of natural con- sequence, breaks his limbs, suppose; in the way of natural consequence of this, without help, perishes. . . . 3. Upon this supposition, \dz., that future punishment may follow wickedness in the way of natural consequence, or ac- cording to some general laws of government already established in the universe, or even without it, we may observe somewhat much to the present purpose in the constitution of nature or appointments of Providence, the jDrovision which is made — that all the bad natural consequences of men's actions should not always actually follow ; or, that such bad consequences as, according to the settled course of things, would inevitably have followed if not prevented, should in certain degrees be pre- vented. We are apt, presumptuously, to imagine that the world might have been so constituted as that there would not have been any such thing as misery or evil. On the contrary, we find the Author of nature permits it. But then He has provided reliefs, and in many cases perfect remedies for it, after some pains and difficulties — reliefs and remedies even for that evil which is the fruit of our own misconduct, and which, in the course of nature, would have continued and ended in our own destruction, but for such remedies. And this is an instance both of severity and indulgence in the constitution of nature. Thus all the bad consequences now mentioned, of a man's trifling upon a precipice, might be prevented. And though all were not, yet some of them might, by proper interpositions, if not rejected ; by another's coming to the rash man's relief, with his own laying hold on that relief, in such sort as the case required. Persons may do a great deal themselves to- wards preventing the bad consequences of their follies, and CAN BAD EFFECTS BE PREVENTED ? 39 Liore may be done by themselves, together with tlie assist- nce of others, their fellow- creatures, which assistance nature ecpires and prompts us to. This is the general constitution f the world. Now, suppose it had been so constituted, that fter such actions were done as were foreseen naturally to draw fter them misery to the doer, it should have been no more n human power to have prevented that naturally consequent iiisery in any instance than it is in all ; no one can say whether uch a more severe constitution of things might not yet have >een really good. But that, on the contrary, provision is made >y nature that we may and do, to so great degree, prevent he bad natural effects of our follies ; this may be called mercy >v compassion in the original constitution of the world — com- passion as distinguished from goodness in general. And the whole :nown constitution and course of things affording us instances f such compassion, it would be according to the analogy of lature to hope, that however ruinous the natural consequences if vice might be from the general laws of God's government •ver the universe, yet provision might be made, possibly might lave been originally made, for preventing those ruinous conse- [uences from inevitably following, at least from following uni- versally and in all cases. 4. There seems no probability that anything we could do should alone, and of itself, prevent them : prevent their foUow- ng, or being inflicted. But one would think, at least, it were mpossible that the contrary should be thought certain. For ve are not acquainted with the whole of the case. We are not nformed of all the reasons which render it fit that future punish- nent should be inflicted, and, therefore, cannot know whether mything we could do would make such an alteration as to •ender it fit that they should be remitted. We do not know vhat the whole natural or appointed consequences of vice are, lor in what way they would follow, if not prevented ; and, therefore, can in no sort say whether we could do anything 40 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUKY. wliicli would be sufficient to iDrevcnt them. Our ignorance being tlius manifest, let us recollect the analogy of nature or providence. For though this may be but a slight ground to raise a positive opinion upon in this matter, yet it is sufficient to answer a mere arbitrary assertion, without any Idnd of evidence, urged by way of objection against a doctrine, the proof of which is not reason, but revelation. Consider, then, people ruin their fortimes by ex- travagance; they bring diseases upon themselves by excess; they incur the penalties of civil laws, and surely civil govern- ment is natural : will sorrow for these follies past, and beha^dng well for the future, alone and of itself, prevent the natural consequences of them? On the contrary, men's natural abili- ties of helping themselves are often impaired; or if not, yet they are forced to be beholden to the assistance of others, upon several accounts, and in different ways : assistance which they would have had no occasion for, had it not been for their misconduct, but which, in the disadvantageous condition they have reduced themselves to, is absolutely necessary to their recovery, and retrieving their affaii'S. Now, since this is our case, considering ourselves merely as inhabitants of this world, and as having a temporal interest here, under the natural government of God, which, however, has a great deal moral in it ; why is it not supposable that this may be our case also, in our more important capacity, as under His perfect moral government, and having a more general and future interest depending? If we have misbehaved in this higher capacity, and rendered ourselves obnoxious to the future punishment which God has annexed to vice; it is plainly credible that behaving well for the time to come may be — not useless, God forbid — but wholly insufficient, alone and of itself, to prevent that punishment, or to put us in the condition wliich we should have been in had we preserved our innocence. And though we ought to reason with all reverence, when- ever we reason concerning the divine conduct, yet it may be THE REVEALED REMEDY, 41 added, tliat it is clearly contrary to all our notions of govern- ment, as well as to what is, in fact, the general constitution of nature, to suppose that doing well for the future should, in all cases, prevent all the judicial bad consequences of having done evil, or all the punishment annexed to disobedience. And we have manifestly nothing from whence to determine in what degree, and in what cases, reformation would prevent this punishment, even supposing that it would in some. And though the efficacy of repentance itself, alone, to prevent what mankind had rendered themselves obnoxious to, and recover what they had forfeited, is now insisted upon, in opposition to Christianity J yet, by the general prevalence of propitiatory sacrifices over the heathen word, this notion of repentance alone being sufficient to expiate guilt, appears to be contrary to the general sense of mankind. Upon the whole, then, had the laws, the general laws of God's government, been permitted to operate without any in- terposition in our behalf, the future punishment, for aught we know to the contrary, or have any reason to thinly, must inevi- tably have followed, notwithstanding anything we could have done to prevent it. Now, 5. In this darkness, or this light of nature — call it which you please — revelation comes in; confirms every doubting fear which could enter into the heart of man concerning the future Linprevented consecjuence of wickedness; supposes the world to be in a state of ruin (a supposition which seems the very ground of the Christian dispensation, and which, if not i^rove- able by reason, yet it is in nowise contrary to it) ; teaches us, too, that the rules of divine government are such as not to admit of pardon immediately and directly upon repentance, or by the sole efficacy of it ; but then teaches, at the same time, what nature might justly have hoped, that the moral govern- ment of the universe was not so rigid, but that there was room for an interposition to avert the fatal consequences of vice; d2 42 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUBY. Avbicli, therefore, by this means, does admit of pardon. Reve- lation teaches iis that the unknown laws of God's more general government, no less than the particular laws by which we ex- perience He governs us at present, are compassionate, as well as good, in the more general notion of goodness; and that He hath mercifully provided that there should be an interposition to prevent the destruction of human kind, whatever that de- struction unprevented would have been. " God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth" — not, to be sure, in a speculative, but in a practical sense — ^'that whosoever believeth in him should not perish;" gave His >Son in the same way of goodness to the world, as He affords particular persons the friendly assistance of their fellow- creatures, when, without it, their temporal ruin would be the certain consequence of their follies ; in the same way of good- ness, I say, though in a transcendent and infinitely higher degree. And the Son of God " loved us, and gave himself for us," with a love which He himself compares to that of human friendship; though, in this case, all comparisons must fall infi- nitely short of the thing intended to be illustrated by them. He interposed in such a manner as was necessary and effectual to prevent that execution of justice upon simiers, which God had appointed should otherwise have been executed upon them; or in such a manner as to prevent that punishment from actually following, which, according to the general laws of divine government, must have followed the sins of the world, had it not been for such interposition. BISHOP NEWTOX. Like the argument from analogy, the proof from the fulfil- ment of prophecy is cumulative. In 1754-58 this argument was set forth with much fulness in " Dissertations on the Pro- phecies," hy Dr Thomas Newton, then rector of St Mary-le-Bow, BISHOP NEWTON. 43 iiid afterwards Bisliop of Bristol. Tlie principle of prophetic evidence lias since been elucidated -witli eminent ability by the ate Dr Lyall, Dean of Canterbury, and fresh light has been thrown on the fulfilment of special predictions by the abun- dant diligence of Dr Keith ; but the work of Newton is not superseded. Until its appearance the field w^as poorly occu- pied, and in many departments he has left little to be done by biis successors. Dr N'ewton was born at Lichfield, January 1, 1704; and :lied at London, February 14, 1782. ^r0pi&ccic3 rerjartimtj t!}c desolation of Jutra, The desolation of Judea is another memorable instance of ;he truth of prophecy. It was foretold so long ago as by Moses (Lev. xxvi. 33) — " I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you ; and your land shall be lesolate, and your cities waste." It w^as foretold again by [saiah, the prophet speaking, as prophets often do, of things future as present (chap. i. 7-9) — " Your country is desolate, youv cities are burnt with fire ; your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthro'wii by strangers. A.nd the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, IS a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city." The same thing is expressed or implied in other places; ind hath not the state of Judea now for many ages been ex- actly answerable to this description ? That a countiy should be depopulated and desolated by the incursions and depreda- tions of foreign armies is nothing wonderful; but that it should lie so many ages in this miserable condition is more than man could foresee, and could be revealed only by God. A. celebrated French waiter, in his History of the Crusades, j^re- tends to exhibit a true picture of Palestine, and he says, that then " it w^as just what it is at present, the worst of all the 44 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. inhabited countries of Asia, It is almost T^-liolly covered with parched rocks, in which there is not one line of soil. If this small territory were cultivated, it might not improperly be compared to Switzerland." But- there is no need of citing authorities to prove that the land is forsaken of its inhabitants, is uncultivated, unfruitful, and desolate; for the enemies of our religion make this very thing an objection to the truth of our religion. They say that so barren and wretched a country could never have been a land flowing tvith milk and honey, nor have supplied and maintained such multitudes as it is represented to have done in Scripture. But they do not see or consider, that hereby the prophecies are fulfilled; so that it is rather an evidence for the truth of our religion, than any argument against it. The country was formerly a good country, if we may believe the concurrent testimony of those who should best know it, the people who inhabited it. Aristeas, and Josephus too, speak largely in commendation of its fruitfulness; and though something may be allowed to national prejudices, yet they would hardly have had the confidence to assert a thing which all the world could easily contradict and disprove. Nay, there are even heathen authors who bear testimony to the fruitful- ness of the land: though we presume, that after the Baby- lonish captivity it never recovered to be agam what it was before. Strabo describes, indeed, the country about Jeru- salem as rocky and barren, but he commends other parts, particularly about Jordan and Jericho. Hecata^us, quoted by Josephus, giveth it the character of one of the best and most fertile countries. Tacitus saith, that it raineth seldom, the soil is fruitful, fraits abound as with us, and besides them the balsam and palm-trees. And notwithstanding the long deso- lation of the land, there are still visible such marks and tokens of fruitfulness, as may convince any man that it once deserv^ed the character which is given of it in Scripture. I FORMER FERTILITY OF PALESTINE, 45 would only refer the reader to two learned and ingenious travellers of our own nation, Mr ]\Iaundrell and Dr Shaw; and he will fully be satisfied of the truth of what is here asserted. The former says, that " all along this day's travel (March 25) from Kane Leban to Beer, and also as far as we could sec around, the country discovered a quite different face from what it had before, x>resenting nothing to the view in most places but naked rocks, mountains, and precipices. At sight of which, pilgrims are apt to be much astonished and baulked in their expectations, finding that country in such an inhospi- table condition, concerning whose pleasantness and plenty they had before formed in their minds such high ideas from the description given of it in the Word of God, insomuch that it almost startles their faith w^hen they reflect how it could be possible for a land like this to supply food for so prodigious a number of inhabitants as are said to have been polled in the twelve tribes at one time, the sum given in by Joab (2 Sam. xxiv.) amounting to no less than thirteen hundred thousand fighting men, besides women and children. But it is certain that any man, who is not a little biassed to infidelity before, may see, as he passes along, arguments enough to support his faith against such scruples. For it is obvious for any one to observe, that these rocks and hills must have been anciently covered mth earth, and cultivated, and made to contribute to the maintenance of the inhabitants, no less than if the country had been all plain ; nay, perhaps much more, forasmuch as such a mountainous and uneven surface affords a larger space of ground for cultivation than this country would amount to, if it were all reduced to a perfect level. For the husbanding of these mountains, their manner was to gather up the stones, and place them in several lines along the sides of the hills in form of a wall. By such borders they supported the mould from tumbling or being washed down, and formed many beds of excellent soil, rising gradually one above another, from the 46 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, bottom to the tojD of the mountains. Of this form of cultm-e you see evident footsteps wherever you go in all the mountains of Palestine. Thus the very rocks were made fruitful. And l^erhaps there is no spot of ground in this whole land, that w\as not formerly improved to the production of something or other ministering to the sustenance of human life. For than the plain countries nothing can be more fruitful, whether for the production of corn or cattle, and consequently of milk. The hills, though improper for all cattle except goats, yet being disposed into such beds as are before described, served very well to bear corn, melons, gourds, cucumbers, and such like garden stuff, which makes the principal food of these coun- tries for several months in the je^r. The most rocky parts of all, which could not well be adjusted in that manner for the production of corn, might yet serve for the plantation of vines and olive trees, which delight to extract, the one its fatness, the other its sprightly juice, chiefly out of such dry and flinty places. And the great plain joining to the Dead Sea, which, by reason of its saltness, might be thought unserviceable both for cattle, corn, olives, and vines, had yet its proper usefulness for the nourishment of bees, and for the fabric of hone}^, of which Josephus gives us his testimony, De Bell. Jud. lib. 5, cap. 4. And I have reason to believe it, because when I was there I perceived in many places a smell of honey and wax, as strong as if one had been in an apiary. Why, then, might not this country very well maintain the vast number of its inhabi- tants, being in every part so productive of either milk, corn, wine, oil, or honey, which are the principal food of these eastern nations — the constitution of their bodies, and the nature of their clime, inclining them to a more abstemious diet than we use in England and other colder regions 1 " The other asserts, that "the Holy Land, were it as well peopled and cultivated as in former times, would still be more fruitful than the very best part of the coast of Syria and SHAW'S TESTIMONY. 47 Phoenice. For the soil itself is generally much richer, and, all things considered, yields a more preferable crop. Thus, the cotton that is gathered in the plains of Ramah, Esdraelon, and Zebulun, is in greater esteem than what is cultivated near Sidon and Tripoli; neither is it possible for pulse, wheat, or any sort of grain, to be more excellent than what is commonly sold at Jerusalem. The barrenness, or scarcity rather, which some authors may either ignorantly or maliciously comj)lain of, does not proceed from the incapacity or natural unfruitful- ness of the country, but from the want of inhabitants, and the great aversion there is to labour and industry in those few who possess it. There are, besides, such perpetual discords and depredations among the petty princes, who share this fine country, that allowing it was better peopled, yet there would be small encouragement to sow, when it was uncertain who should gather in the harvest. Otherwise, the land is a good land, and still capable of affording its neighbours the lilie sup- plies of corn and oil, which it is known to have done in the time of Solomon. The parts, particularly about Jerusalem, being described to be rocky and mountainous, have been there- fore supposed to be barren and unfruitful. Yet granting this conclusion, which is far from being just, a kingdom is not to be denominated barren or unfruitful from one part of it only, but from the whole. Nay, further, the blessing that was given to Judah was not of the same kind with the blessing of Asher or of Issachar, that his hread sJioidd he fat, or his land shoidd he pleasant, buj that liis eyes shoidd he red with ivine, and his teeth shoidd he white with milk (Gen. xlix. 12). Moses also maketh milk and honey (the chief dainties and subsistence of the earlier ages, as they continue to be of the Bedowcen Arabs) to be the glory of all lands : all which productions are either actually enjoyed, or at least might be, by proper care and application. The plenty of wine alone is wanting at present; yet, from the goodness of that little which is still made at 48 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. Jerusalem and Hebron, we find that these barren rocks (as they are called) might yield a much greater quantity, if the abste- mious Turk and Arab would permit a further increase and improvement to be made of the vine, &c." BISHOP WATSON. The first volume of Gibbon's "Decline and Fall" was pub- lished in 1776. It contained the two famous chapters which sought to account for the rise and spread of Christianity through causes purely natural. These drew forth numerous replies, some of them distinguished by great erudition, and others by great ability. But probably the most popular and useful was, "An Apology for Christianity," by Dr Richard Watson, then Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, afterwards Bishop of Llandaff.^' It ai3peared in the form of letters addressed to the historian, and one of these given entire will illustrate the brief and effective style of the series. 5rje TJixium of tje Jirst ^fjristfans. Sir, — I readily acknowledge the utility of your fourth cause " The Virtues of the First Christians," as greatly conducing to the spreading their religion ; but then you seem to quite mar the compliment you pay them, by representing their virtues as proceeding either from their repentance for having been the most abandoned sinners, or from the laudable desire of sup- porting the reputation of the society in which they were engaged. That repentance is the first step to virtue, is true enough ; but I see no reason for supposing, according to the calumnies of Celsus and Julian, " that the Christians allured into their party, men who washed away in the waters of baptism the * Born at Iloversham, Westmoreland, 1737 ; died July 4, 1816. BISHOP WATSON. 49 guilt for ^Yllicll tlie temples of tlie gods refused to grant tliem any exiDiation." The Apostles, sir, did not, like Piomulus, open an asylum for debtors, thieves, and murderers ; for they had not the same sturdy means of securing their adherents from the grasp of civil power : they did not persuade them to abandon the . temples of the gods, because they could there obtain no expiation for their guilt, but because every degree of guilt was expiated in them with too great facility, and every vice practised, not only without remorse of private con- science, but with the powerful sanction of public ai^probation. " After the example," you say, " of their Divine Master, the missionaries of the gospel addressed themselves to men, and especially to women, oppressed by the consciousness, and very often by the effects of their vices." — This, sir, I really think, is not a fair representation of the matter ; it may catch the applause of the unlearned, embolden many a stripling to cast off for ever the sweet blush of modesty, confirm many a dissolute veteran in the practice of his impure habits, and suggest great occasion of merriment and wanton mockery to the flagitious of every denomination and every age ; but still it will want that foundation of truth which alone can recommend it to the serious and judicious. The Apostles, sir, were not like the Italian Fratricelli of the thirteenth, nor the French Turlupins of the fourteenth century ; in all the dirt that has been raked up against Christianity, even by the worst of its enemies, not a speck of that kind have they been able to fix, either upon the Apostles, or their Divine Master. The gospel of Jesus Christ, sir, was not preached in single houses or obscure villages, not in subterranean caves and impure brothels, not in lazars and in prisons ; but in the synagogues and in the temples, in the streets and in the market-places, of the great capitals of the Roman provinces ; in Jerusalem, in Corinth, and in Antioch, in Athens, in Ephesus, and in Eome. Nor do I anywhere find that its missionaries were ordered particularly to address VOL. IV. E 50 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. themselves to tlie shameless women yon mention; I do, in- deed, find the direct contrary ; for they ^Yere ordered to turn away from, to have no fellowship or intercourse with such as were wont to creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away mth divers lusts. And what, if a few women, who had either been seduced by their passions, or had fallen victims to the licentious manners of their age, should be found amongst those who were most ready to receive a religion that forbade all impurity ? I do not apprehend that this circumstance ought to bring an insinuation of discredit, either upon the sex, or upon those who wrought their reformation. That the majority of the first converts to Christianity were of an inferior condition of life, may readily be allowed ; and you yourself have in another place given a good reason for it ; those who are distinguished by riches, honours, or knowledge, being so very inconsiderable in number, when compared with the bulk of mankind : but though not many mighty, not many noble were called, yet some mighty and some noble, some of as great reputation as any of the age in which they lived, were attached to the Christian faith. Shprt, indeed, are the accounts which have been transmitted to us of the first propagation of Christianity ; yet even in these we meet with the names of many who would have done credit to any cause : I will not pretend to enumerate them all; a few of them will be sufiicient to make you recollect that there were at least some converts to Christianity, both from among the Jews and the Gentiles, whose lives were not stained with inexpiable crimes. Amongst these we reckon Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews ; Joseph of Arimathea, a man of fortune and a counsellor ; a nobleman and a centurion of Capernaum ; Jairus, Crispus, fSosthenes, rulers of synagogues ; Apollos, an eloquent and learned man ; Zenas, a Jewish lawyer ; the treasurer of Candace queen of Ethiopia ; Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian band ; Dionysius, a mem- ber of the Areopag-us at Athens; and Sergius Paulus, a man CHRISTIAN MOEALITY. 51 of proconsular or praetorian authority, of wliom it may be remarked, that if he resigned his high and lucrative office in consequence of his turning Christian, it is a strong presump- tion in its favour ; if he retained it, we may conclude that the profession of Christianity was not so utterly incompatible with the discharge of the offices of civil life as you sometimes re- present it. This catalogue of men of rank, fortune, and know- ledge, who embraced Christianity, might, was it necessary, be much enlarged ; and probably another conversation with St Paul would have enabled us to grace it with the names of Festus and king Agrippa himself : not that the writers of the books of the N"ew Testament seem to have been at all solicitous in mentioning the great or the learned who were converted to the faitli ; had that been part of their design, they would, in the true style of impostors, have kept out of sight the publicans and sinners, the tanners and the tentmakers, with whom they conversed and dwelt, and introduced to our notice none but those who had been brought up with Herod or the chief men of Asia, whom they had the honour to number amongst their friends. That the primitive Christians took great care to have an unsullied reputation, by abstaining from the commission of whatever might tend to pollute it, is easily admitted ; but we do not so easily grant that this care is a " circumstance which usually attends small assemblies of men, when they separate themselves from the body of a nation or the religion to which they belonged." It did not attend the Mcolaitanes, the Simo- nians, the Menandrians, and the Carpocratians, in the first ages of the Church, of which we are speaking : and it cannot be unknown to you, sir, that the scandalous vices of these very early sectaries brought a general and undistinguished censure upon the Christian name ; and, so far from promoting the increase of the Church, excited in the minds of the Pagans an abhorrence of whatever respected it : it cannot be unknown to 52- THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUKY. you, sir, that several sectaries, both at home and abroad, might be mentioned who have departed from the religion to which they belonged, and which, unhappily for themselves and the community, have taken as little care to preserve their reputa- tion unspotted 'as those of the first and second centuries. If, then, the first Christians did take the care you mention (and I am wholly of your opinion in that point), their solicitude might as candidly perhaps, and as reasonably, be derived from a sense of their duty and an honest endeavour to discharge it, as from the mere desire of increasing the honour of their confraternity by the illustrious integrity of its members. You are eloquent in describing the austere morality of the primitive Christians, as adverse to the propensities of sense, and abhorrent from all tlie innocent pleasures and amusements of life ; and you enlarge, with a studied minuteness, upon theu' censures of luxury, and their sentiments concerning marriage and chastity ; but in this circumstantial enumeration of their errors or their faults (which I am under no necessity of deny- ing or excusing), you seem to forget the very purpose for which you profess to have introduced the mention of them j for the picture you have drawn is so hideous, and the colouring so dismal, that instead of alluring to a closer inspection, it must have made every man of pleasure or of sense turn from it with horror or disgust; and so far from contributing to the rapid growth of Christianity by the austerity of their manners, it must be a wonder to any one how the first Christians ever made a single convert. It was first objected by Celsus, that Christianity was a mean religion, inculcating such a pusilla- nimity and patience under affronts, such a contempt of riches and worldly honours, as must weaken the nerves of civil government, and expose a society of Christians to the prey of the first invaders. This objection has been repeated by Bayle ; and though fully answered by Bernard and others, it is still the favourite theme of every esprit fort of our own age. Even CHRISTIANITY NOT POLITICAL BUT ETHICAL. 53 you, sir, think the aversion of Christians to the business of war and government " a criminal disregard to the public welfare.'' To aU that has been said upon this subject, it may with justice, I think, be answered, that Christianity troubles not itself with ordering the constitution of civil societies, but levels the weight of all its influence at the hearts of the individuals which com- pose them ; and, as Origen said to Celsus, was every individual in every nation a gospel Christian, there would be neither in- ternal injustice nor external war ; there would be none of those passions which imbitter the intercourses of civil life, and deso- late the globe. AVhat reproach, then, can it be to a religion, that it inculcates doctrines which, if universally practised, would introduce universal tranquillity, and the most exalted happiness amongst mankind ? It must proceed from a total misapprehension of the design of the Christian dispensation, or from a very ignorant interpre- tation of the particular injunctions, forbidding us to make riches or honours a primary pursuit, or the prompt gratification of revenge a first principle of action, to infer that an individual Christian is obliged by his religion to offer his throat to an assassin and his property to the first plunderer, or that a society of Christians may not repel, in the best manner they are able, the unjust assaults of hostile invasion. I know of no precepts in the gospel which debar a man from the possession of domestic comforts, or deaden the acti- vity of his private friendships, or prohibit the exertion of his utmost ability in the service of the public ; the 7iisi quietum nihil heatum is no part of the Christian's creed : his virtue is an active virtue ; and we justly refer to the school of Epicurus the doctrines concernmg abstinence from marriage, from the cultivation of friendship, from the management of public affairs, as suited to that selfish indolence which was the favourite tenet of his philosophy. — I am, &c. e2 54 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. BISHOP HOENE. Of tliis excellent prelate we may have occasion to speak hereafter. His name is here introduced as the author of anonymous " Letters on Infidelity," 1784, which are probably the most amusing of the many productions called forth by the strange speculations of David Hume. ^lany of the readers of " The Commentary on the Psalms " will hardly be aware of the wit and humour which lurked in the mind of the devout and amiable author. Perhaps our extract would have been more appropriate in the earlier division of our subject. ^ Sialcrjuc m Ij^l^iUm^ijml Scepticism. I am truly concerned, dear sir, to hear that your old consti- tutional complaint, a depression of sjDirits, has of late been more than usually troublesome, and wish I may succeed in the medicine I am going to administer, if not for the removal, at least for a temporary alleviation of it. The famous Dr Padcliffe Avas once called in to a person almost suffocated by an unposthumated swelling in the throat. The case requii-ed immediate relief, and the doctor sent his servant into the kitchen to order and bring up a large hasty- pudding. Upon its arrival, falling into a violent passion because it was not made to his mind, he flung an handful of it in the fellow's face, who returned the compliment, and an engagement ensued between them till the ammunition was all si)ent. The sick man, who had been raised in his bed to see the battle, was forced into a violent fit of laughter ; the im- posthume broke, and the patient recovered. In the present case, the philosophy contained in Mr H 's posthumous work styled, "Dialogues on Natural Religion," shall be our hasty-pudding ; and I will introduce a couple of gentlemen of my acquaintance to toss a little of it backwards A DIALOGUE. 55 and forwards for your entertainment. ^lay the effect prove ecjually salutary ! A DIALOGUE BETWEEN THOMAS AND TIMOTHY ON PHILOSOPHICAL SCEPTICISM. Tim. Whither away so fast, man ? Where art going this morning ? Tom. I am going to be made a Christian. Tim. The very last thing I should have dreamed of. But, pray, who is to make you one 1 Tom. David Hume. Tim. Da\4d Hume ? Why, I thought he was an Atheist. Tom. The world never was more mistaken about any one man than about David Hume. He was deemed a sworn foe to Christianity, whereas his whole life was spent in its service. His works compose altogether a complete Prajparatio Evan- gelica. They lead men gently and gradually, as it were, to the gospel. Tim. As how, Tom ? Be pleased to take me along with you. Tom. Why look you, here is chapter and verse for you. " Dialogues concerning Natural Religion," p. 263, " To be a philosophical sceptic is, in a man of letters, the first and most essential step towards being a sound, believing Christian." Tim. When David was at Paris, I have heard, the wits there should say, he was a very worthy gentleman, but had his religious prejudices like other people. As folks are quick- scented in that country, perhaps they smelled a rat. Indeed, in a " Supplement to the Life of Mr H.," we are told that a brother of his used to observe of him, " My brother Davie is a good enough sort of a man, but rather narrow-minded." Well, I cannot tell what to say to it ; there are abundance of pretty fancies stirring. I suppose there may be different ways of becoming a Christian. A man of letters enters, belike, at the back door, and so goes round the house to come at it ; a com- 56 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. pass wliich we plain folk do not think it necessary to take. One thing is certain, that if scepticism be the road to Chris- tianity, Mr H. is a very proper person to keep the turnpike gate upon it. But what progress must one make, if one had a mind to try the experiment, in this same philosophical scep- ticism, before one could become a good, sound, believing Chris- tian ? Must one doubt of everything 1 Tom. Of everything, in this world and that which is to come, as I myself do at this present speaking. It is the most agreeable process in life ; a charming, delightful suspense of judgment. I doubt whether there be any such thing as matter ; I doubt likewise whether there be any such thing as spirit j that is, I doubt whether there be creature or Creator, and whether I myself am anything more than a bundle of per- ceptions, without either body or soul. We modern philoso- phers, you must know, consider matter and spirit as so much lumber wliich should be cleared out of the way. There would then be a noble field open for speculation, and we might all set out afresh. I doubt whether the world (supposing for a moment that there be one) did not exist from eternity, or whether it did not make itself; whether it be not a huge animal, somewhat like an ostrich, which lays now and then an egg to be hatched into a young world; or whether it be not an overgrown vegetable run to seed. " As a tree sheds its seed into the neighbouring fields and produces other trees, so the great vegetable the world, or this planetary system, produces perhaps within itself certain seeds, which, being scattered into the surrounding chaos, vegetate into new worlds. A comet, for instance, is the seed of a world ; and after it has been fully ripened, by passing from sun to sun and star to star, is at last tossed into the unformed elements which everywhere surround this universe, and immediately sprouts wp into a new system." Tim. Vastly ingenious! and really, upon the whole, not improbable ! — But prithee, Tom, if you are not in too great a PHILOSOPHICAL SCEPTICISM. 57 lurry to be made a Cliristian, do stop for lialf-an-lionr, and nstruct me a little further in this New Week's Preparation of VIr H. For the specimen you have given me is so exquisite, hat it perfectly makes my mouth to water for more. What is he plan of these famous Dialogues concerning Natural ReUgion 1 Tom. You shall have it in few words. — Once upon a time, hen, there was a promising young man, whose name was ^'amphilus. He was brought up by a philosopher called ^leanthes. Philo, a brother philosopher, came to spend some lays with Cleanthes. The dialogues are supposed to contain he substance of a conversation which passed between these )ersonages, by way, among other things, of preparing young ^amphilus, in a proper manner, for the reception of the Gospel, )y first making him a thorough sceptic. Pamphilus, who, as I hearer only, was to learn and be wise, relates this conversa- ion in a letter to his friend Hermippus. There is a third ;peaker in the dialogues, styled Demea, one of your old- 'ashioned orthodox gentry, who firmly believes the existence )f a Deity, and is rather disposed to speak well than ill of lis ^laker. But the two philosophers so astonish and dis- compose him, draw him into so many ambuscades, and raise so ;hick a metaphysical dust around him, that at the close of the eleventh dialogue, the old gentleman is glad to take a French eave, and vanishes so very suddenly, that Avhether he went nit at the door, or the window, or up the chimney, nobody mows to this hour. It would do your heart good to see the \in they make with him. Tim. Before you go any further, let me just ask you one question. Pray do you act upon this principle of philosophi- cal scepticism in common life? Tom. Oh, by no means. If we did, we should walk into a tiorse-pond, or run our heads against a wall, and the boys ^vould laugh at us. No, no, " to whatever length any one may push his speculative prhici]_)lcs of scepticism, he must act, OiS THK EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. and live, and converse like other men; and for tliis conduct lie is not obliged to give any other reason, than the absolute necessity he lies under of so doing." Tim. I think it would be hard upon hiin if he were obliged to give any other reason; for absolute necessit// is an exceeding good one. But what, then, is it you are all about, spending your pains in constructing a system, which you are necessitated to contradict and protest against, every time you go down a lad- der, or get over a stile. Surely you ought to be set in a corner, with fools' caps upon your heads, like the misses at a boarding- school. In the name of common sense, what can you mean 1 Tom. It is an amusement — " If a person carries his specula- tions further than this necessity constrains him, and philoso- phises either on natural or moral subjects, he is allured by a certain pleasure and satisfaction which he finds in employing himself after that manner." Tim. Suppose he were to play at push-pin, or span-farthing, would it not be more to the purpose? And then he would not disturb his neighbours. But that man's heart must be as wrong as his head, who can " find a certain pleasure and satis- faction" in endeavouring to persuade his fellow-rationals that they are without God in the world. However, if amusement be the word, let us believers have some too. If philosophers will amuse themselves with talking nonsense, they must give us leave to amuse ourselves by laughing at it. On our side of the question it is possible to be merry and ivise, as well as to do some little service to the world, by shewing it what stuff these dreams are made of. Come, Tom, you shall represent the genius of philosophical scepticism. And now let us hear some of those strong reasons which mduce you to deny the existence of a Deity. Tom. Bless us ! you shock me ! I do not mean to deny the being, but only to philosopliise a little concerning the nature of God. THE SELF-BUILT HOUSE. 50 Tim. Well, then, be it so. Pliilosophise away. Tom. Our reason, Tim, is very weak — very weak, indeed ; we are poor, finite, frail, blind creatures. Our knowledge of the things around us is extremely limited and imperfect — we ought to humble ourselves TiM. There is always mischief in the wind, when a philoso- pher falleth down and humhleth liimself. But what is your inference from all these lowly considerations ? ToM. That it is presumption in such worms of the dust to aro'ue about the nature and attributes of God. Tim. But you will allow poor reason to exercise herself in her own province, and when she is furnished with premises, to draw a conclusion % Tom. Ay, ay, there is no harm in that. Tim. When we see a house calculated to answer various purposes of beauty and convenience, and having in it all the marks of wisdom and design, we know it could not build itself. The senseless materials could never have prepared and arranged themselves in such order. The timber could not dance, cut and squared, out of the forest, nor the marble meet it, hewn and polished, from the quarry. The house, therefore, must have had a builder. We apply the same argument, afoHiori, to the case of the world, and its Maker, Godj and Tully, if I remember right, makes no scruple to assert, that he who denies his assent to it does not deserve the name of a man. This is the argument called a posteriori, and lies open to the common sense of all mankind. Now, then, let us try the sin- cerity of that declaration of yours, that " the question is not concerning the being, but the nature of God." For if you controvert this argument, you certainly mean to shake our beKef in the existence of a Deity. You must of course attempt to shew, that the world might have been as it is without one ; and if that be the case, you will next defy us to prove that there is one. xxitj jiiUjtxixriCiiN xri L/ jiixx x u j.c x . Tom. Fiai justitia, mat ccelum. I mnst stick to tmtli, let what will come of it. I am not bound to answer for conse- quences. I must own I look upon tlie argument to be incon- clusive. Tim. All very well ; but why could not you say so at first ? What occasion to be mealy-mouthed, in an age like this ? Now matters are in a train, and we can proceed regularly. What is your objection to the argument ? Wherein does it fail 1 Tom. It will fail, d'ye see, if there be not an exact similarity in the cases. You will not say that there is an exact simili- tude between the universe and a house, or between God and man? Tim. ^^^ly really, Tom, I never imagined the world had a door and a chimney, like a house ; or that God had hands and feet, like a man. Nor is it at all necessary that it should be so, for the strength and validity of the argument, which is plainly and simply this — If stones and trees have not thought and design to form themselves into a house, there must have been some one, who had thought and design, to do it for them ; and so, as I said before, a fortiori, mth respect to the universe, where the thought and design appear infinitely supe- rior to those required in building a house. We have no occa- sion to suppose a resemblance of the universe to a house, or of God to man, in every particular. Tom. " But why select so minute, so weak, so bounded a principle, as the reason and design of animals is found to be upon this planet 1 What peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain, which we call thought, that we must thus make it the model of the whole universe ? Our partiality in our own ftivour does indeed present it upon all occasions ; but sound philosophy ought carefully to guard against so natural an illusion." Tim. It is not " our partiality in our own favour that pre- sents it to us upon all occasions," but the necessity of the case. MEANS TO AN END. 61 There is no other way of speaking upon the subject so as to be understood. Knowledge in God and man, however differ- ent in degree, or attained in a different manner, is the same in kind, and produces the same effects, so iar as relates to our present purpose. The knowledge of God is intuitive and per- fect ; that of man is by deduction, and is therefore imperfect, either when his premises are false, or when passion and preju- dice enter into his conclusion. But wisdom, which consists in fixing upon proper ends, and fitly proportioning means to those ends, is wisdom, in whatsoever object, mode, or degree it may exist; and there is therefore no illusion in saying, "Every house is builded by some man, but he that built all things is God." You speak of thought, reason, or design as "a little agitation of the brain," as if you imagined that " Paradise Lost," or the "Advancement of Learning," might at any time be pro- duced by simmering a man's brains over the fire. Certainly an author cannot compose without brains, heart, liver, and lungs; but I am of opinion something more than all four must have gone to the composition even of the "Dialogues concerning Natural Religion." " Minute, weak, and bounded as this principle of reason and design is found to be in the inhabi- tants of this planet," it can form and frustrate mighty schemes; it can raise and subvert empires; it can invent and bring to perfection a variety of arts and sciences; and in the hands of some very worthy gentlemen of my acquaintance, it can set itself up against all that is called God, and revile the works of the Almighty through 364 pages together. Tom. I cannot but still think, there is something of par- tiality and self-love in the business. " Suppose there were a planet wholly inhabited by spiders (which is very possible); they would probably assert, with the Brahmins, that the world arose from an infinite spider, who spun this whole complicated mass from his bowels, and annihilates afterwards the whole, or any part of it, by absorbing it again, and resolving it into his VOL. IV. F 62 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. own essence. Tliis inference would there appear as natural and iiTefragable as that w^hich in our planet ascribes the origin of all things to design and intelligence. To us, indeed, it ap- pears ridiculous, because a spider is a little contemptible ani- mal, whose operations we are never likely to take for a model of the whole universe." Tim. Possibly not ; but I should take that " little contemp- tible animal" for an exact model of a sceptical philosopher — "It spins a flimsy web, its slender store, And labours till it clouds itself all o'er." And were there a planet wholly inhabited by these same philosophers, I doubt not of their spinning a cosmogony worthy an academy of spiders — and so, Tom, the voluntary humility which discovered itself at your setting out, ends at last in degrading man to a spider; and reason is either exalted to the stars, or depressed to the earth, as best serves the cause of infidelity. In this particular, however, you are at least as bad as the parsons. But let us proceed. What have you more to say against the argument of the house ? Tom. I say, that arguments concerning facts are founded on experience. I have seen one house planned and erected by an architect, and, therefore, I conclude the same with regard to others. But, " will any man tell me, with a serious coun- tenance, that an orderly universe must arise from some thought and art like the human, because we have experience of it ? To ascertain this reasoning, it were rec[uisite that we had exjDerience of the origin of worlds." Tim. Truly I know not how that can well be ; for worlds are not made eveiy day. I have heard of the production of none since our own, and man could not see that made, because he himself was made after it ; and he could not exist before he was made. The contrary supposition was, indeed, once ventured on by the master of a Dutch puppet-show. Whether he were a metaphysician, I never heard. In the beginning of BOAME JENYNS: 63 this ingenious drama, ]Mr Punch, posting over the stage in a very large pair of jack-boots, and being asked, whither he was going at so early an hour, replies I am going to be created. His evidence, if you can procure it, is very much at the ser- vice of scepticism, and may go near to determine the matter. In the meantime, I shall presume my argument to be still good, that if a house must be built by thought and design, a world cannot have been built without; though I have seen the one, and never was so fortunate as to see the other. Let me add further, that if in the general contrivance and con- struction of the world there be evident demonstration of con- summate wisdom, that demonstration cannot be set aside by seeming or real inconveniences in some parts, which, for good reasons, were either originally designed, or may have been since introduced, for the trial or punishment of its inhabitants, or for other purposes, unknown to us. This is the plam con- clusion formed by common sense, and surely ten times more rational than to talk of eggs, and seecfs, and spiders, and the necessity of seeing the world made, in order to know that it had a maker. SOAME JENYNS. From many of the best arguments, it is impossible to de- tach characteristic extracts. A work like Gilbert West on " The Eesurrection of Christ," Lord Lyttelton's " Conversion of St Paul," or " The Trial of the Witnesses," needs to be read continuously; and in the bulky tomes of Lardner and Leland w^e can find no specimen sujSiciently miimte for our little cabinet. We, therefore, conclude our examples with a few pages from the work of a layman who, like West and Lyttelton, was all the firmer in his ftiith, because the doubts of early years had constrained him to examine its foundations carefully. SoAME Jenyns was born at Great Ormond Street, London, 64 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. in 1704; mid died in Tilney Street, December 13, 1787. During most of liis life he represented in Parliament the town or the county of Cambridge. His "View of the Internal E\-idence of the Christian Keligion" is somewhat impaired for practical purposes, by its paradoxical assertion that valour, patriotism, and friendship, are not Christian virtues ; but pas- sages like the following contain the germ of an argument which is capable of indefinite development, and the force of which can never be exhausted or impaired. QTJe ©ti'smalitg antJ pre:=nnmence of C^i^igt ant Cfjristianitg. My second proposition is this — that from this book may be extracted a system of religion entirely new, both Avith regard to the object and the doctrines, not only infinitely superior to, but totally unlike everything which had ever before entered into the mind of man, I say extracted, because all the doc- trines of this religion having been delivered at various times, and on various occasions, and here only historically recorded, no uniform or regular system of theology is here to be found ; and better perhaps it had been, if less labour had been employed by the learned to bend and twist these divine materials into the polished forms of human systems, to which they never will submit, and for which they were never intended by their Great Author. Why He chose not to leave any such behind Him we know not, but it might possibly be because He knew that the imperfection of man was incapable of receiving such a system, and that we are more properly and more safely con- ducted by the distant and scal^tered rays than by the too powerful sunshine of divine illumhiation. " If I have told you earthly things," says He, " and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things ? " that is. If Isiy in- structions concerning your behaviour in the present as relative THE DESIGN OF CHEISTIANITY NEW. 65 to a future life are so difficult to be understood that you can scarcely believe Me, how shall you believe if I endeavoured to explain to you the nature of celestial beings, the designs of Providence, and the mysteries of His dispensations — subjects which you have neither ideas to comprehend, nor language to express 1 First, then. The object of this religion is entirely new, and is this — to prepare us by a state of probation for the kingdom of heaven. This is everywhere professed by Christ and His apostles to be the chief end of the Christian's life — the crown for which he is to contend, the goal to which he is to run, the harvest which is to pay him for all his labours. Yet previous to their preaching no such prize was ever hung out to man- kind, nor any means prescribed for the attainment of it. It is, indeed, true, that some of the philosophers of antiquity entertained notions of a future state, but mixed with much doubt and uncertainty; their legislators also endeavoured to infuse into the minds of the people a belief of rewards and punishments after death ; but by this they only intended to give a sanction to their laws, and to enforce the practice of virtue for the benefit of mankind in the present life. This alone seems to have been their end, and a meritorious end it was; but Christianity not only operates more effectually to this end, but has a nobler design in view, which is, by a pro- per education here to render us fit members of a celestial society hereafter. In all former religions the good of the pre- sent life was the first object ; in the Christian it is but the second : in those, men were incited to promote that good by the hopes of a future reward ; in tliis, the practice of virtue is enjoined in order to qualify them for that reward. There is great difference, I apprehend, in these two plans, that is, in adhering to virtue, from its present utility, in expectation of future happiness, and living in such a manner as to qualify us for the acceptance and enjoyment of that happiness; and the f2 66 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, conduct and dispositions of those who act on these different imnciples, must be no less different : on the first, the constant practice of justice, temperance, and sobriety, will be sufficient; but on the latter, we must add to these an habitual piety, faith, resignation, and contempt of the world : the first may make us very good citizens, but will never produce a tolerable Christian. Hence it is that Christianity insists more strongly than any preceding institution, religious or moral, on purity of heart and a benevolent disposition ; because these are abso- lutely necessary to its great end; but in those whose recom- mendations of -viitue regard the present life onl}^, and whose promised rewards in another were low and sensual, no pre- paratory qualifications were requisite to enable men to practise the one or to enjoy the other : and therefore we see this object is jDeculiar to this religion, and with it was entirely new. But although this object, and the principle on which it is founded, were new, and perhaps undiscoverable by reason, yet, when discovered, they are so consonant to it, that we cannot but readily assent to them. For the truth of this principle, that the present life is a state of probation, and education to prepare us for another, is confirmed by everything which we see around us : it is the only key which can open to us the designs of Providence in the economy of human affairs — the only clue which can guide us through that pathless wilderness — and the only plan on which this world could possibly have been formed, or on which the history of it can be compre- hended or explained. It could never have been formed on a plan of happiness; because it is everywhere overspread with innumerable miseries ; nor of misery, because it is interspersed with many enjoyments : it could not have been constituted for a scene of wisdom and virtue, because the history of mankind is little more than a detail of their follies and wickedness ; nor of vice, because that is no plan at all, being destructive of all existence, and consequently of its own. But on this system 1T6 DOCTEINEB NE^V, 67 all that we here meet with may be easily accounted for; for this mixture of happiness and misery, of virtue and vice, neces- sarily results from a state of probation and education — as pro- bation implies trials, sufferings, and a capacity of offending, and education a propriety of chastisement for those offences. In the next place, the doctrines of this religion are equally new with the object, and contain ideas of God and of man, of the present and of a future life, and of the relations which all these bear to each other, totally unheard of, and quite dissi- milar from any which had ever been thought on, previous to its publication. No other ever drew so just a portrait of the worthlessness of this world, and all its pursuits, nor exhibited such distinct, lively, and exquisite pictures of the joys of another-— of the resurrection of the dead, the last judgment, and the triumphs of the righteous in that tremendous day, "when this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality." No other has ever repre- sented the Supreme Being in the character of three persons united in one God. No other has attempted to reconcile those seeming contradictory but both true propositions, the contingency of future events and the foreknowledge of God, or the free will of the creature with the overruling grace of the Creator. No other has so fully declared the necessity of ■^\ickedness and punishment, yet so effectually instructed indi- viduals to resist the one and to escape the other : no other has ever pretended to give any account of the depravity of man, or to point out any remedy for it: no other has ven- tured to declare the unpardonable nature of sin without the influence of a mediatorial interposition, and a vicarious atone- ment from the sufferings of a superior Being. Whether these wonderful doctrines are worthy of our belief, must depend on the opinion which we entertain of the authority of those who published them to the world ; but certain it is, that they are all so far removed from every tract of the human imagmation, 6S THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUBY. that it seems equally impossible tliat tliey should ever have been derived from the knowledge or the artifice of man. And here I cannot omit observuig, that the personal charac- ter of the Author of this religion is no less new and extra- ordmary than the religion itself, who " sj^ake as never man spake," and lived as never man lived. In proof of this, I do not mean to allege that He was born of a virgin, that He fasted forty days, that He performed a variety of miracles, and after being buried three days, that He arose from the dead ; because these accounts will have but little effect on the minds of un- believers, who, if they believe not the religion, will give no credit to the relation of these facts ; but I will prove it from facts which cannot be disputed. For instance, He is the only founder of a religion in the liistory of mankind which is totally unconnected with all human policy and government, and therefore totally unconducive to any worldly purpose whatever; all others, Mohammed, Numa, and even Moses himself, blended their religious institutions with their civil, and by them ob- tained dominion over their respective people; but Christ neither aimed at, nor w^ould accept of any such power ; He rejected every object which all other men pursue, and made choice of all those which others fly from and are afraid of. He refused power, riches, honours, and pleasure, and courted poverty, ignommy, tortures, and death. ISIany have been the enthusiasts and impostors, who have endeavoured to impose on the w^orld pretended revelations, and some of them, from pride, obstinacy, or principle, have gone so far as to lay down their lives rather than retract ; but I defy history to shew one who ever made his own sufferings and death a necessary part of his original plan, and essential to his mission. This Christ actually did; He foresaw, foretold, declared their necessity, and voluntarily endured them. If we seriously contemplate the Divine lessons, the perfect precepts, the beautiful dis- courses, and the consistent conduct of this wonderful person, CONTRAST WITH PAGANISM. 60 we cannot possibly imagine that He could have been either an idiot or a madman ; and yet if He was not what He pretended to be, He can be considered in no other light ; and even under this character He would deserve some attention, because of so sublime and rational an insanity there is no other instance in the history of mankind. If any one can doubt of the superior excellence of this religion above all which preceded it, let him but peruse with attention those unparalleled writings in which it is transmitted to the present times, and compare them with the most cele- brated productions of the pagan world ; and if he is not sen- sible of their superior beauty, simplicity, and originality, I will venture to pronounce that he is as deficient in taste as in faith, and that he is as bad a critic as a Christian. For in what school of ancient philosophy can he find a lesson of morality so perfect as Christ's Sermon on the Mount ? From which of them can he collect an address to the Deity so concise, and yet so comprehensive, so expressive of all that we want and all that we could deprecate, as that short prayer wdiich He formed for, and recommended to His disciples 1 From the works of what sage of antiquity can he produce so pathetic a recom- mendation of benevolence to the distressed, and enforced by such assurances of a reward, as in those w^ords of Christ — " Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom pre- pared for you from the foundation of the world : for I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat ; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in; I w^as naked, and ye clothed me ; I was sick, and ye visited me ; I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee 1 or thirsty, and gave thee drink ? when saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in ? or naked, and clothed thee ? or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee 1 Then shall he answer and say unto them^ Verily I say unto 70 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. you, Inasmucli as ye have done it to the least of tliese my brethren, ye have done it unto me " ? Where is there so just and so elegant a reproof of eagerness and anxiety in worldly pursuits, closed with so forcible an exhortation to confidence in the goodness of our Creator, as in these words — " Behold the fowls of the air ; for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns j yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Ai-e ye not much better than they ? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow ; they toil not, neither do they spin ; and yet I say unto you. That even iSolomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these : wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, ye of little faith ?" By which of their most celebrated poets are the joys reserved for the righteous in a future state, so sublimely de- scribed, as by this short declaration, that they are superior to all description — " Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him"? AVhere, amidst the dark clouds of pagan philosophy, can he shew us such a clear pro- spect of a future state, the immortality of the soul, the resur- rection of the dead, and the general judgment, as in St Paul's first to the Corinthians ? Or from whence can he produce such cogent exhortations to the practice of every virtue, such ardent incitements to piety and devotion, and such assistances to attain them, as those which are to be met with throughout every passage of these inimitable writings ? To quote all the passages in them relative to these subjects, would be almost to transcribe the whole j it is sufficient to observe, that they are everywhere stamped with such apparent marks of supernatural assistance, as render them indisputably superior to, and totally unlike all human compositions whatever ; and this superiority and dissimilarity is still more strongly marked by one remark- able circumstance peculiar to themselves, which is, that whilst CHRISTIANITY THE ONLY EELIGION. 71 tlie moral parts, being of the most general use, are intelligible to the meanest capacities, the learned and inquisitive throughout all ages perpetually find in them inexhaustible discoveries, con- cerning the nature, attributes, and dispensations of Providence. To say the truth, before the appearance of Christianity there existed nothing like religion on the face of the earth, the Jewish only excepted : all other nations were immersed in the grossest idolatry, which had little or no connexion with morality, except to corrupt it by the infamous examples of their imaginary deities : they all worshiiDped a multiplicity of gods and demons, whose favour they courted by impious, obscene, and ridiculous ceremonies, and whose anger they endeavoured to appease by the most abominable cruelties. In the politest ages of the politest nations in the world, at a time when Greece and Kome had carried the arts of oratory, poetry, history, architecture, and sculpture to the highest perfection, and made no inconsi- derable advance in those of mathematics, natural and even moral philosophy, in religious knowledge they had made none at all — a strong presumption that the noblest efforts of the mind of man, unassisted by revelation, were unecjual to the task. Some few, indeed, of their philosophers were wise enough to reject these general absurdities, and dared to attempt a loftier flight. Plato introduced many sublime ideas of nature, and its First Cause, and of the immortality of the soul, which being above his own and all human discovery, he probably acquired from the books of Moses or the conver- sation of some Jewish rabbis, which he might have met with in Egypt, where he resided, and studied for several years ; from him Aristotle, and from both Cicero and some few others, drew most amazing stores of pliilosophical science, and carried their researches into divine truths as far as human genius alone could penetrate. But these were bright constel- lations, w^hich appeared singly in several centuries, and even these with ail this knowledge were very deficient in true 72 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. tlieology. From tlie visible works of the creation they traced the being and principal attributes of the Creator; but the relation which His being and attributes bear to man they little understood. Of piety and devotion they had scarce any sense, nor could they form any mode of worship vrorthy of the purity and perfection of the Divine nature. They occasionally flung out many elegant encomiums on the native "beauty and excel- lence of virtue, but they founded it not on the commands of God, nor connected it with a holy life, nor hung out the happi- ness of heaven as its reward, or its object At this time Christianity broke forth from the East like a rising sun, and dispelled this universal darkness which ob- scured every part of the globe, and even at this day prevails in all those remoter regions to which its salutary influence has not as yet extended. From all those which it has reached, it has, notwithstanding its corruptions, banished all those enormities, and introduced a more rational devotion and purer morals : it has taught men the unity and attributes of the Supreme Being, the remission of sins, the resuiTection of the dead, life everlasting, and the kingdom of heaven; doc- trines as inconceivable to the wisest of mankind antecedent to its appearance as the Newtonian system is at this day to the most ignorant tribes of savages in the wilds of America ; doc- trines which human reason never could have discovered, but which, when discovered, coincide with and are confirmed by it ; and which, though beyond the reach of all the learning and penetration of Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero, are now clearly laid open to the eye of every peasant and mechanic with the Bible in his hand. These are all plahi focts, too glaring to be contradicted ; and therefore, whatever we may think of the authority of these books, the relations which they contain, or the inspiration of their authors, of these facts no man who has eyes to read, or ears to hear, can entertain a doubt ; because there arc the books, and in them is this religion. THEOLOGIANS. BISHOP BUTLER. Amongst the cultivators of sacred science in the eighteenth century, no names stand out like those of Butler, Warburton, and Horsley; but, whilst all three extort our homage, it is Butler alone who attracts our reverence. With his affluent information, his fantastic ingenuity, and his rollicking, redun- dant vigour, we are drawn towards Warburton by the spell which invariably accompanies force of mind and originality of character ; but we follow his path with that uneasy sort of in- terest with which we watch the movements of an eccentric giant. It is wonderful to see what feats he can perform; but the misgiving crosses us. What next ? and we fear for ourselves and our most sacred convictions, lest they provoke the ire of this hot-blooded Ishmaelite. And although his uniform and his pass-word dissij^ate any such anxieties in the case of Horsley, we admire the champion more than we love the man ; and it needs all our gratitude for his splendid expositions to reconcile us to his defiant tone and frequent sallies of proud, domineering dogmatism. With Butler, on the contrary, such singleness of purpose is combined with such intuitive sagacity, as have seldom combined to inspire and guide the seeker after truth; and it is hard to say which is most unique, his strength or his sober-mindedness. Far from being offended by the bald simplicity of his language, we hail it, along with his contempt of paradox, as an indication of his anxious truthfulness ; and perhaps there is nothing which makes us feel our own inferiority so profoundly as that unfaihng attendant of great souls, so perceptible in every utterance and movement of this mighty thinker — his majestic modesty. VOL. IV. G 74 THEOLOGIANS. Butler's great contribution to the Christian evidence has been ah'eady noticed.* We now go on to give, from his fruitful Sermons, an example or two of the method in which he har- monises the deliverances of revelation with the requirements of reason. Our extracts will have a further value, as shewing how unostentatiously great principles may be enunciated by one whose lofty standing-place makes him familiar with a wide horizon. Efje Suprentacg of Conscimce, There is a superior principle of reflection or conscience ill every man, which distinguishes between the internal principles of his heart, as well as his external actions : which passes judg- ment upon himself and them ; pronounces determinately some actions to be in themselves just, right, good; others to be in themselves evil, wrong, unjust : which, without being consulted, without being advised with, magisterially exerts itself, and approves or condemns the doer of them accordingly : and which, if not forcibly stopped, naturally and always of course goes on to anticipate a higher and more effectual sentence, which shall hereafter second and affirm its own. But this part of the office of conscience is beyond my present design exi3licitly to consider. It is by this faculty, natural to man, that he is a moral agent, that he is a law to himself: but this faculty, I say, not to be considered merely as a principle in his heart which is to have some influence as well as others; but con- sidered as a faculty in kind and in nature supreme over all others, and which bears its own authority of being so. This prerogative, this natural supremacy, of the faculty which surveys, approves, or disapproves the several aftections of our mind, and actions of our lives, being that by which men are a law to themselveSjt their confonnity or disobedience to which law of our nature renders their actions, in the highest and most '^ Christian Classics^ vol iv. p. 35. + Kom. ii. 14. SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. 75 proper sense, natural or unnatural; it is fit it be furtlicr ex- plained to you : and I hope it will be so, if you will attciid to the following reflections. Man may act according to that principle or inclination which for the present happens to be strongest, and yet act in a way disproportionate to, and \4olate his real proper nature. Sup- pose a brute creature by any bait to be allured into a snare, by which he is destroyed. He j^lainly followed the bent of his nature leading him to gratify his appetite : there is an entire correspondence between his whole nature and such an action : such action therefore is na,tural. But suppose a man, foresee- ing the same danger of certain ruin, should rush into it for the sake of a present gratification ; he in this instance would follow his strongest desire, as did the brute creature : but there would be as manifest a disproportion between the nature of a man and such an action, as between the meanest work of art and the skill of the greatest master in that art : which disproportion arises, not from considering the action singly in itself, or in its conse- quences, but from comparison of it with the nature of the agent. And since such an action is utterly disproportionate to the nature of man, it is in the strictest and most proper sense un- natural; this word expressing that disproportion. Therefore, instead of the words, disproportionate to his nature, the word unnatural may now be put, this being more familiar to us; but let it be observed, that it stands for the same thing precisely. Now what is it which renders such a rash action unnatural ? Is it that he went against the principle of reasonable and cool self-love, considered merely as a part of his nature 1 No : for if he had acted the contrary way, he would equally have gone against a principle, or part of his nature, namely, passion or appetite. But to deny a present appetite, from foresight that the gratification of it would end in immediate ruin or extreme misery, is by no means an unnatural action ; whereas, to con- tradict or go against cool self-love for the sake of such gratifi- 76 THEOLOGIANS. cation, is so in the instance before lis. Such an action, then, being unnatural, and its being so not arising from a man's going against a principle or desire barely, nor in going against that principle or desire which haj^pcns for the present to be strongest, it necessarily follows, that there must be some other difference or distinction to be made between these two principles, passion and cool self-love, than what I have yet taken notice of. And this difference, not being a difference in strength or degree, I call a difference in nature and in kind. And since, in the instance still before us, if passion prevails over self-love, the consequent action is unnatural ; but if self- love prevails over passion, the action is natural : it is mani- fest that self-love is in human nature a superior principle to passion. This may be contradicted without violating that nature, but the former cannot ; so that, if we will act con- formably to the economy of man's nature, reasonable self-love must govern. Thus, without particular consideration of con- science, we may have a clear conception of the superior nature of one inward princii^le to another, and see that there really is this natural superiority, quite distinct from degrees of strength and prevalency. Let us now take a view of the nature of man, as consistim^ partly of various appetites, passions, affections, and partly of the principle of reflection or conscience, leaving quite out all consideration of the different degrees of streng-th, in which either of them prevail, and it will further appear that there is this natural superiority of one inward principle to another, and that it is even part of the idea of reflection or conscience. Passion or api^etite implies a direct simple tendency towards such and such objects, without distinction of the means by which they are to be obtained ; consequently it will often happen there will be a desire of particular objects, in cases where they cannot be obtained without manifest injury to others, lleflection or conscience comes in, and disapproves RIGHT AND MIGHT. 77 tlic pursuit of tliem iii these circumstances, but the desire remains. Which is to be obeyed, appetite or reflection 1 Can- not this question be answered, from the economy and consti- tution of human nature merely, without saying which is strongest? Or need this at all come into consideration? Would not the question be intelligibly and fiiUy answered by saying, that the principle of reflection or conscience being com- pared with the various appetites, passions, and affections in men, the former is manifestly superior and chief, without regard to strength 1 And how often soever the latter happens to prevail, it is mere usurpation. The former remains in nature and in kind its superior, and every instance of such prevalence of the latter, is an instance of breaking in upon and violation of the constitution of man. All this is no more than the distinction, which everybody is acquainted with, between mere power and authority; only, instead of being intended to express the difference between what is possible, and what is lawful in civil government j here it has been shewn applicable to the several principles in the mind of man. Thus that principle by which we survey, and either approve or disapprove our own heart, temper, and actions, is not only to be considered as what is in its turn to have some influence, which may be said of every passion, of the lowest appetites ; but lil^ewise as being superior, as from its veiy nature manifestly claiming superiority over all others, insomuch that you cannot form a notion of this faculty, con- science, without taking in judgment, direction, superintendency. This is a constituent part of the idea, that is, of the faculty itself, and to preside and govern, from the very economy and constitution of man, belongs to it. Had it strength, as it has right; had it power, as it has manifest authority, it would absolutely govern the world. This gives us a further view of the nature of man, shews us what course of life we were made for, not only that our g2 78 THEOLOGIANS. real nature leads us to be iiifinenced in some degree by reflec- tion and conscience, but likewise in what degree we are to be influenced by it, if we will fall in with, and act agreeably to the constitution of our nature ; that this faculty Avas placed within to be our proper governor, to direct and regulate all under principles, passions, and motives of action. This is its right and oflice ; thus sacred is its authority. And how often soever men violate and rebelliously refuse to submit to it, for supposed interest which they cannot otherwise obtain, or for the sake of j^assion v/hich they cannot othcrmse gratify ; tliis makes no alteration as to the natural right and office of con- science. ©n 3Loi)c t0 ^otJ. As wc cannot remove from this earth, or change our general business on it, so neither can we alter our real nature ; there- fore, no exercise of the mind can be recommended, but only the exercise of those faculties you are conscious of. Eeligion does not demand new affections, but only claims the direction of those you already have, those affections you daily feel, though unhappily confined to objects, not altogether unsuit- able, but altogether unequal, to them. We only represent to you the higher, the adequate objects of those very faculties and affections. Let the man of ambition go on still to consi- der disgrace as the greatest evil, honour as his chief good. But disgrace, in whose estimation ? Honour, in whose judg- ment ? This is the only question. If shame, and delight in esteem be spoken of as real, as any settled ground of pain or pleasure, both these must be in proportion to the supposed wisdom and worth of him, by whom w^e are contemned or esteemed. Must it then be thought cnthusiastical to speak of a sensibility of this sort, wliich shall have respect to an unerr- ing judgment, to intinite wisdom, when we are assured this LOVE TO GOD. 79 iiiierriiig judgmeiit, this infinite wisdom, does observe upon our actions ? It is the same with respect to the love of God in the strict- est and most confined sense. We only offer and represent the highest object of an afi'ection, supposed already in your mind. Some degree of goodness must be previously supposed. This always implies the love of itself, an affection to goodness. The highest, the adequate object of this affection, is perfect goodness, which, therefore, we are to love with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our strength. " Must we, then, forgetting our own interest, as it were, go out of ourselves, and love God for His own sake ?" No more forget your own in- terest, no more go out of yourselves than when you prefer one place, one prospect, the conversation of one man to that of another. Does not every affection necessarily imply, that the object of it be itself loved ? If it be not, it is not the object of the affection. You may, and ought, if you can, but it is a great mistake to think you can love, or fear, or hate anything, from consideration that such love, or fear, or hatred, may be a means of obtaining good or avoiding evil. But the question whether we ought to love God for His sake or for our own being a mere mistake in language, the real question, which this is mistaken for, will, I suppose, be answered by observing, that the goodness of God already exercised towards us, our present dependence upon Him, and our expectation of future benefits, ought and have a natural tendency to beget in us the affection of gratitude and greater love towards Him, than the same goodness exercised towards others, were it only for this reason, that every affection is moved in proportion to the sense we have of the object of it ; and we cannot but have a more lively sense of goodness, when exercised towards our- selves, than when exercised towards others. I added expecta- tion of future benefits, because the ground of that expectation is present goodness. 80 THEOLOGIANS. Thus Almighty God is the natural object of the several affections — love, reverence, fear, desire of approbation. For though He is simply one, yet we cannot but consider Him in partial and different views. He is in Himself one uniform being, and for ever the same, without variableness or shadow of turning; but His infinite greatness, His goodness. His msdom, are different objects to our mind. To which is to be added, that from the changes in our own characters, together with His unchangeableness, we cannot but consider ourselves as more or less the objects of His approbation, and really be so. For if He approves what is good. He cannot, merely from the unchangeableness of His nature, approve what is evil. Hence must arise more various movements of mind, more dif- ferent kinds of affections. And this greater variety also is just and reasonable in such creatures as we are, though it respects a Being, simply one, good and perfect. As some of these affections are most particularly suitable to so imperfect a crea- ture as man, in this mortal state we are passing through, so there may be other exercises of mind, or some of these in higher degrees, our emijloyment and happiness in a state of perfection. BISHOP WARBUUTON". William Waeburton was the son of the town-clerk of Newark- upon-Trent, and was born there, December 24, 1698. His first education was that of an attorney; but having an inclination for study greater than could be gratified in the bustle and in- terruption of a provincial lawyer's office, he exchanged it for the clerical profession. In 1723 he received deacon's orders, and in 1728 was presented to the rectory of Brand Broughton, near his native town. Here he pursued his favourite researches with uncommon energy, and here he wrote a work on "The Alliance between Church and State," which appeared in 173G, and produced a considerable sensation. The attention, hoW' WARBURTON. 81 ever, which tliis vohime attracted was soon absorbed m the commotion produced by its successor at the ojoening of 1738. This was the first volume of the work with which the name of Warburton is now associated as intimately, if not as happily, as is that of Butler with the " Analogy." Its title sufficiently explains its object : " The Divine Legation of Moses demon- strated on the principles of a religious Deist, from the omission of the doctrine of a future state of reward and punishment in the Jewish Dispensation." The second volume, in two parts, succeeded in 1741. In this work he found ample scope for his adroit and daring ingenuity in maintaining its leading para- dox ; and for his multifarious erudition he created an outlet, as often as he pleased, in those brilliant episodes and amusing digressions which still allure the scholar to his animated pages. The " Legation " gave rise to a vast amount of angry contro- versy, in which, however, no champion took the field more fierce or doughty than our author himself. In the meanwhile, a remarkable friendship had sprung up between the fiery polemic and the bard of Twickenham. Besides publishing a Vindication of " The Essay on ]\Ian," he wrote notes to " The Dunciad," and revised the " Essay on Homer." As a mark of regard. Pope bequeathed to him the half of his library, and appointed him his literary executor. In 17ol he published Pope's Works, with notes, in nine volumes octavo. In 1757 he was advanced to the deanery of Bristol, and was consecrated Bisliop of Gloucester in 1760. He died at his palace there, June 7, 1779, and was buried in his own cathedral. Of the invective and scurrility contained in "the most learned, most arrogant, and most absurd work of the eighteenth century," it is better not to give illustrations. As a specimen of its better style, we quote the following remarks on 82 THEOLOaiANS. ^brafjam's ^acrifi'ce of 3Isaac. They say, God could never give such a command to Abra- ham, because it would throw him into inextricable doubts concerning the Author of it, as whether it proceeded from a good or evil being. Or if not so, but that he could persuade himself it came from God, it would then mislead him in his notions of the Divine attributes, and of the fundamental principles of morality. Because, though the revoking the command prevented the homicide, yet the action being com- manded, and, at the revocation, not condemned, Abraham and his family must needs have thought human sacrifices grateful to the Almighty ; for a simple revoking was no condemna- tion, but would be more naturally esteemed a peculiar in- dulgence for a ready obedience. Thus, the Pagan fable of Diana's substituting a hind in the place of Iphigenia did not make idolaters believe that she therefore abhorred human sacrifices, they having been before persuaded of the contrary. This is the whole substance, only set in a clearer light, of all their dull cloudy dissertations on the case of Abraham. 1. Let us see, then, how his case stood. God had been pleased to reveal to him His eternal purpose of making all mankind blessed through him, and to confirm this promise, in a regular course of successive revelations, each fuller and more explicit than the other. By this time, the Father of the Faithful, as we must needs suppose from the nature of the thing, would be grown very desirous of knowing the manner how this blessing was to be brought about — a mystery, if we will believe the Author of our faith, that engaged the atten- tion of other holy men, less concerned than Abraham, and, consequently, less stimulated and excited by their curiosity — " And Jesus turned to his disciples, and said privately, Blessed are the eyes which see the things which ye see. For I tell you that many prophets and Idngs have desired to see those ABRAHAM SEES OHRISt's DAY. 83 things wliicli ye see, and have not seen them, and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them " (Luke x. 23, 24). But we are assured, by the same authority, that Abra- ham had, in fact, this very desire highly raised in him — " Abra- ham rejoiced to see my day," says Jesus, " and he saw it, and was glad ;" or rather, he rejoiced that he might see, INA lAl^ ; which implies, that the period of this joy was in the space between the promise that the favour should be conferred and the actual conferring it, in the delivery of the command ; con- secj[uently, that it was granted at his earnest request. In the second place we shall prove, from the same words, that Abra- ham, at the time the command was given, knew it to be this revelation granted at his earnest request — " Your father Abra- ham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it, and was glad." A^pacifj, 6 TTaTrjp vfiSv ^yaXXtacraro INA lA^ rrjv r^iipav rrfv efj-rjv' Ka\ €i8e, Ka\ ixaprj. We have observed that ha tdr), in strict pro- priety, signifies "that he might see." The English phrase, " to see," is equivocal and ambiguous, and means either the present time — " that he did then see " — or the future, " that he was promised he should see ; " but the original tva Urj has only the latter sense. So that the text plainly distinguishes two different periods of joy — the first, when it was promised he should see ; the second, when he actually saw ; — and it is to be observed, that, in the exact use of the words, dyaXkidofiai signifies that tumultuous pleasure which the certain expecta- tion of an approaching blessing, understood only in the gross, occasions ; and x^^P^ that calm and settled joy that arises from our knowledge, in the possession of it. But the transla- tors, perhaps, not apprehending there was any time between the grant to see and the seeing, turned it, he " rejoiced to see ; " as if it had been the paraphrase of the poet Nonnus — IB^lv T)ya.WsTo Bvp^' whereas this history of Abraham has plainly three distinct periods. The first contains God's promise to grant his re- 84 THEOLOGIANS. quest, when Abraham rejoiced that he should see ; this, for reasons given above, was wisely omitted by the historian ; — within the second was the delivery of the command, with which Moses' account begins ; — and Abraham's obedience, through which he saw Christ's day and was glad, includes the third. Thus the patriarch, we find, had a promise that his request should be granted ; and, in pursuance of that promise, an action is commanded, which, at that time, was a common mode of information ; he must needs, therefore, know it to be the very information so much requested, so graciously pro- mised, and so impatiently expected. We conclude, therefore, on the whole, that this command being only the grant of an earnest request, and known by Abraham, at the tune of impos- ing, to be such grant, he could not possibly have any doubt concerning the Author of it. He w^as soliciting the God of heaven to reveal to him the mystery of man's redemption, and he receives this revelation in a command to offer Isaac — a revelation that had the closest connexion with, and was the fullest completion of, the whole series of the preceding. 2. For, as we come now to shew, in answer to the second part of the objection, the command could occasion no mis- takes concerning the Divine attributes ; it was, as we have proved, only the conveyance of an information by action in- stead of words, in conformity to the common mode of con- versing in early times. This action, therefore, being mere scenery, and, like words, only of arbitrary signification, it had no moral import ; that is, it conveys or implies none of those intentions in the prescriber which go along with actions that have a moral import. Consequently, the injunction of such an action as hath it not can no way affect the moral character of the person commanding ; and, consequently, this command could occasion no mistakes concerning the Divine attributes with regard to God's delighting in human sacrifices. On the contrary, the very information conveyed by it was the highest THE SACRIFICE OF ISAAC. S5 assurance, to tlie person informed, of God's good-^Yill towards mankind. Hence we see there was not the least occasion, when God remitted the offering of Isaac, that He should for- mally condemn human sacrifices, to prevent Abraham or his family's falling into an opinion, that such sacrifices were not displeasing to Him; no more than for the prophet Ahijah, when he had rent Jeroboam's garment into twelve pieces, to denote the ensuing division in the tribes of Israel,^^ to deliver a moral precept against the sinfulness of pulling our neigh- bours' clothes off their backs ; for the command having, as we said, no moral import — being only an information by action where one thing stood for the representative of another — all the consequence that could be deduced from it was only this, that the Son of God should be offered up for the sins of man- kind ; therefore, the conceptions they had of human sacrifices, after the command, must needs be just the same with that they had before ; and, therefore, instruction concerning the execrable nature of human sacrifices was not only needless, but quite beside the question. 3. And now we see the weakness of the third and last part of the objection, which supposes this command capable of affording a temptation to transgress any fundamental principle of the law of nature — one of which obliges us to cherish and protect our offspring, and another to forbear the injuring our neighbour — for as, by the command, Abraham understood the nature of man's redemption, so, by the nature of that redemp- tion, he must know how the scenical representation was to end. Isaac, he saw, was made the person or representative of Christ dying for us ; the Son of God, he knew, could not pos- sibly lie under the dominion of the grave. Hence, he must needs conclude one of these two things — either that God would stop his hand when he came to give the sacrificing stroke, or that, if the revelation of this mystery was to be re- presented throughout in action, that then his son, sacrificed VOL, IV. H 86 THEOLOGIANS. in the person of Christ, was immediately to be restored to life — " accounting," as he well might, " that God was able to raise him up even from the dead," as the author of the Ej^istle to the Hebrews, who seems to have been full of the idea here exphiined, assures us he did believe. Now, where was the temptation to violate any principle of morality in all this ? The law of nature commands him to cherish and protect his offspring. Was that transgressed in giving a stroke whose hurt was instantaneously to be repaired ? Surely no more than if the stroke had been in vision. The law of nature forbids all injury to his fellow- creature. And was he injured, who, by being thus highly honoured in becom- ing the representative of the Son of God, was to share with Abraham in the rewards of his obedience 1 But though, as we see, Abraham could have no struggles with himself from any doubts that he violated morality in papng obedience to the command, yet did the merit of that obedience deserve all the encomiums given to it in Holy Writ ; for, in expressing his extreme readiness to obey, he declared a full confidence in the promises of God. BISHOP HORSLEY. Samuel Horsley was the son of the vicar of St Martln's-in- the-Fields, London, and was born in its parsonage, October 1733. Having received from his father his elementary educa- tion, he went to Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and became an ear- nest and successful student of the classics, and still more of mathematics. In 1759 he became rector of Newington Butts, in Surrey, and in 1777 he was appointed domestic chaplain to Dr Lowth, the new bishop of London. In 1788 he became bishop of St David's, in 1793 was translated to the see of Rochester, and finally, in 1802, to that of St Asaph. He died at Brighton, October 4, 180G. HORSLEY. 87 Of tliG scientific world Dr Horsley deserved well, as the secretary of the Eoyal Society, and the editor of Sir Isaac Newton's Works, an edition of wliich he brought out, in five quarto volumes, in 178-5. But as a theologian and a biblical scholar, his fame will be still more abiding. To that noblest field of investigation he carried powers and acquirements such as are seldom united in any single mind. He was a thorough scholar, and was entirely at home in the Greek and Hebrew languages. As a mathematician accustomed to exact and con- tinuous thought, his ardent temperament clothed in vivid and impassioned language the strictest argument, and enforced by fervid practical appeals the longest and most laborious deduc- tions; whilst his good taste saved him from those inordinate exhibitions of dialectic skill or professional erudition w^hich sometimes make learning repulsive, and reduce logic to pedantry. As a controversialist, he was no doubt habitually keen, and too frequently acrimonious ; but no one will allege that his arro- gance was the bluster of cowardice concealing its weakness; and for his occasional roughness, if we cannot find a suflicient compensation in his intrinsic kind-heartedness, we can find more than ordinary provocation in the style and spirit of some of his opponents. To the cause of Trinitarian orthodoxy Horsley, whilst arch- deacon of St Alban's, rendered signal service by his trium- phant reply to Priestley's " Corruptions of Christianity." Fol- lowed up as his "Letters to Dr Priestley" have been by the works of Magee, Pye Smith, Wardlaw, Moses Stuart, and Bur- ton, that controversy may now be regarded as exhausted and ended. By his " Hosea," and by his posthumous and unfinished " Translation of the Psalms," he has added materially to our stores of sacred criticism. But the contribution to religious literature on wdiich we believe that his fame rests most securely, and by which he is likely to be longest remembered, is his Sermons. They completely differ from ordinary pulpit dis- 88 TJlEOLOlilANS. courses. For the most part they arc eloquent treatises, ex- pounding some difficult passage, or unfolding some important theological principle ; and although their warmth and vivacity may have secured the attention of an unlearned auditory, and although their singular perspicuity may have made it easy for ordinary attention to follow, most of them are sermons more adapted to readers than hearers, and none but accomplished di\-ines can ai:>preciate their entire force and originality. STfje HortJ route to ^}i^ ^Temple. There are three particular passages of His life in v.'hich this prophecy '"' appears to have been more remarkably fulfilled, and the character of the Lord coming to His temple more e^ddently displayed in Him. The first was in an early period of His ministry ; when, going up to Jerusalem to celebrate the pas- sover, He found in the temple a market of live cattle, and bankers' shops, where strangers who came at this season from distant countries to Jerusalem were accommodated with cash for their l)ills of credit. Fired with indignation at this daring profanation of His Father's house. He oversets the accounting- tables of the bankers, and with a light whip made of rushes He drives these irreligious traders from the sacred precincts. IIe}e was a considerable exertion of authority. However, on this occasion He claimed not the temple expressly for His own; He called it His Father's house, and ajipeared to act only as a son. He came a second time as Lord to His temple, much more remarkably, at the feast of tabernacles; when, "in the last day, that great day of the feast, he stood in the temple, and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." That you may enter into the full sense and spirit of this extraordinary exclamation, it is neccs- ■"' Maluclii iii. 1. FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 89 sary that you should know hi what the silly multitudes to whom it was addressed were probably employed at the time when it was uttered. And for this purpose, I must give you a brief and general account of the ceremonies of that last day, the great day of the feast of tabernacles ; the ceremonies, not the original ceremonies appointed by Moses, but certain supersti- tious ceremonies which had been added by the later Jews. The feast of tabernacles continued eight days. At what pre- cise time I know not, but at some part of the interval between the prophets and the birth of Christ, the priests had taken up a practice of marching daily during the feast round the altar of burnt-offerings, waving in their hands the branches of the palm, and singing, as they went, " Save, we pray, and prosper us ! " This was done but once on the first seven days ; but on the eighth and last it was repeated seven times. And when this ceremony was finished, the people, with extravagant demonstrations of joy and exultation, fetched buckets of water from the fountain of Siloam, and presented them to the priests in the temple, who mixed the water with the wine of the sacrifices, and poured it upon the altar, chanting all the while that text of Isaiah — " With joy shall ye draw water from the fountain of salvation." The fountain of salvation, in the language of a prophet, is the Messiah ; the water to be drawn from that fountain is the water of His Spirit. Of this mystical meaning of the water, the inventors of these superstitious rites, whoever they might be, seem to have had some obscure discernment, although they understood the fountain literally of the fountain of Siloam ; for, to encourage the people to the practice of this laborious superstition, they had persuaded them that this rite was of singular efficacy to draw down the prophetic spirit. The multitudes zealously busied in this unmeaning ceremony were they to whom Jesus addressed that emphatical exclama- tion — " If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink." The first words, " if any man thirst,'" are ironical. " Are ye h2 90 TllEOLOeilANS. faniisliecl," says He, " with thirst, that ye ftitigne yourselves with fetchhig all this water up the hill ? Oh ! but ye thirst for the pure waters of Siloam, the sacred brook that rises in the mountain of God, and is devoted to the purification of the temi)le ! Are ye indeed athirst for these ? Come, then, unto Me, and drink : I am i\[&fGuntain of which that which purifies the temple is the type : / am the fountain of salvation of which your pro- phet spake : From Me the true believer shall receive the living water, — not in scanty draughts fetched witli toil from this penurious rill, but in a well perpetually springing up within Mm." The words of Isaiah which I have told you the priests were chanting, and to which Jesus alludes, are part of a song of praise and triumph which the ftiithful are supposed to use in that prosperous state of the Church, Avhich, according to the prophet, it shall finally attain under Jesse's Root. " In that day shalt thou say, Behold, God is my salvation : I will trust, and not be afraid ; for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and song, he also is become my salvation : therefore v/itli joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation." Consider these words as they lie in the context of the prophet ; consider the occasion upon which Jesus, standing in the temj^le, applies them to Himself ; consider the sense in which He applies them ; and judge whether this ajjplication was less than an open claim to be the Lord Jehovah come unto His temple. It is remark- able that it had at the time an immediate and w^onderful effect. ^- Many of the people, when they heard this saying, said, Of a truth this is the i^yophet."" The light of truth burst at once ujion theu' minds. Jesus no sooner made the application of this abused prophecy to Himself, than they perceived the just- ness of it, and acknowledged in Him the fountain of salvation. What would these people have said had they had our light ? had the whole volume of prophecy been laid before them, with the history of Jesus to comj^are with it ? Would they not have proceeded in the prophet's triumphant song — " Cry out THE LAST PASSOV^EIL 91 and shout, O daughter of Zion ! Great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee ! " This, then, I take to be the second particular occasion in the life of Jesus in which Malachi's Ijrediction, " that the Lord should come to His temple," was fulfilled in Him, — when Jesus, in the last day of the feast of tabernacles, stood in the temple and declared Himself the person intended by Isaiah under the image of the " Fountain of salva- tion.'" For by appropriating the character to Himself, He must be understood in effect to claim all those other characters which Isaiah hi the same prophecy ascribes to the same person, which are these : '' God, the salvation of Israel ; the Lord Jehovah, his strength and his song ; the Lord, that hath done excellent tilings ; the Holy One of Israel." A third time Jesus came still more remarkably as the Lord to His temple, when He came up from Galilee to celebrate the last passover, and made that public entry at Jerusalem which is described by all the evangelists. It will be necessary to enlarge upon the particulars of this interesting story ; for the right understanding of our Saviour's conduct upon this occa- sion depends so much upon seeing certain leading circum- stances in a proper light — upon a recollection of ancient l)rophecies, and an attention to the customs of the Jewish people — that I am apt to suspect few now-a-days discern in this extraordinary transaction what was clearly seen in it at the time by our Lord's disciples, and in some measure understood by His enemies. I shall present you with an orderly detail of the story, and comment upon the particulars as they arise; and I doubt not but that, by God's assistance, I shall teach you to perceive, in tliis public entry of Jesus of Nazareth (if you have not perceived it before), a conspicuous advent of the Great Jehovah to His temple. Jesus, on His last journey from Galilee to Jerusalem, stops at the foot of Mount Olivet, and sends two of His disciples to a neighbouring village to provide an ass's colt to convey Him from that place to the city, distant 92 THEOLOGIANS. not more than half a mile. The colt is brought, and Jesus is seated upon it. This first circumstance must be well consi- dered; it is the key to the whole mystery of the story. What could be His meaning in choosing this singular convey- ance ? It could not be that the fatigue of the short journey which remained was likely to be too much for Him afoot, and that no better animal was to be procured. JSTor was the ass, in these days (though it had been in earlier ages), an animal in high esteem in the East, used for travelling or for state by persons of the first condition, that this conveyance should be chosen for the grandeur or propriety of the appearance. Strange as it may seem, the coming to Jerasalem upon an ass's colt was one of the prophetical characters of the Mes- siah; and the great singularity of it had perhaps been the reason that this character had been more generally attended to than any other ; so that there was no Jew who was not apprised that the Messiah was to come to the holy city in that manner. " Kejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion ! shout, O daughter of Jerusalem ! " saith Zechariah : " Behold thy King c'ometh unto thee ! He is just, and having salvation : lowly, and riding upon an ass, even a colt the foal of an ass ! " And this prophecy the Jews never understood of any other person than the Messiah. Jesus, therefore, by seating Himself upon the ass's colt in order to go to Jerusalem, without any possible inducement either of grandeur or convenience, openly declared Himself to be that King who was to come, and at whose com- ing in that manner Zion was to rejoice. And so the disciples, if we may judge from what immediately followed, understood this proceeding; for no sooner did they see their Master seated on the colt, than they broke out into transports of the highest joy, as if in this great sight they had the full content- ment of their utmost wishes ; conceiving, as it should seem, the sanguine hope that the kingdom was this instant to be restored to Israel. They strewed the way which Jesus was to THE PROCESSION. 93 pass witli the green brandies of the trees which grcv/ beside it ; a mark of honour, in the East, never paid but to the greatest emperors on occasions of the highest pomp. They prochiimed Him the long-expected Heir of David's throne, — the Blessed One coming in the name of the Lord ; that is, in the language of Malachi, the Messenger of the Covenant. And they rent the skies with the exulting acclamation of " Hosanna in the liighest ! " On their way to Jerusalem, they are met l^y a great multitude from the city, whom the tidings had no sooner reached than they ran out in eager joy to join His triumph. When they reached Jerusalem, the whole city, says the blessed evangelist, was moved. Here recollect, that it was now the season of the passover. The passover was the highest festival of the Jemsh nation, tlie anniversary of that memorable night when Jehovah led His armies out of Egypt with a high hand and an extended arm — " a night much to be remembered to the Lord of the children of Israel in their generations;" and much, indeed, it was remembered. The devout Jews flocked at this season to Jerusalem, not only from every corner of Judea, but from the remotest countries whither God had scattered them ; and the numbers of the strangers that were annually collected in Jerusalem during this festival are beyond imagination. These strangers, who, living at a distance, knew little of what had been passing in Judea since their last visit, were they who were moved (as well they might be) ^^ith wonder and astonishment, when Jesus, so humble in His equipage, so honoured in His numerous attendants, ap- peared within the city gates ; and every one asks his neigh- bour, " Who is this?" It was replied by some of the natives of Judea — but, as I conceive, by none of the disciples ; for any of them, at this time, would have given another answer — it was replied, " This is the Nazarene, the great prophet from Galilee." Through the throng of these astonished spectators the procession passed by the public streets of Jerusalem to the 94 TiJEOLOGlANS. temple, where immediately the sacred porticoes resound ^^'ith the continued hosaunas of the multitudes. The chief priests and scribes are astonished and alarmed ; they request Jesus himself to silence His followers. Jesus, in the early part of His ministry, had always been cautious of any public display of personal consequence ; lest the malice of His enemies should be too soon provoked, or the unadvised zeal of His friends should raise civil commotions. But now that His work on earth was finished in all but the last painful part of it — iiovv that He had firmly laid the foundations of God's Idngdom in the hearts of His disciples — now that the apostles were pre- pared and instructed for their office — now that the days of vengeance on the Jewish nation were at hand, and it mattered not how soon they should incur the displeasure of the Romans their masters — Jesus lays aside a reserve which could be no longer useful ; and, instead of checking the zeal of His foUov/- ers. He gives a new alarm to the chief priests and scribes, by a direct and firm assertion of His right to the honours that were so largely shewn to Him. " If these," says He, " were silent, the stones of this builduig would be endued with a voice to proclaim my titles." And then, as on a former occa- sion, He drove out the traders; but Avith a higher tone of authority, calling it His own house, and saying, " My house is the house of prayer ; but ye have made it a den of thieves." You have now the story, in all its circumstances, faithfully collected from the four evangelists ; notliing exaggerated, but set in order, and, perhaps, somewhat illustrated by an applica- tion of old i:)rophecies and a recollection of Jewish customs. Judge for yourselves whether this was not an advent of the Lord Jehovah taking personal possession of His temple. To understand this, it will be necessary to consider the manner of our Lord's ai)pearance to His disciples after His CIimST BEFORE HIS CRUCIFIXION. 95 resurrection. We shall find, even in His interviews with them, no trace of that easy familiarity of intercourse which obtained between them before His death, when He condescended to lead His whole life in their society, as a man living with his equals. Had the history of His previous life been as mysteriously obscure, as that of the forty days between the resurrection and ascension is in many circumstances ; had His previous habits been as studiously reserved, proof would in- deed have been wanting that He had ever sustained the condition of a mortal man, and the error of the Docetas, who taught that He was a man in appearance only, might have been universal. But the truth is, that the scheme of redemp- tion required, that before the passion the form of the servant should be predominant in the Redeemer's appearance; that after His resurrection the form of God should be conspicuous. Accordingly, throughout His previous life His manners were gTave but unreserved, serious rather than severe ; His deport- ment highly dignified, but unassuming ; and the whole course and method of His life was unconcealed, and it appears to have been the hfe of a man in every circumstance. He had a home at Capernaum, where He lived with His mother and her family, except when the stated festivals called Him to Jerusalem, or the business of His ministry induced Him to visit other towns. When He travelled about the country to propagate His doctrine and to heal those that were vexed of the devil, the evangelical history, for the most part, informs us whence He set out and whither He went; and with as much accuracy as can be expected in such compendious com- mentaries as the Gospels are, we are informed of the time of His departure from one place, and of His arrival at another. We can, for the most part, trace the road by which He passed ; we can mark the towns and villages which He touched in His way ; and in many instances we are told, that in such a place He was entertained at the house of such a person. Upon 00 THEOLOniANF;. tliese journeys He was attended by the twelve and other dis- ciples, and except upon one or two very extraordinary occasions, He travelled along mtli tliem, and just as they did. Upon some occasions His own body was the subject of His miracu- lous power. In its natural constitution, however, it was plainly the mortal body of a man. It suffered from inanition, from fiitigue and external violence, and needed the refection of food, of rest, and sleep. It was confined by its gravity to the earth's surface. It was translated from one place to another by a successive motion through the intermediate space. And if in a few instances, and upon some very extraordinary occasions, it was exempted from the action of mechanical powers, and divested of its physical qualities and relations — as when, to escape from the malice of a rabble. He made himself invisible, and when He walked upon a stormy sea — these were the only instances of our Lord's miraculous powers in His own person, which no more indicate a preternatural constitution of His body, than His other miracles indicate a preternatural consti- tution of the bodies on which they were performed. That He walked upon the sea is no more a sign of an uncommon con- stitution of His own body, which sunk not, than of the water which sustained it. In every circumstance, therefore, of His life, before His passion, the blessed Jesus ai)pcars a mortal man. An example of virtue He indeed exhibited, which never other man attained. But the example was of human virtues ; of piety, of temperance, of benevolence, and of whatever in the life of man is laudable. Before His resurrection it was in power only, and in knowledge, that He shewed liimself divine. After His resurrection the change is wonderful, insomuch that, except in certain actions which were done to give His disciples proof that they saw in Him their crucified Lord arisen from the grave, He seems to have done nothing like a conmion man. Whatever was natural to Him before, seems now miraculous ; what was before miraculous is now natural. CHEIST AFTER ITTS rvEftL^EKECTION. 07 The change first appears in the manner of His resurrection. It is evident that Re had left the sepulchre before it Avas opened. An angel, indeed, was sent to roll away the stone, but this was not to let the Lord out, but to let the women in. For no sooner was the thing done than the angel said to the women, " He is not here, he is risen ; come and see the place where the Lord lay." St Matthew's women saw the whole process of the opening of the sepulchre, for they were there before it was opened. They felt the earthquake — they saw the angel of the Lord descend from heaven — they saw him roll away the vast stone which stopped the mouth of the sepulchre, and, with a threatening aspect, seat himself upon it — they saw the sentinels fall down petrified with fear. Had the Lord been waiting within the tomb for the removal of the stone, whence was it that they saw Him not walk out ? If He had a body to be confined, He had a body to be actually \dsible ; and it is not to be supposed, that with or without the heavenly guard which now attended Him, He was in fear of being taken by the sentinels and put a second time to death, that for His security He should render himself invisible. But He was already gone. The huge stone, which would have barred their entrance, had been no bar to His escape. With the manner of leaving the sepulchre. His appearances, first to the women, afterwards to the apostles, correspond. They were for the most part unforeseen and sudden ; nor less suddenly he disappeared. He w\as found in company without coming in. He was missing again without going away. He joined, indeed, the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, like a traveller passing the same way ; and He walked along with them, in order to prepare them by His conversation for the evidence which they were to receive of His resurrection. But no sooner was the discovery made, by a peculiar attitude which He assumed in the breaking of bread, than He disappeared instantaneously. The same evening He presented Himself to VOL. IV. I 98 THEOLOGIANS. the apostles, at a late hour, assembled in a room with the door shut ; that is, made fast up with bolts and bars, for fear of a visit from the unbelieving Jews, their persecutors. To Him who had departed from the uno2)ened sepulchre it was no difficulty to enter the barricaded chamber. From all these circumstances, it is evident that His body had undergone its change. The corruptible had put on incormption. It was no longer the body of a man in its mortal state ; it was the body of a man raised to life and immortality, which was now mysteriously united to divinity. And as it was by miracle that, before His death. He walked upon the sea, it was now by miracle that, for the conviction of the apostles, He shewed in His person the marks of His sufferings. Consonant with this exaltation of His human nature was the change in the manner of His life. He was repeatedly seen by the disciples after His resurrection ; and so seen as to give them many infallible proofs that He was the veiy Jesus who had suffered on the cross. But He lived not with them in familiar habits. His time, for the forty days preceding His ascension, was not spent in their society. They knew not His goings out and comings in. Where He lodged on the evening of His resurrection, after His visit to the apostles, we read not ; nor were the apostles themselves better informed than we. To Thomas, who w^as absent when our Lord a^^peared, the report of the rest was in these words, "We have seen the Lord." That was all they had to say. They had seen Him, and He was gone. They pretend not to direct Thomas to any place where he might find Him and enjoy the same sight. None of them could now say to Thomas as Nathanael once said to Philip, " Come and see." On the journey from Jerusalem to Galilee He was not their companion — He went before them. How He went we are not informed. The way is not described. The places are not mentioned through which He passed. Their names are not recorded who accompanied Him on the ABRAHAM TUCKER. 99 road, or who entertained Him. The disciples were commanded to rejDair to Galilee. They were not told to seek Hun at Capernaum, His former residence, or to inquire for Him at His mother's house. They were to assemble at a certain hill. Thither they repaired ; they met Him there, and there they worshipped Him. The place of His abode for any single night of all the forty days is nowhere mentioned ; nor, from the most diligent examination of the story, is any place of His abode on earth to be assigned. The conclusion seems to be, that on earth He had no longer any local residence. His body requiring neither food for its subsistence, nor a lodging for its shelter and repose. He was become the inhabitant of another region, from which He came occasionally to converse with His disciples. His visible ascension, at the expiration of the forty days, being not the necessary means of His removal, but a token to the disciples that this was His last visit — an evidence to them that the heavens had now received Him, and that He was to be seen no more on earth with the corporeal eye till the restitution of all things. ABRAHAM TUCKER. liegarding this remarkable man, no information can now be recovered beyond the scanty facts compiled by his descendant, Sir H. P. St John Mildmay. He was a country gentleman who combined with rural pursuits a taste for philosophy, and a large amount of elegant scholarship. Born at London, Sep- tember 2, 1705, most of his life was spent at Betchworth Castle in Surrey. In 1754, he sustained a bitter bereave- ment in the death of his wife, to whom he was tenderly attached, and it is not unlikely that it was as a refuge from sorrow that he had recourse to the composition of the work with which liis name is now identified. In 175G, he began to write down his thoughts on various subjects, metaphysical. 100 THEOLOGIANS. moral, and religious. Of these, a first instalment appeared in 1765, in three octavo volumes, under the title, " The Light oi Nature Pursued. By Edward Search, Esq." The work had grown very delightful to himself, and he pursued it with un- abated zeal till 1771, when, owing to constant application, followed by a fever, he became totally blind. Even this cala- mity did not quench his ardour. He invented a macliine for guiding his hand in writing, and could produce a manuscript so legible that it was easily transcribed by his amanuensis. This amanuensis was his elder daughter, who, with loving devotion, consecrated her whole time to the mitigation of his misfortune, and who, besides many other labours of love, learned the Greek language, that he might not altogether lose his intercourse with his favourite authors. Mr Tucker died in 1774, and soon afterwards the remainder of " The Light of Nature" appeared in four additional volumes. According to the estimate of a most competent judge, our author " was naturally endowed, not indeed with more than ( )rdinary acuteness or sensibility, nor with a high degree of reach and range of mind, but with a singular capacity for care- ful observation and original reflection, and with a fancy per- haps unmatched in producing various and hapjDy illustration. The most observable of his moral qualities appear to have been prudence and cheerfulness, good nature and easy temper. The influence of his situation and character is visible in his writings. Indulging his own tastes and fancies, like most English squires of his time, he became, like many of them, a sort of humourist. Hence much of his originality and inde- pendence ; hence the boldness with which he openly employs illustrations from homely objects. He wrote to please him- self more than the public." ■"' * Sir .Tames Mackintosh's " Dissertation on the Tro-ress of Ethical rhilosophy," p. a86. PROVIDENCE. 101 Proijiticnce. The theory of universal Providence being thus established, let us proceed to examine whether there is not evidence of it in the phenomena of nature. If God had thought proper to leave anything to chance or necessity, we cannot imagine othermse than that He would have so ordered His plan as that those blind causes should not interfere to disturb or alter it in any part : but in fact we find events so interlaced among one another, that those of the greatest moment often depend upon others we should think the most trifling, and unworthy regard. The causes of dearth and fertility depend upon the vapours and little particles floating about in the air : plague, murrain, and many distempers, derive from the same sources : therefore, those little particles must have their commission when and where and in what quantities to flow, or health and sickness, abundance and famine, might overspread the earth ■without the knowledge or intention of the Almighty. Winds and weather depend upon so many complicated causes, the action of the Sun, attraction of the Moon, situation of the mountains, exhalations from the ground, that no human science can investigate them ; yet how often has the scale of victory been turned by a particular wind blowing dust in the faces of one army ! How often has a vanquished fleet been saved by a favourable gale wafting them into places. of security ! How, then, can we say God giveth victory, unless we allow Him to take cognizance of everything conducive thereto 1 For though He gave better conduct to the general, and greater vigour to the soldiers on one side, these advantages might be overbalanced by a certain temperature in the air, causing it to move this way or that. Perhaps it will be thought enough if the causes, operating to produce tliis temperature, be set at work in the gross, and that it is no matter whether a few more or less particles be i2 102 THEOLOGIANS. employed, nor what i)Iaces or girations be assigned to each particle among the whole. For when the farmer sows his corn, he does not mind the exact number of grains he takes up at each time into his hand, nor whether any two of them fall the tenth of an inch further or nearer to one another. But man acts b}^ the gross members of his body, to which he gives an impulse by one operation of his mind ; and when he acts upon several little bodies, the motions they receive depend l^artly upon their figures, magnitudes, and situations, which arc too numerous and too various for liim to observe. Whereas God acts not by limbs nor by external stroke or pulsion upon the outside of a mass, but by actuating the comj^onent parts, whereof such and no more receive such and none other impulse than He impresses upon them : for He pervades and is present with them all, nor can remain ignorant or inobservant of what impulses He gives, or what subsequent motions they must necessarily produce by their mutual action upon one another. If there be any who cannot readily comprehend the force of this argument, let them turn their thoughts to such inci- dents wherein the structure of particular bodies, and position of their parts, manifestly give the turn to the event. Men have been killed by the fall of boughs from trees or bricks from buildings as they passed under, but had the fibres of the bough, or mortar holding the bricks together, been ever so little stronger or weaker, or the least particles in either placed otherwise, they would have fallen a moment sooner or later, and the lives of the jiassengcrs been saved. Some have been bitten by adders whom they trod upon as they walked along : others destroyed by swallowing wasps in their liquor : these owe their deaths to the minute causes wliich brought the wasp or the adder to that particular spot ; nor would the general laws of instinct guiding those vermin suffice to conduct them unerringly to the very place where their operation was wanted. There have been persons wiio have lost their lives by a gun NO RANDOM .SHOTS. lU3 presented against them in play, witliout knowing of its being loaded, and perhaps after having tried twenty times in vain to let it off j others have been saved by a pistol flashing in the pan : here the little particles of rust or damps among the powder must be exactly adjusted to make it take effect at the destined instant, and not before. What is it marks out the path of bullets flying about in an engagement 1 The strength of the powder, the manner of making up the charge, its being closer or looser rammed, and a hair's breadth difference of position in the muzzle from whence they were discharged, will cause them to miss or to destroy : which little difference may arise from inequalities of ground the soldier stands upon, from the manner of his tread, the stiffness of his clothes, or what he has eaten or drank a little before. Therefore all these minute cir- cumstances cannot be neglected, even if we will suppose God only to determine how many shall fall in battle that day, but not to care whether John or Thomas make one of the number. How many have come to their ends by sudden quarrels owing to an inadvertent word, a slip of the tongue, or an expression misunderstood ! AVhat havoc and devastation do fires make, occasioned by a single act of forgetfulness or heedlessness ! It can scarce be doubted that the tenor of every man's con- duct and fortune depends very much upon the situation where- into he was thrown at his birth, the natural endowments and dispositions wherewith he was born, or that these dejpend as much upon the 2:)ersons who gave him birth, as theirs did upon those from whom they sprung : so that he might either not have been born at all, or have run a very different course of life; had his parents, or his parents' parents, been otherwise matched. But who can help observing what trivial causes, what turns of humour, whim, and fancy, sometimes bring people together ? An accidental meeting, a ball, or an enter- tainment, may begin the accpiaintance ; a lucky dress, a hand- some complunent, or a lively expression, first engage the 104 THEOLOGIANS. notice ; or an officious old woman drop a word that shall give the preference. Nor do the consequences of such fortuitous engagements always terminate in the parties or their children, or children's children, but may spread wide among the human species : for they may beget a genius who shall invent a new art, or improve some useful science, or produce peculiar talents fitted to make a politician or a general, who shall influence the fate of nations. Perhaps the Roman commonwealth might have subsisted longer, or the empire been established in another family, if Caesar's grandmother had worn a different coloured ribbon upon such a certain festival. Thus we see the scheme of great events can never be so surely laid but that they may be defeated by little accidents, unless these likewise be taken into the plan. And whoever will take pains to contemplate the whole concurrence of causes contributing to govern the weightiest affairs of mankind, will find many inconsiderable ones among them, these again de- pending upon others as minute, and so growing still more numerous and complicated the further he goes backward, until perhaps at last he be ready to believe with Plato that the whole world is one tissue of causes and effects, wherein, nearly or remotely, everything has an influence upon everything. From hence we may conclude, not only that the young ravens are fed, and the lilies of the field arrayed in the glory of Solo- mon, by the Divine provision, but that of two sparrows which are sold for a farthing, not one of them falleth to the ground, not a hair is lost out of the number upon our heads, not an atom stirs throughout the material world, nor a fancy starts up in the imagination of any animal, without the permission or appointment of our heavenly Father. ©omjs all for tlje C^lorg of ffiotr. It remains to be explained, how we can act always with intention to do the mil of God without having Him always DOING ALL i'Or. THE ULOKY OF GUD. lO-J in our tliouglits, or how can we pursue an end without hokl- ing it in contemplation during every step of the pursuit ; and this we may quickly learn by refxccting on the narrowness of our own comprehension, which is seldom capable of retaining the whole plan of a design while attentive to the measures requisite for completing it. If we may pass a conjecture upon the blessed spirits above, component parts of the mundane soul, they probably never lose sight of their Maker for a moment ; because their understanding is so large, that at the same glance it can extend to the attributes, to the plan of Providence flowing from thence, and to all the minute objects requisite for their direction in performing the parts allotted them in the execution of it ; so that, while busied in giving motion to little particles of matter for carrying on the courses of nature, they can discern the uses of what they do, its ten- dency to uphold the stupendous order of the universe, and happiness of the creatures wherein God is glorified. But our understandings are far less capacious, wherefore our prospects are scanty ; and of those lying within our compass there is only one small spot in the centre that we can discern clearly and distinctly, so are forced to turn our eye successively to the several parts of a scene before us to take the necessary guidance for our measures. When we have fixed upon the means requisite for effecting a purpose, our whole attention to them is often little enough to carry us through in the prosecu- tion ; and were we perpetually to hold the purpose in contem- plation, it must interrupt and might utterly defeat its own accomplishment. He that travels to London must not keep Ids eye continually gazing upon Paul's steeple, nor his thoughts ruminating upon the business he is to do, or pleasures he is to take there ; he must mind the road as he goes along, he nmst look for a good inn, and take care to order accommodations and refreshments for himself and his horse. But whatever steps we take in prosecution of some end, are always ascribed 106 THEOLOGIANS. thereto as to their motive ; and we are said, in common pro- priety of speech, to act all along with intention to gain onr end, though we have it not every moment in view. So, if our tra- veller come to town upon a charitable design to succour some family in affliction or distress by liis counsel, his company, his labours, his interest, or any other seasonable assistance, his whole journey and every part of it, while inquiring the way, while bustling through a crowd, while baiting at the inn, was an act of charity performed with a benevolent intention. In like manner, whatever schemes we lay out upon the principle of glorifying God by promoting the happiness of His creatures or any one of them, whether they lead us to the care of our health, or our properties, to common business, or re- creation, we may be truly and properly said to act with inten- tion to His will, though during the prosecution we should be totally immersed in worldly concerns, and taken up with sen- sible objects. When busied in my chapters, labouring to trace the mazes of Providence, and shew that, in the severest dispensations, they never terminate upon evil, how defective soever the per- formance, the intention seems to be good ; after toiling av/hile, the ideas begin to darken, the mental organs to grow stiff, and the spirits exhausted ; I then j^erceive the best thing I can do for proceeding on my work, is to lay in a fresh stock by some exercise or diversion, which may enable me to resume the microscope and telescope with recruited vigour. So I sally forth fi-om my cavern in quest of any little amusement that may offer — perhaps there is an exhibition of pictures ; I gaze round like Cymon at Iphigenia, with such judgment as uninstructed nature can supply — I meet with my acquaint- ance ; one, being a connoisseur in painting, entertains me with criticisms founded upon the rules of art, which come in at one ear and go out at the other ; others tell me of the weather, of general warrants, of a very clever political pamphlet, a rhapsody AN ALLEGORY. 107 of Rousseau's, or a slanderous poem, wliicli, because I am a studious man and a lover of wit, they recommend to my perusal ; — I endeavour to join in the conversation as well as my penury of fashionable materials will permit, and cut such jokes as I can to enliven it. If an interval happens wherein there is nothing to engage my senses, presently the mundane soul, and links of connexion forming the general interest, will be attempting to intrude upon me ; but I shut them out with might and main, for fear they should draw off the supply of spirits as fast as it comes in ; for recreation is now my busi- ness, and the sublimest idea which might draw on a labour of thought would defeat my purpose. Nevertheless, while en- gaged in this series of trifles, am I not pursuing my mam in- tention, even in the very efforts made for thrusting it out of my sight 1 and if my first design bore any reference to the Divine glory, may not I be said, without impropriety, still to act for the same end more effectually than if I had passed the time in thought-straining fervours of prayer and devotion ? '^zn&m anti Pagsi'on. If we take the matter figuratively, this diversity of persons may serve aptly enough to express the disordered condition of human nature, wherein reason and passion perpetually struggle, resist, and control one another. The metaphor employed by Plato was that of a charioteer driving his pair of horses, by which latter he allegorised the concupiscible and irascible passions ; but as we have now-a-days left off driving our own chariots, but keep a coachman to do it for us, I think the mind may be more commodiously compared to a traveller riding a single horse, wherein reason is represented by the rider, and imagmation with all its train of opinions, appetites, and habits, by the beast. Everybody sees the horse does all the work ; the strength and speed requisite for performing it 108 THEOLOGIANS. are liis own ; lie carries his master along every step of the journey, directs the motion of his own legs in walking, trotting, galloping, or stepping over a rut, makes many by-motions, as whisking the flies with his tail or playing with his bit, all by his own instinct ; and if the road lie plain and open without bugbears to affright him or rich pasture on either hand to entice him, he will jog on, although the reins were laid upon his neck, or in a well-acquainted road will take the right turn- ings of his own accord. Perhaps sometimes he may prove startish or restive, turning out of the way, or running into a pond to drink, maugre all endeavours to prevent him; but this depends greatly upon the discipline he has been used to. The office of the rider lies in putting his horse into the proper road, and the pace most convenient for the present purpose, guiding and conducting him as he goes along, checking him when too forward or spurring him when too tardy, being atten- tive to his motions, never dropping the whip nor losing the reins, but ready to interpose instantly whenever needful, keep- ing firm in his seat if the beast behaves unruly, observing what passes in the way, the condition of the ground, and bearings of the country, in order to take directions there- from for his proceeding. But this is not all he has to do, for there arc many things previous to the journey; he must get his tackling in good order, bridle, spurs, and other accoutrements; he must learn to sit well in the saddle, to understand the ways and temper of the beast, get acquainted with the roads, and inure himself by practice to bear long journeys without fatigue or galhng; he must provide pro- vender for his horse, and deal it out in proper quantities ; for if weak and jadisli, or pampered and gamesome, he will not perform the journey well : he must have him well broke, taught all his paces, cured of starting, stumbling, running away, and all skittish or sluggash tricks, trained to answer the bit and be obedient to the word of command. If he can teach him to CONYERS MIDDLETON. 109 canter whenever there is a smooth and level turf, and stop when the ground lies rugged, of his own accord, it will contri- bute to make riding easy and pleasant ; he may then enjoy the prospects around, or think of any business without interruption to his progress. As to the choice of a horse, our rider has no concern with that, but must content himself with such as nature and education have put into his hands : but since the spirit of the beast depends much upon the usage given him, every prudent man will endeavour to proportion that spirit to his own strength and skill in horsemanship ; and according as he finds himself a good or bad rider, will wish to have his horse sober or mettlesome. For strong passions work wonders where there is a stronger force of reason to curb them ; but where this is weak the appetites must be feeble too, or they will lie under no control. DK CONYERS MIDDLETON. CoNYERS MiDDLETON was born in 1683, at Hinderwell, in Yorkshire, where his father was rector. At Trinity College, Cambridge, he received that education which placed him among the most polished classical scholars of last century, and of which, in 1741, he gave the world an enduring memorial in his charming " Life of Cicero." It is to be feared that his clerical profession was little in unison with his personal taste and private convictions ; at least, there is in his correspond- ence a tone of levity and religious indifference, which prevents us from regretting that his preferment was academical rather than ecclesiastical. He was Woodwardian professor at Cam- bridge, and afterwards principal librarian of the University. He died at his estate of Hildersham, July 28, 1750. The greater part of the years 1724 and 1725, Dr Middle- ton spent in Italy. Some time after his return, that is, in 1729, he published, "A Letter from Eome, shewing the exact conformity between Popery and Paganism ; or, the Pveligion of VOL. IV. K 110 THEOLOGIANS. the present Eomans derived from that of .their heathen ances- tors." It is an interesting and amusing book. Its learning is ample, but not oppressive, and its demonstration, that the Popish ceremonies are nothing more nor less than christened paganism, is abundantly conclusive. In controversy, a book of this sort answers some such purpose as a Congreve rocket. Clever and mischievous, it may cany dismay into the hostile squadrons, but its efficacy is scarcely in proportion to the com- motion which it creates. It is seldom by such means that prejudice is disarmed, or that sinners are converted from the error of their ways. f^fllS mater. The next thing that wiU of course strike one's imagination, is their use of holy water ; for nobody ever goes in or out of a church, but is either sprinkled by the priest, who attends for that purpose on solemn days, or else serves himself with it from a vessel, usually of marble, placed just at the door, not unlike to one of our baptismal fonts. Now, this ceremony is so notoriously and directly transmitted to them from Paganism, that their own writers make not the least scruple to own it. The Jesuit, De la Cerda, in his notes on a passage of Virgil, where this practice is mentioned, saya, " Hence was derived the custom of holy Church, to provide purifying or holy water at 'the entrance of their churches." * " Aquaminarium or Amula," says the learned Montfaucon, " was a vase of holy water, placed by the heathens at the entrance of their temples, to sprinkle themselves with." f The same vessel was by the Greeks called UepLppavTrjpLov ; two of which, the one of gold, the other of silver, were given by Croesus to the temple of Apollo at Delphi ; % and the custom of sprinkling themselves was so * Spargens rore levi, &c.— Vir^;. Mn. vl. 230. t Vid. Montfauc. Antiquit. t. ii. P. i. 1. iii. c. 6. t Ilerodot. 1. i. 61. Clem. Alex. Strom. 1. i. HOLY WATER. Ill necessary a part of all their religious offices, that the method of excommunication seems to have been by prohibiting to offenders the approach and use of the holy water pot.^ The very composition of this holy water was the same also among the heathens, as it is now among the Papists, being nothing more than a mixture of salt mth common water ;t and the form of the sprinkling-brush, called by the ancients aspersorium or aspergillum (which is much the same with what the priests now make use of) may be seen in bas-reliefs, or ancient coins, wherever the insignia or emblems of the pagan priesthood are described, of which it is generally one. % Platina, in his Lives of the Popes, and other authors, ascribe the institution of this holy water to Pope Alexander the First, who is said to have lived about the year of Christ 113 ; but it could not be introduced so early, smce, for some ages after, we find the primitive fathers speaking of it as a custom purely heathenish, and condemning it as impious and detestable. Justin Martyr says, "that it was invented by demons, in imitation of the true baptism signified by the prophets, that their votaries might also have their pretended purifications by water" ; and the emperor Julian, out of spite to the Christians, used to order the victuals in the markets to be sprinkled with holy water, on purpose either to starve, or force them to eat what by their own principles they esteemed poUuted. § Thus we see what contrary notions the Primitive and Rom- ish Church have of this ceremony : the first condemns it as superstitious, abominable, and irreconcilable with Christianity; * Vid. iEscliin. Orat. contra Ctesiphon. 58. + Porro singulis diebus Dominicis sacerdos Missse sacrum facturus, aquam sale adspersam benedicendo revocare debet, eaque populum adspergere. Durant. de Rit. 1. i. c. 21. + Vid. Montfauc. Antiq. t. ii. p. i. 1. iii. c. 6. It may be seen on a silver coin of Julius C»sar, as well as many other emperors. Ant. Agostini dis- corso sopra le Medaglie. § Vid. Hospinian. de Orig. Templor. 1. ii. c. 25. 112 THEOLOGIANS. * the latter adopts it as highly edifying and applicable to the improvement of Christian piety : the one looks upon it as the contrivance of the devil to delude mankind ; the other as the security of mankind against the delusions of the devil. But what is still more ridiculous than even the ceremony itself, is to see their learned writers gravely reckoning up the several %artues and benefits, derived from the use of it, both to the soul and the body ; '"' and, to croAvn all, producing a long roll of miracles, to attest the certainty of each virtue which they ascribe to it. t ^Yh.y may we not then justly apply to the pre- sent people of Rome, what was said by the poet of its old inhabitants, for the use of this very ceremony ? Ah nimium faciles, qui tristia crimina csedis Fluminea tolli posse putetis aqiul, ! — Ovid. Fast. ii. 45, Ah, easy Fools, to think that a whole flood Of water e'er can purge the stain of blood ! I do not at present recollect whether the ancients went so far as to apply the use of this holy water to the purifying or blessing their horses, asses, and other cattle ; or whether this be an improvement of modern Rome, which has dedicated a yearly festival peculiarly to this service, called, in their vulgar language, the benediction of horses; which is always celebrated with much solemnity in the month of January ; when all the inhabitants of the city and neighbourhood send up their horses, asses, &c., to the convent of St Anthony, near St Mary the Great, where a priest, in surplice, at the church door, sprinkles with his brush all the animals singly, as they are presented to him, and receives from each owner a gratuity proportionable * Durant. de Ritib. 1. i. c. 21. It. Hospin. ibid. t Hujus aquoD benedictse virtus variis miraculis illustratur, &c. Durant. bid. THE BENEDICTION OF HORSES. 113 to his zeal and ability."* Amongst the rest, I had my own horses blessed at the expense of about eighteenpence of our money ; as well to satisfy my own curiosity, as to humour the coachman, who was persuaded, as the common people generally are, that some mischance would befall them within the year, if they wanted the benefit of this benediction. Mabillon, in giving an account of this function, of which he happened also to be an eye-witness, makes no other reflection upon it, than that it was new and unusual to him. I have met, indeed, with some hints of a practice, not foreign to this, among the ancients, — of sprinkling their horses with water at the Circensian Games ; * but whether this was done out of a superstitious view of inspiring any virtue, or purifying them for those races, which were esteemed sacred ; or merely to refresh them under the violence of such an exercise, is not easy to determine. But allowing the Komish priests to have taken the hint from some old custom of paganism ; yet this, how- ever, must be granted them, that they alone were capable of cultivating so coarse and barren a piece of superstition into a revenue sufficient for the maintenance of forty or fifty idle monks. * Ma ogni sorte d'animali a questo santo si racommaiida ; e pero nel giorno della sua feste sono portate molte offerte a questa sua chiesa, in gratitudine delle gratie che diversi hanno ottenute da lui sopra de' loro bestiami. Rom. Modern. Giorn. vi. c. 46. Eione de' Monti. t Vid. Bubenii Elect, ii. 18. k2 BIBLICAL CRITICS AND EXPOSITORS. It is not easy to conceive a more delightful employment for taste, scholarship, and piety, than that converse with the Sacred Text which constitutes the vocation of what may be called Biblical Criticism. Of this the first business is to ascertain what the Sacred Text really is, comparing the readings of various manuscripts, and giving the modern scholar, as nearly as possible, the auto- graph of the author, or of his amanuensis. In this funda- mental department, and within the period which we are now reviewing, two Englishmen acquired great distinction. One of these was Dr John Mill, the learned Principal of St Edmund's Hall, who, just fourteen days before his death in 1707, published that edition of the Greek Testament, to which he had devoted thirty years. The other was Dr Benjamin Kennicott, who, in 1780, completed a similar task of twenty years, and gave the world a beautiful and elaborate edition of the Hebrew Scriptures. When furnished with a text as accurate as possible, the next problem is to transfer into our own tongue the meaning. For this the facilities increase as sound scholarsliip continues to advance, and as new light is thrown on the natural produc- tions and the usages of the lands in which the Sacred books were -vmtten. In this work of translation, much was honour- ably achieved by divines of the Church of England, especially by the labours on the poetical and prophetical books of the elder and younger Lowth, and of Horsley, Blayney and Newcome. But even after the English student is in possession of an accurate version of an accurate text, there may be passages which, owing to their recondite allusions or intricate structure. BISHOP LOWTH. 115 baffle his comprehension. The discourse may be elliptical ; its progress may be interrupted by digressions ; the idiom may be remote from western habits of thought, or modern ways of speaking ; the metaphor may be bold ; the style may be too delicate or too sublime for cursory apprehension ; and it is the business of a skilful commentator to secure justice for his author in these respects, at the hands of ordinary readers. This was done in the case of separate books, with greater or less success, by a multitude of expositors ; and on the Bible entire the eighteenth century produced four commentaries which still hold a place in the theologian's library. One of these is made up by adding " Whitby's Notes on the New Testament," to those of Bishop Patrick and Dr William Lowth on the Old ; and betwixt the vigorous sense of Patrick, and the scholarship of Lowth, the Old Testament portion is a very valuable contribution to our stores of Scripture interpretation. The work of Matthew Henry has already been noticed. In the middle of the century, it was followed by the still more copious exposition of Dr John Gill, the Baptist minister of Horsleydown, Southwark— a work abounding in Talmudical learning, and remarkable for its sturdy and through-going Cal- vinism. This, again, towards the close of our period, was fol- lowed by the w^ell-known commentary of Thomas Scott, which, without any claim to originahty, elegance, or genius, has, in virtue of its serious tone and its faithful effort to exhibit the mind of God in His Word, superseded in many a household every other exposition. BISHOP LOWTH. Robert Lowth, the son of Dr William Lowth, to whose commentaries on the prophetical books we have already alluded, was born Nov. 27, 1710. Educated at Winchester School and New College, Oxford, he early displayed a rare union of classical taste and poetical power, and at the age of thirty-one 116 BIBLICAL CRITICS AND EXPOSITORS. was elected to tlie poetical professorship. In that chair he delivered in Latin those Prelections on Hebrew poetry, which opened up a new and delightful field of investigation to those who, loving letters much, love their Bible more. Later in life he was raised successively to the bishoprics of St David's, Oxford, and London. He died Nov. 3, 1787. The language in which the "Prelections" were written, would prevent us from giving a specimen, if they had not been so admirably translated by Mr Gregory. It would have been a pity, if lectures so essentially popular had remained locked up in Latin. Pers0nitoti0n, It would be an infinite task to specify every instance in the sacred poems, which on tliis occasion might be referred to as worthy of notice ; or to remark the easy, the natural, the bold and sudden personifications ; the dignity, importance, and im- passioned severity of the characters. It would be difiicult to describe the energy of that eloquence which is attributed to Jehovah himself, and which appears so suitable in all respects to the Divine Majesty ; or to display the force and beauty of the language which is so admirably and peculiarly adapted to each character ; the probability of the fiction ; and the excel- lence of the imitation. One example, therefore, must suffice for the present ; one more perfect it is not possible to produce. It is expressive of the eager expectation of the mother of Sisera, from the inimitable ode of the prophetess Deborah.* The first sentences exhibit a striking picture of maternal solicitude, both in words and actions ; and of a mind suspended and agitated between hope and fear : — " Through the window she looked and cried out, The mother of Sisera, through the lattice: Wherefore is his chariot so long in coming ? Wherefore linger the wheels of his chariot ? " * Judges V. 28-30. THE SONG OF DEBORAH. 117 Immediately, impatient of his delay, she anticipates the con- solations of her friends, and her mind being somewhat elevated, she boasts, with all the levity of a fond female, — (Vast in her hopes and g-iddy with success) ; " Her wise ladies answer her ; Yea, she returns answer to herself : Have they not found ? Have they not divided the spoil ? " Let us now observe, how well adapted every sentiment, every word is, to the character of the speaker. She takes no account of the slaughter of the enemy, of the valour and conduct of the conqueror, of the multitude of the captives, but " Burns with a female thirst of prey and spoils." Nothing is omitted which is calculated to attract and engage the passions of a vain and trifling woman — slaves, gold, and rich apparel. Nor is she satisfied with the bare enumeration of them : she repeats, she amplifies, she heightens every cir- cumstance ; she seems to have the very plunder in her imme- diate possession; she pauses, and contemplates every particular ; " Have they not found? Have they not divided the spoil ? To every man a damsel, yea a damsel or two? To Sisera a spoil of divers colours ? A spoil of needlework of divers colours, A spoil for the neck of divers colours of needlework on either side." To add to the beauty of this passage, there is also an uncom- mon neatness in the versification, great force, accuracy, and perspicuity in the diction, the utmost elegance in the repeti- tions, which, notwithstanding their apparent redundancy, are conducted with the most perfect brevity. In the end, the fatal disappointment of female hope and credulity, tacitly in- sinuated by the sudden and unexpected apostrophe, " So let all thine enemies perish, Jehovah ! " is expressed more forcibly l)y this very silence of the person 118 BIBLICAL CRITICS AND EXPOSITORS. wlio was just speaking, than it could possibly have been by all the powers of language. But whoever wishes to understand the full force and ex- cellence of this figure, as well as the elegant use of it in the Hebrew ode, must apply to Isaiah, whom I do not scruple to pronounce the sublimest of poets. He will there find, in one short poem, examples of almost every form of the prosopopoeia, and indeed of all that constitutes the sublime in composition. I trust it will not be thought unseasonable to refer immedi- ately to the passage itself, and to remark a few of the principal excellenQies.* The prophet, after predicting the liberation of the Jews from their severe captivity in Babylon, and their restoration to their own country, introduces them as reciting a kind of triumphal song upon the fall of the Babylonish monarch, replete with imagery, and with the most elegant and animated personifica- tions. A sudden exclamation, expressive of their joy and admu'ation on the unexpected revolution in their affairs, and the destruction of their tyrants, forms the exordium of the poem. The earth itself triumphs with the inhabitants thereof; the fir-trees and the cedars of Lebanon (under which images the parabolic style frequently delineates the kings and princes of the Gentiles) exult with joy, and persecute with contemp- tuous reproaches the humbled power of a ferocious enemy : — " The whole earth is at rest, is quiet; they burst forth into a joyful shout : Even the fir-trees rejoice over thee, the cedars of Lebanon : Since thou ai't fallen, no feller hath come up against us." f * Isa. xiv. 4-27. t Thus spiritedly versified by Mr Potter : The lordly Lebanon waves high The ancient honours of his sacred head ; Their branching arms his cedars sjDread, His pines triumphant shoot into the sky : " Tyrant, no barb'rons axe invades, Since thou art fallen, our unpierced shades." ISAIAH. 119 This is followed by a bold and animated personification of Hades, or the infernal regions. Hades excites Hs inhabitants, the ghosts of princes, and the departed spirits of kings : they rise immediately from their seats, and proceed to meet the monarch of Babylon ; they insult and deride him, and comfort themselves with the view of his calamity : — " Art thou, even thou too, become weak as we? Art thou made like unto us ? Is then thy pride brought down to the grave? the sound of thy sprightly instruments ? Is the vermin become thy couch, and the earth-worm thy covering? " Again, the Jewish people are the speakers, in an exclamation after the manner of a funeral lamentation, which indeed the whole form of this composition exactly imitates. The remark- able fall of this powerful monarch is thus beautifully illus- trated : — " How art thou fallen from heaven, Lucifer, son of the morning! Art cut down from earth, thou that didst subdue the nations!" He himself is at length brought upon the stage, boasting in the most pompous terms of his own power, which furnishes the poet with an excellent opportunity of displaying the un- paralleled misery of his downfall. Some persons are intro- duced, who find the dead carcase of the king of Babylon cast out and exposed : they attentively contemplate it, and at last scarcely know it to be his : — " Is this the man, that made the earth to tremble ? that shook the kingdoms? That made the world like a desert ; that destroyed the cities ? " They reproach him with being denied the common rites of sepulture, on account of the cruelty and atrocity of his con- duct ; they execrate his name, his offspring, and their posterity. A solemn address, as of the Deity himself, closes the scene ; and He denounces against the king of Babylon, his posterity, 120 BIBLICAL CRITICS AND EXPOSITORS. and even against the city wliich was tlie seat of their cruelty, perpetual destruction ; and confirms the immutability of His own counsels by the solemnity of an oath. How forcible is this imagery, how diversified, how sublime ! how elevated the diction, the figures, the sentiments! The Jemsh nation, the cedars of Lebanon, the ghosts of departed kings, the Babylonish monarch, the travellers who find his corpse, and last of all Jehovah Himself, are the characters which support this beautiful lyric drama. One continued action is kept up, or rather a series of interesting actions is connected together in an incomparable whole. This, indeed, is the principal and distmguished excellence of the sublimer ode, and is displayed in its utmost perfection, in this poem of Isaiah, which may be considered as one of the most ancient, and certainly the most finished specimen of that species of composition which has been transmitted to us. The personi- fications here are frequent, yet not confused ; bold, yet not improbable ; a free, elevated, and truly divine spirit pervades the whole ; nor is there anything wanting in this ode to defeat its claim to the character of perfect beauty and sublimity. If, indeed, I may be indulged in the free declaration of my own sentiments on this occasion, I do not know a single instance in the whole compass of Greek and Roman poetry, which, in every excellence of composition, can be said to equal, or even to approach it. 5r})e ^utlimc of Passion. As the imitation or delineation of the passions is the most perfect production of poetry, so, by exciting them, it most completely effects its purpose. The intent of poetry is to pro- fit while it entertains us ; and the agitation of the passions, by the force of imitation, is in the highest degree both useful and pleasant. This method of exciting the passions is in the first place THE USE OF THE PASSIONS. 121 useful, when properly and lawfully exercised ; that is, when these passions are directed to their proper end, and rendered subservient to the dictates of nature and truth ; when an aver- sion to evil, and a love of goodness, is excited. And if the poet deviate on any occasion from this great end and aim, he is guilty of a most scandalous abuse and perversion of his artj for, the passions and affections are the elements and principles of human action ; they are all in themselves good, useful, and virtuous ; and, when fairly and naturally employed, not only lead to useful ends and purposes, but actually prompt and stimulate to virtue. It is the office of poetry to incite, to direct, to temper the passions, and not to extinguish them. It professes to exercise, to amend, to discipline the affections ; it is this which is strictly meant by Aristotle, when he speaks of the 2>^'vmng of the jxtssions, though certam commentators have strangely perverted his meaning. But this operation on the passions is also more immediately useful, because it is productive of pleasure. Every emotion of the mind (not excepting even those which in themselves are allied to pain), when excited through the agency of the imitative arts, is ever accompanied with an exquisite sensation of pleasure. This arises partly from the contemplation of the imitation itself; partly from the consciousness of our own felicity, when compared with the miseries of others ; but principally from the moral sense. Nature has endued man with a certain social and generous spirit ; and commands him not to confine his cares to himself alone, but to extend them to all his fellow-creatures ; to look upon nothing which relates to mankind as foreign to himself. Thus, " to rejoice with them that do rejoice, and to weep with them that weep;" to love and to respect piety and benevolence ; to cherish and re- tain an indignant hatred of cruelty and injustice ; that is, to obey the dictates of nature — is right, is honest, is becoming, is pleasant. VOL. IV. L 122 BIBLICAL CRITICS AND EXPOSITORS. The sublime and tlie pathetic are intrinsically very different ; and yet have in some respects a kind of affinity or con- nexion. The pathetic includes the passions which we feel, and those which we excite. Some passions may be expressed without any of the sublime ; the sublime also may exist where no passion is directly expressed : there is however no subhmity where no passion is excited. That sensation of sublimity which arises from the greatness of the thoughts and imager}^, has admiration for its basis, and that for the most j^art con- nected with joy, love, hatred, or fear ; and this I tliink is evi- dent from the instances which were so lately under our consi- deration. How much the sacred poetry of the Hebrews excels in ex- citing the passions, and in directing them to their noblest end and aim ; how it exercises them upon their proper objects ; how it strikes and fires the admiration by the contemplation of the Divine Majesty, and, forcing the affections of love, hope, and joy, from unworthy and terrestrial objects, elevates them to the pursuit of the supreme good ; how it also stinmlates those of grief, hatred, and fear, which arc usually employed upon the trifling miseries of this life, to the abhorrence of the supreme evil, is a subject which at present w\ants no illustra- tion, and which, though not unconnected with sulilimity in a general view, would be improperly introduced in this place. For we are not at present treating of the general effects of sublimity on the passions, but of that species of the sublime which proceeds from vehement emotions of the mind, and from the imitation or representation of passion. Here, indeed, a spacious field presents itself to our view ; for by far the greater part of the sacred poetry is little else than a continued imitation of the different passions. What in reality forms the substance and subject of most of these i)oems but the passion of admiration, excited by the consideration of the Divine power and majesty ; the passion of oy from the ADMIRATION, JOY. 123 sense of tlie Divine favour, and the prosperous issue of events ; the passion of resentment and indignation against the con- temners of God j of grief, from the consciousness of sin j and terror, from the apprehension of the divine judgment 1 Of all these, and if there be any emotions' of the mind beyond these, exquisite examples may be found in the Book of Job, in the Psalms, in the Canticles, and in every part of the prophetic writings. On this account my principal difficulty will not be the selection of excellent and proper instances, but the ex- plaining of those which spontaneously occur without a con- siderable diminution of their intrinsic sublimity. Admiration, as it is ever the concomitant, so it is frequently the efficient cause of sublimity. It produces great and magni- ficent conceptions and sentiments, and expresses them in lan- guage bold and elevated, in sentences, concise, abrupt, and " Jehovah reigneth ; let the people tremble : He sitteth upon the Cherabim ; let the earth be moved." * "■ The voice of Jehovah is upon the waters : The God of gloiy thmiders : Jehovah is upon the many waters. The voice of Jehovah is full of power ; The voice of Jehovah is full of majesty." f " Who is like unto thee among the gods, Jehovah? Who is like unto thee, adorable in holiness ! Fearful in praises, who workest wonders ! Thou extendest thy right hand ; the earth swalloweth them." ^ Joy is more elevated, and exults in a bolder strain : it pro- duces great sentiments and conceptions, seizes upon the most splendid imagery, and adorns it with the most animated lan- suaj^e ; nor does it hesitate to risk the most darmg and unusual figures. In the Song of Moses, in the thanksgiving of Deborah and Baruch, what sublimity do we find, in senti- * Ps, xcix. 1. t Ps. xxix. 3, 4. X Ex. xv. 11, 12. 12J: 13IBUCAL CRITICS AND EXPOSITORS. iiieiit, ill language, in the general turn of tlie expression ! But nothing can excel in this respect that noble exultation of universal nature, in the psalm which has been so often coin- inended, where the whole animated and inanimate creation unite in the praises of their Maker. Poetry here seems to assume the highest tone of triumph and exultation, and to revel, if I may so express myself, in all the extravagance of joy : — Tell in high harmonious strains, Tell the world Jehovah reigns ! He, who framed this beauteous whole, He, who fix'd each planet's place ; AVho bade unnumber'd orbs to roll, In destined course, through endless space. Let the glorious Heavens rejoice. The hills exult with grateful voice ; Let ocean tell the echoing shore, And the hoarse waves with humble voice adore ! Let the verdant plains be glad ; The trees in blooming fragrance clad ! Smile with joy, ye desert lands, And, rushing torrents, clap your hands ! Let the Avhole earth with triumph ring ; Let all that live with loud applause Jehovah's matchless praises sing ! — He comes ! He comes ! Heaven's righteous King, To judge the world by Truth's eternal laws.* Nothing, however, can be greater or more magnificent than the representation of anger and indignation, particularly when the Divine wrath is displayed. Of this the whole of the pro- phetic Song of Moses affords an incomparable specimen. I have formerly produced from it some instances of a different kind ; nor ought the following to be denied a place in these lectures : — " For I will lift my hand unto the heavens, And I will say, I live for ever : * Vh. xcvi. 10-13, and xcviii. 7-9. INDIGNATION. 125 If I whet the brightness of my sword, And my hand lay hold on judgment ; I will return vengeance to my enemies, And I will recompense those that hate me : I ■v^^LU drench my arrows in blood, And my sword shall devour flesh ; With the blood of the slain and the captives, From the bushy head of the enemy." * Nor is Isaiali less daring on a similar subject — *' For the day of vengeance was in my heart, And the year of my redeemed was come. And I looked, and there was no one to help ; And I was astonished that there was no one to uphold ; Therefore mine own arm wrought salvation for me. And mine indignation itself sustained me. And I trod down the peoples in mine anger ; And I crushed them in mine indignation ; And I spilled their life-blood on the ground." f The display of the fury and the threats of the enemy, by which Moses finely exaggerates the horror of their unexpected ruhi; is also wonderfully sublime — " The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake ; I will divide the spoil, my soul shall be satiated ; I will draw my sword, ray hand shall destroy them : Thou didst blow with thy breath ; they were covered with the sea." J * Deut. xxxii. 40-42. t Isa. Ixiii. 4-6. t Exod. xv. 9, 10. CHURCH HISTORIANS. Until ^Merle D'AiilDigne sliewed liow possible it is to fill it with a li-sdng interest, the dreariest department of literature was Church History. The annals of Baronius, the Madgeburg Centuriators, the long and laborious compilations of Tillemont, Fleury, and Du Pin, of Venema and Spanheim, as well as the compendiums of Jablonski and Moshcim, must often be con- sulted by the student in quest of information ; but to a reader in search of fine thoughts or picturesque characters, of great principles ably developed, or affecting incidents suitably de- scribed, they will prove an absolute Sahara — a mere land of emptiness. Our own country is in this respect not worse off than its neighbours ; for, if nothing can be more dull than the tedious pages of Strype and the one-sided pages of Collier, there is much amusement in Fuller, and to the unadorned martyro- logy of Foxe we are riveted by the painful fascination of its affecting narrative. And, in our own time, the labours of M'Crie, ]\Iarsden, and Vaughan, awaken the hope of histories which will be Christian rather than Ecclesiastical, and from the perusal of which we may come away without feeling as adust and arid as if we had spent a day in Doctors' Commons. BISHOP BURNET. It is by a sort of anachronism — inevitable in a book like this; — that we here introduce the honest and heartily Protestant Bishop of Salisbury ; for the greater part of his " History of the Reformation" was published in the century jireceding. But perhaps we shall entitle ourselves to the use of his name in this connexion, by quoting from his "Life and Times," BURNET. 127 wliicli, of course, was published after liis death, and which is certainly one of the most entertaining books of the period. Burnet was born at Edinburgh, September 18, 1643. He died, March 17, 1715. Besides his liistories, he wrote excel- lent biographies of Sir Matthew Hale, of Bishop Bedell, and of the Earl of Rochester, and an exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles, wliich, in common mth his " Pastoral Care," still re- tain an honourable rank in theological literature. CJatactcr mti Heat]^ of ^tcpisjop ILn'gSton» I writ so earnestly to Leighton, that he came to London [1684.] Upon his commg to me [in London], I was amazed to see him, at above seventy, look still so fresh and w^U, that age seemed as if it were to stand still with him. His hair was still black, and all his motions were lively. He had the same quickness of thought, and strength of memory, but, above all, the same heat and life of devotion, that I had ever seen in him. When I took notice to him upon my first seeing him how well he looked, he told me he was very near his end for all that, and his work and journey both were now almost done. This at that time made no great impression on me. He was the next day taken with an oppression, and, as it seemed, with a cold and with stitches, which was indeed a pleurisy. The next day Leighton sunk so, that both speech and sense went away of a sudden. And he continued panting about twelve hours, and then died without pangs or convulsions. I was by him all the while. Thus I lost him who had been for so many years the chief guide of my whole life. He had lived ten years in Sussex, in great privacy, dividing his time wholly between study and retirement, and the doing of good; for, in the parish where he lived, and in the parishes round about, he was always employed in preaching, and in reading prayers. 128 CHURCH HISTORIANS. He distributed all he had iii charities, choosing rather to have it go through other people's hands than his own; fori was his almoner in London. He had gathered a well- chosen library of curious as well as useful books, which he left to the diocese of Dumblane for the use of the clergy there, that country bemg ill provided -with books. He lamented oft to me the stupidity that he observed among the commons of England, who seemed to be much more insensible in the mat- ters of religion than the commons of Scotland were. He re- tained still a peculiar inclination to Scotland; and if he had seen any prospect of doing good there, he would have gone and lived and died among them. In the short time that the affairs of Scotland were in the Duke of Monmouth's hands, that duke had been possessed with such an opinion of him, that he moved the king to write to him, to go and at least live in Scotland, if he would not engage in a bishopric there. But that fell with that duke's credit. He was in his last years turned to a greater severity against Popery than I had imagined a man of his temper and of his largeness in point of opinion was capable of He spoke of the corruptions, of the secular spirit, and of the cruelty that appeared in that Church, with an extraordinary concern; and lamented the shameful advances that we seemed to be making towards Popery. He did this with a tenderness and an edge that I did not expect from so recluse and mortified a man. He looked on the state the Church of England was in with very melancholy reflections, and was very uneasy at an expression then much used, that it was the best constituted Church in the world. He thought it was truly so with relation to the doctrine, the worship, and the main part of our government; but as to the administra- tion, both with relation to the ecclesiastical courts and the pastoral care, he looked on it as one of the most corrupt ho had ever seen. He thought we looked like a fair carcase of a THE DEATH OF LEIGHTON, 120 body mthout a spiiit, without that zeal, that strictness of life, and that laboriousness in the clergy, that became ns. There were two remarkable circumstances in his death. He used often to say, that if he were to choose a place to die in, it should be an inn; it looking like a pilgrim's going home, to whom this world was all as an inn, and Avho was weary of the noise and confusion in it. He added, that the officious tender- ness and care of friends was an entanglement to a dying man; and that the unconcerned attendance of those that could be procured in such a place would give less disturbance. And he obtained what he desired, for he died at the Bell Inn in Warwick Lane. Another circumstance was, that while he was bishop in Scotland, he took what his tenants were pleased to pay him : so that there was a great arrear due, which was raised slowly by one whom he left in trust with his affairs there. And the last payment that he could expect from thence was returned up to Mm about six weeks before his death. So that his provision and journey failed both at once. [In an earlier portion of his work, Burnet gives the follow- ing account of the saintliest name in the annals of Scottish Episcopacy] : — He had great quickness of parts, a lively apprehension, with a charming vivacity of thought and expression. He had the greatest command of the purest Latin that ever I knew in any man. He was a master both of Greek and Hebrew, and of the whole compass of theological learning, chiefly in the study of the Scriptures. But that which excelled all the rest was, he was possessed with the highest and noblest sense of divine things that I ever saw in any man. He had no regard to his person, unless it was to mortify it by a constant low diet, that was like a perpetual fast. He had a contempt both of wealth and reputation. He seemed to have the lowest thoughts of himself possible, and to desire that all other per- 130 CHURCH HISTORIANS. sons should think as meanly of him as he did himself. He bore all sorts of ill-usage and reproach like a man that took pleasm-e in it. He had so subdued the natural heat of his temper, that in a great variety of accidents, and in a course of twenty-two years' intimate conversation vdih him, I never observed the least sign of passion but upon one single occa- sion. He brought himself into so composed a gravity, that I never saw him laugh, and but seldom smile. And he kept himself in such a constant recollection, that I do not remember that ever I heard him say one idle word. There was a visible tendency in all he said to raise his ovm mind, and those he* conversed with, to serious reflections. He seemed to be in a perpetual meditation. And though the whole course of his life was strict and ascetical, yet he had nothing of the sour- ness of temper that generally possesses men of that sort. He was the freest from superstition, of censuring others, or of im- posing his o^^Ti methods on them, possible ; so that he did not so much as recommend them to others. He said there was a diversity of tempers, and every man was to watch over his own, and to turn it in the best manner he could. His thoughts were lively, oft out of the way, and suq^rising, yet just and genuine. And he had laid together in liis memory the greatest treasure of the best and wisest of all the ancient sayings of the heathens as well as Christians, that I have ever known any man master of; and he used them in the aptest manner possible. He had been bred up with the greatest aversion imaginable to the whole frame of the Church of England. From Scot- land, his father sent him to travel. He spent some years in France, and spoke that language like one born there. He came afterwards and settled in Scotland, and had Presbyterian ordination ; but he quickly broke through the prejudices of his education. His preachhig had a sublimity both of thought and expression in it. The grace and gravity of his pronuncia- JOSEPH A.ND ISAAC MILNER. 131 tion was such, that few heard hmi without a very sensible emotion: I am sure I never did. His style was rather too fine; but there was a majesty and beauty in it that left so deep an impression, that I cannot yet forget the sermons I heard him preach thirty years ago : and yet with this he seemed to look on himself as so ordinary a preacher, that wliiJe he had a cure, he was ready to employ all others ; and when he was a bishop, he chose to preach to small auditories, and would never give notice beforehand : he had, indeed, a very low voice, and so could not be heard by a great crowd. THE MILNERS. The records of fraternal affection contain no example more beautiful and touching than the brotherly love of Joseph and Isaac Milnee. Their father, who had once been a member of the Society of Friends, was a manufacturer in reduced cir- cumstances in the town of Leeds. However, poor as he was, he strove to secure a good education for, at least, one of his sons. Joseph was sent to the grammar-school, and afterwards t(3 Catherine I^all, Cambridge. There he acquitted himself so well that he soon was appointed master of the grammar-school at Hull, and found himself in cii'cumstances to aid his younger brother. He knew Isaac's love of learning, and grieved that the studious lad should consume his days in weaving broad cloth. He asked his friend the Rev. Mr Miles Atkinson to visit him, and test his classical attainments. Mr Atkinson found him seated at the loom, with Tacitus and some Greek author lying beside him. Notwithstanding his long absence from school, the young apprentice acquitted himself so well that i\Ir Atkinson went to his master and purchased a release from his indentures. " Isaac, lad, thou art off," was the worthy manu- facturer's laconic announcement of the fact to the joyful Isaac, who immediately repaired to Hull and commenced as usher 132 CHURCH HISTORIANS. in his brother's crowded scliool. From thence, at the age of twenty, through the same brother's generosity he was trans- ferred to Queen's College, Cambridge. There he studied to such purpose that on taking liis degree the ex-weaver came out senior wrangler, with the epithet " Incomparabilis," besides being first Smith's prizeman, and was soon after elected a fellow and tutor of his college, and commenced the career which ended in his being president of Queen's and Dean of Carlisle. Joseph Milner was born Jan. 2, 1744. He died Vicar of Holy Trinity, Hull, Nov. 15, 1797. Isaac Milner was bom Jan. 11, 1750, and died April 1, 1820. Before his death, Joseph had published three volumes of a " History of the Church of Christ." When he died he left some materials so far prepared, that the work was taken up and two volumes added by the surviving brother. That it has all the charms of a first-rate history, or that the portion which passed through Isaac's hands is altogether worthy of the fame of the mighty mathematician, it would be vain to assert ; but it is not hazarding much to say that the work of the Milners is the best account of the Christian life of past ages which English readers yet possess, and that for the authen- ticity of its details, and the truthfulness of its representations, it far surpasses many of its more pretentious competitors. That good men frequently appear to more advantage in pri- vate life than in public, is a remark which was jDcrhaps never better exemplified than in this prelate, of whom all that is known by the generality of readers is, that he was a strenuous supporter of the papal dominion in England. I can easily conceive that he might be influenced by the purest motives in ANSELM. 133 tliis part of his conduct, when I reflect on the shameless and profane manners of the Norman princes. But his private life was purely his own, originating more directly from the honest and good heart with which, through grace, he was eminently endowed. As a divine and a Christian, he was the first of characters in this century, and is, therefore, deserving of some attention. He was born at Aoust in Piedmont. From early life his religious cast of mind was so prevalent that, at the age of fif- teen, he offered himself to a monastery, but was refused, lest his father should have been displeased. He afterwards be- came entangled in the vanities of the world; and to his death, he bewailed the sins of his youth. Becoming a scholar of Lanfranc, his predecessor in the See of Canterbury, at that time a monk at Bee, in Normandy, he commenced monk in the year 10 GO, at the age of twenty-seven. He afterwards became the prior of the monastery. His progress in religious knowledge was great ; but mildness and charity seem to have predominated in all his views of piety. The book commonly caUed Augustine's Meditations, was chiefly abstracted from the writings of Anselm. At the age of forty-five he became abbot of Bee. Lanfranc dying in 1089, William Rufus usurped the revenues of the See of Canterbury, and treated the monks of the place in a barbarous manner. For several years this pro- fane tjrrant declared, that none should have the see while he lived j but a fit of sickness overawed his spirit ; and conscience, the voice of God, which often speaks even in the proudest and the most insensible, severely reproved his wickedness ; inso- much that he nominated Anselm to be the successor of Lan- franc. That Anselm should have accepted the office with much reluctance under such a pnnce, is by no means to be wondered at; and, the more upright and conscientious men are, the more wary and reluctant will they always be found in accepting offices of so sacred a nature ; though it is natural VOL. IV, M 134 cHtTRCH historians; for men of a secular spirit to judge of others by themselves, and to suppose the " nolo episcopari," to be, without any ex- ceptions, the language of hypocrisy. Anselm pressed the king to allow the calling of councils, in order to institute an inquiry into crimes and abuses ; and also to fill the vacant abbeys, the revenues of which William had reserved to himself with sacrilegious avarice. Nothing but the conviction of conscience, and the ascendency which real up- rightness maintains over wickedness and profligacy, could have induced such a person as William Kufus, to promote Anselm to the see, though he must have foreseen how impro- bable it was, that the abbot would ever become the tame instrument of liis tyranny and oppression. In fact, Anselm, finding the Church overborne by the iniquities of the tyrant, retired to the Continent with two monks, one of whom, named Eadmer, wrote his life. Living a retired life in Calabria, he gave employment to hia active mind in writing a treatise on the reasons why God should become man, and on the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation : a work at that time useful to the Church of Christ, as he refuted the sentiments of Roscelin, who had pub- lished erroneous views concerning the Trinity. For, after a sleep of many ages, the genius of Arianism or Socinianism, or both, had awaked, and taken advantage of the general igno- rance, to corrupt the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. Anselm knew how to reason closely and systematically, after the manner of the fiimous Peter Lombard, master of the sen- tences, and Bishop of Paris ; and he was properly the first of the scholastic divines. The method of ratiocination then used was, no doubt, tedious, verbose, and subtile, and, in pro- cess of time, grew more ftnd more perplexed. It was, how- ever, preferable to the dissipation and inanity which, in many publications of our times, pretend to the honour of good sense and sound wisdom, though devoid of learning and industry. SCHOLASTIC DIVINITY. 135 Moreover, the furniture of the schools, in the hands of a fine genius like Anselm, adorned with solid piety, and under the control of a good understanding, stemmed the torrent of pro- fane infidelity, and ably supported the cause of godhness in the world. Koscelin was confuted, and the common orthodox doctrine of the Trinity upheld itself in the Church. Wliat were the precise viev/s of Koscelin will be better understood, when we come to introduce one of his scholars, the famous Peter Abelard to the reader's notice. Anselm, weary of an empty title of dignity, and seeing no probability of being enabled to serve the Church in the arch- bishopric, entreated the Pope to give him leave to resign it, but in vain. Nor does he seem to have been justly chargeable with the display of an " ostentatious humility," when he had first refused the promotion.* The integrity, with which he had acted, ever smce that promotion had taken place, ought to have rescued him from the illiberal censure. " Piufus had detained in prison several persons, whom he had ordered to be freed during the time of his penitence ; he still preyed upon the ecclesiastical benefices ; the sale of spiritual dignities continued as open as ever ; and he kept possession of a considerable part of the revenues belonging to the See of Canterbury." Was it a crime, or was it an instance of laudable integrity in Anselm, to remonstrate against such proceedings 1 I suppose the can- dour and good sense of the author to whom I allude, would have inclined him to praise that upright conduct, for w^hich Anselm was obliged to retire to the Continent, had not this same Anselm been a priest, and a priest too of sincere zeal and fervour. In justice to Anselm, it should, moreover, be observed, that one reason why he wished to resign his arch- bishopric was, that he believed he might be of more service to the souls of men in a merely clerical character, which was more obscure. And he was naturally led to assign this reason * See Hume, vol. i., p. 302. 136 CHURCH HISTOELVNS. to tlie Pope, from the observation wliicli lie maclo of the effect of his preaching on audiences in Italy. Men of superior talents, however, are frequently born to drudge in business or in arts, whether they be in prosperous or in adverse circumstances. For mankind feel the need of such men ; and they themselves are not apt to bury their powers in indolence. A C/Ouncil was called at Bari by Pope Urban, to settle with the Greeks the dispute which had long separated the Eastern and Western Churches, concerning the procession of the Holy Ghost. For the Greek Church, it would seem, without any scriptural reason, had denied the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son ; and had, there- fore, thrust the words and the son '"" out of the Nicene Creed. While the disputants were engaged, the Pope called on Anselm, as his father and master, for his reply. The archbishop arose, and by his powers of argimientation silenced the Greeks. At Lyons, he WTote on the conception of the Virgin, and on original sin ; and thus he employed himself in religious, not in secular cares, during the whole of his exile : a strong proof of his exemption from that domineering ambition of which he has been accused. In the year 1100 he heard of the death of his royal persecutor, which he is said to have seriously lamented, and returned into England, by the invitation of Henry I. To finish at once the account of his unpleasant contests with the Norman princes, he, at length, was enabled to compromise them. The great object of controversy was the same in England as in the other countries of Europe, namely, " Whether the investiture of bishoprics should be received from the King or from the Pope." Anselm, moved undoubtedly by a conscientious zeal, because all the world bore witness to his integrity, was decisive for the latter ; and the egregious ini- quities, and shameless violations of all justice and decorum, practised by ininces in that age, would naturally strengthen the * *' Proceeding from the Father and the Sou." DEVOTIONAL SPIRIT. 137 prejudices of Anselm's education. To receive investiture from the Pope for tlie spiritual jurisdiction, and, at the same time, to do homage to the king for the temporalities, was the only- medium, which in those times could be found, between the pretensions of the civil and ecclesiastical dominion ; and mat- ters were settled, on this plan, both in England and in Germany. If Anselm then contributed to the depression of the civil power, and the confirmation of the papal, he was unhappily carried away by a popular torrent, which few minds had power to resist. It seemed certain, however, that ambition formed no part of this man's character. " While I am with you," he would often say to his friends, " I am like a bird in a nest amidst her young, and enjoy the sweets of retirement and social affections ; but when I am thrown into the world, I am like the same bird hunted and harassed by ravens or other fowls of prey : the incursions of various cares distract me ; and secu- lar employments, which I love not, vex my soul." He who spent a great part of his life in retirement, who thought, spake, and wrote so much of vital godliness, and whose moral cha- racter was allowed, even by his enemies, to have ever been without a blot, deserves to be believed in these declarations. Let us then attend to those traits of character, which were more personal, and in which the heart of the man more plainly appears. He practised that which all godly persons have ever found salutary and even necessary, namely, retired and devo- tional meditation, and even watched long in the night for the same purpose. One day, a hare, pursued by the hounds, ran under his horse for refuge, as he was riding. The object, bringing at once to his recollection a most awful scene, he stopped and said weeping, " This hare reminds me of a sinner just dying, surrounded with devils, waiting for their prey." It was in this manner that he used to spiritualise every object ; a practice ever derided by profane minds, whether performed M 2 ' 138 CHURCH HISTOrJANS. injudiciously or not, but to wliich, in some degree, every de- vout and pious spiiit on eartli lias been addicted. In a national synod, held at St Peter's, Westminster, he for- bad men to be sold as cattle, which had till then been prac- tised. For the true reliefs and mitigations of human misery lay entirely, at that time, in the influence of Christianity ; and small as that influence then was, the ferocity of the age was tempered by it ; and human life was thence prevented from being entirely degraded to a level with that of the beasts which perish. Anselm died in the sixteenth year of his archbishopric, and in the seventy-sixth year of his age. Toward the end of his life, he wrote on the Will, Predestination, and Grace, much in Augustine's manner. In prayers, meditations, and hymns, he seems to have had a peculiar delight. Eadmer says that he used to say, " If he saw hell open, and sin before him, he would leap into the former to avoid the latter." I am sorry to see this sentiment, Avhich, stripped of figure, means no more than what all good men allow, that he feared sin more than punish- ment, aspersed by so good a divine as Foxe the martyrologist.* But Anselm was a Papist, and the best Protestants have not been without their prejudices. DR JOHN JOETIN. John Jortin was a native of St Giles's, where he was born October 23, 1698 j and as he was for twenty-five years minister of a chapel m New Street, Bloomsbury, and died vicar of Ken- sington, nearly the whole of his life was spent in London. His education, begun at the Charter- House, was completed at Jesus College, Cambridge, and he early acquired a taste for that elegant scholarship, which formed the chief business and solace of his unambitious career, and which still preserves his name from oblivion. * Acts and Monuments, vol. i. DR JOETIN. 139 To a man of taste, leisure, and calm temperament, we fancy, that of all themes, the most attractive would be " A Life of Erasmus." To a large extent involving the inner liistory of Ptomanism, it woukl inckide the revival of letters in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and, whilst it gave us a glimpse of every court in Europe, it would bring us acquainted with nearly all the notabilities of the period, literary, religious, and political. Nor would the least part of the author's treat be the deliberate perusal of the ten folios which have come down to us from the pen of the clever, witty, sarcastic Hol- lander, so as to collect for his mosaic the best of their many- coloured gems. At the same time, Erasmus is not the sort of hero who awakens our enthusiasm, and it would require muck tact and skill to interest tke general reader in the long career of one whom Protestants despised as a time-server, and whom Papists detested as a traitor within their camp. Dr Jortin made the attempt. With his sense of humour, his scholarship, and his freedom from sectarianism, it was a con- genial employment ; and if he had arranged his materials more skilfully, he would have produced a delightful work. But he was deficient in the art of construction, and so entirely lacked the dramatic or descriptive talent, that he has given us little more than a series of epistolary extracts, interspersed with critical remarks by himself and others ; and, consequently, a lively and readable " Life of Erasmus," still remains a desi- deratum in literature. Owing to a certain desultory turn of mind, as well as the artistic deficiencies already indicated, Dr Jortin, notwithstand- ing all his erudition, could not have become the Gibbon or the Sismondi of the Christian Church ; but in his " Kemarks on Ecclesiastical History," he has given us five volumes of ingeni- ous criticism on detached passages in the Church's annals, and some clever and lively remarks on its more prominent per- 140 CHURCH HISTORIANS. sonages. Most of these fragments are cliaracterised by a fea- ture which is not always to be found in brilliant writers. His spirit is almost invariably kindly, and his judgments lean to the mild and charitable side. Dr Jortin lies buried at Kensington. We have always deemed his epitaph as one of the happiest specimens of lapi- dary writing : so brief, so worthy of a Christian's grave, and, without absolute quaintness, in its very simplicity so strik- ing :— JO : JORTIN MORTALIS ESSE DESIIT ANNO SALUTIS, 1770. ^TATIS 72, Cyprian was made Bishop of Carthage, a.d. 248. It hath been said of him that he was fond of spiritual power, and it cannot entirely be denied; but he had factious ecclesiastics and troublesome schismatics to deal with, which might lead him to insist somewhat the more on his prerogatives; and it is certain that in one point he was for restraining Episcopal en- croachments. He highly approved and recommended the method of aj^pealing to the people in the election of bishops, and of asking their consent and approbation, and of allowing them a negative. He thought that the bishops of a province had no right to make a cabal, and elect a bishop secretly by themselves, and obtrude him upon the Church. But after Christianity was the established and the ruling religion, great inconveniences, and tumults, and seditions, and massacres arose from the popular elections of bishops, and ecclesiastical prefer- ments became more lucrative, and were thought more worthy of a battle, or of mean tricks and solicitations. CYPRIAN. I4i Cyprian upon all occasions consulted his own clergy and people, and desired their consent. The bishops of Eome at that time began to take upon them and to domineer, and Stephen, dealing about his censures and excommunications, behaved himself mth indecency and arrogance towards Cyprian and many others, in the affair of rebaptizing. In a Council of Carthage, consisting of eighty-seven bishops, Cyprian said to them, " None of us ought to set himself up as a bishop of bishops, or pretend tyrannically to constrain his colleagues, because each bishop hath a liberty and a power to act as he thinks fit, and can no more be judged by another bishop than he can judge another. But we must all wait for the judgment of Jesus Christ, to whom alone belongs the power to set us over the Church, and to judge of our actions." Du Pin inserted these words in his " Biblioth." i. p. 164, to buffet the Pope by the hand of Cyprian. Many passages there are in Cyprian's writings containing high notions of Episcopal authority and ecclesiastical jurisdic- tion. AVliilst he strenuously opposed the domination of one pope, he seemed in some manner to make as many popes as bishops, and mere arithmetical noughts of the rest of the Christians ; which yet, I believe, was not his intent. In the persecution under Decius, he fled from Carthage, and was proscribed, and his effects were seized. He was censured by some persons as a deserter of his flock ; but the decent con- stancy and the Christian piety with which he laid down his life afterwards, afford a presumption that he had not retired for want of courage. His death was lamented even by many of the Pagans, whose esteem he had gained by his affable and charital)le behaviour. He often talks of his visions and revelations, some of which he had on occasions which in all appearance were small and 142 CHURCH HISTORIANS. inconsiderable enough, whilst he had none to guide him and set him right in points of more importance. He appeals to these visions, and makes use of them to justify his conduct. It would be dealing too severely with him, considering his character in other respects, to ascribe this entirely to artifice and policy, and it would be more candid and charitable to suppose that with much piety, he had a mixture of African enthusiasm, and that what he thought upon in the day, he dreamed of at night, and the next morning took his dreams for Divine admonitions. Some perhaps will choose to leave it am- biguous — dum Elias venerit. In his treatise " De Lapsis," he relates some strange miracles, one of which is that the consecrated bread was turned into a cinder in the hands of a profane person, who thus found, according to the proverb, jyro thescmro carhones.^ When the Corinthians shewed a want of reverence and de- cency in receiving the Lord's Supper, what was the conse- quence 1 " For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep." The correetion was solemn and tremendous. But of these transformations what can we say 1 and how can we give credit to them ? * Macarius of Alexandria,acelebratedmonkantlsaiat of the fourth century, is said to have related this story, that when the monks approached to the holy communion, and stretched out their hands to receive it, devils under the figure of little ugly Ethiopian boys (who were only visible to Macarius) pre- vented the officiating priest, and gave to some of them coals iu stead of the consecrated bread, which bread, though to by-standers it seemed to be given by the priest and received by these monks, returned back again to the altar : whilst other monks, who were more pious and better disposed, when they approached to receive the sacrament, chased the evil spirits away, who fled with great flferror and precipitation, because an angel, who assisted at the altar, put his hand upon the hand of the presbyter when he delivered the sacrjypent to these good men. This account is in the Vitce Patrmn, and inserted, with a thousand more stories of the same kind, in Tillemont, H, E. viii. 641. To such a degree the boldness of feigning miracles, and the faci- lity of admitting them, was carried in those days ! MIRACULOUS LEGENDS. 143 There is a story of the same kind, of bread turned into a stone, related by Sozomen. An heretic of the sect of the Macedonians had a wife of the same sect. The man was con- verted by Chrysostom, and used many arguments, in vain, to bring over his stubborn spouse. At last he told her that if she would not receive the Lord's Supper with him at church, he would live with her no longer. She consented, but was resolved to deceive him, and instead of eating the bread which the minister gave her, she took some which she had brought with her -, but as she was biting it, it was turned into a stone in her mouth, a stone neither in substance nor colour like other stones, and bearing upon it the impression of her teeth, which made her repent and publicly confess her crime. This hap- pened about the end of the fourth century, and Sozomen can supply us with an hundred miracles as good. His sending unbelievers to the church to look at the .stone which was kept there as a rarity was very judicious I would willingly have paid a greater deference to the au- thority and testimony of this pious father and martyr concern- ing visions and miracles; and if I dissent from him, it is not without some reluctance. I have no notion of differing from worthy persons, living or dead, for the sake of singularity or of contradiction, in which I can discern no charms, and neither pleasure nor profit. To an opinion commonly received, and received by good men, when I cannot assent, I am inclined to say, " Invitus, Kegiiia, tuo de littore cessi." But alas ! Opinion is a queen who will not accept of such excuses : Kec niagis iucepto vultum sermonc inovetiit^ Quam si dura silex aiit stet Marpesia caiites." 144 CHURCH HISTOrJANS. Origen .and other ancient Christians ascribed to our Saviour this saying — " Act like skilful bankers, rejecting what is bad, and retaining what is good." This precept is proper for all who apply themselves to the study of religious antiqui- ties. Good and bad money is offered to them, and they ought to beware of the coin which will not pass current in the re- public of letters and in the critical world, and of that which is found light when weighed in the balance of the sanctuary. PULPIT ORATOPuS. A PREACHER wlio writes a new sermon every week, produces a tliousand in twenty years, and we have no doubt that many a minister might boast an unpublished authorship, quite as ex- tensive as the hundred printed octavos of Sir Walter Scott. Nor are the instances few where all this elaborate preparation has been gone through for the sake of a very limited auditory. The inhabitants of a rural hamlet, the frequenters of a village €hapel, have monopolised the whole of it. Could we conceive a poet or a pamphleteer issuing a weekly publication to the inhabitants of a Pitcairn's Island or an lona, we should have a case somewhat equivalent to the conscientious and unambi- tious pastor, who spends the best part of liis time preparing for his scanty audience the weekly cjuota of exhortation and instruction, and who feels it " an over-payment of delight," if now and then a sinner is converted from the error of his ways, or if a parishioner shews symptoms of incipient amendment. What becomes of all the sermons 1 We do not mean. What becomes of all the manuscripts? for many sermons were never written ; but, What is the result or product from all this preaching 1 In our melancholy moods, we are apt to fear that it is very small. Is it not a rare thing to hear of a dis- trict solemnised, and devoting even temporary attention to the concerns of eternity 1 Is it not rare to find so much as an individual, on whom a change so conspicuous has taken place, as to deserve the name of conversion ? How many ministers can point to infidels whom their preaching has convinced, or drunkards whom it has sobered 1 How often is a sermon fol- lowed by the healing of a family feud, or the setting up of family w^orship, — by the restitution of stolen property, or by VOL. lY. N 146 PULPIT OEATORS. the discontinuauce iii a locality of some cruel or demoralising amusement ? Yet, occasionally such effects do follow, and assuredly they would not be rare were they sought more habitually and more hopeftdly. But after their first efforts, it would almost appear as if many ministers ceased to reaUse their mission, and no longer looked for the help of the Holy Spirit. They and their audience take up a relative position, which is henceforth never more to alter — a professional solemnity on the one side, a respectful non-attention on the other. Year after year steals on, during which the ecclesiastical sing-song or orthodox com- mon-places are drawled forth in hepdomadal instalments to drowsy church- wardens, or less comatose deacons ; and, unless it emerge from some funeral occasion, there does not swell up from the flat dry surface a single impressive idea, a single burst of urgent appeal or genuine emotion. In as far as abid- ing impression or moral result is concerned, the effect is much the same when that voice in the pulpit is hushed, and when that beU in the steeple is broken : a sacred and familiar sound has passed away, but it will soon be replaced by another, of different pitch and tone perhaps, but destined in its turn to diffuse, through half- shut ears, the same Sabbatic lullaby. During the eighteenth century, at the rate of ten thousand . every Sunday, fifty millions of sermons must have proceeded from the pulpits of England. Of these we may assume that the best are still extant ; and if we set aside those discourses which were preached by the evangelists of the Great Revival, and which we shall have occasion to notice in a subsequent section, they give us, on the whole, a dreary sense of impo- tence and poverty ; and as we turn over the broad-margined volumes, so jejune and vapid, our first wonder is how men could have the patience to consign such inanities to paper ; our next wonder is how people could be found to listen to such effusions when preached, to buy and peruse them when printed. ATTERBURY. 147 Our British literature presents no other expanse so dull and desolate ; and to compile the beauties of Smahidge and Moss, Stennett and Guyse, would be a task as agreeable and as re- munerative, as the virtuoso's who should try to gather gems in a bricklayer's yard, or who would fill his portfolio with mountain sketches from a rolling prairie. We shall do the best that we can for our readers ; but even amongst the most admired preachers of Queen Anne's, and the earlier Georgian eras, they must not expect much fertility of thought, or fervour of spirit. BISHOP ATTERBURY. Francis Atterbury was born at Middleton Kepies, in Buckinghamshire, March 6, 1663. At Christ Church, Oxford, he early obtamed the reputation of a first-rate classical scholar ; and in editing an Anthology of Latin Poems by Italian Bards, and in aiding his pupil Boyle, afterwards Earl of Orrery, in his famous controversy \\ith Bentley, he found some employment for his vigorous mind, and an outlet for his multifarious ac- quisitions. But his turn was active, and his tastes were rhe- torical, and the Lower House of Convocation, as well as the pulpit, furnished an arena more congenial than the cloisters of a college. At an early period appointed chaplain to King William and Queen Mary, he rose to the highest place among the preachers of the day; and as the champion of the rights of Convocation, his zealous churchmanship gave him a position by which he profited in the subsequent reign. Li 1712, he was made Dean of Christ Church, and in the year follomng his pro- motion culminated in the mitre and the episcopal throne of Rochester. This last he had occupied for ten years, when, by a startling disclosure, he was hurled from his high estate. A correspondence was brought to light imphcating him in efforts to restore the Pretender, and notwithstanding his own ingenious and eloc^uent defence, a bill of pains and penalties was carried 148 PULPIT OEATORS. through both Houses of Parliament, and in June 1723 he left his native land an exile. He died at Paris, February 15, 1733. One of the few books, the shortness of which is really to be regretted, is Dr William King's " Anecdotes of his Own Times." He mentions that in 1715 he dined with the Duke of Ormond, when Atterbury was one of a party of fourteen. " During the dinner there was a jocular dispute (I forget how it was intro- duced) concerning short prayers. Sir William Wyndham told us, that the shortest prayer he had ever heard was the praj^er of a common soldier just before the battle of Blenheim : — ' O God, if there be a God, save my soul, if I have a soul.' This was followed by a general laugh. I immediately reflected that such a treatment of the subject was too ludicrous, at least very improper, where a learned and religious prelate was one of the company. But I had soon an opportunity of making a dif- ferent reflection. Atterbury, seeming to join in the conversa- tion, and applying himself to Sir W. Wyndham, said — ' Your prayer. Sir William, is indeed very short; but I remember another as short, but a much better, offered up likewise by a poor soldier in the same circumstances: — "0 God, if in the day of battle I forget Thee, do Thou not forget me." ' This, as Atterbury pronounced it with his usual grace and dignity, was a very gentle and polite reproof, and w\as immediately felt by the whole company; and the Duke of Ormond, who was the "best bred man of his age, suddenly turned the discourse to another subject," Dr King's other anecdote is equally characteristic of the ^bishoi^s tact and promptitude, and its wit has seldom been surpassed in the annals of parliamentary debate. On occasion of some bill being introduced into the House of Lords, Atter- bury took occasion to remark that " he had prophesied last winter that this bill would be attempted in the present session, and he was sorry to find that he had proved a true prophet." Lord Coningsby replied, and, as usual, speaking in a passiosi, A CLEVER RETORT. 149 lie desired the House to remark " that one of the right reverend had set himself forth as a prophet; but for his part he did not know what prophet to liken him to, unless to that furious pro- phet Balaam, who was reproved by his own ass." In his reply, the bishop met the rude attack with much spirit and calmness, concluding, "Since the noble lord hath discovered in our man- ners such a similitude, I am well content to be compared to the prophet Balaam: but, my lords, I am at a loss how to make out the other part of the parallel. I am sure that I have been reproved by nobody but his lordship." Much of Atterbury's charm was personal. A contemporary critic, complaining how entirely the art of speaking, " with the proper ornaments of voice and gesture," is neglected amongst the clergy of Britain, makes an exception in favour of Atter- bury. " He has so much regard to his congregation, that he commits to his memory what he is to say to them ; and has so soft and graceful a behaviour, that it must attract your atten- tion. His person, it is to be confessed, is no small recom- mendation; but he is to be highly commended for not losing that advantage, and adding to the propriety of speech, which might pass the criticism of Longinus, an action which would have been approved by Demosthenes. He has a peculiar force in his way, and has many of his audience, who could not be intelligent hearers of his discourse, were there not explanation as well as grace in his action. This art of his is used with the most exact and honest skill. He never attempts your passions until he has convinced your reason. All the objections which he can form are laid open and dispersed before he uses the least vehemence in his sermon; but when he thinks he has your head, he very soon wins your heart, and never pretends to shew the beauty of holiness until he hath convinced you of the truth of it."* In the second of the following extracts the conceit in which the rainbow is spoken of as " a bow without an arrow," is what * The Tatler, No. 66. Tlie date is 1709. n2 150 PULPIT ORATORS. we would scarcely heave anticipated from the fastidious taste and the Greek scholarship of Atterbury. Svrams auti Ufsions. 1. For the most part dreams are nothing else but the inco- herent and disjointed images of those things we have received into the fancy by the senses, and treasured up in our memories when we were awake : and we may as reasonably ho23e to find exact and curious pictures drawn in the clouds, as any truth and certainty in these dreams. And yet such is our folly and superstition, that we will be continually spelling the counsels of the Almighty in these antic and insignificant characters j iind fancy the product of our distempered imaginations to be the dictates of the Holy Spirit and the oracles of God. There is nothing more vain and foolish than our ordinary dreams^ except it be those persons who are nicely and curiously exact in the observation of them, and look upon them as the hand and index, which is to point out to them what is to come to pass. And in truth, this is so slight and trifling a subject, that it were not fit to be mentioned in a sermon or serious dis- course, were not the generality of mankind so superstitiously given to the observation of them. How this piece of enthu- siasm came to obtain so universally, is no difficult matter to determine; for in the first ages of the world God made use of this way to reveal Himself to mankind; and then the devil, who loves to ape God in his worship, took up this method of giving his oracles, and instituted this custom as a sacred rite; that men should sleep in the temples of his idols when they came to inquire anything of them ; and answers were given to them in Dreams and Night Visions.'^ And therefore we may justly conclude, that the nice and curious observation of dreams is not only unreasonable and superstitious, but * The text is Job xxxiii. 14-16. DREAMS AND VISIONS. 151 heathenish also. And if the curious observation of ordinary dreams is so sinful, then it follows — 2. That we ought not to publish our own fancies and imaginations for divine visions and inspirations and the revelations of the Holy Spirit. How frecjuent has it been in these last ages, for men not only to be deluded themselves, but to seduce others also ; to set up for inspired persons and new prophets by the help of a heated imagination ! And in truth, what is all that enthusiasm which so much reigns amongst us, but the dreams of those persons, whose vitiated imagination depraves their judgments? We have too many who make great pretences to a new light within them, which will guide them into all truth, teach them what they ought to believe, and what to do, without the help of the Holy Scrip- ture. Others there are who are assured by no less testimony than that of the Holy Spirit, that they are the children of God, and of the number of the elect, though their works tes- tify against them, that they are the children of the devil. What are these but the efforts of a distempered fancy, the waking dreams of poor deluded men, who first take a great deal of pains to deceive themselves, and then double their diligence to impose upon others? Let me speak to them in the words of Maimonides; "There are (says he) some who, by the help of an over-heatecl imagination, have such strange fancies, dreams, and ecstasies, that they take themselves for prophets, and much wonder that they have such fancies and imaginations; conceiting at last, that all sciences and faculties are infused into them without any pains or study. And hence it is that they fall into many odd opinions, in many speculative points of no great moment, and do so mix true notions with such as are seemingly and unaginarily so, as if heaven and earth were jumbled together. All which proceeds from the too great force of the imaginative faculty, and the imbecility of the rational." Thus he. This delusion, then, in the sense of this 152 PULPIT ORATORS. excellent writer, concerning those enthusiasts, who pretend to revelation, arises from hence; that their fancies are invigo- rated and imi^regnated, but their reason is not informed, nor theii' understandings i^ossessed with a true sense of things in their due coherence and contexture, and therefore they are so ajJt to embrace things contrary to all true sense and sober reason. The best remedy a.gainst this dangerous and too epi- demical disease of this nation, is to take up all our opinions, and to govern all our actions, by the written word of God; for it is a gross piece of folly and madness, to seek after new lights and revelations, when God himself hath told us, that His word shall be " a light to our feet and a lantern to our paths," sufficient to guide us into all truth. This is the touch-stone by wliich we ought to try all new lights and pre- tended revelations, all such doctrines and practices as bear the face of venerable antiquity, or agreeable novelty. If they do not agree with this, if they run counter in any point to these lively oracles, it is only error and vice, under the guise and appearance of virtue and truth. God speaks to us indeed in dreams and visions of the night, and slumberings on the bed, but it is not to discover any new and unrevealed truth, to make any additional discovery of His will, but only to rouse up our minds, and awaken our attention, and put us upon the practice of those duties, and the belief of those articles, which have been so frequently inculcated into us, and wiitten in the volume of this holy book ; and therefore, Lastly, how careful ought we to be to give an attentive ear to these divine admonitions, and to cherish these holy inspira- tions ; for since God has left off speaking to men in dreams and visions, and converses with us now in a still voice — sug- gesting to our minds good thoughts, inspiring our souls with holy desires and affections, and by His grace inciting and quickening us to do good, and reprovmg us when we do amiss, leading us into the right way, and exhorting us to persevere in THE RAINBOW ABOUT THE THRONE. 1.j3 it — it must certainly be our unquestionable duty and truest interest, to comply with these holy inspirations; to dispose ourselves for the receiving of them, by furnishing our minds with suitable dispositions and cp.alifications, by an attentive regard to whatsoever He speaks to us, and an humble submis- sion to everything which becomes our duty. For shall God speak to us, and shall not man hear? Shall we not say with Samuel, "Speak, Lord; for thy ser\^ant heareth?" And yet how frequently do we turn a deaf ear to these admonitions ! And though God speaks once, yea twice, yet we regard it not ! Who is there that has not heard God speak to him by the voice of affliction, and the awakening dispensations of His providence, by the voice of His ministers, and the inspirations of His Holy Spirit? And yet all these admonitions have not been sufficient to work his reformation and amendment. There are none of us but have been frequently warned to flee from the wrath to come, whilst we lie musing on our beds, and calling to mind the past actions of our lives. Is there not a voice ■\vithin us which either accuses or excuses us? which repre- sents to us the reasonableness of a holy, just, and good life,, and the folly and madness of being vicious and wicked, and what dangerous effects sin doth continually produce ? And if so, how reasonable is it, that we should hearken to this heavenly monitor? that we should weigh and consider what He dictates to us, and resolve to perform whatsoever we are assured will conduce to our truest interest, both here and here- after ? Which that we may all of us do, God of His mercy grant for Jesus Christ His sake. ^\)z l^aiuljobj aijcut tjc Ojronc. There will certainly come a time when we shall all stand before the throne of God, to be judged according to our works, and to receive sentence according to our deeds done in the flesh, when the whole world shall be on fire, " the heavens shall 154 PULPIT ORATOKS. be shrivelled up like a scroll of parchment, the elements melt ■with fervent heat, and the earth and all that is therein shall be burnt up ;" when both the book of God's law and the book of our own consciences shall be opened, and all our thoughts, words, and actions writ in plain and legible characters, and exposed to the view of men and angels, and the devil, our ac- cuser, shall read our indictment against us, aggravating our sins with all the most heightening circumstances. And then, were not the throne encompassed with this rainbow ; were there not ^- mercy with Him, that He might be feared,"^what course could we possibly take ? Could we either avoid or endure the ven- geance of an angry God ? Could we withstand the power, or oppose the wrath of the Almighty ? To fancy this, would be the most desiderate folly. What then ? Should we deny the fact, our consciences will be instead of a thousand witnesses. Or should we call to the mountains to fall on us, and cover us ? Alas ! they will shake and tremble no less than we. But is there no balm in our Gilead? Is there no help for poor miserable men within their own reach 1 Was misery so surely entailed upon them after the fall, that there is no possibility of reversing the sentence by their own means? No, certainly, our strength is but weakness, we have no power to raise our- selves out of this miserable condition, or to give the least helping hand towards our recovery. All that strength which God gave us at the first, we lost by the fall of our first parents, and have forfeited that grace which He has afforded us since, by the misuse of it. So that if we look down only upon our- selves, we shall find nothing but this dismal prospect of horror and despair ; we can claim nothing of God, nor have we any thing of our owm to succour and help us ; to us belongs con- fusion of face and everlasting misery, " lamentation, mourning, and woe." But if we look up unto heaven, we may there behold that bow which God has placed about the throne, to remind us of that covenant of mercy which God has established with us, DIVINE MERCY. 155 and ratified and confirmed it mth the blood of His dearly be- loved Son, to assure every broken heart and truly penitent sinner, that though He is a terrible Judge to ol^stinate offenders, yet He will be a gracious and merciful Saviour to all those who are reconciled to Him through Christ, and have their sins par- doned by His death and satisfaction. God is both able and willing to recover us out of that desperate condition into which we have reduced ourselves. To the Lord our God belongs mercy and plenteous forgiveness, though we have rebelled against Him. And therefore it is observable that this bow has no string : it is not bent to execute God's vengeance upon us, but it is placed about the throne, as instruments of war used to be in times of peace, amongst the Romans, for ornaments to their houses and the temples of their gods. It is a bow with- out an arrow, denoting to us that our blessed Saviour has appeased God's wrath, and taken away the sting of sin and death, and, as it were, disarmed God's justice ; so that now every one who is reconciled to God through Christ has no rea- son to fear " the arrows that fly by night, nor the pestilence that walketh at noonday," the most dreadful threatenings and judgments of God ; for God has laid aside His thunder out of His hand, and is ready to embrace us with the arms of a loving and indulgent Father. And lastly, it is a bow encompassing the throne, denoting to us that God's mercy is exalted above His justice ; for though all God's attributes are equal, as they are essentially in God, yet, in their effects and in the exercise of them, they shine with a different lustre j and the goodness of God is that attribute which in a peculiar manner adorns the Divine nature, and renders it amiable and lovely, as well as venerable and adorable, God's mercy, which is only the exer- cise of His goodness towards offenders, is represented in the Holy Scripture with peculiar privileges above the rest of His attributes. God is styled "the Father of mercy;" "He is rich in mercy;" and mercy is said to "please Him;" He 156 PULPIT ORATORS. desires to be known by tliis attribute to the whole world ; He is the Lord God gracious and merciful, and publicly de- clares that His mercy rejoices over judgment. And therefore the rainbow is placed about the throne, to signify to us that God is always mindful of His gracious covenant made with mankind ; and that in the midst of justice He remembers mercy. DEAN SWIFT. Of the pulpit performances of the Dean of St Patrick's only three specimens survive. The following sermon was a special favourite with Dr Chalmers, and he used to read it to his class as a good example of plain sense and downrightness, as well as of a wise forbearance, brought to the treatment of a difficult subject. The text is 1 John v. 7. Except to the lovers of morbid mental anatomy, the history of Jonathan Swift is not an attractive subject. Those who wish to study it will find abundant materials in his numerous biographers and critics, from Dr Johnson down to Sir Walter Scott and Mr Thackeray. ^ Testament. In the former we read how the faith of Abraham is praised, who could believe that God would raise from him a great nation, at the very same time that he was commanded to sacrifice his only son, and despaired of any other issue. And this was to him a great mystery. Our Saviour is perpetually preaching faith to His disciples, or re- proaching them with the want of it ; and Saint Paul produc- eth numerous examples of the wonders done by faith. And all this is highly reasonable ; for, faith is an entire dependence upon the truth, the power, the justice, and the mercy of God; which dependence will certainly incline us to obey Him in all things. So, that the great excellency of faith, consisteth in the consequence it hath upon our actions : as, if we depend upon the truth and wisdom of a man, we shall certainly be more disposed to follow his advice. Therefore, let no man think that he can lead as good a moral life without faith, as with it ; for this reason, because he who hath no faith, cannot, by the strength of his own reason or endeavours, so easily resist temptations, as the other who depends upon God's assistance in the overcoming his frailtieS; and is sure to be re- o2 162 PULPIT OEATORS. warded for ever in heaven for Ids victory over tliem. Faith, says the apostle, is the evidence of things not seen : He means, that faith is a virtue by which anything commanded us by God to believe, appears evident and certain to us, although we do not see, nor can conceive it; because, by faith we entirely depend upon the truth and i:>ower of God. It is an old and true distinction, that things may be above our reason without being contrary to it. Of this kind are the power, the nature, and the universal presence of God, with innumerable other points. How little do those who c[uarrel with mysteries, know of the commonest actions of nature? The growth of an animal, of a plant, or of the smallest seed, is a mystery to the wisest among men. If an ignorant person were told that a load- stone would draw iron at a distance, he might say it was a thing contrary to his reason, and could not believe before he saw it with his eyes. The manner whereby the soul and body are united, and how they are distinguished, is wholly unaccountable to us. We see but one part, and yet we know we consist of two; and this is a mystery we cannot comprehend, any more than that of the Trinity. From what hath been said, it is manifest, that God did never command us to believe, nor His ministers to preach, any doctrine which is contrary to the reason He hath pleased to endow us with; but for His own Avise ends has thought fit to conceal from us the nature of the thing He commands; there- by to try our faith and obedience, and increase our dependence njDon Him. It is highly probable, that if God should please to reveal unto us this great mystery of the Trinity, or some other mysteries in our holy religion, we should not be able to under- stand them, unless He would at the same time think fit to bestow on us some new powers or faculties of the miiid, which we want at i>resent, and are reserved till the day of rcsurrcc- SEED. 1G3 tion to life eternal. " For now," as tlie Apostle says, " v/e see tliroiigh a glass darkly, but then face to face." Thus, we see, the matter is brought to this issue ; we must either believe Avhat God directly commandeth us in Holy Scripture, or we must wholly reject the Scripture, and the Christian rehgion which w^e pretend to profess : But this, I hope, is too desperate a step for any of us to make. JEREMIAH SEED. Of this excellent preacher we only know that he was born near Penrith in Cumberland, that he studied at Queen's Col- lege, Oxford, and that, after spending most of his ministerial life as curate to Dr Waterland at Twickenham, he was j^re- sented to Enham in Hampshire, where he died in 1747. That century yielded no sermons more practical or more pleasing. Seed did not fight uncertainly, or " as one that beateth the air," but most of his topics are precise, and their illustrations if minute and home-coming. At the same tmie, his language is remarkably lively, and every paragraph carries the double charm of a brilliant ftmcy and a benevolent per- suasiveness. Unlike his colder contemporaries, he indulges freely in figurative language, and, both in their conception and their w^ording, his metaphors are often worthy of a poet. " To a mind that is all harmony within, the Deity must appear like what He is, in perfect beauty, all-loving and all-lovely, with- out any forbidding and frightening appearances : just as a deep stream, when clear and unruffled by any storm, repre- sents the sun and firmament in a gentler and milder lustre, fiir more beautiful itself by reflecting the beauties of heaven." " We must consult the gentlest manner and softest seasons of address. Our advice must not fall, like a violent storm, bear- ing down and making that to droop which it was meant to cherish and refresh : it must descend as the dew upon the 1G4 PULPIT OEATOES. tender herb, or like melting flakes of snow; the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind."' The meanest mechanic, who employs his love and gratitude, the best of his aflections, upon God, the best of beings ; who has a particular regard and esteem for the virtuous few, com- passion for the distressed, and a fixed and extensive good-mil for all; who, instead of triumphing over his enemies, strives to subdue his greatest enemy of all, his unruly passion ; who promotes a good understanding between neighbours, composes and adjusts differences, does justice to an injured character, and acts of charity to distressed worth ; who cherishes his friends, forgives his enemies, and even serves them in any pressing exigency ; who abhors vice, and pities the vicious per- son; such a man, however low in station, has juster preten- sions to the title of heroism, as heroism implies a certain noble- ness and elevation of soul, breaking forth into correspondent actions; than he who conquers armies, or makes the most glaring figure in the eye of an injudicious world. He is like one of the fixed stars, which though, through the disadvantage of its situation, it may be thought to be very little, inconsider- able, and obscure by unskilful beholders ; yet is as truly great and glorious in itself as those heavenly lights, which by being placed more commodiously for our view, 'shine with more dis- tinguished lustre. ©fcupiitfon for i\}t ©ptilent. The apostle's rule, that if any man will not work, neither should he eat, extends to the rich as well as poor; only suj)- posing, that there are difterent kinds of work assigned to each. Tlic reason is tlie same in both cases, viz. that lie, who WOEK FOR ALL. 1G5 will do no good, ought not to receive or enjoy any. As we all are joint traders and partners in life, he forfeits his right to any share in the common stock of happiness, who does not endeavour to contribute his quota or allotted part to it : the public happiness being nothing, but the sum total of each individual's contribution to it. An easy fortune does not set men free from labour and industry in general; it only exempts them from some particular kinds of labour. It is not a bless- ing, as it gives them liberty to do nothing at all: but as it gives them liberty wisely to choose and steadily to prosecute the most ennobling exercises, and the most improving employments, the pursuit of truth, the practice of virtue, the service of that God, who giveth them all things richly to enjoy, in short the doing and being everything that is commendable: though nothing merely in order to be commended. That time, which others must employ in tilling the ground (which often deceives their expectation) with the sweat of their brow, they may lay out in cultivating the mind, a soil always grateful to the care of the tiller. The sum of what I would say is this: That, though you are not confined to any particular calling, yet you have a general one : Vvdiich is to watch over your heart, and to improve joiiv head; to make yourself master of all those accomplishments, viz. an enlarged compass of thought, that flowing humanity, and generosity, vv'hich are necessary to be- come a great fortune ; and of all those perfections, viz. mode- ration, humility, and temperance, which are necessary to bear a small one patiently ; but especially it is your duty to acquire a taste for those pleasures, which, after they are tasted, go off agreeably, and leave behind them a grateful and delightful flavour on the mind. Hai>py that man, who, unembarrassed by vulgar cares, master of himself, his time and fortune, spends his time in making himself wiser, and his fortune in making others (and therefore himself), hajipier ; who, as the will and understanding 166 PULPIT ORATORS. are the two ennobling faculties of the soul, thinks himself not complete, till his understanding be beautified with the valuable furniture of knowledge ; as well as his will enriched with every ■virtue : who has furnished liimself with all the advantages to relish sohtude, and enliven conversation ; when serious, not sullen; and when cheerful, not indiscreetly gay; his ambition not to be admired for a false glare of greatness, but to be be- loved for the gentle and sober lustre of his wisdom and good- ness. The greatest minister of state has not more business to do in a pubhc capacity, than he, and indeed every man else, may find in the retired and still scenes of life. Even in his private walks, everything that is visible convinceth him, there is present a bemg invisible. Aided by natural philosophy, he reads plain legible traces of the Divinity in everything he meets : he sees the Deity in every tree, as well as Moses did ill the burning bush, though not in so glaring a manner : and when He sees him. He adores him ^^ith the tribute of a grate- ful heart. TOit i$ltstiirjttet(. He who endeavours to oblige the company by his good-nature, never fails of being beloved : he who strives to entertain it by Ins good sense, never fails of being esteemed : but he who is continually aiming to be witty, generally miscarries of his aim : his aim and intention is to be admired, but it is his mis- fortune either to be despised or detested; to be despised for w^ant of judgment, or detested for want of humanity. For we seldom admire the wit, when we dislike the man. There are a great many, to whom the world would be so charitable, as to allow them to have a tolerable share of common sense ; if they did not set up for something more than common, something very uncommon, bright and witty. If we would trace the faults of conversation up to their original source, most of them might, I believe, ])e resolved into this, that men had rather DAILY DEVOTIO]S'. 167 appear shining, than be agreeable in company. They are endeavouring to raise admiration, instead of gaining love and good-^\dll: whereas the latter is in everybody's power, the former in that of very few. Bails Bcbotiotr. Degenerate souls, wedded to their vicious habits, may dis- claim all commerce with heaven, refusing to invoke Him, whose infinite wisdom is ever prompt to discern, and His bounty to relieve the wants of those who faithfully call upon him ; and neglecting to praise Him, who is great and marvellous in His works, just and righteous in His ways, infinite and incompre- hensible in His nature : but all here, I would persuade myself, will daily set apart some time to think on Him, who gave us power to think : He was the author, and He should be the object of our faculties. And to do this the better, let us take care that every morn- ing, as soon as we rise, we lay hold on this proper season of address, and offer up to God the first-fruits of our thoughts, yet fresh, unsullied, and serene, before a busy swarm of vain images crowd in upon the mind, when the spirits just refreshed with sleep are brisk and active, and rejoice, like that sun, which ushers in the day, to run their course ; when all nature just awakened into being from insensibility pays its early homage ; then let us join in the universal chorus, who are the only creatures in the visible creation capable of knowing to whom it is to be addressed. And in the evening, when the stillness of the night invites to solemn thoughts, after we have collected our straggling ideas, and suffered not a reflection to stir, but what either looks upward to God, or inward upon ourselves, upon the state of our minds; then let us scan over each action of the day — fer- vently entreat God's pardon for what we have done amiss, and 1G8 PULPIT OPATORS. the gracious assistance of His spirit for tlie future : and, after having adjusted accounts between our Maker and ourselves, commit ourselves to His care for the following nigiit. Thus beginning and closing the day with devotion, implor- ing His direction, every morning as we rise, for the following day; and recommending ourselves every night before we lie down, to His protection, who neither slumbers nor sleeps ; the intermediate spaces will be better filled up : each line of our behaviour will terminate in God, as the centre of our actions. Our lives all of a piece will constitute one regular whole, to which each part will bear a necessary relation and correspon- dence, without any broken and disjointed schemes, independent of this grand end, the pleasing of God. And while v/e have this one point in view, whatever variety there may be in our actions, there \\t11 be an uniformity too, which constitutes the beauty of life, just as it does of everything else ; ajl uniformity without being dull and tedious, and a variety without bemg ■s\ild and irregular. How would this settle the ferment of our youthful passions, and sweeten the last dregs of our advanced age ! How would this make our lives yield the calmest satisfaction, as some flowers shed the most fragrant odours, just at the close of the day ! And perhaps there is no better way to prevent a dead- ness and flatness of spirit from succeeding, when the briskness of our passions goes off, than to acquire an early taste for those spiritual delights, whose leaf withers not, and whose verdure remains in the winter of our days. And when this transitory scene is shutting upon us, when the soul stands upon the threshold of another world, just ready to take its everlasting flight ; then may we think Avith unal- layed pleasure on God, when there can be little or no pleasure to think upon anything else. And our souls may undauntedly follow to that place, whither our prayers and affections, those forerunners of the spirit, are gone before. BOEEHAAVE SOCRATES. 1G9 One of the greatest pliilosopliers of tliis age* being asked by a fiiend, who had often admired his patience under great provocations, by what means he had suppressed his anger answered, " that he was naturally quick of resentment ; but that he had by daily prayer and meditation attained to this mastery over himself. As soon as he arose in the morning, it was, throughout his life, his daily practice to retire for an hour to private prayer and meditation. This, he often told his friends, gave him si:)irit and \'igour for the business of the day. This he therefore recommended as the best rule of life. For nothing he knew could support the soul in all distresses but a confidence in the Supreme Being. Nor can a rational and steady mag-nanimity flow from any other source than a con- sciousness of the Divine favour." Of Socrates, who is said to have gained an ascendant over his passions, it is reported that his life was full of prayers and addresses to God. And of Confucius, the Chinese philosopher, another gTeat example of virtue, it is expressly recorded, that (contrary to a fashion now prevailing) he never did eat of anything, but he first prostrated himself, and offered thanks to the supreme Lord of heaven. Leave not oft' praying, said a pious man : for either praying \Yi\l make thee leave off sinning, or sinning will make thee leave off praying. If we say our prayers in a cold, supine, life- less manner now and then, I know no other effect they wdll have, but to enhance our condemnation. In effect we do not pray, we only say our prayers. We pay not the tribute of the heart, but an unmeaning form of homage; we draw near to God with our lips, while our heart is far from him. And without perseverance in prayer, the notions of the amendment of our lives, and a sacred regard to the Deity, will only float for a while in the head without sinking deep, or dwelling long * Boerbaave. VOL. IV. P 170 PULPIT ORATOKS. upon the heart. We must be inured to a con-stant intercourse with God, to have our minds engaged and interested, and to be rooted and grounded in the love of Him. But, if we in- vigorate our petitions, which are otherwise a lifeless carcase, with a serious and attentive spirit, composed, but not dull ; affectionate, but not passionate in our addresses to God — praying in this sense will at last make us leave off sinning ; and victory, decisive victory, declare itself in favour of virtue. BISHOP SHERLOCK. Thomas Sherlock, son of the dean of St Paul's, was born in London in 1678. From Eton he was transferred to Catha- rine HaU, Cambridge, and in the twenty-sixth year of his age, was elevated to the mastership of the Temple. In 1716 he obtained the deanery of Chichester. In 1728 he was created bishop of Bangor, from which, in 1734, he was translated to Salisbury, and in 1 748 he succeeded Dr Gibson as bishop of London. He died at Fulham, July 18, 1761. With their clear arrangement, their calm reasoning, their air of scholarship, and their graceful style, Sherlock's discourses were well adapted to an audience at once learned and logical. At the same time, it must be allowed, that such spirit as they once possessed has now well-nigh evaporated. There is still infidelity, and, it may be feared, not a little latent unbelief amongst respectable church-goers ; but it would be labour lost were a modern preacher to exjDatiate, Sunday after Sunday, on such points as the sincerity of the apostles, and the supe- riority of Christianity to Mahommedanism and Paganism. " It is said that when Dr Nicholls waited upon Lord Chan- cellor Hardwicke, with the first volume of ' Sherlock's Ser- mons,' in November 1753, liis Lordship asked him whether there was not a sermon on John xx. 30, 31 ? and on his reply- ing in the affirmative, desired him to turn to the conclusion. SHERLOCK. 171 and repeated verhatim the animated contrast between tlie Mahommedan and Christian religion, begining, ' Go to your natural religion,' &c. Yet it was thirty years since that sermon had been published singly. Such was the impression it made on Lord Hardwicke. This interesting anecdote, how- ever, would want some of its ejffect, if we did not add that at a later period, Dr Blair, in his ' Lectures on Rhetoric,' pointed out this identical passage as an instance of personifica- tion, carried as far as prose, even in its highest elevation, wiU admit. After transcribing it, Blair adds, ' This is more than elegant; it is truly subHme.'"* ^Stfsti'anitg attt( its Competitors. The law of Moses was published and declared with great solemnity, and by persons every way qualified : it contains a rule or system of rehgion, and is still maintained by its dis- ciples in opposition to the gospel. Here then, perhaps, may seem to be some difficulty, when two revelations, that have equal ^pleas to truth, are set in competition one against the other. This c[uestion must be argued upon difierent principles with Jews, and mth other men ; for the law was given and declared to the Jews, and they were under the obligations of it : they therefore are concerned to inquire, not only of the truth of a subsequent revelation, but also whether it does suffi- ciently abrogate their law, or whether it is to subsist with it ; as likewise whether their law has anywhere precluded them from admitting any further revelations. But to us the ques- tion is, how we are concerned with the law, and whether there can be any competition with respect to us between the law and the gospel. From the principles already mentioned, we may soon determine this question : for it is plain that no revelation can oblige those to whom it is not given ; that promulgation is * " Chalmers's Biographical Dictionary," Art. Sherlock. 172 PULPIT OEATOKS. SO far of the essence of tlie law, tliat no man in reason oi equity owes any obligation to a law till it is made known tc him ; that the obligations, therefore, of a law are limited b} the terms of the promulgation. Apply this to the law o^ Moses ; you will find that law, in the very promulgation of it confined to the people of Israel : Hear, Israel ! is the uitro duction to the promulgation; which it could not have beer had the law been designed for the w^hole world. And this vvai known to be the case under the law. Moses, who best under stood the extent of his own commission, says thus to the peopL of Israel : " What nation is there so great, that hath statutei and judgments so righteous, as all this law which I set befon you this day?" (Deut. iv. 8). The holy Psalmist expresses th( same sense in these words : ^' He sheweth his word unto Jacob his statutes and his judgments unto Israel. He hath not deal so with any nation : and as for his judgments, they have no known them" (Ps. cxlvii. 19, 20). From all which it i evident, that the law of Moses has no claim to our obedience The moral part of the law, when understood, will oblige ever rational creature ; but this is not the obligation we are no\ speaking of. The law of Moses, then, cannot add to the num ber of revelations which create us any difficulty in determining ourselves : for, let the case happen as it will, we are free fron the law. But the law affords even to us abundant evidenc for the truth of the gospel. The proofs from prophecy are a convincing to us as to the Jews : for it matters not whether w are under the law, or not under the law, since conviction, v. this case, arises from another and different principle. But hasten to a conclusion. Let us then consider briefly, what alteration has happened since the coming of Christ to disturb and unsettle our juds ments in this great affair. A man, perhaps, who is a grea reader, may be able to produce many instances of impostor since that time, and imagine that they are all so many dea( JESUS AND MAHOMET. 173 weights upon the cause of revelation : but what is become of them, and their doctrine? they are vanished, and their place is not to be found. What pretence is there then to set up these revelations? Is God grown so weak and impotent, that we may suppose these to be His revelations, and intended for the use of the world, had He not been baffled at first setting out? If God intends a law for the use of the world, He is obliged, if I may use the expression, to publish the law to the world: and, therefore, want of such publication evidently shews that God was not concerned in them, or at least did not intend that we should be concerned in them : and therefore it is absurd to instance in such pretences as difficulties in our way, which in truth are not in our way at all. And thus the case of revelation stood, and the gospel had no competitor, tiU the great and successful impostor Mahomet arose. He, indeed, pretended a commission to all the world, and found means sufficient to publish his pretences. He asserts his authority upon the strength of revelation, and endeavours to transfer the advantages of the gospel evidence to himself, having that pattern before him to copy after. And, should we say that the alcoran was never promulged to us by persons duly commissioned, it may be answered perhaps, that the alcoran is as well published to us as the gospel is to them, which has some appearance of an answer, though the fact is indeed othermse; for even the alcoran owns Jesus for a true prophet. But with respect to this instance I persuade myself it can be no very distracting study to find reasons to determine our choice. Go to your natural reUgion : lay before her Mahomet and his disciples arrayed in armour and in blood, riding in triumph over the spoils of thousands and tens of thousands, who fell by his victorious sword : shew her the cities which he set in flames, the countries which he ravished and destroyed, and the miserable distress of all the inhabitants of the earth. p 2 174 PULPIT ORATORS. When she has viewed him in this scene, carry her into his re- tirements: shew her the prophet's chamber, his concubines and wives; let her see his adultery, and hear him allege reve- lation and his divine commission to justify his lust and his oppression. When she is tired with this prospect, then shew her the blessed Jesus, humble and meek, doing good to all the sons of men, patiently instmcting both the ignorant and per- verse. Let her see Him in His most retired privacies : let her follow Him to the mount, and hear His devotions and supplications to God. Carry her to His table to view His poor fare, and hear His heavenly discourse. Let her see Him injured but not provoked : let her attend Him to the tribunal, and consider the patience with which He endured the scoffs and reproaches of His enemies. Lead her to His cross; and let her view Him in the agony of death, and hear His last prayer for His persecutors : " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do !" When natural religion has viewed both, ask. Which is the prophet of God? But her answer we have already had; when she saw part of this scene through the eyes of the centurion who attended at the cross; by him she spoke and said, "Truly this man was the Son of God." ARCHBISHOP SECKER. Not so rhetorical as Sherlock, but much more evangelical, the sermons of Seeker possess an element of more enduring interest in the eminently practical topics to which most of them are dedicated. As chaplain to the king, and rector of St James's, he had for his auditors the foremost in the ranks of wealth and fashion, and feeling the great importance of his opportunity, he sought to meet it with all the resources placed at his disposal. " Though he neither possessed nor affected the artificial eloquence of an orator, yet he had that of an SECKER. 170 honest man who M'ants to convince, of a Christian preacher who wants to reform and to save those that hear him. Solid arguments, manly sense, useful directions, short, nervous, striking sentences, awakening questions, frequent and xDertinent applications of Scripture; all these following each other in quick succession, and coming evidently from the speaker's heart, enforced by his elocution, his figure, his action, and above all, by the corresponding sanctity of his example, stamped conviction on the minds of his hearers, and sent them home with impressions not easy to be ejffaced." " Thomas Seeker was born in 1693, at Sibthorp, in Notting- hamshire. His father, a gentleman farmer, was a Dissenter, and educated his son with a view to the Nonconformist minis- try j but, in some degree influenced by the example of his friend and fellow-student, Butler, he joined the Church of Eng- land. His first preferment was Houghton le Spring, in the diocese of Durham, from which he was transferred, in 1733, to the rectory of St James, Westminster. In the follomng year he was promoted to the see of Bristol, and in 1758 he was- elevated to the primacy. He died August 3, 1768. ^ntitiotes to ^ngcr. One is, that we avoid forming refined and romantic notions of human perfection in anything. For these are much apter to heighten our expectations from others, and our demands upon them, than to increase our Vs^atchfulness over ourselves : and so every failure provokes us more highly than it would have done else. A sense of things, too delicate for our nature and the state in which we live, is no accomplishment, but an in- firmity. And overstrained notions of friendship and honour, or any virtuous attainment, constantly do harm. For if we fancy ourselves arrived at these heights, w^e shall resent it as ^ " Porteus'd Life of Seeker," p. 28, 176 PULPIT ORATORS. profanation, when the rest of the world treat us as bemg nearly on the level with them, which yet they certainly will. And if we go to measure those around us by these ideas, we shall look on persons, whenever we have a mind to do so, as mon- sters not to be supported, who, m a reasonable way of think- ing, would appear very tolerably good people. We should therefore endeavour, by frequent reflection, to form a habit of judging with moderation concerning our neighbours and our- selves. Man is a fallen being, defective in his understanding, and depraved in his inclmations; placed in circumstances, in which many things call him off from what he should do, many things prompt him to what he should not do; and often, before he hath well learned to distinguish one from the other, or too suddenly for him to apply the distinction rightly Ahnost every one is apt to join some notion of peculiar dignity to his own person, and to imagine that offences are greatly aggTavated by being committed against him ; that his character and concerns, his family and friends, his opuiions and taste, ought to be treated with a singular degree of regard. But then really we should remember, that multitudes besides may just as allowably think the same thing of theu's ; indeed, that all men are as dear to themselves, as we can be to our- selves : which brmgs us back so far upon the level again. And the serious consideration of it must surely con\incc us, that our common interest, as well as our duty, is to tliink and act mildly ; that " pride was not made for man, nor furious anger for them that are born of a woman" (Ecclus. x. 18). Other directions must be given more briefly. One is not to indulge ourselves in any sort of over great niceness and deli- cacy : fn- it hardly ever gives real pleasure, and it furnishes perpetual occasions of disgust and fretfulness. Another is, to avoid inquisitiveness after materials for anger to work upon. It is better not to hear of every little wi-ong thing that is done about us, or said of us. And therefore we should never en- HELPS TO EQUANIMITY. 177 courage persons in the officioiisness of acquainting us with them needlessly : but always have some suspicion of such as are peculiarly forw\arcl in it. For innumerable are the fricnd- sliips and agreeable acquaintances that have been broken off, and the resentments and animosities raised, by tales and insi- nuations of this kind, either wholly or in part false ; or idle and trifling, though true. Two other important rules, and closely connected, are : first, never to engage by choice in more business than we can easily manage ; for that, by caus- ing hurry and frequent miscarriages, will certainly cause vexa- tion and peevishness : then, to preserve a steady attention to what we do engage in. Men are often grossly negligent of their affairs ; and afterwards furiously angry at those disorders in them, for which they themselves are almost, if not cpiite, as much to blame, as others. Now, regular care would have prevented mismanagement, which alternate fits of remissness and rage will never do. Indeed, we should obviate, as far as we can, everything that we find apt to ruffle our minds, and carry the precaution down even to our diversions and amuse- ments. For some of these have often so very bad an effect upon the temper, that not to apply so easy a remedy as laying them aside is really inexcusable. Another material thing to be shunned, is familiarity with passionate persons ; not only for the very plain reason, lest they should provoke us, but also lest their example should infect us. " Make no friendship with an angry man, and with a furious man thou shalt not go : lest thou learn his ways, and get a snare to thy soul." But to converse with those who are of mild dispositions, to observe how they take things, and be advised by them how we should take them, will be of unspeakable service. These are preparations before danger. When it approaches near, the main point is, to recollect how dreadful it would be to give way and lose ourselves, and to resolve that we will not. Towards keeping this resolution, we shall find it one great pre- 178 PULPIT ORATORS. servativ^e, though it may seem a slight matter, not to let the accent of our speech, or any one of our gestures be vehement. For these things excite passion mechanically ; whereas a soft answer, the scripture tells us, " turneth away wi-ath : " composes the spirit of the giver himself, as well as the receiver of it. Also making use of the gentlest and least gTating terms that we can, will be extremely beneficial : and accordingly it fol- lows there, that " grievous words stir up anger." But if such begin to present themselves, and struggle for vent, we must resolve to utter as few of any sort as possible : or, if it become requisite, none at all ; but shut fast the door of our lips, till the mastiff mthin hath done barkuig, as is re- lated to have been the practice of ^Socrates. It is a painful restraint; but if we will remain masters of ourselves, it is absolutely necessary. For one hasty expression bursting out makes freer way for another, till at last the banks are levelled, and the torrent carries all before it. "A patient man, therefore, will bear for a tune, and afterwards joy shall spring up unto him. He will hide his words for a time, and the lips of many shall declare his wisdom" (Ecclus. i. 23, 24). But, above all, we should inviolably observe never to act in a heat. Thoughts, alas, will be too quick for us : a few improper words may escape; but actions are much more in our power. We may be too angry at present to venture upon actmg at all : a little delay can do no harm, and may do a great deal of good. Only, when we take tune, we should make a right use of it ; not revolve an insignificant offence in our minds, interpret little incidents with perverse acuteness, and lay stress upon groundless fancies, till we work it up into a heinous crime. The best understand- ings, mthout good tempers, can go the greatest lengths in this way ; and employing their reflection to excite the displeasure which it ought to restrain, the longer they ruminate the more untractable they grow. Now passion may be trusted very safely to suggest all the aggravating circumstances. Reason, WHAT TO DO WHEN AGGEIEVED. 179 therefore, should be called in only to represent tlie alleviating considerations, of which we perpetually overlook so many and so important ones, that we should give those about us all pos- sible encouragement to remind us of them. And if the person, by whom we think ourselves aggrieved, be one with whom we have any close connexion, or of whom we have ground to think advantageously, laying our complaint mildly before him, and hearkening impartially to his answer, may very possibly set all right, and place us on a better footing than ever we were before. " Admonish a friend : it may be he hath not done it ; and if he have done it, that he do it no more. Admonish thy friend : it may be he hath not said it ; and if he have, that he speak it not again. Admonish a friend : for many times it is a slander : and believe not every tale. There is one, that slippeth in his speech ; but not from his heart : and who is he that hath not offended with his tongue ? Ad- monish thy neighbour before thou threaten him : and, not being angry, give place to the law of the most High " (Ecclus. xix. 13-17). Only this caution ought to be observed in the case, that such as are naturally warm and impatient, should but seldom risk a personal explanation at first j but rather employ some common well-wisher, on whose probity and pru- dence they can safely depend, that he will moderate, not in- flame, matters by interposing. And when thus, or any way, the subject of difference is rightly stated, if the other party be inno- cent, let us admit it with pleasure ; if he own his fault, though not so fully as he should, let us receive his acknowledgment with generosity. And if, in return, he brings a charge against us, let us say with calmness what we have to say justly in our own favour ; confess frankly, with due concern, whatever hath been amiss; and where there is no room for a defence, attempt no palliation, but follow the injunction of Scripture : " If thou hast done foolishly, or if thou hast thought evil, lay thine hand upon thy mouth " (Prov. xxx. 32). It will be very dis- 180 PULPIT OKATORS. honourable, and very strange in liim, to treat us unkindly upon this. But if he doth, we must submit patiently to what we have brought upon ourselves, and not be guilty of a second misdemeanour, because our first is not handsomely forgiven us. 5et Ef)ine ^mm m ©rtfer. Not many, it may be feared, have reason to be contented, that everything should lie at the hour of their death, just as it doth now. Some have spent a great part of their lives in puttmg their houses out of order, in perplexing and ruuiing their affairs by extravagance, negligence, or ill-management. These have singular need to restore them without delay to the best posture they can. And such as may have acted very prudently on the supposition of living long, may yet have done Kttle or nothing in regard to the possibility of dying soon. Now sickness frequently affords but little time ; and almost always brings along with it uneasiness full enough for us to bear, without the additional weight of business. Besides, in that condition, our judgment, or memory, or attention may be impaired. Weakness of spirits may subject us to undue im- pressions from those who are about us : our truest friends and ablest and properest advisers may be accidentally absent, or artfully kept from us : in short, one way or another, there is a great hazard of our doing things wrongly, or at best imper- fectly. Fears or suspicions of this may grievously disquiet us, and add to our danger : or, though we apprehend that no evils 5vni arise, from our want of timely caution, to those whom w^e leave behind us, they may come to feel very dreadful ones. And why should not all this be prevented? We must leave what we have, whether we dispose of it or not. And if we defer disposing of it, because we have not the heart to do it, such a heart should not be indulged, but amended. The difficulty of settling things, or the uncertainty how to settle them, will " SET THINE HOUSE IN ORDER." 181 scarce grow less by putting it off to the last. If any altera- tion of circumstances, or of onr opinion, sliould happen after our disposition is made, it may be altered accordingly. And that strange imagination of being nearer death, for having completed this or any provision for it, is a poor absurd super- stition, confuted by daily experience. On the contrary, you will be more at ease, and likely to live the longer, for having done your duty in this respect. And by making sure to do it in time, you may obviate great injustice, grievous contentions and enmities, long and vast expenses, where, if they be not obviated, the fault will lie at your door. Every one therefore should take the earliest care of these matters. But if any one hath omitted it, the office before- mentioned expressly requires, that he be admonished in his sickness to make his will, and to declare his debts, what he oweth, and what is owing unto him, for the better discharging of his conscience, and the quietness of his executors. We of the clergy have now but seldom the means allowed us of giv- ing you this or any other admonition at such times. I hope it is not our fault. Consider if it be not yours. But however that be, we may and we ought to do it from the pulpit : v/here speaking openly to all in general, we cannot be suspected of any private unfair design, into whatever particulars the subject may lead us. The principal point, at which men sould aim in settling their temporal affau's, is justice : and one of the most evident branches of justice is paying debts. Our first care, therefore, should be never to contract debts w^hich we cannot reasonably hope to pay : and our next, to secure the payment of those which we have contracted as fully and speedily as we can. Else we shall be in continual danger of injuring, perhaps dis- tressing and undoing, persons and families, only for thinking well enough of us to trust us. It is extremely dishonourable, (I might use a harsher word) at any season of life to indulge VOL. IV. Q 182 PULPIT ORATORS. our idleness, gratify our fancies and appetites, or support our rank, at their expense. But when sickness gives us a prospect of never being just to them, unless we are so immediately, we have then every possible motive for labouring most earnestly to indemnify them. And we ought to prefer the demands which they have upon us, before all mere properties, however reasonable ; contrive good security for them out of whatever we fairly can; and if, after all, we cannot do it effectually, recommend them, as far as ever there is any plea for it, to the compassion of our surviving representatives and relations. But as we cannot be certain that they will (and in several cases there may be no reason why they should) do what we desire, the only sure way is to provide before it is too late for doing it ourselves. If our circumstances are upon the whole sufficient to answer all claims, barely making known the debts due from us, and owing to us, or at most stating them with the parties concerned, may be enough ; and where it is wanted, employing some thought and pains on such matters, as we are able, will be doing very good service both to our creditors and to our heirs. But besides those who are commonly called creditors, there is another and much more dreadful sort : I mean those to whom we have done injuries, and owe restitution. Injuries ought never to be done. When they are done, restitution, if it can, ought to be made immediately ; and till it is offered, so far as our ability extends, we remain both debtors and sinners. If we defer it to the last, we may never make it at all; and though we do, whether God will then accept it must be doubt- ful"; but if even then we refuse it, unless the cause be that we excusably mistake the nature of the case, we preserve no ground for hope. It is unspeakably better, therefore, to think seriously at any time than never, what wrongs or what hardships any of our fellow-creatures have suffered from us, and to what suit- able compensation they are entitled, either in strict justice, or KESTITUTION AND RECONCILIATTOX. 183 in equity and good conscience. The answer to this question may often be a very afflicting one; but if men will do amiss, they must take the consequences. It may also, in some cases, be difficult to fix upon the right answer, or to find proper methods of putting it in practice, if we know it ; but we must not, on account of difficulties, lay aside the thought of doing our duty, but ask the best advice where we are at a loss, leave directions to be executed by others, where we have not time ourselves; and at least make due acknowledgments, un- less particular circumstances forbid, where we cannot make amends. Perhaps nothing further than acknowledgments will be expected by those whom we have injured; and then we are bound to nothing further. But as we have all more or less need to ask pardon, another of our duties evidently is, to grant it in our turn : when others have used us ill, not to recompense or wish them evil for evil ; not to deny them proper kindnesses; or even think of them worse than they deserve — to accept any submissions that do but approach towards being sufficient, and be reconciled to them, not in words alone, which is adding hypocrisy to resentment, but in reality, affording them as large proofs, both of our favour and confidence, as any good and wise man, uninterested in the matter, would think fitting — seriously wishing their good, in soul, body, and estate, and being ready to promote it as far as we properly can. This is the full meaning of being in charity, which we ought to be constantly in with all men ; and, if the reason of our professing to be so is merely that we imagine our end to be near, it mil be extremely questionable whether we are so indeed. Yet, a late, nay, an imperfect re- conciliation is always preferable to none, provided there be any sincerity in it. For the expedient, to which, it is said, some have had recourse, of forgiving if they die, and being revenged if they live, is as wicked and as foolish a contrivance to deceive themselves, and to mock God, as the human heart can frame. 184 PULPIT ORATORS. LA^URENCE STERNE. "Tlie Sermons of Mr Yorick" arc chiefly remarkable for their curious commencements. On the text, "But Abishai said, Shall not Shimei be put to death for this?'' he begins, " It has not a good aspect. This is the second time Abishai has pro2)osed Shimei's destruction." Again, the text is, " And he said, What have they seen in thine house ? And Hezekiah answered, All the things that are in my house they have seen; there is nothing amongst all my treasures that I have not shewn them;" and the sermon commences, "And where was the harm, you'll say, in all this?" Once more, from the text, " He hoped also that money should have been given him of Paul, that he might loose him," he sets out, " A noble object to take up the consideration of the lloman governor ! And was this Felix — the gTeat, the noble Felix 1 " &c. After giving out the text, " It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting," he exclaims, "That I deny !"''" Few things shew more strikingly the low tone of moral feeling in England about the middle of last century, than the enthusiasm viith which books were received so profligate and unprincipled as "Tristram Shandy" and the "Sentimental Journey ;" and it seems almost a satire on religion, that a pen so foul should have been employed in writing sermons. But so it was ; and these last were almost as popular as his other lucubrations. They abound in similar buffooneries and whimsi- calities, and for their want of heart and genuine worth they try to compensate by a })rofusion of maudlin sentiment. It is not without some hesitation that we admit into our series names like Sterne and Dodd ; but our sketch of pulpit oratory would be very incomplete if we made no mention of men so dazzling * On the sultject of exordiams to sermons, see " Christian Classics," vol. iii., pp. 27-30. STERNE. 1 85 in their day. The first two volumes of " ]\Ir Yorick's Sermons" were published in 1760. Our copy is dated 1767, and is of the eighth edition. Laurence Sterne was born at Clonmel, in Ireland, November 24, 1713. His father was a lieutenant in the army, and his uncle, Dr Jaques Sterne, was a j^rebendary of Durham. To this relation he was indebted for the living of Sutton, where he spent twenty years of his clerical career, "painting, fiddling, and shooting." He died during a visit to London, March 18, 1768. The following is a favourable sjDecimen of discourses which were so admired in the days of our great-grandsires ; but all their galvanic attempts at emotion will hardly reconcile the modern reader to the liberties taken with the matcliless story of He gathers all together. I see the picture of his departure; the camels and asses loaden with his substance, detached on one side of the piece, and already on their way; the prodigal son standing on the foreground, with a forced sedateness, struggling against the fluttering movement of joy upon his deliverance from restraint ; the elder brother holding his hand, as if unmlling to let it go ; the father — sad moment ! — with a firm look, covering a pro- phetic sentiment, " that all would not go well with his child," approaching to embrace him, and bid him adieu. Poor in- considerate youth! From whose arms art thou flying? from what a shelter art thou going forth into the storm? Art thou weary of a father's affection, of a father's care ? or hopest thou to find a warmer interest, a truer counsellor, or a kinder friend in a land of strangers, where youth is made a prey, and so many thousands are confederated to deceive them, and live by their spoils? Q 2 186 PULPIT ORATORS. Wc will seek no further than this idea for the extravagancies by which the prodigal son added one unhappy example to the number. His fortune wasted — the followers of it fled in course — the wants of nature remain — the hand of God gone forth against him. "For when he had spent all, a mighty famine arose in that country." Heaven have pity upon the youth, for he is in hunger and distress; strayed out of the reach of a parent who counts every hour of his absence with anguish; cut off from all his tender offices by his folly, and from relief and charity from others by the calamity of the times. Nothing so powerfully calls home the mind as distress. The tense fibre then relaxes — the soul retires to itself — sits pen- sive and susceptible of right impressions. If we have a friend, it is then we think of him ; if a benefactor, at that moment all his kindnesses press upon our mind. Gracious and bountiful God ! is it not for this that they who in their prosperity forget Thee, do yet remember and return to Thee in the hour of their sorrow? When our heart is in heaviness, upon whom can we think but Thee, who knowest our necessities afar off — puttest all our tears in Thy bottle — seest every careful thought — liear- est every sigh and melancholy groan we utter ? Strange, that we should only begin to think of God with comfort, when with joy and comfort we can think of nothing else. Man surely is a compound of riddles and contradictions. By the law of his nature he avoids pain, and yet, unless he suffers in the flesh, he will not cease from sin, though it is sure to bring pain and misery upon his head for ever. Whilst all went pleasurably on with the prodigal, we hear not one word concerning his father — no pang of remorse for the sufferings in which he had left him, or resolution of re- turning to make up the account of his folly. His first hour of distress seemed to be his first hour of wisdom. " When he THE PRODIGAL. 187 came to liimself, lie said, How many hired servants of my father have bread enough and to spare, whilst I perish!" Of all the terrors of nature, that of one day or another dying by hunger is the greatest ; and it is wisely wove into our frame to awaken man to industry, and call forth his talents. And though we seem to go on carelessly, sporting with it as we do with other terrors, yet, he that sees this enemy fairly, and in his most frightful shape, will need no long remonstrance to make him turn out of the way to avoid him. It was the case of the prodigal. He arose to go to his father. Alas ! how shall he tell his story ? Ye who have trod this round, tell me in what words he shall give in to his father the sad items of his extravagance and folly. The feasts and banquets which he gave to whole cities in the east — the costs of Asiatic rarities, and of Asiatic cooks to dress them — the expenses of singing men and singing women — the flute, the harp, the sackbut, and of all kinds of music — the dress of the Persian courts, how magnificent ! their slaves, how numerous I — their chariots, their horses, their palaces, their furniture, what immense sums they had devoured! what ex- pectations fi-om strangers of condition ! what exactions ! Plow shall the youth make his father comprehend that he was cheated at Damascus by one of the best men in the world ; that he had lent a part of his substance to a friend at Nineveh, who had fled off with it to the Ganges ; that he had been sold by a man of honour for twenty shekels of silver to a worker in graven images ; that the images he had purchased had profited him nothing ; that they could not be transported across the wilderness, and had been burnt with fire at Shushan ; that the apes and peacocks,'' which he had sent for from Tarshish, lay dead upon his hands; and that the mummies had not been dead long enough which had been brought him out of Egypt J * Vide 2 Chron. ir. 21. 188 PULPIT OEATORS. — that all had gone wrong smce the day he forsook his father's house. Leave the story : it will be told more concisely. " When he was yet afar off, his father saw him," — compassion told it in three words, — " he fell upon his neck and kissed him." Great is the power of eloquence, but never is it so great as when it pleads along with nature, and the culprit is a child straj^ed from his duty, and returned to it again with tears. Casuists may settle the j^oint as they mil ; but w^hat could a jDarent see more in the account than the natural one of an in- genuous heart too open for the world, smitten with strong sensations of pleasure, and suffered to sally forth unarmed into the midst of enemies stronger than himself? Generosity sorrows as much for the overmatched as pity herself does. The idea of a son so rumed would double the father's caresses. Every effusion of his tenderness would add bitter- ness to his son's remorse. " Gracious heaven ! what a father have I rendered miserable !" "And he said, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son." " But the father said, Bring forth the best robe " O ye aflfections ! How fondly do you play at cross-jDurposes with each other! 'Tis the natural dialogue of true transport. Joy is not methodical ; and v/here an offender, beloved, over- charges himself in the offence, words are too cold, and a conci- liated heart replies by tokens of esteem. " And he said unto his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and sslioes on his feet, and bring hither the fatted calf, and let us eat and drink and be merry." When the affections so kindly break loose, joy is another name for religion. We look up as we taste it. The cold stoic without, when r>R DODD. 189 lie hears the dancmg and the music, may ask sullenly (with the elder brother) what it means, and refuse to enter; but the humane and compassionate all fly impetuously to the banquet given " for a son who was dead and is alive again ; who was lost and is found." Gentle spirits light up the pavilion with a sacred fire, and parental love and filial piety lead in the masque with riot and wild festivity ! Was it not for this that God gave man music to strike upon the kindly passions ; that nature taught the feet to dance to its movements, and as chief gover- ness of the feast, poured forth Vvine into the goblet to crown it with gladness? DR DODD. William Dodd, son of the Yicar of Bourne, in Lincolnshire, was born there in 1720. xVt Clare Hall, Cambridge, he gave proofs of superior ability, and commenced a somewhat preco- cious authorship, most of his publications being poems, on sub- jects grave or gay. On receiving orders he came out a clever and attractive preacher; and whilst, by the adroit use of his talents, he succeeded in obtaining various popular appoint- ments, such as the preachership at the Magdalene Hospital, and several city lectureships, by a system of flattery and sub- ser\dency he secured a large amount of episcopal and aristo- cratic patronage. But during all this interval he was leading a life of the wildest profusion and most extravagant self-indul- gence, and in order to extricate himself had recourse to expe- dients which betrayed his entire vrant of principle. When the rectory of St George's, Hanover Square, fell vacant, he offered Lady Apsley a bribe of three thousand pounds if she could obtain for him the presentation, but the only result was ex- posure and disgrace. His name was struck out of the list of chaplains to the king, and, overwhelmed with public obloquy, he took refuge on the Continent. Here, however, his expen- sive habits did not cease, and, on his return to London, he 190 PULPIT ORATORS. raised a large sum on the credit of a bond, bearing the signa- ture of his former pupil, the Earl of Chesterfield. The signa- ture was soon found to be a fabrication; and under the act then newly passed, and which rendered forgery a capital oflfence, Dr Dodd was tried at the Old Bailey, and convicted. Great but unavailing efforts were made to procure a mitigation of his sentence, and he was executed at Tyburn, June 27, 1777. Read in the light of his melancholy end, we are apt to re- gard the sermons of Dr Dodd as the effusions of a mere clerical fop or charlatan, but it would be an error to deny their in- trinsic merits. Their author was a man of extensive informa- tion, and his discourses are enlivened by interesting anecdotes, and oi^portune poetical quotations, which must have gone far to keep the hearers awake, and which almost bring them within the range of our lighter literature. They have too much of the smoothness of the courtier, and too little of the solemnity of Heaven's ambassador, and they entirely lack the light and imction of the Christian evangelist ; but were they divested of their homiletic form, with their worldly wisdom and prac- tical tendency, they would take a respectable place among our later British Essayists. Each of his " Sermons to Young Men'' is followed by a col- lection of illustrative anecdotes — a method of which the fol- lowing sample may give some idea : — l^uks for ^onhtxmiion. Your great endeavour should be so to supply your own mind with the proper materials for conversation, that you may be able, like the rich householder, to bring out of your plenteous treasury, things new and old, for the entertainment and in- struction of your friends and companions. We have before observed, that as it is " from the abundance of the heart the RULES FOR CONVERSATION. 191 mouth speaketli," so men's words and conversation necessaiily flow from the ruling principle ^\ithin ; and, therefore, if by- reading and reflection your mind is occupied upon wise and sensible objects, and your thoughts filled with them, you will be naturally led to communicate from your store ; and your discourse, to the great emolument of those Avith whom you converse, will take the same useful and improving turn with your thoughts. However, one thing is carefully to be avoided — " a mono- poly of the conversation." Though your topic is most instruc- tive ; though you understand it completely, and can treat of it in the most masterly manner, nothing can excuse your assum- ing to yourself the principal part of the discourse, and not allowing to others their due share and portion of it. For conversation, founded upon equality, by no means allow^s of en- grossing : every man has a right to claim his part, and expects to be heard. But this is not the only evil or oflence of garrulity; it betrays a weak and an arrogant mind: and if it be accompanied, as too frequently happens, with an insolent and dogmatical ak, with an over-bearing, presumptuous, and pedantic manner, it defeats the ends of conversation, and in- fallibly brands the intemperate prater with the stigma of con- tempt. Pythagoras, my young friends, well convinced of the great wisdom and utility of knowing how to restrain the tongue, enjoined all his disciples a three years' silence : and be assured, there is more good sense and advantage in knowing how to keep silence properly, than you are aware of. " fSilence in company, if not dulness or sheepishness, is observation or dis- cretion." An attention to others conciliates their regard and attention to you ; and a modest question thrown in, now and then, a kind of inquiring observation, never fails to conciliate to young men the esteem of all with whom they converse. Always to be more knowing than you appear to be, never 102 PULPIT OEATORS. forwardly to obtrude yourself, or to wish to outshine others iu comically, but on all occasions to wear the garb of diffident modesty, is the infallible road to gain in conversation both knoAvledge and respect. Besides engrossing the conversation, we must note another defect, the consequence generally of a love of talking — that fertile source of innumerable evils. JSTever, my young friends, on any account, unless immediately called upon, and urged by self-defence, " make yourselves the topic of your discourse." Nothing so nauseous, so offensive as egotism : it bespeaks the empty, vain, and insignificant mind. Men, conscious of the source from whence this error springs, mil suspect whatever you say, and withhold from you all the praise you propose to gain by holding forth your ovrn perfections to view : and should you, "vvith some, absurdly affect to condemn yourself in sober sadness, for some vice or evil (to w^hich you unfortu- nately are addicted !) your hearers will have discernment enough, be sure, to see of what virtue you thus mean to claim the excess ; and Vvill ridicule the weakness which you alone are too blind to overlook. To please and to be instructed, you will act wisely to " annihilate yourself," as it were, in conver- sation : nothing is so disgusting as a man " too big " for his company; and nothing so despicable and tedious, as the in- sipid retailer of dull stories and circumstantial narratives — the miserable, minute, self-important historian of uninteresting details, which lull even sweet i^atience herself to sleep, and make good sense run mad ! But let mc caution you, my young friends, as against the excess of talking on one hand, so against the defect on the other. A modest and respectful silence is doubtless most mse and amiable ; but a dull and morose one is hateful and dis- gusting. And I know not, whether the eternal shallow prater may not be the better companion of the two, than the man who in solcnm silence hears, and speaks not ; or only, perhaps. ANECDOTES. 193 in blunt honesty, as lie calls it, now and then speaks his mind, to the pain and disgust of all present ; or, with an importance, which nothing but his dulness can exceed, occasionally distills a sentence or two, drop by drop, from his oracular lips. Politeness, in the common intercourse of the world, is a sub- sidium to what Christian love is in the better system of reli- gion and virtue. The former may be defined, " A constant attention to oblige, to do or say nothing, which may give pain or oftence." And Christian love is a continual endeavour to please, in order to promote our neighbour's best welfare. While, therefore, my young friends, you act upon the amiable principles of Christian truth, let that love especially, which is the most refined politeness, be the principal regulator of j^our behaviour in conversation. " Study ahvays to please, in order to improve and do good." Good sense, good humour, and good breeding, unite in nearly the same dictate ; and if they carry not the motive so far as it is carried by Christianity, re- joice, that you have the happy, the plain direction of a pre- cept to form your behaviour, which is no less infallibly produc- tive of your own internal peace and felicity, than it is certain to recommend you to the approbation and good esteem of others. ^nectiotcs rtspectincj Conbersation, 1. Plutarch tells us, in a few words, what an infinite advan- tage Alexander reaped from the fine taste wherewith his pre- ceptor Aristotle inspired him, even from his tenderest infancy. " He loved," says our author, " to converse with learned men ; to improve himself in knowledge ; and to study." Three sources these, of a monarch's happiness, which enable him to secure himself from numberless difiiculties ; three certain and infal- lible methods of learning to reign without the assistance of others. 2. It was Mr Locke's peculiar art in conversation, to lead VOL. IV. R 194 PULPIT ORATORS. people to talk of their own profession, or whatever they best understood. With a gardener, he discoursed of gardening ; with a jeweller, of diamonds; with a chemist of chemistry; with a watchmaker, of clocks, watches, &c. " By this means," said he, " I jDlease all those men, who commonly can speak per- tinently upon nothing else. As they believe I have an esteem for their profession, they are charmed with shewing their abilities before me; and I in the meantime improve myself by their discourse." By thus putting questions to artificers, he would sometimes find out a secret in their art which they did not understand themselves ; and often give them views of the subject entirely new, which they put into practice with advan- tage. 3. The faculty of mterchanging our thoughts with one another, or what w^e express by conversation, has always been rej)resented by moral writers, as one of the noblest privileges of reason, and which more particularly sets mankind above the brute part of creation. Monsieur Varillas once told his friend, the author of the Menagiana, that out of every ten things he knew, he had learned nine in conversation. And I too, says M. Menage, can in a great measure declare the same G. The utility and excellence of rational conversation can- not perhaps be expressed in words more beautiful and elegant than the following, by Dr Young : — Good sense will stagnate. Thoughts shut up want air, And spoil, like bales unopen'd to the sun. Had thought been all, sweet speech had been deny'd ; Speech, thought's canal ! Speech, thought's criterion too ! Thought in the mine, may come forth gold or dross ; Wlieu coin'd in words we know its real Avorth. If sterling, store it for thy future use ; 'Twill buy thee benefit, perhaps renown. Thought too, deliver'd, is the more po.s?ess'd ; Teaching we learn ; and giving -we retain The births of intellect ; when duml}, forgot. ST Bernard's dying charge. 195 Speech ventilates our intellectual fire ; Speech burnishes our mental magazine ; Brightens for ornament, and whets for use. TVhat numbers, sheath'd in erudition, lie, Plunged to the hilts in venerable tomes. And rusted in ; who might have borne an edge, And play'd a sprightly beam, if born to speech ; If born blest heirs of half their mother's tongue ! 'Tis thought's exchange, which, like th' alternate push Of waves conflicting, breaks the learned scum. And defecates the student's standing pool. Rude thought runs wild in contemplation's field ; Converse, the menage, breaks it to the bit ^ Of due restraint ; and emulation's spur Gives graceful energy, by rivals aw'd. 'Tis converse qualifies for solitude, As exercise, for salutary rest. 8. Of all the inconveniences attending the intercourse of mankind, slander and detraction are the most frequent, and in a very high degree odious and detestable. We are told of St Bernard, that when he was drawing near his end, he thus solemnly addressed himself to his brethren, as a dying man bequeathing legacies to his friends. " Three things I require you to keep and observe; which I remember to have kept, to the best of my power, as long as I have lived. 1. I have not willed to slander any person; and if any have fallen, I have hid it as much as possible. 2. I have ever trusted less to my own wit and understanding than to any other's. 3. If I w^ere at any time hurt, harmed, and annoyed, I never wished vengeance against the party who so va^onged me." This memorable sen- tence is peculiarly applicable to every branch of the present subject; defamation, insolent overbearing, and petulant animo- sity, being the chief ingredients that tend to embitter conver- sation, and preclude its improvement and advantage 15. A prudent man will avoid talking much of any parti- cular science, for which he is remarkably famous. There is 196 PULPIT ORATORS. not a liandsomer thing said of ^Ir Cowley, in liis whole life, than that none but his intimate friends ever discovered he was a great poet by his discourse. Besides the decency of this rule, it is certainly founded in that good policy of which Mr Locke, as above mentioned, so well availed himself. A man who talks of anything he is already famous for, has little to get, but a great deal to lose 17. Sir Richard Steele observes, that there are some men who on all occasions, in all companies, talk in the same circle and round of chat ae they have picked up in their daily peregrinations. I remember, says he, at a full table in the city, one of these ubiquitary wits was entertaining the company with a soliloquy (for so I call it, when a man talks to those who do not understand him) concerning wit and humour. An honest gentleman, who sat next to me, and vras worth half a plumb, stared at him, and obser\dng there was some sense, as he thought, mixed -with, his impertinence, whispered me, " Take my word for it, this fellow is more knave than fool." This was all my good friend's applause of the vdttiest man of talk that I was ever present at, which wanted nothing to make it excellent, but that there was no occasion for it."^ 18. The same ingenious author has the following remarks on locpiacity. I look upon a tedious talker, or what is gene- rally known by the name of "a story-teller," to be much more insufferable than even a prolix writer. An author may be tossed out of your hand, and thrown aside, when he grows dull and tiresome: but such liberties are so fiU' from beino; allowed towards these orators in common conversation, that I have known a challenge sent a person, for going out of the room abruptly, and leaving a man of honour in the midst of a dissertation. The life of man is too short for a story-teller. Methusalem might be half an hour in telling what o'clock it w^as : but for us post-diluvians, we ought to do everything in * See Tatler, No. 244. DR OGDEN. 197 haste; and in our speeches, as well as actions, remember that our time is short. I would establish but one great general rule to be observed in all conversation, which is this, " That men should not talk to please themselves, but those that hear them." This would make them consider, whether what they speak be worth hearing; whether there be either wit or sense in what they are about to say ; and whether it be adapted to the time when, the place where, and the person to whom it is sjDoken. DR OGDEN. Samuel Oc4Den was born at Manchester, July 28, 1716. He studied first at King's College, Cambridge, and afterwards at St John s. For some time he was master of the Free Gram- mar School at Halifax; but in 1753 he resigned it and came to reside at Cambridge, where he continued till his death, March 22, 1778. He was not only a Fellow of St John's, but Wood- wardian Professor; and most of his sermons were delivered in the parish church of St Sepulchre to a numerous audience of students and the younger members of the imiversity. Usually cold, and sometimes feeble, there is nevertheless in Dr Ogden's sermons much that is instructive and pleasing. They are short — they are neat — they usually contain some im- portant thought or original idea — and they are the work of a man who knows his own mind. STJe 3Itttetassor*0 ^raucr tominrj tiack into Ji's oinn Bosom, [The text is Job xlii. 10, " The Lord turned the capti\ity of Job, when he prayed for his friends."] Among the several competitors for'the throne of a certain an- cient kingdom, in order to put an amicable end to the contest, and at the same time to refer the decision of it in some sort to E 2 198 PULPIT ORATORS. heaven, it was agreed, that he should be the successful candi- date who should first behold the rays of the rising sun. So while the rest were gazing with their eyes fixed on that part of the horizon where they expected the great luminary of the day, the god of Persia, to ascend, one of the number bore away the royal prize by turning his face toward the west. He discovered a stream of the sun's beams by reflection from the summit of a mountain, or the pinnacle of a temple, before any part of his orb was yet visible by a direct light. This story has the appearance of a little allegory, rather than of true history ; and it is possible the meaning may be this, that he who carried the crown in that competition succeeded by not appearing too forward and eager in the pursuit. He modestly declined, he turned his face away from that great dignity ; and for this veiy reason, it met him with the more willingness. The things which we desire the most ardently are not always to be denied nded eagerly. Extreme selfishness is often the cause of its own disappointment. The greedy go away unfed ; while he that '' scattereth, increaseth," and the liberal are loaded with good. "The Lord appeared unto Solomon, and God said. Ask what I shall give thee. And Solomon said. Thy servant is in the midst of thy people whom thou hast chosen, a great j^eoj^le, that cannot be numbered, nor counted for multitude : give therefore thy servant an understanding heart. And God said unto him. Because thou hast asked tliis thing, and hast not asked for thyself long life, neither hast asked riches for thy- self, nor hast asked the life of thine enemies, but understand- ing to discern judgment; behold, I have done according to thy words; lo, I have given thee a wise and understanding heart : and I have also given thee that which thou hast not asked, both riches and honour." How charming is the contest between beneficence and mo- desty! the liberal hand and the disinterested bosom! Even JOB. 199 tlie receiver divides the glory with his divine Benefactor ; and his generous concern for others returns with accumulated bene- fits and blessings upon himself. Attend to the example of Job. Under the pressure of his great calamities and afflictions, he ajDplied himself, and no wonder, to God by prayer ; and being a good man, we may be allowed to suppose, that his petitions were not fruitless. But the jDetition which achieved his recovery, or, however, that which he was offering up at the moment in which it pleased Almighty God to accomplish it, was a petition for other per- sons. It is written, " The Lord turned the capti\dty of Job, when he prayed for his friends." How signal is this instance of God's dispensations ! what lustre doth it reflect upon that part of our applications to Him, which we allot to the benefit of our brethren. You observe, that this eminent pattern of piety and of patience had been both frequent and earnest in his supplications in his own favour ; complaining, pleading, and, like another Jacob, wrest- ling with God : " that my grief were thoroughly weighed ! it would be heavier than the sand ; and my words are swal- lowed up. O that I might have my request, that God would grant me the thing that I long for ! Why hast thou set me as a mark against thee? I will speak in the bitterness of my soul ; is it good unto thee, that thou shouldest oppress 1 that thou shouldest despise the work of thine hands 1 Eemember, I beseech thee, that thou hast made me as clay; and wilt thou bring me into dust again ? " Job, we see, was sufficiently vehement in his own behalf : and yet, as if his expostulations were all in vain, " Though I speak, saith he, my grief is not assuaged : and though I for- bear, what am I eased 1 God hath delivered me up to the ungodly. He breaketh me with breach upon breach. My face is foul with weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death. I have said to corruption, Thou art my father ; to the 200 PULPIT ORATORS. worm, Thou art my mother and my sister. God hath over- thrown me : I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard ; I cry aloud, but there is no judgment." Not that this was strictly true ; or that his jietitions even for himself were utterly without effect. God Almighty had mercy in store, though he kept it back from him all the long- time that he was making the most pathetic supplications for himself, and then bestowed it when he began to pray for others : " The Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends." Nay, these very friends, as they are here styled, hardly merited so favourable an appellation ; accusing him of crimes he had not committed, and upbraiding him mth those punish- ments of his sins, which were, indeed, the trials of his virtue. And he was sensible of all the bitterness of their reproaches : " Ye overwhelm the fatherless ; ye dig a pit for your friend. If your soul were in my soul's stead, I coidd heap up words against you, and shake mine head at you. But I would strengthen you with my mouth ; and the moving of my lips should assuage your grief. He teareth me in his wrath, who hateth me : he gnasheth upon me with his teeth : mine enemy sharpeneth his eyes upon me." Yet was it required of Job to become the intercessor for these very persons, and to beg for them the forgiveness of those offences which had been committed against himself. And then, at last, after this illustrious testimony of his charity, added to those of his patience and piety, when his virtues were thus brought to the height, and appeared in all their glory, then it pleased the A\dsdom and mercy of God, brealdng forth out of obscurity, and made conspicuous by His judgments, to restore and double his prosjierity. THE EESURRECTIOX OF CHEIST. 201 ^ .Socratic Qialoguc. But what sceptic was ever satisfied? Wliat caviller con- futed? The adversaries of our faith finding no further re- sources on the plain ground of common sense, make their last retreat into the thorns of subtilty. The resurrection, it seems, was an event so strange, that no testimony whatever is enough to prove it. The story, we may be sure, is not true, whoever he be that tells it. On what foundation, pray, do you build an assurance so very absolute? On the foundation of experience. As how? I am to tell you, then, that v\^e know nothing of the essence of causality ; but found all our assent upon similitude. I am not sure that I comprehend you. YouL cannot be possessed of so fine an argument in its per- fection, without having recourse to the original inventor. It may suffice to let you know in brief, that we believe always what is most lihely, and call that most likely v/hich most re- sembles what we have before met Vv'ith. But things often fall out that were not likely. Yes, so often, that we find it, in general, likely that they should; and in each particular case reflect which of the two is less likely, that the thing should be as it is represented, or the reporter represent it falsely. Have you ever found in the course of your experience that anything was not true which had been as well attested as the resurrection ? It was a miracle. Experience, therefore, universal expe- rience declares against it. That of the five hundred brethren who saw it was, sure, on the other side. 202 PULPIT ORATORS. You must appeal to present experience. Nature we find unchangeable. Nature ! When I dispute with you about Christianity, I suppose that you believe a God. You suppose perhaps too fast. Then I have no further dispute with you : I leave you to other hands. Christianity desires no greater honour than to be received by every one that is not an atheist. Suj)pose there be a God : what then ? Why, then he made the world. Well? And a multitude of things must have been done at that time of the creation, which are not comprehended within the present course of nature. Every animal, every vegetable, must have been brought into being at first in some manner of which the world now affords no examples. Of this we have no ex- perience, yet we allow it to be true; and w^e need no testi- mony, for we know it must have happened. And if the Son of God were to assume our nature a second time, and be once more crucified and buried, according to the unalterable laws of the universe, He must rise again from the grave, and " the pains of death be loosed " as before, " because it was not possible that He should be holden of it." [There may be some question as to the propriety of ascrib- ing to a Divine speaker a discourse like the following. But it must be accepted as the author designed it — as at once an epitome and paraphrase of the Redeemer's last address to His disciples. Without adopting all its sentiments, we are glad to quote it, as coming so near that great theme of " Christ cruci- fied," from which most of the preaching of those days kept so strangely aloof] THE LORD S SUPPEE. ZOo Imagine you see our Divine Redeemer sitting with His disciples at His last supper, and hear Him addressing Himself to them in the following manner : — " The solemn ceremonies which I and you are now observ- ing, are memorials, you know, of a great event whieh happened many ages ago to your forefathers. This lamb before us is the representation of that which was slam and eaten by them m Egypt. Come, I will institute a new rite, to be kept in re- membrance of what shall immediately befall myself on your account. Before the evening and the morning shall conclude the present day, this body of mine shall be delivered into the hands of men, and they shall wound, and pierce, and kill it. I take this bread into my hands, and break it to pieces. Take, eat; it is my body which is given for you. By this token you shall keep in memory and represent to all ages unto the end of the world, this ' precious sacrifice, fore-ordained before the foundation' of it, and now going to be offered for your sake. " My Father, who is in heaven, loves me, His own and only begotten Son, with a tender aud unparalleled affection. He ' loved me before the foundation of the world.' And though I indeed was and am willmg to suffer, yet would He not have sent me down into this state of humiliation, to undergo the sufferings and death which are even now preparing for me, if He had not also loved you, and had compassion on you, though enemies to Him by evil works, and dead in trespasses and sins. For God indeed is love. It is the chief part of His very nature, which it is possible for you to comprehend and to imitate. Love Him, therefore, who is love, with all your heart, and mind, and strength. This is the first and gxeat command- ment. Of His own tender pity towards a lost world. He sent me to do and suffer aU that you have seen and shall soon see, for the benefit of men. And when I am removed from you, and you see me no more. He shall give you another Comforter, even the Spirit of Truth, to supply the want of my presence. 204: PULPIT ORATORS. and conduct that great work of the salvation of mankind for which the Father sent me, and for which I am come willingly into the world. " And as the bread which I broke represented my crucified body, so this cup which I command you all to drink of, let it signify my blood, which is now going to be poured out for all men. " It is written, that ' it is the blood that maketh an atone- ment for the soul.' ' By the law almost all things are purged with blood : and without the shedding of blood is no remis- sion.' But it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away the sins of men. That was required, and was available only as a type of my blood, now to be shed, once for all. Take this cup, to be partakers of this atonement. " You remember also, when Moses had read to the people the book of the covenant between God and them, and the people consented to the covenant, and said, ^ All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient,' Moses took half of the blood of the sacrifices, and sprinkled it on the altar, and the other half he sprinkled on the people, and said, ' Behold tho blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made with you.' The blood was sprinkled on both the contracting parties; the one half on the altar, representing him who was there worship- ped, and the other half on the people of the Jews. " That covenant is now expirmg in my death, and a new one is to be made with all the nations of the earth. I am the vic- tim offered at this great solemnity on the altar of the cross. Wlien you take this cup you ratify this new covenant on your part, and give your consent to the conditions of it. " You will be no longer bound by the ceremonial law. It expires of course with me, who am its end and consum- mation. " But my own power and j^rovidence shall aboli.sh it more effectually, and execute what I now predict. Some even of THE FAEEAYELL ADDRESS. 205 yourselves, to whom I am speaking, shall live to see the time, when of this noble temple, the work of so many years, the wonder of so many ages, ' there shall not be left one stone upon another that shall not be thrown dow^i.' " As you are to be thankful for this deliverance from ' a yoke which neither your fathers nor you were able to bear,' so take care not to turn your liberty into licentiousness. The sense of your freedom from this bondage should restrain you from violating those laws which are of everlasting obligation. As you will not henceforth bo occupied in sacrifices, and other burdensome ceremonies, apply yourselves so much the more ta what is better. " Look upon the whole race of mankmd as your neighbours- and brethren. Embrace them with a cordial and unrestrained affection. They were always the workmanship of the same Creator, and bore His divine image ; they are now to be re- deemed by the same blood. " Do good to as many as possible. Imitate in this your Father which is in heaven. But as you can follow Him in doing good but a little way, come nearer to His example in your good wishes and kind intentions. Let there be no limits to the exercise of this part of your charity. Since you can never repay Him anything for His infinite patience, and mercy, and love to you, love men for His sake. He, the origin of all good, is exalted above all recompense ; but you can reach those who belong to His household ; let not the highest among you disdain to be a ' servant to wash the feet of the servants of your Lord.' " But if even in these little expressions of your condescen- sion and charity your abilities are still too weak to keep pace with your inclination, can you relent, can you pardon for the love of God? If you cannot bestow because you are poor, or labour because you are w^eak, can you forgive as you yourselves are forgiven? VOL. IV. s 206 PULPIT ORATORS. " Yet once more, before I finally deliver this cup into your hands, never again myself to partake of the like refreshment upon earth j since what I now say to you are almost the last words that I shall utter, the declaration of my mind at such a time, my orders, injunctions now, ought to have a peculiar weight ; they are my dying will and testament ! ' This cup is the new testament' sealed ' in my blood;' take it, to shew that you lay claim to the benefit of my bequests, and appertain to the household and family of the testator. " You must continue this rite among yourselves hereafter, when I am gone from you, and deliver it down to be observed to the end of the world. It is so small a request, that I can- not think any of those who become my disciples will refuse to comply with it. " If I had required you to come together from all parts to the very place of my death, and there shew your remembrance of me by painful fastings or costly sacrifices, I had but copied after the example of former institutions. The whole nation almost of the Jews is even now, you see, assembled here at Jerusalem to keep the passover. And this is but one of the three festivals to be kej^t aU at this place. The easier I make my commands to you the more punctual you will be in the observance of them. " ' To you I give my peace. Not as the world giveth,' in compliment only, and without either meaning or consequence ; I speak with authority. I am still that Word by which the worlds were made. My peace is the pardon of your sins, courage and consolation under all troubles, and everlasting salvation. " Farewell : I cannot talk more with you. AU things are now ready. I am expected by him that betrayeth me ; and I go to meet him, and to deliver myself into his hands. The testament Avhich I have declared, the new covenant which I establish, the atonement which I have undertaken, are now to SKELTON. 207 be completed and ratified, according to the appointment of Almighty God, by me in my own blood. Father, I come; to do thy will; to fulfil thy word; to bear thy ^^Tath; to be the sacrifice for the world — a willing sacrifice for a world of sinners. " Not that I am insensible of what is approaching ; I see it in all its terrors. And if the bitter cnp might pass from me ! Alas ! for this very cause came I into the world. Heavenly Father, let thy will be done. Hitherto I have in all things done thy will. I prepare now to suffer in obedience to it. And, oh ! if anything that I have ever done, if all that I now suffer, avail in thy sight ; if thou hast ever loved me, or wilt grant anything at my request, Father, have mercy on the poor race of men. Pity their blindness, pardon their folly, lay all their iniquities upon my head. " Thus redeemed, they shall give thanks unto thee for end- less ages; they shall be translated from earth to heaven; and join with those holy angels which never sinned, in celebrating thy praises, and performing thy pleasure to all eternity." PHILIP SKELTON. One of our most amusmg biographies is Burd/s " Life of the Kev. Philip Skelton." A native of Derriaghy, near Lis- bum, where he was born February 1707, he passed through a ministry of sixty years, and a life of more than eighty, devout, pugilistic, tender-hearted, plying his parishioners wdth fisticuffs or the gospel, as the case rec^uired — a model of the old-fashioned Irish minister. His sermons are, like himself, coarse and colossal, and through the lava-crust of a style eccentric and caustic, they let out fine bursts of human tenderness and evan- gelical fervour. He died May 4, 1787. Our extract is from a sermon entitled, " How to be happy, though married." He himself was a bachelor. 208 PULriT ORATORS. IHatrimonial Counsel Since you are not one, but two, give me leave to remind you of a few tilings separately, and you first who are the husband. You should never forget, that your wife hath put her person, together with her fortune, into your hands, as into those of the man she loved best, and confided most in ; and that she did this, in a jdeasing expectation of finding in you a generous and iitrenuous protector against all ill treatment from others, and all the distresses and troubles, which a man is better able to repel than a woman. To your stronger arms and more cou- rageous bosom her feebler nature hath fled for refuge in the bustle of a crowded and boisterous world, through which she Ii:new not how otherwise to make her way. How base, how unmanly a breach of trust would it be in you, to treat her with coldness, contempt, or cruelty ? to become her chief op- pressor ? and to force from her broken heart the melancholy wish, to be again where you found her, exposed alone to a world, hard indeed and deceitful, but less insensible and trea- cherous than you ? It is true, she is not without faults ; and who is ? Are you ? But is she to be broke off those by methods fit only to be taken with a beast 1 Have you no pity for her weakness ; you who must be lost for ever, if infi- nite pity is not afforded to your own 1 It is the property of a coward only to use any woman ill ; of a treacherous and cruel coward to use that woman ill, who hath no protector under heaven but you ; and to whom you made the warmest protes- tations before, and the most solemn vows at, your marriage, of love as lasting as your life. What man in the world would hurt a dove or sparrow, though but a brute, to which he had neither offered nor promised protection, if it should fly to his breast from the talons of a hawk ? But if you will not hear me, hear the word of God, to you and to all married men ; " Ye husbands, dwell with your wives according to knowledge, CONQUER BY KINDNESS. 209 giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel. Hus- bands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the Church;" for which He thought it not too much to give His life. "So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself ; for no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the Church." Take notice that you are here (without any condition of proper behaviour on the part of your wife), forbid- den to treat her with bitterness, and commanded to shew her that love which Christ hath for His Church, and you have for yourself, and to do her honour. Nay, you are " to see that you love your wife even as yourself," though she should be not a hair less infirm and faulty than yourself. On the other hand, you who are a woman, and married, should never forget you are either. You should, at all times, and in every instance, bear in mind that, as a woman, gentle- ness and pliancy to everything but vice is your distinguishing- character. The person and face of an angel, -without these peculiar ornaments of your sex, mil not make you beautiful, nor even tolerable. There is nothing conceivable so unnatural, or so shocking, as you are, when you put on a masculine, not to say a boisterous, spirit, and set up for an object of fear. As you were made to be loved, not dreaded, you are furnished with every preparative for the former, by the kind indulgence of nature ; and not with one for the latter, unless you will ascribe to nature that which she most abhors of all monsters — an affectation of rudeness and imperious violence, accompanied with so much fearfulness of mind and w^eakness of body. And as a married woman, you are still further from your natural element if you aim at a superiority over your husband, whom you are obliged by nature, by Scripture, and by your vows, to obey. As one weak, you sought at first for a protector ; have your vows of submission given you so much strength, that nothing but that protector will now serve you for a slave ? 210 rULPTT ORATORS. You want to carry all your i)oints, and do what you please ; and we^ in a violent stretch of courtesy, will grant you have none but good ends in view, but must, at the same time, take leave to demur to your manner, both in i^oint of agreeableness and prudence. If the agreeable way in everything is the best, it must be more so in you, who was peculiarly calculated to please. How do you shock us with the reverse ! Your man- ner is likewise altogether foolish, and shews you know not Avhere your power is placed. It is not placed, as you imagine, in a knack of disputing, nor in the brandish of a high hand, nor, when these fail, in fits, either brought on by struggles too violent for your wretched frame of body, or opportunely pre- tended, as the last shift. No, your power lies in managing the softer and gentler passions. Here you might be irresistible, and do everything, did not the insolence of your spirit set you above this amiable method. In the other way you can do nothing that will not cost you a thousand times more than it is worth. But I foresee you will be more apt to be angiy at the most useful advice from a man, than at your own folly and pride ; I therefore earnestly beseech you, as you regard your vows, and fear God, to hear Him at least, who saith unto you and all other married women, " Wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands, as unto the Lord ; for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the Church. There- fore, as the Church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Let the wife see that she reverence her husband. Wives, submit yourselves unto your o-wn husbands, as it is fit in the Lord. Ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands." This last precept is fol- lowed by another, enjoining meekness and quietness of spirit, and forbidding an expensive vanity in dress. Compare your conduct, and the spirit it proceeds from, with these words of God, and judge for yourself, whether you know better than He docs what you should do. Consider also, that these precepts DO YOU MEAN TO AMEND 1 211 are positive, unconditional, and leave you no excuse for a failure in your duty, let your husband's behaviour be what it will. Now tell us, both of you, whether, after all, you are deter- mined to go on as heretofore, and give us a proof of less sense in two pretenders to rationality, than we often find in two oxen or sheep, who grow more tractable, and go more quietly in their yoke, the longer they have carried it ; whether you are still resolved, at your own expense, to shew the world a monster, with one body and two heads, each of them furnished with two faces, to smile or frown on each other, as dissimulation or rancour shall set their features ; and whether, in a word, you can think of any longer racking your minds between the wide -extremes of fond and angry fits, in so swift successions, that all the good part of mankind are amazed, how, after such transports of tenderness, you can ever hate each other ; and all the bad, how it is possible, from hatred so keen, to return again to instances of endearment not exceeded between those who never -quarrelled. Here is the very sting of your condition. These starts of afiection serve but to give you a more thorough sense of the mutual hatred which immediately follows, and fills you with bitterness of soul. Could you live asunder, or avoid all occasions of kindness, you might at length take sanctuary in indifference. A palsy might take the place of this ague in your passions, and once for all benumb those too exquisite feelings, which contrariety, at present, rubs into rawness, and keeps perpetually alive. Time, which alleviates other miseries, would then cease to aggravate yours. What an enemy would you think him, who should deprive your food of all its relish, or cook it for you with gall ; who should rob your nights of sleep, X)oison every moment of your time with grief or vexation, throw all your afi*airs into confusion, and ruin both the morals and fortunes of your children ! This enemy you are (I do not say to each other, but) you, the husband, to yourself; and 212 PULPIT ORATOES. you, the wife, to yourself; for want of considering that you cannot hurt or vex her, nor you hurt or vex him, without equally hurting, vexing, and tormenting yourself, for you can have but one and the same condition. BISHOP PORTEUS. It was well for the interests of religion, that during a very difficult i^eriod, viz., from 1787 to 1809, the see of London was filled by a prelate so judicious and so faithful to his Master, as Dr Beilby Porteus. The services which he ren- dered, as the opponent of the slave trade, as the early patron of the Bible Society, and as the assiduous promoter of the better observance of the Sabbath, deserve to be held in lasting me- morial. Enforced by his own w^ell-known personal worth, his ser- mons produced a great impression. A series of lectures on Matthew, which he delivered on the Fridays of Lent, drew together a concourse, such as had seldom been seen at a week- day service ; and the reader will not the less rejoice at their popularity, because he feels that in order to be popular now, such a course would need to possess attractions which he can- not detect in the published specimens. Beilby Porteus was born at York, May 8, 1731, and died at Fulham, May 13, 1809. SEJe (!r£nturi0n. The next remarkable feature in the character of the centu- rion is his humility. How completely this most amiable of human virtues had taken possession of his soul, is evident from the manner in which he solicited our Saviour for the cure of his servant: how cautious, how modest, how diffident, how timid, how fearful of offending, even whilst he was only beg- THE CENTURION, 213 ging an act of kiudness for another ! Twice did he send mes- sengers to our Lord, as thinking himself unworthy to address Him in his own person ; and when, at our Saviour's approach to his house, he himself came out to meet Him, it was only to entreat Him not to trouble Himself any further ; for that he was not worthy that Jesus should enter under his roof. This lowliness of mind in the centurion is the more remark- able, because humility, in the gospel sense of the word, is a virtue with which the ancients, and more particularly the Eomans, were totally unacquainted. They had not even a word in their language to describe it by. The only word that seems to express it, humilitas, signifies baseness, servility, and meanness of spirit — a thing very different from true Christian humility ; and indeed this was the only idea they entertained of that virtue. Everything that we call meek and humble, they considered as mean and contemptible, A haughty, im- perious, overbearing temper, a high opinion of their own virtue and wisdom, a contemi^t of all other nations but their own, a quick sense and a keen resentment, not only of injuries, but even of the slightest affronts, this was the favourite and pre- dominant character among the Komans ; and that gentleness of disposition, that low estimation of our own merits, that ready preference of others to ourselves, that feaifulness of giving offence, that abasement of ourselves in the sight of God which we call humility, they considered as the mark of a tame, abject, and unmanly mmd. When, therefore, we see this virtuous centurion differing so widely from his countrymen in this respect, we may certainly conclude that his notions of morality were of a much higher standard than theirs, and that his dis- position peculiarly fitted him for the reception of the gospel. For humility is that virtue which, more than any other, dis- poses the mind to }deld to the evidences, and embrace the doc- trines of the Christian revelation. It is that -sdrtue which the gospel was peculiarly mean to produce, on wliich it lays the 214: PULPIT ORATORS. greatest stress, and in which, perhaps, more than any other, consists the true essence and vital principle of the Christian temper. We therefore find the strongest exhortations to it in almost every page of the gospel. " I say to every man that is among you," says St Paul, " not to think more highly of him- self than he ought to think, but to think soberly. Mind not high tilings : be not wise in your own conceits, but condescend to men of low estate. Stretch not yourselves beyond your measure. Blessed are the poor in spirit, says our Lord, for theirs is the Idngdom of heaven. Whosoever shall humble himself as a little child, the same is greatest in the king- dom of heaven. Though the Lord be high, yet hath he respect to the lowly. As for the proud, he beholdeth them afar oK Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up. God resisteth the proud, but giveth gi-ace to the humble. Learn of me, says our Saviour, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls."'"' . . . Such were the distinguished virtues of this excellent centu- rion, the contemplation of whose character suggests to us a variety of important remarks. The first is, that the miracles of our Lord had the fullest credit given to them, not only (as is sometimes asserted) by low, obscure, ignorant, and illiterate men, but by men of rank and character, by men of the world, by men perfectly competent to ascertain the truth of any facts presented to their observa- tion, and not likely to be imposed upon by false pretences. Of this dcscrijotion was the centurion here mentioned, the Roman proconsul Sergius Paulus, Dionysius a member of the supreme court of Areopagus at Athens, and several others of equal dignity and consequence. Secondly, the history of the centurion teaches us, that there is no situation of life, no occupation, no profession, however * Eom. xii. 3, 6. 2 Cor, x. 14. Matt. v. 3; xviii, 4. Psalm cxxxviii. 6. James iv. 6, 10. Matt. xi. 29. THE CENTURION. 215 \mfavourable it may appear to the cultivation of religion, which precludes the possibility, or exempts us from the obligation, of acquiring those good dispositions, and exercising those Chris- tian virtues wliich the gospel requires. Men of the world are ^pt to imagine that religion was not made for them; that it was intended only for those who pass their days in obscurity, retirement, and solitude, where they meet with nothing to interrupt their devout contemplations, no allurements to divert their attention and seduce their affections from heaven and lieavenly tilings. But as to those whose lot is cast in the busy and the tumultuous scenes of life, who are engaged in various ■occupations and professions, or surrounded with gaieties, with pleasures and temptations, it cannot be expected that amidst aU these impediments, interruptions, and attractions, they can give up much of their time and thoughts to another and a distant world, when they have so many tilings that press upon them and arrest their attention in this. These, I am persuaded, are the i-eal sentiments, and they are perfectly conformable to the actual practice, of a large part of mankind. But to all these pretences the instance of the cen- turion is a direct, complete, and satisfactory answer. He was by his situation in life a man of the world. His profession was that which, of all others, is generally considered as most adverse to religious sentiments and habits, most contrary to the peaceful, humane, and gentle spirit of the gospel, and most exposed to the fascination of gaiety, pleasure, thoughtlessness, and dissipation. Yet amidst all these obstructions to purity of heart, to mildness of disposition and sanctity of manners, we see this illustrious centurion rising above all the disadvantages of his situation, and, instead of sinking into vice and irreligion, becoming a model of piety and humility, and all those virtues which necessarily spring from such princii^les. This is an unanswerable proof, that whenever men abandon themselves to impiety, infidelity, and profligacy, the fault is not in the situa- 216 PULPIT ORATORS. tion, but in the licart; and that there is no mode of life, no employment or profession, which may not, if we please, he made consistent with a sincere belief in the gospel, and with the practice of every duty we owe to our IMaker, our Eedeemer, our fellow-creatures, and ourselves. Nor is this the only instance in point ; for it is extremely Temarkable, and well worthy our attention, that among all the various characters we meet with in the New Testament, there are few represented in a more amiable light, or spoken of in stronger terms of approbation, than those of certain military men. Besides the centurion who is the subject of this lecture, it was a centurion who, at our Saviour s crucifixion, gave that volun- taiy, honest, and unprejudiced testimony in His favour, " Truly this was the Son of God.""' It was a centurion who gener- ously preserved the life of St Paul, when a proposition was made to destroy him after his shipwreck on the island of Melita.t It was a centurion to whom St Peter was sent by the express appointment of God, to make the first convert among the Gentiles — a distinction of which he seemed, in every respect, worthy, being, as we are told, " a just and a devout man, one that feared God with all his house, that gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway."J We see, then, that our centurion was not the only military man celebrated in the gospel for his piety and virtue; nor are there wanting, thank God, distinguished instances of the same kind in our own age, in our own nation, among our own commanders, and in the recent memory of eveiy one here present. All which examples tend to confirm the observation already made, of the perfect consistency of a military, and every other mode of life, with a firm belief in the doctrines and a conscientious obedience to the precepts of religion. * Matt. xvii. 5i. t Acts xxvii. 43. i Acts x. 2. THE GREAT REVIVAL, AND ITS EVANGELISTS. Sent from heaven, but little thouglit of— locked up in that trite small-printed book, the Bible — lies the germ of moral re- novation—the only secret for making base spirits noble, and fallen spirits holy. Received into the confiding heart, and developed in congenial affections, it comes forth in all the wonderful varieties of vital Christianity; and, according as the recipient's disposition is energy or mildness, activity or con- templation, it creates a bold reformer or a benign philanthro- pist — a valiant worker or a far-seen thinker. In bolts that melt as well as burn, it flashes from Luther's surcharged spirit ; and in comprehensive kindliness spreads its warm atmosphere round Melancthon's loving nature. In streams of fervour and fiery earnestness it follows Zuingie's smoking path, and in a halo of excessive brightness encircles Calvin's awful brow. In impulses of fond beneficence it tingles in Howard's restless feet, and with a glow of more than earthly affection it glad- dens the abode of a Venn or a Richmond. But, whether its manifestations be the more beauteous or the more majestic, of all the influences which can alter or ennoble man, it is beyond comparison the most potent and pervasive. In the sunny suffusion with which it cheers existence, in the holy ambition which it kindles, and in the intensity which it imparts to character, that gospel is " the power of God." And just as its advent is the grand epoch in the individual's progress, so its scanty or copious presence gives a correspond- ing aspect to a nation's history. When its power is feeble— when few members of the community are up-borne by its joy- ful and strenuous force — when there is little of its genial in- fusion to make kindness spontaneous, and when men forget its VOL. IV. T 218 THE GEEAT REVIVAL, AND ITS EVANGELISTS. solemn future, wliich renders duty so urgent and self-denial so easy — the public virtues languish, and the moral grandeur of that empire dies. It needs something of the gospel to produce a real patriot ; it needs more of it to create a philanthropist ; and, amidst the trials of temper, the seductions of party, and the misconstructions of motive, it needs it all to give that patriot or philanthropist perseverance to the end. It needs a wide diffusion of the gospel to fill a Parliament with high- minded statesmen, and a country with happy homes. And it will need its prevailing ascendancy to create peace among the nations, and secure the good- will of man to man. The world has not yet exhibited the spectacle of an entire people evangelised ; but there have been repeated instances where this vital element has told perceptibly on national cha- racter; and in the nobler tone of public acting, and higher pulse of popular feeling, might be recognised a people nearer God. In England, for example, there have been three evan- gelic eras. Thrice over have ignorance and apathy been startled into light and wonder ; and thrice over has an influen- tial minority of England's inhabitants felt anew all the good- ness or grandeur of the ancient message. And it is instructive to remark, how at each successive awakening an imjDulse was given to the nation's worth which never afterwards faded entirely out of it. Partial as the influence was, and few as they were who shared it, an clement was infused mto the popular mind, which, like salt imbibed from successive strata by the mhieral spring, was never afterwards lost, but, now that ages have elapsed, may still be detected in the national charac- ter. The Reformers preached the gospel, and the common people heard it gladly. Beneath the doublet of the thrifty trader, and the home-spun jerkin of the stalwart yeoman, was felt a throb of new nobility. A monarch and her ministers re- motely graced the pageant ; but it was to the stout music of old Latimer that the English Reformation marched, and it was THE PURITAN AWAKENING. 219 a freer soil which iron heels and wooden sandals trode as they clashed and clattered to the burly tune. This gospel was the birth of British liberty. Its right of private judgment revealed to many not only how precious is every soul, but how important is every citizen ; and as much as it deep- ened the sense of religious responsibility, it awakened the desire of personal freedom. It took the Saxon churl, and taught him the softer manners and statelier spirit of his conqueror. It " mended the mettle of his blood," and gave him something better than Norman chivalry. Quickening with its energy the endurance of the Saxon, and tempering with its amenity the fierceness of the Gaul, it completed the amalgamating process of many ages, and produced the Eng- lishman. Then came the Puritan awakening — ^in its com- mencement the most august revival wliich Europe ever wit- nessed. Stately, forceful, and thrilling, the gospel echoed over the land, and a penitent nation bowed before it. Long-fasting, much-reading, deep-thinking — theology became the literature, the meditation, and the talk of the peoj^le, and religion the business of the realm. With the fear of God deep in their spirits, and with hearts soft and plastic to His Word, it was amazing how promptly the sternest requirements were con- ceded, and the most stringent reforms carried through. Never, in England, were the things temporal so trivial, and the things eternal so evident, as when Baxter, all but disembodied, and Howe, wrapt in bright and present communion, and AUein, radiant with the joy which shone through him, lived before their people the wonders they proclaimed. And never among the people was there more of that piety which looks inward and upAvard — which longs for a healthy soul, and courts that supernal influence which alone can make it prosper; never more of that piety which in every action consults, and in every incident recognises Him in whom we move and have our beinff. Perhaps its long regards and lofty aspirations, the absence of 220 THE GREAT REVIVAL, AND ITS EVANGELISTS. sliort distances in its field of view, and that one all-absorljing future wliicli had riveted its eye, gave it an aspect too solemn and ascetic — the look of a pilgrim leaving earth rather than an heir of glory going home. Still it was England's most erect and earnest century ; and none who believe that worship is the highest work of man can doubt that, of all its predecessors, this Puritan generation lived to the grandest purpose. Pity that, in so many ears, the din of Naseby and Marston Moor has drowned the most sublime of national melodies — the joyful noise of a people praising God. The religion of the period was full of reverence and adoration and self-denial. Connect- ing common life and its meanest incidents with the unseen realities, and advancing to battle in the strength of psalms, its worthies w^ere more awful than heroes. They were incorrup- tible and irresistible men, who lived under the all-seeing Eye and leaned on the omnipotent Arm, and who found in God's nearness a consecration for every spot, and a solemn uplifting influence for every moment. Then, after a dreary interval — after the boisterous irreligion of the later Stuarts and the cold flippancy which so long outlived them, came the Evangelical Ptevival of last century. Full-hearted and affectionate, some- times brisk and vivacious, but always downright and i^ractical, the gospel of that era spoke to the good sense and warm feel- ings of the nation. In the electric fire of Whitefield, the rapid fervour of Komaine, the caustic force of Berridge and Rowland Hill, and the fatherly wisdom of John Newton and Henry Venn — in those modern evangelists there was not the momen- tum whose long range demolished error's strongest holds, nor the massive doctrine which built up the tall and stately pile of Puritan theology. That day was past, and that work was accom- plished. For the Christian warfare these solcnni ironsides and deep-sounding culverines were no longer wanted; but, equip- ped with the l)ricf logic and telling earnestness of their eager sincerity, tlie lighter troops of this modern campaign scoured MODEEN CHRISTIANITY. 221 the country, and brought in, company by company, the happy captives whom they intercepted amongst the " highways and hedges." The great glory of this recent gospel is the sacred element which it has infused into an age which, but for it, would be wholly secular, and the sustaining element which it has inspired into a community which, but for its blessed hope, would be toil-worn and life-weary. No generation ever drudged so hard as this, and yet none has worked more cheerily. None was ever so tempted to churlish selfishness, and yet none has been more bountiful, and given such strength and wealth away. And none was ever more beset with facilities for \ice and folly, and yet none has more abounded in disin- terested characters and loving families full of loveliness. Other ages may surpass it in the lone grandeur and awful goodness of some pre-eminent name ; but in the diffusion of piety, in the simplicity and gladness of domestic religion, and in the many forms of intelligent and practical Christianity, it surpasses them all. With "God is Love" for the sunny legend in its open sky, and with Bible-texts efflorescing in every-day duties round its agile feet, this latter gospel has left along its path countless specimens of talents consecrated and industry evangelised. Nor till all missionaries like Henry Martyn and John Williams, and all sweet singers like Kirk White and Jane Taylor, and aU friends of humanity Kke Fowell Buxton and Elizabeth Fry, have passed away; nor till the Bible, Tract and Missionary Societies have done their work, will it be known how benign and heart- expanding was that gospel largess which a hundred years ago began to bless the land. Three evangelic eras have come, and two of them are gone. The first of these made its subjects Bible-readers, brave and free. The second made them Bible-smgers, fuU of its deep harmonies and high devotion, and from earthly toil and tumult hid in the pavilion of its stately song. The third made them Bible-doers, kind, liberal, and active, and social withal — t2 222 THE GREAT REVIVAL, AND ITS EVANGELISTS. mutually attPtactivc and mutually confiding — loving to ^York and worship together. The first found the English commoner little better than a serf; but it gave him a patent of nobility, and converted his cottage into a castle. The second period saw that castle exalted into a sanctuary, and heard it re-echo with worship rapt and high. And the third blended all the rest and added one thing more : in the cottage, castle, sanctu- ary, it planted a pious fiimily living for either world — diligent but tranquil, manly but devout, self-contained but not exclu- sive, retired but redundant with truest life; and in this crea- tion it jDroduced the most blessed tiling on earth — a happy Christian English Home. Never has century risen on Christian England so void of soul and faith as that which opened with Queen Anne, and which reached its misty noon beneath the second George — a dewless night succeeded by a sunless dawn. There was no freshness in the past, and no promise in the future. The memory of Baxter and Ussher possessed no spell, and calls to revival or reform fell dead on the echo. Confessions of sin, and national covenants, and all projects towards a public and visible acknowledgment of the Most High, were voted obsolete, and the golden dreams of Westminster worthies only lived in Hudibras. The Puritans were buried and the Methodists were not born. The philosopher of the age was Bolingbroke, the moralist was Steele, the minstrel was Po^dc, and the preacher was Atterbury. The world had the idle discontented look of the mornmg after some mad holiday; and, like rocket-sticks and the singed paper from last night's squibs, the spent jokes of Charles and Rochester lay all about, and people yawned to look at them. It was a listless, joyless morning, when the slip-shod citizens were cross, and even the merry- Andrew joined the incurious pubHc, and, forbearing his ineffectual pranks, sat down to wonder at the vacancy. The reign of buffoonery was past, but the reign of faith and earnestness had not commenced. A DISPENSATION DEPARTING. 223 During the first forty years of tliat century, the eye that seeks for spiritual life can hardly find it ; least of all that hopeful and diffusive life which is the harbinger of more. " It was taken for granted that Christianity was not so much as a sub- ject for inquiry, but was at length discovered to be fictitious. And men treated it as if this were an agreed point among all people of discernment." ''' Doubtless there were divines, like Beveridge and Watts and Doddridge, men of profound devo- tion, and desirous of doing good; but the little which they accomplished only shews how adverse was the time. And their appearance was no presage. They were not the Ararats of an emerging economy. The zone of piety grew no wider, and they saw no symptoms of a new world appearing. But, like the Coral Islands of the Southern Pacific, slowly descend- ing, they were the dwindling peaks of an older dispensation, and felt the water deepening round them. In their devout but sequestered walk, and in their faithful but mournful appeals to their congregations and country, they looked like the pensive mementoes of a glory departed, not the hopeful precursors of a glory to come. Eemembrance and regret are feeble reformers ; and the story of godly ancestors has seldom shamed into re- pentance their lax and irreverent sons. The power which startles or melts a people is zeal surcharged with faith in the great realities, and baptized with the fire of heaven — that fer- vour which, incandescent with hope and confidence, bursts in flame at the sight of a glorious future, and which, heaping "coals of fire" on the heads of opponents, at once consumes the obstacle, and augments its own transforming conflagration. Of this power the splendid example was WniTEFiELD.f The son of a Gloucester innkeeper, and sent to Pembroke College, his mind became so iDurdened with a sense of sin, that he had little heart for study. God and eternity, a holy law -'' Bishop Butler. f Born 1714. Died 1770. 224 THE GREAT REVIVAL, AND ITS EVANGELISTS. and liis own personal shortcoming, Ts^erc thonglits wliich hamited every moment, and compelled liim to live for the salvation of his soul; but, except his tutor Wesley and a few gownsmen, he met with none who shared his earnestness. And though earnest, they were all more or less in error. Among the influential minds of the University there was no one to lead them into the knowledge of the gospel, and they had no religious guides except the genius of the place and books of their own choosing. The genius of the place was an ascetic quietism. Its libraries full of clasped schoolmen and tall fathers, its cloisters so solemn that to congenial spirits a hearty laugh or hurried step seemed sinful, and its halls lit with medie- val sunshine, perpetually invited their inmates to meditation and silent recollection ; whilst the early tinkle of the chapel bell and the frosty routine of winter matins, the rubric and the founder's rules, proclaimed the religious benefits of bodily exercise. The Komish postern had not then been re-opened; but with no devotional models, save the marble Bernards and de Wykhams, and no spiritual illumination except what came in by the North windows of the past, it is not surprising that ardent but reverential spirits should in such a place have unwittingly groped into a Romish pietism. AVith an awakened conscience and a resolute will, young Whitefield went through the sanatory specifics of A-Kempis, Castanza, and AVilliam Law; and, in his anxiety to exceed all that is required by the rubric, he would fast during Lent on black bread and sugarless tea, and stand in the cold till his nose was red and liis fingers blue, whilst, in the hope of temptation and wild beasts, he would wander through Christ-Church meadows over dark. It was whilst pursuing this course of self-righteous fanaticism that he was seized with alarming illness. It sent him to his Bible, and, whilst praying and yearning over his Greek Testament, the " open secret" flashed upon his view. The discovery of a com- pleted and gratuitous salvation filled with ecstasy a spirit pre- WHITEFIELD. 225 pared to appreciate it, and from tlieir great deep breaking, his affections thenceforward flowed, impetuous and uninterrupted, in the one channel of love to that fSaviour who, on his behalf, had performed all things so excellently. The Bishop of Glou- cester ordained him, and on the day of his ordination he wrote to a friend, " Whether I myself shall ever have the honour of styling myself ' a prisoner of the Lord ' I know not ; but, in- deed, my dear friend, I can call heaven and earth to witness that, when the Bishop laid his hand upon me, I gave myself up to be a martyr for Him who hung upon the Cross for me. Known unto Him are all future events and contingencies. I have thrown myself blindfold, and, I trust, without reserve, into His Almighty hands ; only I would have you observe, that, till you hear of my dying for or in my work, you will not be apprised of all the preferment that is expected by George Whitefield." In this rapture of self-devotion he traversed England, Scotland, and Ireland, for four and thirty years, and crossed the Atlantic thirteen times, proclaiming the love of God and His unspeakable gift to man. A bright and exultmg view of the atonement's sufficiency was his theology; delight in God and rejoicing in Christ Jesus were his piety; and a compassionate solicitude for the souls of men, often rising to a fearful agony, was his ruling passion; and strong in the one- ness of his aim and the intensity of his feelings, he soon burst the regidar bounds, and began to preach on commons and village greens, and even to the rabble at London fairs. He was the prince of English preachers. Many have surpassed him as sermon-makers, but none have ajDproached him as a pulpit orator. .?»Iany have outshone him in the clearness of their logic, the grandeur of their conceptions, and the spark- ling beauty of single sentences ; but in the power of darting the gospel direct into the conscience he eclii^sed them all. AVith an open beaming countenance, and the frank and easy port which the English people love — for it is the symbol of honest 226 THE GREAT REVIVAL, AND ITS EVANGELISTS. purpose and friendly assur.ince— lie combined a voice of rich compass, -vvhicli could equally tlirill over Moorfields in musical thunder, or whisper its terrible secret in every individual ear ; and to this gainly aspect and tuneful voice he added a most expressive and eloquent action. Improved by conscientious practice, and instinct with his earnest nature, this elocution was the acted sermon, and by its pantomimic portrait enabled the eye to anticipate each rapid utterance, and helped the memory to treasure up the palpable ideas. None ever used so boldly, nor with more success, the highest styles of impersona- tion. His "Hark! hark!" could conjure up Gethsemane with its faltering moon, and awake again the cry of horror- stricken Innocence ; and an apostrophe to Peter on the holy Mount would light up another Tabor, and drown it in glory from the opening heaven. His thoughts were possessions, and His feelings were transformations ; and if He spake because He felt. His hearers understood because they saw. They were not only enthusiastic amateurs, like Garrick, who ran to weep and tremble at his bursts of passion, but even the colder critics of the Walpole school were surprised into momentary sympathy and reluctant wonder. Lord Chesterfield was listening in Lady Huntingdon's pew when Whitefield was comparing the benighted sinner to a blind beggar on a dangerous road. His little dog gets away from him when skirting the edge of a precipice, and he is left to explore the path with his iron-shod staff. ■ On the very verge of the cliff tliis blind guide slips through his fingers, and skims away down the abyss. All un- conscious, its owner stoops down to regain it, and, stumbling forward — " Good God ! he is gone !" shouted Chesterfield, who had been watching with breathless alarm the blind man's movements, and who jumped from his seat to save the cata- strophe. But the glory of Whitefield's preaching was its heart- kindled, heart-melting gospel. But for this all his bold strokes and brilliant surprises might have been no better than the THE SOLDIER OF THE CROSS. 227 rhetorical triiimplis of Kirwan and other pulpit dramatists. He was an orator, but he only sought to be an evangelist. Like a volcano where gold and gems may be darted forth as well as common tilings, but where gold and molten granite flow all alike in fieiy fusion, bright thoughts and splendid images might be projected from his flaming pulpit, but all were merged in the stream w^hich bore along the gospel and himself in blended fervour. Indeed, so simple was his nature, that glory to God and goodwill to man having filled it, there was room for little more. Having no church to found, no family to enrich, and no memory to immortalise, he was the mere ambassador of God; and, inspired with its genial piteous spirit — so full of Heaven Reconciled and Humanity Restored — ^he soon himself became a living gospel. Radiant with its benignity, and trembling with its tenderness, by a sort of spiritual induction a vast audience would speedily be brought into a frame of mind — the transfusion of his own; and the white furrows on their sooty faces told that Kingswood colliers were weeping, or the quivering of an ostrich plume bespoke the deep emotion in which its fashionable wearer bowed her head. And coming to his work direct from communion with his Master, and in all the strength of believing prayer, there was an elevation in his mien which often paralysed hostility, a self-possession which only made him, amid uproar and fury, the more sublime. With an electric bolt he would bring the jester in his fool's cap from his perch on the tree, or galvanise the brick-bat from the skulking miscreant's grasp, or sweep down in crouching submission and shame-faced silence the whole of Bartholomew Fair ; whilst a revealing flash of sen- tentious doctrine or vivified Scripture would disclose to awe- struck hundreds the forgotten verities of another world, or the unsuspected arcana of their inner man. " I came to break your head, but, through you, God has broken my heart," was a sort of confession with which he was familiar ; and to sec the 22S THE GREAT REVIVAL, AND ITS EVANGELISTS. deaf old gentlewoman, who used to mutter imprecations at him as he jDassed along the street, clambering up the pulpit-stairs to catch his angelic words, was a sort of spectacle which the triumphant gospel often witnessed in his day. And when it is known that his voice could be heard by twenty thousand, and that ranging all the empire, as well as America, he would often preach thrice on a working-day, and that he has received in one week as many as a thousand letters from persons awakened by his sermons ; if no estimate can be formed of the results of his ministry, some idea may be suggested of its vast extent and singular effectiveness. The folio whig codicil was added to AVhitefield's will : '' N.B. — I also leave a mourning ring to my honoured and dear friends, the Rev. John and Charles Wesley, in token of my in- dissoluble union with them, in heart and Christian affection, notwithstanding our difference in judgment about some parti- cular points of doctrine." The " points of doctrine " were chiefly the extent of the atonement and the perseverance of the saints ; the " indis- soluble union" was occasioned by their all-absorbing love to the same Saviour, and untiring efforts to make known His glory and His grace. They disagreed a little, but they loved a great deal more. Few characters could be more completely the con- verse, and, in the Church's exigencies, more ha^ipily the sup- plement of one another, than were those of George Whiteficld and John Wesley ;""' and had their views been identical, and their labours all along coincident, their large services to the gospel might have repeated Paul and Barnabas. AVhite- field was soul, and Wesley was system. Whitefield was a summer-cloud which burst at morning or noon in fragrant ex- hiharation over an ample tract, and took the rest of the day to gather again ; Wesley was the polished conduit in the midst * J3orn 1703. Died 1791. JOHN WESLEY. 220 of the garden, throiigli wliicli the living water glided in pearly brightness and perennial music, the same vivid stream from day to day. After a preaching paroxysm, Whitefield lay panthig on his couch, spent, breathless, and death-like ; after his morn- ing sermon in the Foundry, Wesley would mount his pony, and trot and chat and gather simples, till he reached some country hamlet, where he would bait Ms charger, and talk through a little sermon Vvitli the villagers, and remount his pony and trot away again. In his aerial poise, Whitefield's eagle eye drank lustre from the source of light, and loved to look down on men in assembled myriads ; Wesley's falcon glance did not sweep so far, but it searched more keenly and marked more minutely where it pierced. A master of assem- blies, Whitefield was no match for the isolated man ; — seldom coping with the multitude, but strong in astute sagacity and personal ascendancy, Wesley could conquer any number one by one. All force and impetus, Whitefield was the powder- blast in the Cjuarry, and by one explosive sermon would shake a district,, and detach materials for other men's long work ; deft, neat, and painstaldng, Wesley loved to split and trim each fragment into uniform plinths and polished stones. Or, taken otherwise, Whitefield was the bargeman or the waggoner who brought the timber of the house, and Wesley was the architect who set it up. Whitefield had no patience for eccle- siastical polity, no aptitude for pastoral details ; with a beaver- like propensity for building, Wesley was always constructing societies, and, with a king-like craft for ruling, was most at home when presiding over a class or a conference. It was their own infelicity that they did not always work together ; it was the happiness of the age and the furtherance of the gospel that they lived alongside of one another. Ten years older than his pupil, Wesley was a year or two later of attaining the joy and freedom of gospel-forgiveness. It was whilst listening to Luther's Preface to the Romans, where he describes the change VOL. IV. u 230 THE GREAT REVIVAL, AND ITS EVANGELISTS, v/hicli God works in the heart through faith in Christ, that he felt his own heart strangely warmed; and findhig that he trusted in Christ alone for salvation, " an assurance was given hun that Christ had taken away his sins, and saved him from the law of sin and death." And though in his subsequent piety a subtle analyst may detect a trace of that mysticism which was his first religion — even as to his second religion, jMoravianism, he was indebted for some details of his eventual church-order — no candid reader wHl deny that " righteous- ness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost," had now become the religion of the Methodists ; and for the half century of his ubiquitous career his piety retained this truly evangelic type. A cool observer, who met him towards the close, records, " so fine an old man I never saw. The happiness of his mind beamed forth in his countenance. Every look shewed how fully he enjoyed 'the gay remembrance of a life well spent;' and wherever he went, he diifused a portion of his own felicity. Easy and affable in his demeanour, he accommodated himself to every sort of company, and shewed how happily the most finished courtesy may be blended with the most perfect piety. In his conversation, we might be at a loss whether to admire most his fine classical taste, liis extensive knowledge of men and things, or his overflowing goodness of heart. While the grave and serious were charmed with his wisdom, his sportive sallies of innocent mirth delighted even the young and thought- less; and both saw, in his uninterrupted cheerfulness, the excel- lency of true Eeligion." * To a degree scarcely paralleled, his piety had supplanted those strong instincts — the love of worldly distinction, the love of money, and the love of ease. The answer which he gave to his brotlier, when refusing to vindicate himself from a newspaper calunmy, " Brother, when I devoted to God my ease, my time, my life, did I except my reputation?" was no casual sally, but the system of his con- * Alexander Knox. SILVER SPOONS. 231 duct. From the moment that the Fellow of Lincoln went out into the high-ways and hedges, and commenced itinerant preacher, he bade farewell to earthly fame. And perhaps no Englishman, since the days of Bernard Gilpin, has given so much away. When his income was thirty pounds aryear, he lived on twenty-eight, and saved two for charity. ISText year he had sixty pounds, and still living on twenty-eight, he had thirty-two to S2:>end. A fourth year raised his income to a hundred and twenty pounds, and, steadfast to his plan, the poor got ninety-two. In the year 1775, the Accountant- General sent him a copy of the Excise Order for a return of Plate; "Kev. Sir, — As the Commissioners cannot doubt but you have plate, for which you have hitherto neglected to m.ake an entry," &c. ; to which he wrote this memorable answer : — "Sir, — I have two silver tea-spoons at London, and two at Bristol. This is all the plate which I have at present; and I shall not buy any more while so many around me want bread. I am, Sir, your most humble servant, John Wesley." And though it is calculated that he must have given more than twenty thousand pounds away, aU liis property, when he died, consisted of his clothes, his books, and a carriage. Perhaps, like a ball burnished by motion, his perpetual activity helped to keep him thus brightly clear from worldly pelf; and when we remember its great pervading motive, there is something sublime in this good man's industry. Rising every morning at four, travelling every year upwards of 4000 miles, and in that space preaching nearly a thousand sermons, exhorting societies, editing books, writing all sorts of letters, and giving audience to all sorts of people, the ostensible president of Methodism and pastor of aU the Methodists, and amidst his ceaseless toils betraying no more bustle than a planet in its course, he was a noble specimen of that fervent diligence which, launched on its orbit by a holy and joyful impulse, has ever afterwards the peace of God to light it on its way. Nor 232 THE GREAT REVIVAL, AND ITS EVANGELISTS. slioulcl wc forget his praiseworthy efforts to diffiTse a Christian- ised i^hilosophy, and propagate useful knowledge among reli- gious people. In the progress of research, most of his com- pilations may have lost their value; but the motive was enlightened, and the eJffort to exemplify his own idea was characteristic of the well-informed and energetic man. In Christian authorship he is not entitled to rank high. Clear as occasional expositions are/ there is seldom comprehension in his views, or grandeur in his thoughts, or inspiration in his practical appeals; and though his direct and simple style is sometimes terse, it is often meagre, and very seldom racy. His voluminous Journals are little better than a turnpike log — miles, towns, and sermon texts — whilst their authoritative tone and self-centering details give the record an air of arro- gance and egotism Vv^hich, we doubt not, would disappear could w^e view the venerable "UTitcr face to face. Assuredly his power was in his presence. Such fascination resided in his saintly mien, there was such intuition in the twinkle of his mild but lirilliant eye, and such a dissolving influence in his lively, benevolent, and instructive talk, that enemies often left him admii-ers and devotees. And should any regard the Wesleyan system as the mere embodiment of Mr Wesley's mind, it is a singidar triumph of worth and firmness. Never has a theological idiosyncracy perpetuated itself into a Church so large and stable. But though every pin and cord of the Methodist tabernacle bears trace of the fingers, concinnate and active, which reared it, the founder's most remarkable memo- rial is his living monument. Wesley has not passed away; for, if embalmed in the Connexion, he is re-embodied in the members. Never did a leader so stamp his impress on his followers. The Covenanters were not such fac-similes of Knox ; nor were the imperial guards such enthusiastic copies of their little corporal, as are tlie modern ]\Icthodists the per- fect transmigration of their venerated Father. Exact, orderly JAMES HERVEY. 233 and active; apart from the Establishment, but not dissenters; connexional but Catholic; intimately bound up in one another, but nobly courteous toward all their Christian neighbours; obliging without effort, and liberal on system ; serene, contented, hopeful — if we except the master-spirits, whose type is usually their own — the most of pious Methodists are cast from Wesley's neat and cheerful mould. That goodness must have been attractive as well as very imitable, which has reproduced itself in so many myriads of living effigies. Whilst a college tutor, Mr Wesley numbered among his pupils, along with George Whitefield, James Hervey.* To his kind and intelligent teacher he owed superior scholarship, and along with a knowledge of Hebrew, a taste for natural science ; but at Oxford he did not learn theology. Pure in his conduct and correct in his clerical deportment, his piety was cold and stiff. It had been acquired among the painted apostles and sculptured martyrs of Alma Mater, and lacked a quickening spirit. Talking to a ploughman who attended Dr Doddridge, he asked, " What do you think is the hardest thing in re- ligion ?" " Sir," said the ploughman, " I am a poor man, and you are a minister; will you allow me to return the ques- tion ?" " Well," said Mr Hervey, " I think the hardest thing is to deny sinful self;" and enlarged at some length on the dif- ficulties of self-mortification. At last the ploughman inter- posed — " But, Mr Hervey, you have forgotten the most diffi- cult part of self-denial, the denial of righteous self" Though conscious of some defect in his own religion, the young clergy- man looked with disdain at the old fool, and wondered what he meant. Soon afterwards, however, a little book, on " Sub- mission to the Eighteousness of God," put meaning into the ploughman's words ; and Mr Hervey wondered how he could have read the Bible so often, and overlooked its revelation of * Born 1714. Died 1758. u2 234 THE GREAT REVIVAL, AND ITS EVANGELISTS. rigliteousness. When he saw it he rejoiced with exceeding joy. It solved every problem, and filled every void. It lit up the Bible, and it enkindled his personal Christianity. It gave emancipation to his spirit, and motive to his ministry ; and whilst it filled his own soul with happiness it made him eaiier to transmit the benefit. But his frame was feeble. It was all that he could do to get through one sermon every Sab- bath in his little church of Weston-Favell ; and the more his spirit glowed within, the more shadowy grew his tall and wasted form. He could not, like his old tutor and his college friend, itinerate ; and so he was constrained to write. In In- dian phrase, he pressed his soul on paper. With a pen dipped in the rainbow, and with aspirations after a celestial vocabu- lary, he proceeded to descant on the glories of his Bedeemer's person, and the riches of His great salvation. He published his ^Meditations, and then the Dialogues between Theron and Aspasio ; and then he grew too weak even for this fire-side work. Still the spirit burned, and the body sank. " You have only a few minutes to live," said the doctor ; " spare yourself." " No, doctor, no ; you tell me that I have but a few minutes — let me spend them in adoring our great Be- deemer." And then he began to expatiate on the exhaustless theme, till, with the words "precious salvation" on his lips, utterance ceased. He leaned his head against the side of the easy-chair, and shut his eyes, and died, on the Christmas afternoon. Last century was the first in which pious people cared much for literary style, and Hervey was almost the first evangelical writer who studied the graces of composition. It is not there- fore surprising that his ornaments should be more distinguished for profusion and brilliant hues than for simplicity and ele- gance. ]\Iost people admire peonies and martagon-lilies be- fore they learn to love grasses, and mosses, and ferns. We used to admire them ourselves, and felt that summer was STYLE OF " THE MEDITATIONS." 235 not fully blown till we saw it sure and certain in these ample and exuberant flowers. Yes, and even now we feel that it would make a warmer June could we love peonies and marta- gons as we loved them in days of yore. Hervey was a man of taste equal to liis age, and of a warmth and venturesomeness beyond it. He introduced the poetical and picturesque into religious literature, and became the Shenstone of theology. And although he did what none had dared before him, the world was ready, and his success was rapid. The Meditations evangelised the natural sciences, and the Dialogues embowered the old divinity. The former was philosophy in its right mind, and at the Saviour's feet ; the other was the Lutheran dogma, relieved from the academic go^vn, and keeping health- ful holiday in shady woods and by the mountain stream. The tendency of his writings was to open the believer's eye in kindness and w^onder on the works of God, and their effort was to attract to the Incarnate Mystery the heart surprised or soft- ened by these works. We cannot, at the distance of a centuiy, recall the fascination which surrounded them when newly pub- lished, when no similar attempts had forestalled their fresh- ness, and no imitations had blown their vigour into bombast. But we can trace their mellow influence still. We see that they have helped to make men of faith men of feeling, and men of piety men of taste. Over the bald and rugged places of systematic orthodoxy, they have trained the sweetest beau- ties of creation and the softest graces of piety, and over its entire landscape have shed an illumination as genial as it is growthful and clear. If they be not purely classical, they are perfectly evangelical and singularly adapted to the whole of man. Their cadence is in our popular preaching still, and may their spirit never quit our Christianity! It is the spirit of securest faith, and sunniest hope, and most seraphic love. And though it may be dangerous for young divines, like Samuel Parr, to copy their descriptive melody, it were a 236 THE GREAT REVIVAL, AND ITS EVANGELISTS. blessed ambition to emulate their author's large and light- some piety — his heart " open to the whole noon of nature," and through all its brightness drinking the smile of a present God. In the middle of last century evangelical religion derived its great impulse from the three now named. But though there were none to rival WhitefielcVs flaming eloquence, or Wesley's versatile ubiquity, or the popularity of Hervey's gorgeous pen, there were many among their contemporaries who, as one by one they learned the truth, in their own department or district did their utmost to diffuse it. In Cornwall, there was Walker of Truro; in Devon, Augustus Toplady; in Shropshire, was Fletcher of Madeley; in Bedfordshire, there was Berridge of Everton ; in Lincolnshire, Adams of Wintringham ; in York- shire, were Grimshaw of Haworth, and Venn of Huddersfield ; and in London was William Eomaine — besides a goodly number who, with less renown, were earnest and wise enough to win many souls. In the summer of 174G, Samuel Walker* came to be curate of the gay little capital of Western Cornwall. He was clever and accomplished — had learned from books the leading doctrines of Christianity, and, whilst mainly anxious to be a popular preacher, and a favourite with his fashionable hearers, had a distinct desire to do them good — but did them none. The master of the grammar school was a man of splendid scholarship, and the most famous teacher in that county, but much hated for his piety. One day IMr Walker received from Mr Conon a note, with a sum of money, rcquestuig him to pay it to the Custom-house. For his health he had been advised to drink some French wine, but on that smuggling coast could procure none on which duty had been paid. Wondering whether this tenderness of conscience pervaded all his charac- * Born 1714. Died 1761. SUCCESS AMONG SOLDIERS. 237 ter, Mr Walker sought Mr Conon's acquaintance, and was soon as completely enchained by the sweetness of his disposi- tion, and the fascination of his intercouse, as he was awed and astonished by the purity and elevation of his conduct. It was from the good treasure of this good man's heart that :\Ir Walker received the gospel. Having learned it, he proclaimed it. Truro was in uproar. To hear of their absolute depra- vity, and to have urged on them repentance and the need of a new nature by one who had so lately mingled in all their gaieties, and been the soul of genteel amusement, was first startling, and then offensive. The squire was indignant; fine ladies sulked and tossed their heads; rude men interrupted him in the midst of his sermon; and the rector, repeatedly called to dismiss him, was only baftled by liv Walker's urbanity. But soon faitliful preacliing began to tell; and in ]\Ir Walker's case its intrinsic power was aided by his insight into character, and his mastery over men. In a few years upwards of eight hundred parishioners had called on him to ask what they must do for their soul's salvation; and his time was mainly occupied in instructing large classes of his hearers who wished to live godly, righteous, and sober in this evil world. The first fruits of his ministry was a dissolute youth who had been a soldier, and amongst this description of people he had his greatest success. One November, a body of troops arrived in his parish for winter quarters. He immediately commenced an afternoon sermon for their special benefit. He found them grossly ignorant. Of the seven best instructed six were Scotchmen, and the seventh an English dissenter. And they were reluctant to come to hear him. At first, when marched to church, on arriving at the door, they turned and walked away. But when at last they came under the sound of his tender but energetic exhortations, the effect was instan- taneous. With few exceptions tears burst from every eye, and confessions of sin from almost every mouth. In less than nine 238 THE GREAT REVIVAL, AND ITS EVANGELISTS. weeks no fewer tlian two hundred and fifty had souglit his private instructions; and though at first the officers were alarmed at such an outbreak of Methodism among their men, so evident was the improvement which took place — so rare had l^unishments become, and so promptly were commands obeyed — that the officers waited on Mr Walker in a body, to thank him for the reformation he had effected in their ranks. On the morning of their march many of these brave fellows were heard praising God for having brought them under the sound of the gospel, and as they caught the last glimpses of the town, exclaimed, " God bless Truro !" Indeed, Mr Walker had much of the military in his own composition. The disen- cumbered alertness of his life, the courage, frankness, and through-going of liis character, the firmness with which he held his post, the practical valour vnth which he followed up his preacliing, and the regimental order into which he had organised his people, betokened the captain in canonicals; as the hardness of his services, and his exulting loyalty to his Master, proclaimed the good soldier of Jesus Christ. In the adjacent county of Devon, and in one of its seques- tered parishes, ^vith a few cottages sprinkled over it, mused and sang Augustus Toplady.* When a lad of sixteen, and on a visit to Ireland, he had strolled into a barn where an ilhtc- rate layman was preaching, but preaching reconciliation to God through the death of His Son. The homely sermon took effect, and from that moment the gospel wielded all the powers of his brilliant and active mind. He was very learned. Universal history spread before his eye a familiar and delight- ful field; and at thirty-eight he died, more widely-read in Fathers and Reformers than most academic dignitaries can boast when their heads are hoary. He was learned because he was active. Like a race-horse, all nerve and fire, his life * Born 1740. Died 1778. TOPLADY. 239 was on tip-toe, and liis delight was to get over tlie grx3und. He read fast, slept little, and often wrote like a whirlwind ; and though the body was weak it did not obstruct him, for in his ecstatic exertions he seemed to leave it behind. His chief publications were controversy. Independently of his theologi- cal convictions, his philosophising genius, his up-going fancy, and his devout, dependent piety, were a multiform Calvinism; and by a necessity of nature, if religious at all, the religion of Toplady must have been one where the eye of God filled all, and the will of God wrought all. The doctrines which were to himself so plain, he was perhaps on this account less fitted to discuss with men of another make ; and betwixt the strength of his own belief, and the sjjurning haste of his over-ardent spirit, he gave his works a frequent air of scornful arrogance and keen contemptuousness. Perhaps, even with theologians of his own persuasion, his credit has been injured by the warmth of his invective ; but on the same side it will not be easy to find treatises more acute or erudite — and both friends and foes must remember, that to the writer his opinions were self-evident, and that in his devoutest moments he believed God's glory was involved in them. It was the polemic press which extorted this human bitterness from his spirit ; in the pulpit's milder urgency nothing flowed but balm. His voice was music, and devotion and sanctity seemed to emanate from his ethereal countenance and light unmortal form. His vi- vacity would have caught the listener's eye, and his soul-filled looks and movements would have interpreted his language, had there not been such commanding solemnity in his tones as made apathy impossible, and such simplicity in his words that to hear was to understand. From easy explanations he advanced to rapid and conclusive arguments, and warmed into importunate exhortations, till consciences began to burn and feelings to take fire from his own Idndled spirit, and himself and his hearers were together drowned in sympathetic tears. 240 THE GREAT REVIVAL, AND ITS EVANGELISTS. And for all the saving power of Iiis preaching relying on the Holy Spirit's inward energy, it was remarkable how much was accomplished both at Broad Hembiiry, and afterwards in Orange Street, London. He was not only a polemic and a preacher, but a poet. He has left a few hymns w^hich the Church militant will not readily forget. " When languor and disease invade," " A debtor to mercy alone," " Rock of ages, .cleft for me," "Deathless principle, arise:" these four com- bine tenderness and grandeur with theological fulness equal to any kindred compositions in modern language. It would seem as if the finished work were embalmed, and as if the lively hope were exulting in every stanza ; w^hilst each person of the glorious Godhead radiates majesty, grace, and holiness through each successive line. However, to amass knowledge so fast, and give out so rapidly not only thought and learning, but warm emotion, was wasteful work. It was like bleeding the palm-tree ; there flowed a generous sap Vv'hich cheered the heart of aU who tasted, but it killed the palm. Consumption struck him, and he died. But during that last illness, he seemed like one reclining in the very vestibule of glory. To a friend's inquiry, with sparkling eye he answered, " Oh, my dear sir, I cannot tell you the comforts I feel in my soul : they are past expression. The consolations of God are so abundant that He leaves me nothing to pray for. My prayers are all converted into praise. I enjoy a heaven already in my soul." And within an hour of dying he called his friends, and asked if they could give him up ; and when they said they could, tears of joy ran down his cheeks as he added, " Oh, what a blessing that you are made willing to give hie over into the hands of my dear Redeemer, and part with me ; for no mortal can live after the glories wliicli God has manifested to my soul." At Everton in Bedfordshire, not fiir from the spot where John Banyan had been a preacher and a prisoner, lived and laboured JOHN EEEPJDGE. 241 a nican not unlike him, tlie most amusing and most affecting- original of all this school— John Berridge/' For long a dis- tinguished member of Clare Hall, Cambridge, and for many years studying fifteen hours a-day, he had enriched his mascu- line understanding with all sorts of learning; and when at last he became a parish minister, he applied to his labours all the resources of a mind eminently practical, and all the vigour of a very honest one. But his success was small — so small that he began to suspect his mode was wrong. After prayer for light it was one day borne in upon his mind, " Cease from thine own works; only believe;" and consulting his Concor- dance, he was surprised to see how many columns were re- quired for the words faith and helieve. Through this quaint inlet he found his way into the knowledge of the gospel and the consequent love of the Saviour; and though hampered with academic standing, and past the prime of life, he did not hesitate a moment to reverse his former preaching, and the efficacy of the Cross was soon seen in his altered parish. His mind was singular. So predominant was its Saxon alkali, that poetry, sentiment, and classical allusion, whatever else came into it, was sure to be neutralised into a salt of common sense — pathetic, humorous, or practical as the case might be; and so strong was his fancy that every idea in re-appearing sparkled into a metaphor or emblem. He thought in proverbs, and he spoke in parables; that granulated salt which is so popular with the English peasantry. And though his wit ran riot in his letters and his talk, when solemnised by the sight of the great congregation and the recollection of their exigen- cies, it disappeared. It might still be the polished point on the sharp arrows : but it was then too swift and subtile to be seen. The pith of piety— what keeps it living and makes it strong— is love to the Saviour. In this he always abounded. "My poor feeble heart droops when I think, write, or talk of * Born 1716. Died 1793. V^OL. IV, X 242 THE GREAT EEVIVAL, AND ITS EVANGELISTS. anything but Jesus. Oh that I could get near Him, and live believingly on Him ! I would walk, and talk, and sit, and eat, and rest with Him. I would have my heart always doating on Him, and find itself ever present with Him." And it was this absorbing affection which in preaching enhanced all his powers, and subdued all his hazardous proj^ensities. When eight or ten thousand people w^ere gathered on a sloping field, he would mount the pulpit after Venn or Grimshaw had vacated it. A twinkle of friendly recognition darted from some eyes, and a smile of comic welcome was exchanged by others. Per- haps a merry thought was suspected in the corner of his lips, or seen salient on the very point of liis peaked and curious nose. And he gave it wing. The light-hearted laughed, and those who knew no better hoped for fun. A devout stranger might have trembled and feared that it w^as going off in a pious farce. But no fear of Father Berridge. He knows where he is, and how he means to end. That pleasantry was intended for a nail, and see, in the hand of this master of assemblies, it has fixed and riveted every ear. And now he proceeds in homely colloquy, till the bluntest boor is delighted at his own capacity, and is prepared to agree with what he says who makes so little parade and mystery. But was not that rather a home-thrust 1 "Yes, but it is fact: and sure enough the man is frank and honest;" and so the blow is borne with the best smile that can be twisted out of agony. " Nay, nay, he is getting personal, and without some purpose the bolts would not fiy so true." And just when the hearer's suspicion is rising, and he is about to retreat into his fastness, an arrow, barbed and burning, has transfixed his soul, and his conscience is all on fire. And from the quiver gleaming to the cord these shafts of living Scripture fly so fast that in a few minutes it is all a field of slain. Such were the powerful impact and pierc- ing sharpness of this great preacher's sentences — so suited to England's rustic auditories, and so divinely directed in their " THE CHRISTIAN AVOELD UNMASKED." 243 flight, that eloquence has seldom won such triumphs as the gospel won with the bow of old eccentric Benidge. Strong- men in the surprise of sudden self-discovery, or in the joy of marvellous deliverance, would sink to the earth powerless or convidsed; and in one year of "campaigning," it is calculated that four thousand were awakened to the worth of their souls and a sense of sin. He published a book, " The Christian World Unmasked," in which something of his close dealing and a good deal of his drollery survive. The idea of it is, a spiritual physician prescribing for a sinner ignorant of his own malady. " Gentle reader, lend me a chair, and I will sit doAvn and talk a little with you. Give me leave to feel your pulse. Sick, indeed, sir, very sick of a mortal disease, which infects your whole mass of blood." After a good deal of altercation, the patient consents to go into the matter, and submits to a survey of his life and character. " Let me step into your closet, sir, and peep upon its furni- ture. My hands are pretty honest, you may trust me; and nothing will be found, I fear, to tempt a man to be a thief Well, to be sure, what a filthy place is here ! Never swept for certain, since you were christened ! And what a fat idol stands skulking in the comer ! A darling sin, I warrant it ! How it simpers, and seems as pleasant as a right eye ! Can you find a ^vill to part with it, or strength to pluck it out ? And sup- posing you a match for this self-denial, can you so command your heart, as to hate the sin you do forsake ? This is cer- tainly required : truth is called for in the inward parts : God will have sin not only cast aside, but cast aside with abhor- rence. So he speaks. Ye that love the Lord, see that you hate cvH." Llany readers might think our physician not only racy but rough. They must remember that his practice lay among far- mers, and graziers, and ploughmen; and if they dislike liis bluntncss, they must remember his success. 214 THE GREAT REVIVAL, AND ITS EVANGELISTS. Of tlie venerable Thomas Adams '"'' little is recorded, except that he commenced his religious life a disciple of William Law, and was translated into the marvellous light of the gospel by reading the first six chapters of the Epistle to the Romans in Greek. He was exceedingly revered by his like-minded con- temporaries; and some idea of his preaching may be formed from his printed discourses. They are essentially sermons on the heart, and are remarkable for their aphoristic force and faithful pungency. But his most interesting memorial is a posthumous volume of "Private Thoughts on Eeligion." These "Thoughts" are detached but classified sentences on "God" and "Christ," on " Human Depravity," "Faith," " Good Works," " The Christian Life," and kindred subjects, and though neither so brilliant nor so broad as the " Thoughts of Pascal," they are more experimental and no less made for memory. " The Spirit's coming into the heart is the touch of Ithuriel's spear, and it starts up a devil." " Christ is God, stooping to the senses, and spealdng to the heart of man." "Christ comes with a blessing in each hand; forgiveness in one, and holiness in the other, and never gives either to any who will not take both." " Mankind are perpetually at vari- ance by being all of one sect, viz., selfists." " A poor country parson fighting against the devil in his parish, has nobler ideas than Alexander had," " Not to sin may be a bitter cross. To sin is hell." " ' Wilt thou be made whole ? ' is a trying- question, when it comes to be well considered." Those who love laconic wisdom will find abundant specimens in this pithy manual. But it is not all pemican. Besides the essence of food it contains extracts from bitter herbs; and some who might relish its portable dainties will not like its wholesome austerity. In some respects the most apostolic of this band was Wil- * Born 1701. Died 1784. GRIMSHAW. 245 LiAM Grimshaav.* Like many in his day, he struggled through years of doubt and perplexity into that region of light and assurance where he spent the sequel of his fervent minis- try. His parish, and the radiating centre of his ceaseless itinerances, was Haworth, near Bradford, in Yorkshire — a bleak region, with a people as wild and almost as ignorant as the gorse on their hungry hills, f From the time that the love of Christ took possession of his soul, Mr Grimshaw gave to His service all the energies of his ardent mind and powerfid frame. His health was firm, his spirit resolute, his understanding -vdgorous and practical, and having but one object, he continu- ally pursued it, alike a stranger to fatigue and fear. With a slice of bread and an onion for liis day's provision, he would trudge over the moors from dawn to summer-dusk in search of sheep in the wilderness, and after a night's rest in a hay- loft would resume the work. In one of his weekly circuits he would think it no hardship to preach from twenty to thirty times. When he overtook a stranger on the solitary road, if riding, he would dismount and talk to him, and rivet his kind and pathetic exhortation with a word of prayer; and into whatsoever company thrown, with all the simplicity of a single eye and the mild intrepidity of a good intention, he addressed himself to his Master's business. It was he who silenced the infidel nobleman with the frank rejoinder, " the fault is not so much in your Lordship's head as in your heart;" and many of his emphatic words haunted people's cars till they sought relief by coming to himself and confessing all their case. When his career began, so sottish were his people, that it was hardly possible to draw them out to worship, but Mr Grim- shaw's boldness and decision dragged them in. Whilst the psalm before sermon was smging, he would sally forth into ♦ Born 1708. Died 1763, + Many of our readers -will recall the vivid description of tliis region in Mrs Gaskell's "Life of Charlotte Bronte." x2 216 THE GREAT REVIVAL, AND ITS EVANGELISTS. the street and the ale-houses to look out for loiterers, and would chase them into the church; and one Sabbath morning a stranger riding through Haworth, and seeing some men bolting out at the back-windows and scrambling over the garden-wall of a tavern, imagined that the house was on fire, till the cry, " The Parson is coming," explained the panic. By dint of pains and courage, he conquered this heathenish parish ; and such was the power which attended his preaching, that, in later life, instead of hunting through the streets for his hearers, when he opened his church for a short service at five in the summer mornings, it would be filled with shopmen and working people ready to commence their daily toil. And so strong was the attraction to his earnest sermons, that besides constant hearers who came from ten or twelve miles all around, the parsonage w^as often filled with Christian worthies who came on Saturday nights from distant towns. And when they crowded him out of his house into his barn, and out of the church into the church-yard, he was all in his glory, and got up on Monday morning early to brush the shoes of the far- come travellers. He was a gallant evangelist of the Baptist's school. Like the son of the desert, he was a man of a hardy build, and like him of an humble spirit, and lilvc John, his joy was fulfilled when his Master increased. At last, in the midst of his brave and abundant exploits, a putrid fever, which, like Howard, he caught when engaged in a labour of love, came to summon him home. And when he was dead his parishioners came, and — fit funeral for a Christian hero — bore him away to the tomb amidst the voice of psalms. But perhaps among all these holy men, the completest and most gracious character was Henry Venn* of Huddersfield. Certamly we have learned to contemplate him with that patri- * Born 1724. Died 1797. HENRY VENN. 247 archal halo wliicli surrounded and sanctified his peaceful old age — and we have listened to him only in his affectionate and fatherly correspondence ; but, so far as we can gather, his piety was of that winsome type, which, if it be not easy to record, it were blessed to resemble. Simeon of Cambridge loved him dearly, and tried to write his life ; but in the attempt to put it uiDon paper it all appeared to vanish. This fact is a good bio- graphy. No man can paint the summer. Venn's was a genial piety, full of fragrant warmth and ripening wisdom, but it was free from singularity. And his preaching was just this piety in the pulpit — thoughtful, benignant, and simple, the love of God that was shed abroad in his heart often appearing to shine from his person. But there were no dazzling passages, no start- ling nor amusing sallies. A rugged mountain, a copsy glen, a riven cedar, will make a landscape, but it is not easy to make a picture of a field of wheat. Mr Venn had a rich and spon- taneous mind, and from its affluent soil the crop came easily away, and ripened uniformly, and except that it yielded the bread of thousands, there is little more to tell. The popularity and power of his ministry are still among the traditions of the West Riding — how the Socinian Club sent its cleverest mem- ber to caricature the i3reacher, but amidst the reverential throng, and under the solemn sermon, awed into the feeling, " Surely God is in this place," he remained to confess his error and to recant liis creed — how the " droves" of people came from the adjacent villages, and how neighbours would go home for miles together so subdued that they could not speak a word. He published one book, " The Complete Duty of Man." It is excellent ; but like Wilberforce's " View," and other treatises of that period, it has fulfilled its function — the world needs something fresh, somethuig older or something newer, some- thing which our immediate predecessors have not common- placed. Still, it is an excellent treatise, a clear and engaging summary of practical divinity, and it did much good when new. 248 THE GREAT REVIVAL, AND ITS EVANGELISTS. Some instances came to Venn's own knowledge. Soon after its publication lie was sitting at the \\indow of an inn in the west of England. A man was driving some refractory pigs, and one of the waiters helped him, whilst the rest looked on and shouted with laughter. Mr Venn, pleased with this bene- volent trait, promised to send him a book, and sent him his own. Many years after, a gentleman staying at an inn in the same part of England, on Saturday night asked one of the ser- vants if they ever went to a place of worship on Sunday. He was surprised to find that they were all required to go at least once a-daj^, and that the master of the house not only never failed to attend, but maintained constant family prayer. It turned out that he was the waiter who had helped the pig-driver — that he had married his former master's daughter, and that he, his wife, and some of their children, owed all their happiness to the " Complete Duty of Man." The gentleman told the landlord that he knew Mr Venn, and soon intended to \dsit him, and in the joy of his heart the host charged him with a letter de- tailing all liis happy history. Once at Helvoetsluys, when waiting for a fair mnd to carry him to England, he accosted on the shore a gentleman whom he took for an Englishman he was a Swede, but having lived long in England, knew the langTiage well. He turned out to be a pious man, and asked Mr Venn to sup with him. After much interesting conversa- tion he opened his portmanteau, and brought out the book tc which he said that he owed all his religious impressions. Mr Venn recognised his own book, anel it neeeled all his humilit}; not to betray the author. William Romaine* began his course as Gresham Professoi of Astronomy, anel eelitor of the four folios of Calasio's Hebrew Concorelance. But after he caught the evangelic fire he burned and shone for nearly fifty years — so far as the Establishment is * Born 1714. Died 1795. ROMAINE. 2 id concerned — tlio liglit of London, It needed all his strength of character to hold his ground and conquer opposition. He was appointed Assistant iMorning Lecturer at St George's, Hanover Square ; but his fervent preaching brought a mob of people to that fashionable place of worship, and on the charge of having vulgarised the congregation and overcrowded the church, the rector removed him. He was popularly elected to the Evening Lectureship of St Dunstan's ; but the rector there took posses- sion of the pulpit in the time of prayer, so as to exclude the fanatic. Lord Mansfield decided that after seven in the evening Mr Ptomaine was entitled to the use of the church ; so, till the clock struck seven, the church-wardens kept the doors firm shut, and by drenching them in rain and freezing them in frost, hoped to weary out the crowd. Failing in this, they refused to light the church, and Mr Romaine often preached to his vast audi- tory, with no light except the solitary candle which he held in his hand. But, "like another Codes, he was resolved to keep the pass, and if the bridge fell to leap into the Tiber." Though for years his stipend was only .£18, he wore home-spun cloth, and lived so plainly, that they could not starve him out. And though they repeatedly dragged him to the courts of law, they could not force him out. And though they sought occasion against him in regard to the canons, they could not get the bishop to turn him out. He held his post till, with much ado, lie gained the pulpit of Blackfriars, and preached with un- quenched fire till past four-score, the Life, the AValk, the Triumph of Faith. For a great while he was one of the sights of London, and people who came from Ireland and elsewhere to see Garrick act, went to hear Romaine discourse ; and many blessed the day which first drew their thoughtless steps to St Dunstan's or St Ann's. And in his more tranquil evening there was a cluster of pious citizens about Ludgate Hill and St Paul's Churchyard who exceedingly revered the abrupt old man. Of all the churches in the capital, as in the days of 250 THE GREA.T REVIVAL, AND ITS EVANGELISTS. Gouge, a liuiidred years before,* his was the one towards which most home-feeling flowed. It shed a Sabbatic air through its environs, and the dingy Lines around it seemed to brighten in its religion of life and hojDe. Full of sober hearers and joyful worshippers, it was a source of substantial service to the neigh- bourhood in times of need; and whilst the warm focus to which provincial piety and travelled worth most readily re- paired, it was the spot endeared to many a thankful memory as the Peniel where first they beheld that great sight, Christ CRUCIFIED. Beside the London Mansion House there is a church with two truncated square towers — to all appearance the stumps of amputated steeples — suggesting St Mary Woolnoth, and St Mary Wool-Church-Haw. Could the reader have ^dsited it sixty odd years ago, he would have seen in the heavy pulpit a somewhat heavy old man. With little warmth he muttered through a pious sermon — texts and trite remarks — till now and then some bright fancy or earnest feelmg made a momentary animation overrun his seamy counte- nance, and rush out at his kind and beaming eyes. From Lombard Street bankers and powdered merchants lolling se- renely at the end of various pews, it was evident that he was not deemed a Methodist. From the gaunt north-country visage which peered at him through catechetic spectacles, and waited for something wonderful which would not come, it was likely that he was a Calvinist, and that his fame had crossed the Tweed. And from the fond up-looking affection with which many of his hearers eyed him, you would have inferred that himself must be more interesting than his sermon. Go next Friday evening to No. 8, Coleman Street Buildings, and there, in a dusky parlour, with some twenty people at tea, will you meet again the preacher. He has dofled the cassock, and * See " Christiftn Classics," vol. i., p. 331. 'tis sixty years ago. 251 in ca sailor's blue jacket, on a tliree-leggecl stool, sits, like the successor of St Peter, in solitary state, at a little table of his own. The tea is done, and the pipe is smoked, and the " tea- things" give place to the Bible. The host inquires if any one has got a question to ask ; for these re-unions are meetings for edification as well as for friendship. And two or three have come with their questions cut and dry. A retired old lady asks, " How far a Christian may lawfully conform to the world?" And the old sailor says many good things to guide her scrupulous conscience, although it may be rather surmised that the question was asked for the sake of the young gentle- man with the velvet coat andfrilled wrist-bands next the door. " When a Christian goes into the world because he sees it is his call, yet while he feels it also his cross, it will not hurt him." Then guiding his discourse towards some of his city friends — " A Christian in the world is like a man transacting business in the rain ; he will not suddenly leave his client be- cause it rains ; but the moment the business is done he is gone ; as it is said in the Acts, ' Being let go, they went to their own company.' " This brings up Hannah More and her book on the "Manners of the Great;" and the minister ex- presses his high opinion of Miss More. Some of the party do not know who she is, and he tells them that she is a gifted lady, who used to be the intimate friend of Johnson, Horace Walpole, and Sir Joshua Reynolds, the idol of the West-end grandees, and the writer of plays for Drury Lane, but who has lately come out with some faithful appeals to her aristocratic acquaintances on the subject of heart-religion, and which are making a great sensation. " Aweel," says an elder from Swal- low Street, " Miss Moore is very tawlented, and I hope has got the root of the matter ; but I misdoubt if there be not a laygal twang in her still." And the minister smiles quaintly, and in partial assent to the criticism, but repeats his admira- tion and his hope for the accomplished authoress. And 252 THE GREAT REVIVAL, AND ITS EVANGELISTS. then he opens his Bible, clnd after singing one of the Ohiey hyinns, reads the eighteenth chapter of the Acts, ''You sec that Apollos met with two candid people in the Church ; they neither ran away because he was le^cd, nor were carried away because he was eloquent." And after a short but fervent prayer, catholic, comprehensive, and experimental, and turning into devotion the substance of their colloquy, it is as late as nine o'clock, and the little joarty begins to separate. Some are evidently constant visitors. The taciturn gentleman who never spoke a Avord, but who, at every significant sentence, smacked his lips, as if he were clasping a casket over a gem, and meant to keep it, occupied a prescriptive chair, and so did the invalid lady who has ordered her sedan to Bedford Row. In leave-taking, the host has a kind word for every one, and, recognising a north country pilgrim, he says, " I was a wild beast on the coast of Africa; but the Lord caught me and tamed me, and now you come to see me as people go to look at the lions in the Tower." Never was lion so entirely tamed as John Newton.* Commencing life as a desperado and dread-nought, and scaring his companions by his peerless profanity and heaven-daring wickedness, and then by his re- markable recovery signalising the riches of God's grace, you might have expected a Boanerges to come out of the converted buccaneer. But never was transformation more complete. Ex- cept the blue jacket at the fireside, and a few sea-faring habits — except the lion's hide, nothing survived of the African lion. The Puritans w^ould have said that the lion was slain, and that honey was found in its carcass. Affable, and easy of access, his house was the resort of those who sought a skilful spiritual counsellor, and knowing it to be the form of service for which he was best fitted, instead of fretting at the constant interrup- tion, or nervously . absconding to some calm retreat, his con- sulting-room, in London's most trodden thoroughfare, was * Born 1725. Died 1807. CARDIPHONIA. 253 always open. And though he was sometimes disappointed in those of whom his confiding nature hoped too soon, his hope- fuhiess was the very reason why others turned out so well. There was a time when Christian principle was a smoking flax in Claudius Buchanan and William Wilberforce ; but on Newton's hearth, and under the afflatus of God's Spirit, it soon burst forth in flame. And if his conversation eff"ected much, his correspondence accomplished more. His narrative is wonderful, and his hymns are very sweet ; but his letters make him eminent. Our theology supplies nothing that can rival them ; and it is when we recollect how many quires of these epistles were yearly issuing from his study, that we per- ceive what an influential and useful man the rector of St Mary's was. Many volumes are in print, and we have read others in manuscript. All are fresh and various, and all dis- tinguished by the same sagacity and seriousness, the same sprightly wisdom and transfusive warmth. All are rich in experimental piety, and all radiant with goodness of heart and genuine happiness. Time would fail to tell of Scott the commentator, of Andrew Fuller, of Charles Simeon, of Richard Cecil, and other preach- ers and authors who are claimed by the present century, al- though so much of their work was done among our predeces- sors. And of some of them, as well as of Cowper, Hannah More, Wilberforce, and other coadjutors among the laity, we hope to give specimens as we proceed.* Meanwhile, we trust that even this hasty retrospect may bring some readers to a better acquaintance with those men of faith and fervour who broke the death-slumbers of a former generation, and to whom, under God, we are indebted for the evangelistic institutions and benevolent undertakings by which the present age is dis- tinguished. * Our specimens of Venn, Toplady, and Newton, are also postponed to the subsequent sections. VOL. IV. Y SPECIMENS. GEOEGE WIIITEFIELD. Many of Whitefield's sermons were taken down by the celebrated stenographer, Gurney; but, like the speeches of Chatham, Sheridan, and other great parliamentary orators, it needs an imagination capable of calling up the actual scene and all the circumstances, in order to account for their won- derful effect. The following specimens, however, may give some idea of his warmth, his tenderness of heart, and affection- ate importunity. CJe ©fferinff tip of 3:saar. I sec your hearts affected, I see your eyes weep. (And, indeed, who can refrain weeping at the relation of such a story ?) But, behold, I shew you a mystery, hid under the sacrifice of Abraham's only son, which, unless your hearts are hardened, must cause you to weep tears of love, and that plentifully too. I would willingly hope you even preveiit me here, and are ready to say, " It is the love of God, in giving Jesus Christ to die for our sins." Yes; that is it. And yet perhaps you find your hearts, at the mentioning of this, not so much affected. I^et this convince you, that we are all fallen creatures, and that we do not love God or C*hrist as we ought to do : for, if you admire Abraham offering up his Isaac, how much more ought you to extol, magnify, and adore the love of God, who so loved the world as to give his only begotten Son Christ Jesus our Lord, "that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life"? May we not OFFERING OF ISAAC. '255 well cry out, Now know we, O Lord, that Thou heist loved us, since Thou hast not withheld Thy Son, Thine only Son from usi Abraham was God's creature (and Clod was Abraham's friend), and therefore under the highest obligation to surrender up his Isaac. But O stupendous love ! whilst we were His enemies, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, that He might become a curse for us. O the freeness, as well as the infinity, of the love of God our Father ! It is un- searchable : I am lost in contemplating it ; it is past finding out. Tliink, O believers, think of the love of God, in giving Jesus Christ to be a propitiation for our sins. And when you hear how Abraham built an altar, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood; think how your heavenly Father bound Jesus Christ His only Son, and offered Him up on the altar of His justice, and laid upon Him the iniquities of us all. When you read of Abraham's stretching forth his hand to slay his son, think, O think, how God actually suffered His Son to be slain, that we might live for evermore. Do you read of Isaac carrying the wood upon his shoulders, upon which he was to be offered? Let this lead you to Mount Calvary (this very mount of Moriali where Isaac was offered, as some think) and take a view of the antitype Jesus Christ the Son of God, bearing and ready to sink under the weight of that cross, on which He was to hang for us. Do you admire Isaac so freely consenting to die, though a creature, and therefore obliged to go when God called : O do not forget to admire infinitely more the dear Lord Jesus, that promised seed, who willingly said, " Lo, I come," though under no obligation so to do, " to do Thy will," to obey and die for men, " God ! " Did you weep just now, when I bid you fancy you saw the altar, and the wood laid in order, and Isaac laid bound on the altar? Look by faith, behold the blessed Jesus, our all-glorious Emmanuel, not bound, but nailed on an accursed tree : sec how He hangs crowned with thorns, and 2o(j THE GREAT REVIVAL, AND ITS EVANGELISTS. had in derision of all that are round about Him : see how the thorns pierce Him, and how the blood in purple streams trickles down His sacred temples! Hark how the God of nature groans ! See how He bows His head, and at length humanity gives up the ghost! Isaac is saved, but Jesus, the God of Isaac, dies : a ram is offered up in Isaac's room, but Jesus has no substitute; Jesus must bleed, Jesus must die; God the Father provided this Lamb for Himself from all eternity. He must be offered in time, or man must be damned for evermore. And now, where are your tears'? Shall I say, refrain your voice from weeping "? No ; rather let me exhort you to look to Him whom you have pierced, and mourn, as a woman mourneth for her first-born : for we have been the betrayers, we have been the murderers of this Lord of glory; and shall we not bewail those sins which brought the blessed Jesus to the accursed tree ? Having so much done, so much suffered for us, so much forgiven, shall we not love much 1 Oh ! let us love Him with all our hearts, and minds, and strength, and glorify Him in our souls and bodies, for they are His. TOJat tljinlt ge of €:fjri0t? O my brethren, my heart is enlarged towards you. I trust I feel something of that hidden, but powerful presence of Christ, whilst I am preaching to you. Indeed it is sweet, it is exceedingly comfortable. All the harm I wish you, who without cause are my enemies, is, that you felt the like. Be- lieve me, though it would be hell to my soul to return to a natural state again, yet I would willingly change states with you for a little while, that you might know what it is to have Christ dwelling in your hearts by faith. Do not turn your backs ; do not let the devil hurry you away : be not afraid of convictions; do not think worse of the doctrine, because preached without the church walls. Our Lord, in the days of WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST ? 257 His flesh, preached on a mount, in a ship, and a field; and I am persuaded many have felt His gracious presence here. In- deed we speak what we know. Do not reject the kingdom of God against yourselves : be so wise as to receive our witness. I cannot, I will not let you go; stay a little, let us reason to- gether. However lightly you may esteem your souls, I know our Lord has set an unsi^eakable value on them. He thought them worthy of His most precious blood. I beseech you, therefore, O sinners, be ye reconciled to God. I hope you do not fear being accepted in the Beloved. Behold, He calletli you; behold, He prevents and follows you with His mercy, and hath sent forth His servants into the highways and hedges, to compel you to come in. Remember, then, that at such an hour of such a day, in such a year, in this jolace, you were all told what you ought to think concerning Jesus Christ. If you now perish, it will not be for lack of knowledge : I am free from the blood of you all. You cannot say I have been preaching damnation to you ; you cannot say I ha^-e, like legal preachers, been requiring you to make brick without straw. I have not bidden you to make yourselves saints, and then come to God; but I have offered you salvation on as cheap terms as you can desire. I have offered you Christ's whole wisdom, Christ's whole righteousness, Christ's whole sanctifica- tion and eternal redemption, if you will but believe on Him. If you say you cannot believe, you say right; for faith, as well as every other blessing, is the gift of God : but then wait upon God, and who knows bat He may have mercy on thee? Why do we not entertain more loving thoughts of Christ ? Or do you think He will have mercy on others, and not on you? But are you not sinners? And did not Jesus Christ come into the world to save sinners ? If you say you are the chief of sinners, I answer, that will be no hindrance to your salvation, indeed it will not, if you lay hold on Him by faith. Kead the Evangelists, and sec how kindly He behaved to His disciples Y 2 258 THE GREAT EEVIVAL, AND ITS EVANGELISTS. who fled from and denied Him : " Go tell my brethren," says He. He did not say, Go tell those traitors; but, "Go tell my brethren, and Peter:" as though He had said. Go tell my brethren in general, and poor Peter in particular, " that I am risen;" O comfort his poor drooping heart, tell him I am re- conciled to him; bid him weep no more so bitterly : for though with oaths and curses he thrice denied Me, yet I have died for his sins, I am risen again for his justification : I freely forgive him all. Thus slow to anger, and of great kindness, was our all-merciful High Priest. And do you think He has changed His nature, and forgets poor sinners, now He is exalted to the right-hand of God? No, He is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, and sitteth there only to make intercession for us. Come then, ye harlots, come ye publicans, come ye most abandoned of sinners, come and believe on Jesus Christ. Though the whole world despise you and cast you out, yet He will not disdain to take you up. O amazing, O infinitely con- descending love ! even you. He will not be ashamed to call His brethren. How will you escape if you neglect such a glorious offer of salvation ? What would the damned spirits, now in the prison of hell, give, if Christ w^ere so freely offered to their souls 1 And why are not we lifting up our eyes in torments ? Does any one out of this great multitude dare say, he does not deserve damnation ? If not, why are we left, and others taken away by death 1 AYhat is this but an instance of God's free grace, and a sign of His good will towards us 1 Let God's goodness lead us to repentance ! O let there be joy in heaven over some of you repenting ! Though we are in a field, I am persuaded the blessed angels are hovering now around us, and do long, " as the hart panteth after the water-brooks," to sing an anthem at your conversion. Blessed be God, I hope their joy will be fulfilled. An awful silence appears amongst us. I have good hope that the words which the Lord has enabled me to speak in FLEE FOR YOUR LIYES ! 259 your ears this day, have not altogether fallen to the ground. Your tears and deep attention are an evidence that the Lord God is amongst us of a truth. Come, ye Pharisees, come and see, in spite of your satanical rage and fury, the Lord Jesus is getting Himself the victory. And, brethren, I speak the truth in Christ, I He not, if one soul of you, by the blessing of God, be brought to think savingly of Jesus Christ this day, I care not if my enemies were permitted to carry me to prison, and put my feet fast in the stocks, as soon as I have delivered this sermon. Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God is, that you may be saved. For tliis cause I follow my :\L^ster without the camp. I care not how much of His sacred reproach I bear, so that some of you be converted from the errors of your ways. I rejoice, yea, and I will rejoice. Ye men, ye devils, do your worst: the Lord who sent will support me. And when Christ, who is our life, and whom I have now been preaching, shall appear, I also, together with His despised little ones, shall appear with Him in glory. And then, what will you think of Christ? I know what you will think of Him. You will then think Him to be the fairest among ten thousand : you will then think and feel Him to be a just and sin-avenging judge. Be ye then persuaded to kiss Him lest He be angry, and so you be banished for ever from the presence of the Lord. Behold, I come to you as the angel did to Lot. Flee, flee, for your lives; haste, linger no longer in your spiritual Sodom, for otherwise you will be eternally destroyed. Numbers, no doubt, there are amongst you, that may regard me no more than Lot's sons-in-law regarded him. I am persuaded I seem to some of you as one that mocketh : but I speak the truth in Christ, I lie not; as sure as fire and brimstone was rained from the Lord out of heaven, to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, so surely, at the great day, shall the vials of God's wrath be poured on you, if you do not think seriously of, and act agree- able to the gospel of the Lord's Christ. Behold, I have told 260 THE GREAT REVIVAL^ AND ITS EVANGELISTS. you before; and I pray God, all you that forget Him may seriously think of what has been said, before He pluck you away, and there be none to deliver you. Cufje last iFavciudl, Now I must come to the hardest part I have to act. I was afraid when I came out from home that I could not bear the shock, but I hope the Lord Jesus Christ will help me to bear it, and help you to give mc up to the blessed God, let Him do with me what He will. This is the thirteenth time of my crossing the mighty waters. It is a little difficult at this time of life ; and though my spirits are improved in some degree, yet weakness is the best of my strength. But I delight in the cause, and God fills me with a peace that is unutterable, which nobody knows, and a stranger intermeddles not with. Into His hands I commend my spirit, and I beg that this may be the language of your hearts, Lord, keep him; let nothing pluck him out of Thy hands. I expect many a trial while I am on board. Satan always meets me there; but that God who has kept me, I believe vnll keep me. I thank God I have the comfort of leaving everything quite well and easy at both ends of the town ; and, my dear hearers, my prayers to God shall be, that nothing may pluck you out of Christ's hands. Witness against me if I ever set up a party for myself. Did ever any minister, or could any minister in the world say, that I ever spake against any one going to any dear minister'? I thank God that He has enabled me to be always strengthening the hands of all, though some have afterwards been ashamed to own me. I declare to you that I believe God will be with me, and will strengthen mc; and I believe it is in answer to your prayers that God is pleased to revive my spirits : may the Lord help you to pray on. If I am drowned in the waves I will say, FAREWELL. 261 Lord, take care of my London, take care of my English friends ; let nothing pluck them out of Thy hands. And as Christ has given us eternal life, O my brethren, some of you, I doubt not, will be gone to Him before my return. But, my dear brethren, my dear hearers, never mind that; we shall part, but it will be to meet agam for ever. I dare not meet you now, I cannot bear your coming to me to part from me, it cuts me to the heart and overcomes me; but by and by all parting will be over, and all tears shall be wiped away from our eyes. God grant that none that weep now at my parting may weep at our meeting at the day of judgment; and if you never were among Christ's sheep before, may Christ Jesus brmg you now. O come, come, see what it is to have eternal life; do not refuse it; haste, sinner, haste away; may the great, the good Shepherd draw your souls. Oh! if you never heard his voice before, God grant you may hear it now, that I may have this comfort when I am gone that I had last, that some souls are awakened at the parting sermon. O that it may be a farewell sermon to you ; that it may be a means of your taking a farewell of the world, the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, and the pride of life. O come, come, come to the Lord Jesus Christ ; to Him I leave you. And you, dear sheep, that are already in His hands, may God keep you from wandering. God keep you near Christ's feet. I do not care what shepherds keej) you, so as you are kept near the great Shepherd and Bishop of souls. The Lord God keep you, lift up the light of His countenance upon you, and give you peace. Amen. JOHN WESLEY. ©tt t})e Beat!) of m raijiteficItJ. But how shall we improve this awful providence? And the answer to this important question is easy : (may God write it 2G2 THE GREAT REVIVAL, AND ITS EVANGELISTS. ill all our hearts) ! By keeping close to the grand doctrines which he delivered ; and by drinking into his spirit. 1. And first, let us keep close to the grand scriptural doc- trines which he everywhere delivered. There are many doc- trines of a less essential nature, with regard to which, even the sincere children of God (such is the present weakness of human understanding !) are, and have been divided for many ages. In these we may think and let think ; we may " agree to disagree." But meantime, let us hold fast the essentials of "the faith, which was once delivered to the saints;" and which this cham- pion of God so strongly insisted on at all times and in all places. 2. His fundamental point was to give God all the glory of whatever is good in man, and, in the business of salvation, set Christ as high, and man as low as possible. With this point he, and his friends at Oxford, the original ISIethodists, so called, set out. Their grand principle was, there is no power by nature, and no merit in man. They insisted, all power to think, speak, or act right, is in and from the Spirit of Christ : and all merit is (not in man, how high soever in grace, but merely) in the blood of Christ. So he and they taught : There is no power in man, till it is given him from above, to do one good work, to speak one good word, or to form one good de- sire. For it is not enough to say, all men are sick of sin : No, we are all " dead in tresspasses and sins." It follows, that all the children of men are by nature children of wrath. We are all guilty before God, liable to death, temporal and eternal. 3. And Ave are all helpless, both with regard to the power and to the guilt of sin. For " who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?" None less than the Almighty. Who can raise those that are dead, spiritually dead in shi 1 None but He Avho raised us from the dust of the earth. But on what consideration will He do this? "Not for works of riditeousness that avc have done. The dead cannot praise whitefield's doctrine. 2(}S Tliec, Lord !" — nor do nny thing for the sake of which they should be raised to life. Whatever, therefore, God docs, He does it merely for the sake of His well-beloved Son : " He was wounded for our transgTcssions, he was bruised for our iniqui- ties. He himself bore all our sins in His o^vn body upon the tree. He was delivered for our offences, and rose again for our justification." Here then is the sole meritorious cause of every blessing we do or can enjoy. In particular, of our pardon and acceptance with God, of our full and free justification. But by what mean do we become interested in what Christ has done and suffered ? " Not by works, lest any man should boast ;" but by faith alone. " We conclude," says the apostle, " that a man is justified by faith, mthout the works of the law." And " to as many as thus receive him, giveth he power to become the sons of God : Even to those that believe in his name, who are born, not of the will of man, but of God." 4. And " except a man be" thus " born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." But all who are thus " born of the Spirit," have " the kingdom of God within them." Christ sets up His kingdom in their heart; "Righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." That "mind is in them, which was in Christ Jesus," enabling them "to walk as Christ also walked." His indwelling Spirit makes them both holy in heart, and "holy in all manner of conversation." But still, seeing all this is a free gift, through the righteousness and blood of Christ, there is eternally the same reason to rememl)er- — " He that glorieth, let liim glory in the Lord." 5. You are not ignorant that these are the fundamental doc- trines which He everywhere insisted on. And may they not be summed up, as it were, in two words : " The new-birth," and "justification by fiiith" ? These let us insist upon with all boldness, at all times, and in all places : in public (those of us who are called thereto), and, at all opportunities, in pri- vate. Keep close to these good, old, unfiishionable doctrines, 264 THE GREAT REVIVAL^ AND ITS EVANGELISTS. liow many soever contradict and blaspheme. Go on, my brethren, in the name of the Lord, and in the power of His might. With all care and diligence, " Keep that safe which is committed to your trust:" knowing that "Heaven and earth shall pass away ; but this truth shall not pass away." 6. But will it be sufficient to keep close to his doctrines, how pure soever they are 1 Is there not a point of still greater importance than this, namely, to drink into his spirit? Herein to be a follower of him, even as he was of Christ? Without this, the 2^urity of our doctrines would only increase our con- demnation. This, therefore, is the principal thing — to copy after his spirit. And allowing that in some points we must be con- tent to admire what we cannot imitate, yet in many others we may, through the same grace, be partakers of the same bless- ing. Conscious, then, of your own wants, and of His bounteous love, who " giveth liberally and upbraideth not," cry to Hun that worketh all in all, for a measure of the same precious faith : of the same zeal and activity, the same tender-hearted- ness, charitableness, bowels of mercies. Wrestle with God for some degree of the same grateful, friendly, affectionate temper, of the same openness, simplicity, and godly sincerity — " Love without dissimulation." Wrestle on, till the Power from on high works in you the same steady courage and patience : and, above all, because it is the crown of all, the same invariable integrity. 7. Is there any other fruit of the grace of God, with which he was eminently endowed, and the want of which, among the children of God, he frequently and passionately lamented? There is one, that is, catholic love ; that sincere and tender affection, which is due to all those who, we have reason to be- lieve, are the children of God by faith : in other words, all those, in every persuasion, who " fear God and work righteous- ness." He longed to see all wlio had " tasted of the good word," of a truly catholic spirit (a word little understood, and whitefield's spirit. 265 still less experienced, by many wlio have it frequently in their mouths). Who is he that answers this character ? Who is a man of a catholic spirit? One who loves as friends, as brethren in the Lord, as joint-partakers of the present king- dom of heaven, and fellow-heirs of His eternal kingdom — all, of whatever opinion, mode of worship, or congregation, who believe in the Lord Jesus ; who love God and man ; who, re- joicing to please and fearing to offend God, are careful to abstain from evil, and zealous of good works. He is a man of a truly catholic spirit, who bears all these continually upon his heart; who, having an unspeakable tenderness for their persons, and an earnest desire for their welfare, does not cease to commend them to God in prayer, as well as to plead their cause before men ; who speaks comfortably to them, and labours, by all his words, to strengthen their hands in God. He assists them to the uttermost of his power, in all things, spiritual and temporal. He is ready to spend and be spent for them ; yea, to lay down his life for his brethren. 8. How amiable a character is this ! How desirable to every child of God! But why is it, then, so rarely found] How is it that there are so few instances of it ? Indeed, supposing we have tasted of the love of God, how can any of us rest till it is our own? Why, there is a delicate device, whereby Satan per- suades thousands that they may stop short of it, and yet be guiltless. It is well, if many here present are not in' this " snare of the devil, taken captive at his will." " O yes," says one, " I have all this love for those I believe to be the children of God. But I will never believe he is a child of God, who belongs to that vile congregation ! Can he, do you think, be a child of God, who holds such detestable opinions ? Or he that joins in such senseless and superstitious, if not idolatrous wor- ship?" So we justify ourselves in one sin, by adding a second to it ! We excuse the want of love in ourselves, by laying the blame on others. To colour our own devilish temper, we pro- VOL. IV. z 266 THE GREAT REVIVAL, AND ITS EVANGELISTS. noiincc our brethren cliiklren of the devil. O beware of this ! And if you are ah^eady taken in the snare, escape out of it as soon as possible. Go and learn that truly catholic love, which is not rash or hasty in judging; — that love which thinketh no evil, which believeth and hopeth all things : — which makes all the allowance for others, that we desire others should make for us. Then we shall take knowledge of the grace of God which is in every man, whatever be liis opinion or mode of worship. Then will all that fear God be near and dear unto us in the bowels of Jesus Christ. 9. Was not this the spirit of our dear friend 1 x^ncl why should it not be ours ? O thou God of Love, how long shall Thy people be a by-word among the heathen? How long shall they laugh us to scorn, and say — " See how these Chris- tians love one another" ? When wilt Thou roll away our reproach ? " Shall the sword devour for ever ? How long will it be ere Thou bid Thy people return from following each other?*' Now, at least, " let all the people stand still, and pursue after their brethren no more!" But whatever others do, let all of uSj my brethren, hear the voice of him that " being dead, yet speaketh!" Suppose ye hear him say — "Now at least, 'be ye followers of me as I was of Christ !' Let brother ' no more lift up sword' against brother, neither 'know ye war anymore!' Rather * put ye on, as the elect of God, bowels of mercies, humbleness of mind, brotherly kindness, gentleness, long-suffer- ing, forbearing one another in love.' Let the time past suffice for strife, envy, contention; for 'biting and devouring one another.' Blessed be God, that ye have not long ago been 'consumed one of another!' From henceforth hold ye 'the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.'" 10. O God, with Thee no word is impossible: Thou dost whatsoever pleaseth Thee! that Thou wouldst cause the mantle of Thy prophet, whom Thou hast taken up, now to fall upon us that remain! "Where is the Lord God of Elijah?" A FUNEEAL HYMN. 267 Let his spirit rest upon these thy servants ! Shew Thou art the God that answcrcst by fire ! Let the fire of Thy love fall on every heart! And because we love Thee, let us love one another mth a love stronger than death. Take away from us "all anger, and wrath, and bitterness; all clamour and evil- speaking." Let Thy Spirit so rest upon us, that from this hour we maybe "kind to each other, tender-hearted : forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven us!" 1 Sci'vant of God, well done! Thy glorious warfare 's past, The battle 's fought, the race is won, And thou art crowu'd at la^t ; Of all thy heart's desire Triumphantly posscss'd. Lodged by the ministerial choir la thy Redeemer's breast. 2 In condescending love Thy ceaseless prayer lie heard, And bade thee suddenly remove, To thy complete reward : lieady to bring tlie peace, Thy beauteous feet were shod, When mercy sign'd thy soul's release, And caught thee up to God. 3 With saints enthroned on high, Thou dost thy Lord proclaim, And still to God salvation cry. Salvation to the Lamb ! happy, happy soul! In ecstasies of praise, Long as eternal ages roll. Thou seest thy Saviour's face. 268 THE GREAT REVIVAL, AND ITS EVANGELISTS. 4 Redeein'ci from earth and pain, Ah ! -sYheii shall we ascciul, And all in Jesus' presence reign "^A'ith our translated Friend ! Come, Lord, and quickly come ! And when in Thee complete. Receive Thy longino- servants home, To triumph— at Thy feet ! JAMES HERVEY. Tlteron. May I then believe, firmly believe, assuredly be- lieve, tliat Jesus the Mediator, and all the rich benefits of His mediation, are mine ? Pardon me, Aspasio, for reiterating the question, I am really, with respect to the obedience of faith, too much like that Saxon monarch, who, for his remissness and inactivity, was surnamed The Unready:^ Aspasio. I do more than pardon, my dear Tlieron, I feel for him, and I s^^mpathise with him. If there is some of that Saxon prince's disease running in his rehgion, I am sure there is too much of it in mine; and I fear it is an epidemical distemper. But let us reflect a moment. Supi30se any neigh- bour of substance and credit should bind himself by a deliber- ate promise to do you some particular piece of service; if he should add to his promise, a note under his own hand; if he should corroborate both by some authentic pledge; if he should estabhsh all by a most awful and solemn oath; could you suspect the sincerity of liis engagement, or harbour any doubt with regard to its execution 1 TMs would be most un- reasonable in any one; and to your generous temper, I am veiy certain, it w^ould be impossible. Let us remember that God has given us all this cause for an assurance of faith and more. Nay, I will defy the most timorous and suspicious * Etbelred. THERON AND ASPASIO, 269 temper, to demand from the most treacherous person on earth, a greater, stronger, fuller security, tlian the God of infinite fidelity has granted to you and me. After all this, one would think, diflidence itself could no longer hesitate, nor the most jealous incredulity demur. Shall Ave, can we withhold that afiiance from the unchangeable Creator, which we could not but repose on a fallible creature ? Titer. You rouse and animate me, Aspasio. that I may arise, and with the Divine assistance, shake oft' this stupor of unbelief! Certainly, it cnAi never be honourable to God, nor pleasing to Christ, nor profitable to ourselves. Asp. If it be, then cherish it; maintain it; and never re- linquish it. But how can it be honourable to God? It depreciates His goodness; it is a reproach to His veracity; nay, the apostle scruples not to afiirm, that it makes Him a liar (1 John v. 10). Whereas, they who believe His testi- mony, glorify His faithfulness; glorify His beneficence; and as John the Baptist speaks, " set to their seal that God is true " (John iii. 33). I have been informed, that when the late Elector of Hanover was declared by the Parliament of Great Britain, successor to the vacant throne, several persons of dis- tinction waited upon his Highness, in order to make timely application for the most valuable preferments. Several re- ijuests of this nature were granted, and each was confirmed by a kind of promissory note. One gentleman, particidarly, so- licited for the Mastership of the Eolls. Being indulged in his desire, he was offered the same confirmation which had been vouchsafed to other successful petitioners. Ui^on which, he seemed to be under a pang of graceful confusion and surprise ; begged that he might not put the royal donor to such unneces- sary trouble; at the same time protesting, that he looked upon his Highness's word as the very best ratification of his suit. With this conduct, and this compliment, the Elector was not a little pleased. " This is the gentleman," he said, z2 270 THE GREAT REVIVAL, AND ITS EVANGELISTS. " who does me a real honour; treats me like a king; and who- ever is disappomted, he shall certainly be gratified." So we are assured by the testimony of revelation, that the patriarch, who staggered not through unbelief, gave, and in the most signal, the most acceptable manner, glory to God (Eom. iv. 20). Is it pleasing to Christ 1 Quite the reverse. It dishonours His merit; it detracts from the dignity of His righteousness; it would enervate the power of His intercession. Accordingly you may observe, there is nothing which our Lord so fre- Cjuently reproved in His followers, as this spuit of unbelief. What says He to His disciples, when He came down from the mount of transfiguration 1 " faithless and perverse genera- tion!" They were perverse, because faithless. What says He to the travellers whom He overtook in their journey to Emmaus? "O fools, and slow of heart to believe!" They were fools, because slow to believe. What says, He to the ajDOstles after His resurrection? Jesus "upbraided them with their unbelief." He took no notice of their cowardly and per- fidious behaviour; He inveighed against none of their other follies and infirmities; but He upbraided them with their un- belief. Not gently rebuked. No; this was a fault so unrea- sonable in itself, so reproachful to their Master, so j^ernicious to themselves, that He severely reprimanded them for it, with an air of vehemence, and with a mixture of invective. Is it profitable to ourselves 1 Nothing less. It damps our love and diminishes our comfort. It subjects us to that fear which hath torment; and disqualifies us for that obedience which is filial. In a word, this distrustful and unbclicAdng temper weakens every principle of piety, and impoverishes the whole soul. Whence come spiritual oscitancy and remissness'? whence proceed sterility and unfruitfiilncss in the knowledge of Christ? St Peter ascribes them all to a habitual unbelief. Such persons, he says, "have forgotten that they were purged from their former sins." In the regenerate, where it remains, A WINTER PIECE. 271 it is very detrimental; for "they that will not believe, shall not be established." In the unregenerate, where it prevails, it is absolutely destructive; and though it may not kill like an apoplexy, it wastes like a consumption. "They could not enter in because of unbelief." Let us, then, my dear friend, cast away this sin, which so easily besets us both. It clogs our feet ; it hampers all our powers ; and hinders us from running with alacrity and speed the race that is set before us. What says David 1 " God hath spoken in his holiness ; " hath made an express and inviolable promise, that I shall be ruler of His people Israel. I will re- joice therefore ; away with every alarming apprehension ; I will even exult and triumph. Nay more; "I will divide Shechem, and mete out the valley of Succoth ; " I will look upon the whole land as my own. I will divide it, and dispose of it, just as if it was already in my possession. Why should not you and I also say — "God hath spoken in His holiness;" hath expressly and solemnly declared, the promise of an all- sufiicient Saviour is to you? We will rejoice, therefore ; con- fiding in this most faithful Word, we will bid adieu to all dis- c[uieting fears, and make our boast of this glorious Redeemer. Yes; notwithstanding all our unwortliiness, Christ and His atonement, Christ and His righteousness, are ours. God hath passed His word ; and, amidst all our temptations, His word is our anchor ; its hold is firm, and its ground immoveable. ^{)e ^xtmuxm of <%noijj.* Now the winds cease. Having brought their load, they are dismissed from service. They have wafted an immense cargo of clouds, which empty themselves in snow. At first, a few scattered shreds come wandering down the saddened sky. This slight skirmish is succeeded by a general onset. The * From the *' Meditations." 272 THE GREAT REVIVAL, AND ITS EVANGELISTS. flakes, large and mimerous, and tliick-wavering, descend. They dim the air, and hasten the approach of night. Throngh all the night, in softest silence, and with a continual flow, this fleecy shower falls. In the morning, when we awake, what a surprising change appears ! Is this the same world 1 Here is no diversity of colour! I can hardly distinguish the trees from the hills on which they grow. AVliich are the meadows, and which the plains? Where are the green pastures, and where the fallow lands ? AU things lie blended in bright con- fusion ; so bright, that it heightens the splendour of day, and even dazzles the organs of sight. The lawn is not so fau' as this snowy mantle, wliich invests the fields; and even the lily, was the lily to appear, would look tarnished in its presence. I can think of but one thing which excels or equals the glit- tering robe of winter. Is any person desirous to knovv^ my meaning? He may find it explauied in that admirable hymn,'"' composed by the royal penitent. Is any desirous to possess this matchless ornament ? He will find it ofl'ered to his accept- ance in every page of the gospel. See ! (for the eye cannot satisfy itself without viewing again and again the curious, the delicate scene) — see ! how the hedges are habited, like spotless vestals ! The houses are roofed with uniformity and lustre. The meadows are covered with a carpet of the finest ermine. The groves bow beneath the lovely bur- den; and all, all below, is one wide, immense, shining waste of white. By deep snows, and heavy rains, " God scaleth up the hand of every man." And for this purpose, adds our sacred philosopher, " that all men may know His work." He confines them within their doors, and puts a stop to their secular business; that they may consider the things wliich belong to their spiritual welfare; that, having a vacation from * Can any tliin.i,' be whiter than suow ? Yes, saiUi David ; ' If God be pleased to wash me from my siua in the blood of Christ, 1 shall be even ■whiter than snow' (Psa. li. 7). THE SNOW-SHOWER. 273 their ordinary employ, tliey nicay observe the works of His power, and become acquainted with the mysteries of His grace. And worthy, worthy of all observation, are the works of the great Creator. They are prodigiously various, and perfectly amazing. How pliant and ductile is nature under His form- ing hand ! At His command, the self-same substance assumes the most different shapes, and is transformed into an endless multiplicity of figures. If He ordains, the water is moulded into hail, and discharged upon the earth like a volley of shot ; or it is consolidated into ice, and defends the rivers, "as it were with a breast-plate." At the bare intimation of His will, the very same element is scattered in hoar-frost, like a sprink- ling of the most attenuated ashes ; or is spread over the surface of the ground, in these couches of swelling and flaky down. The snow, however it may carry the appearance of cold, affords a warm garment for the corn; screens it from nipping frosts, and cherishes its infant-growth. It will abide for a while, to exert a protecting care, and exercise a fostering in- fluence. Then, touched by the sun, or thawed by a softening gale, the furry vesture melts into genial moisture; sinks deep into the soil, and saturates its pores with the dissolving nitre; replenishing the glebe with those principles of vegetative life, which will open into the bloom of spring, and ripen into the fruits of autumn. Beautiful emblem this, and comfortable representation of the Divine word, both in the successful and advantageous issue of its operation ! " As the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returncth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketli it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater : so shall my word be, that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereunto I sent it" (Isa. Iv. 10, 11). 274 THE GPvEAT REVIVAL^ AND 1T8 EVANGELISTS. Nature, at length, puts off her lucid veil. She drops it in a trickling thaw. The loosened snow rolls in sheets from the houses. Various openings spot the hills; which, even while we look, become larger, and more numerous. The trees rid themselves, by degrees, of the hoary incumbrance. Shook from the springing boughs, part falls heavy to the ground, part flies abroad in shining atoms. Our fields and gardens, lately buried beneath the drifted heaps, rise plain and distinct to view. Since we see nature once again, has she no verdant traces, no beautiful features left? They are, like real friends, very rare ; and therefore the more particularly to be regarded, tlie more highly to be valued. Here and there the holly hangs out her glowing berries; the latirustinus spreads her graceful tufts ; and both under a covert of unfading foliage. The plain, l)ut hardy ivy, clothes the decrepit, crazy wall; nor shrinks from the friendly office, though the skies frown, and the storm roars. The laurel, firm, erect, and bold, expands its leaf of vivid green. In spite of the united, the repeated attacks of wind, and rain, and frost, it preserves an undismayed lively look; and maintains its post, while withering millions fall around. Worthy, by vanquishing the rugged force of winter, worthy to adorn the triumphant conqueror's brow. Nor must I forget the bay-tree; which scorns to be a mean pensioner on a few transient sunny gleams; or, with a servile obsequious- ness, to vary its appearance, in conformity to the changing seasons: Ijy such indications of sterling worth, and stanch resolution, reading a lecture to the poet's genius, while it weaves the chaplet for his temples. These, and a few other plants, clad with native verdure, retain their comely aspect, in the bleakest climes, and in the coldest months. Such, and so durable, are the accomplishments of a rcfnied understanding, and an amiable temper. The tawdry orna- ments of dress, which catch the unthinking vulgar, soon be- come hisipid and despicable. The rubied lip, and the rosy GOD RESISTETIl THE PROUD. 275 cheek fade. Even tlie sparkling wit, as well as tlie sparkling^ eye, please but for a moment. But the virtuous mind has charms, which survive the decay of every inferior embellish- ment; charms which add to the fragrancy of the flower, the permanency of the ever-green. Such, likemse, is the happiness of the sincerely religious ; like a tree, says the inspired moralist, " whose leaf shall not foil." He borrows not his peace from external circumstances, but has a frmd "within, and is " satisfied from himself." Even though impoverished by calamitous accidents, he is rich in the possession of grace, and richer in the hope of glory. His joys are infinitely superior to, as well as nobly independent on, the transitory glow of sensual delight, or the capricious favours of what the world calls fortune. SAMUEL WALKER. " ^otJ xtmiztl) tje ^roiitJ," Those who, in the pride of their hearts, are insensible of their apostate state, God regards as rebels, has no favour for them as such. While, in their own account, they are some great thing, and fancy they can produce suflftcient proofs of their being so ; in God's account they are-rebels, blind, guilty, impotent apostates ; too wise to be taught, too good to be for- given, too strong to be succoured. The Fall made them rebels, delusive pride keeps tliem in rebellion ; and, with all the sjie- cious show they make, God observes they have not submitted, neither returned unto their allegiance, nor owned their departure from it. He, the Searcher of Hearts, sees them, safely wrapt up as they are in their own conceits, standing out in present actual rebellion : He sees, that they are this day usurpers of His throne in self-government ; arrogant dcspoilers of His glory in the account and use they make of His gifts; seekers of 276 THE GEEAT REVIVAL, AND ITS EVANGELISTS. worldly lionours, or praise, or ease, or interest in the wliole bent of their spirits, as having all their prospects of security and enjoyment shut up within visible things; hypocritical dis- semblers with Him at least, being without all truth and honesty in the services they pretend to pay Him; lovers of sin, and haters of God, in the very bottom of their hearts; remorselessly insensible to any godly sorrow for whatever sin they have com- mitted against His majesty and glory; stubbornly disregarding His judgments threatened against sin, or insolently disputing the justice of them; imtouched by His patience, displeased at His providential distributions, wishing there was no God; in reality, living without God in the world : and all this, notwith- standing the appearances they may many of them have of reli- gion. In a word, God sees them lying in a state of natural apostasy; in His account they are actual rebels in arms, as such He regards and treats them. They remain under the for- feiture made in Adam, of all Divine favour and blessings. God is against them : His wrath is upon them. The fear of death galls them. They have not grace to enjoy anything they have with true comfort : but, through want of grace, they turn all their possessions into curses. However they may flourish, they are never really blessed in their temporal concerns; and in those that are spiritual, God is evidently their enemy. He leaves them in blindness, hardness, and impenitcncy of heart ; they lie asleep in the lap of security ; they are torn in pieces by the rage of ungoverned passions and appetites, anxious covetousness, desponding envy, furious resentment, impatient ambition, insatiate inclination ; they live to no better purpose, than, by adding sin unto sin, to prepare for themselves accu- mulated damnation. Every way the displeasure of an unre- conciled resisting God is manifest towards them. Their offer- ings arc an abomination; their prayers do not enter heaven; their liberalities are not accepted : They do these in the pride of an apostate heart; wherefore God is against them : They do C40D GIVETH GRACE TO THE HUMBLE. 277 but "sow the wind, and reap the whirlwind" (Hos. viii. 7). This, and whatever beside is included under the terms wrath and indignation, is comprehended in God's resisting the proud. The humble are as much, on the other part, objects of God's compassion and love. " To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word" (Isaiah Ixvi. 2). Poverty of spirit is the qualification for the kingdom of heaven. And no sooner does any one of us, God's prodigal children, come to himself, but mercy comes to meet him. It is not through want of mercy in God, but through our pride, that any difference subsists between Him and us : do we humble ourselves ? He lays aside His displeasure. Let the whole Scripture bear witness, if there is not forgive- ness with God j and a multitude of passages in it, if that for- giveness does not belong to the humble ; forgiveness, with all the delightful blessings that accompany it. "God giveth grace to the humble ;" evangelical favour in its whole extent is theirs. To the apostate sinner, that lies in deep abasement of spirit, smitten with a sense of his guilt, acknowledging his desert of every judgment, hopeless in himself and helpless, hardly presuming to ask the mercy without wliich he is for ever undone, God giveth grace ; grace in all its largeness, com- prehending pardon, reconciliation, adoption, sanctification, and an inheritance in the kingdom of heaven. There is not a greater distance between God and the proud, than there is in- timate union between Him and the humble. If God be not determined to cast off apostate man without remedy, which we are assured He is not; and if yet He cannot receive us con- tinuing obstinate ; He will certainly do so when we confess our sin, and are willing to submit. There is grace provided for fallen man, which, if it cannot be conferred on some, because they do not believe they want it, it will be granted to those that have found they do, if any use is to be made of it at all. VOL. IV. 2 a 278 THE GREAT REVIVAL^ AND ITS EVANGELISTS, JOHN BERRIDGE.'" Jalse .Sfcuri'tu, nnti ^Prnrc in Bcltclimtf. Phj/sickm. — Now, sir, licar wliat yonr own peace is. You feel no distress of mincl, but are mighty easy ; and your calm, wliicli is a dead calm, arisetli from j^our character, though a .sinful character at best. Your peace brings no heavenly joy, and so comes not from heaven ; neither does it flow entirely through the golden conduit of the Saviour's merit, but drip- peth from a rotten wooden pipe of your own duties. You are, it seems, a cheerful, harmless creature, like a robin-redbreast, who is much respected everywhere ; and you frequent the church, as many a pious mouse will, yet does not like her quarters : prayer-books are dry champing ; a pantry suits her better. And you see many who are worse than yourself abun- dantly, which makes you hope your state is good ; and while outward things go smooth, your calm continues. But when calamities come on, and thicken as they come, your peace is gone; it cannot stand a tempest. And when your soul is hovering on a sickbed for its flight, it will either feel a dead security, or take a frightful leap into another world. Unless you arc supported l)y divine faith, you cannot sing the Chris- tian's dying song, " O death, where is thy sting ? O grave, where is thy victory ? Now, sir, \\Q proceed to another point of faith, and a choice one too, very savoury and nourishing to a true believer. St * " If among many striking, Berridge says some strange things ; if always original, he is occasionally odd ; if in this book there are a few instances of the picturesque approaching the grotesque, the reader will readily excuse these for the sake of the noble piety with which the book is pervaded, the golden truths that lie imbedded in its pages, and a style and manner pre- eminently calculated to rouse the dullest attention, and break through that indilforence with which familiarity encrusts the most solemn and moment- ous .sulijccts."— r/ic Christian World Unmaslccd, ke. ^Yith Life of tlio Author, by the llev. T. Guthrie. 1853. T. 18. THE FARMER AND PHYSICIAN. 279 Peter tells us, tlmt "faitli purifies the heart" (Acts xv. 9); aud St John affirms, " This is the victory, whereby we over- come the world, even our faith" (1 John v. 4) ; and he tells us what he means by the Avorld, even " the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life" (1 John ii. 16). Come, sir, bring your face to the gospel-glass, and handle this point well, like an old grazier. Does your ftiith overcome the " lust of the flesh j" making you victorious over your palate, and over outv/ard pollution, and inward uncleanness ? Docs your faith overcome the " lust of the eye," and keep your heart from gasping after more wealth, more preferment, or more honours 1 " Having food and raiment, have you learnt therewith to be content r' (1 Tim. vi. 8). Does your faith overcome the " pride of life," and prevent your being charmed with a lofty house, rich furniture, genteel equipage, and splendid raiment? Does it make you sick of earthly vanities, and draw your heart to things above 1 Speak, sir, and speak honestly. If you are a slave to these matters, and a quiet slave, you may keep your faith j Satan will not steal it from you. His own sooty cap is full as good as your rusty bonnet. The devils do believe, and tremble, but arc devils still. One point more, sir, and v.'c have done. Faith is not only intended to pacify the conscience, and purify the heart, but also to rescue the mind from earthly troubles. Our passage through life is attended with storms ; we sail upon a boisterous sea, where many tempests are felt, and many are feared, which look black, and bode mischief, but pass over. Now, faith is de- signed for an anchor, to keep the mind steady, and give it rest ; even as Isaiah saith, " Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee" (Isa. xxvi. 3). Precious promises, suited to our wants, are scattered through the Bible ; and divine faith will feed upon the promises, look- 280 THE GREAT REVIVAL, AND ITS EVANGELISTS. ing unto Jesus to fulfil them ; but human faith can reap no profit from them. Let me suppose you in distressful circum- stances, and while musing on them with an anxious heart, you cast a look upon a distant Bible. The book is fetched and opened, and this passage meets your eye, " Call upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me" (Psalm 1. 15). Here you view a gracious promise, made by a faithful God, and made without limitation or condition, directed unto every one that reads or hears it, applicable to every time of trouble, and requiring only prayer of faith for de- liverance. Yet, sir, it is possible this blessed promise might not even draw a prayer from you; perhaps it gains a little musing, and the book is closed. Or if it should extort a feeble cry, the prayer does not ease your heart, nor fetch deliverance, for want of faith. You know the word of Jesus, " All things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer," believing, "ye shall receive" (Matt. xxi. 22). But for want of faith, your reasoning heart will ask, ^' From whence can this deliverance come?" What is that to you, sir 1 God keeps the means of deliverance out of sight, on purpose to exercise our faith, but promises to " make a way for our escape," though we can see none (1 Cor. x. 13). Or perhaps you may surmise, " This promise was not meant for me ; I am not worthy of it." Sir, God's promise is not made to compliment your worthiness, but to manifest the riches of his grace in Christ Jesus. Did you mind how the promise runs ? It is not said, " Glorify me first, and afterward I will deliver thee;" which would be making man's worthiness a foundation for God's blessings. But he says, " I will deliver thee, and then thou shalt glorify j\Ie." Faith considers all the promises as freely made to supply our wants, and rests upon the Lord's faithfulness to fulfil them; and when a promise is fidfillcd, adores the mercy, and glorifies the Lord for it. In this way, and this only, he gets some BANK NOTES. 281 hearty rent of praise. * Such free deliverance wins the heart, and binds it to the Lord, and makes obedience cheerful. I know a man who spends his income yearly, because he has no family ; as little as he can upon himself, and the rest upon his neighbours. He keeps no purse against a rainy day, and wants none ; Jesus Christ is his banker — and a very able one. Sometimes, by sickness or unforeseen expenses, he gets behind hand, and greatly so. At such times, he does not run about among his earthly friends to seek relief, but falleth on his knees, and calls upon his banker, saying, " Lord, I am in want, and Thou must help me. Here I bring Thy gracious promise ; look upon it, Jesus. It says, ' Call upon Me in the time of trouble, I mil deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me.' Lord, I call, and Thou dost hear ; I believe, and Thou art faithful ; be it now unto me, according to Thy word." Such prayers, he said, never failed to bring supplies : some, from those who cared for him ; and some, from such as did avoid his company. For Jesus Christ has every heart and purse in his own hand ; and often makes a raven feed his prophets, or makes the " earth to help the woman," to shew His finger clearly in such de- liverance. Scripture promises are real bank-notes of heaven, and the true riches of believers, who do not live on stock in hand, but traffic with this paper-currency. Where divine faith is found it takes the notes to Christ's bank, and receives the cash. But human foith cannot traffic with tliis paper ; it reads the notes, and owns them good, but dares not take them to the skies for payment. No fciith can truly act on God but that which comes from God. Prayer of faith, exercised with perseverance, surely brings deliverance, if not immediately, yet at a proper season ; and till deliverance comes, the "mind is stayed on God, and kept in perfect peace." Faith picks the thorns out of the flesh, and takes the ranlding pain away, before the wound is healed. 2 A 2 282 THE GREAT REVIVAL, AND ITS EVANGELISTS. Farmer. — Tnily, doctor, now you make me thouglitful. I begin to see my rusty bonnet, and confess it woidd fit a friend's head as well as mine. INIy faith will not produce the precious fruit you have mentioned. It brings no peace, passing all un- derstanding ; affords no real victory over the world ; and yields no sweet relief in time of trouble. It picks no thorns out of my flesh ; it must be counterfeit. My support in trouble arises from my purse, or from my friends, and not from faith. Yet I cannot comprehend how a mere reliance on God's pro- mise can charm away our grief, and set the heart at rest before deliverance comes. This seems a charm indeed ! Physician. — So it is, sir, and a most delightful charm ; yet not fanciful, but real, having good foundation in our nature. Wliere divine ftiith is given, it will act on God, as human faith will act on man, and produce the same effects. A case will make my meaning plain. I suppose you, as before, fallen in great distress, and a lawyer's letter is received, bringing doleful tidings, that your person will be seized, unless your debts are paid within a month. While the letter is perusing, an old acquaintance calls upon you, sees a gloom upon your face, and asks the cause of it. You put the letter in liis hand : he reads, and drops a friendly tear. After some little pause, he says, " Old friend, I have not cash at present by me, but engage to pay your debts before the month is out." Now, sir, if you thought this per- son was not able to discharge your debts, or not to be rehed on, because his mind was fickle, his promise would bring no relief, because it gains no credit. You have no faith in him. But if you knew the man was able, and might be trusted, his promise would relieve you instantly. A firm reliance on his word would take away your burden, and set your mind at ease, before the debt was paid. Well, sir, if a firm reliance on the word of man has this sweet influence on the heart, a firm reliance on the word of EOMAINE. 283 God will have the same. Why should it not 1 God's word deserveth as much credit surely as the word of man. He is able to perform, and as faithful to fulfil His promise, as your neighbour, "No one ever trusted in Him, and was con- founded." And where the " mind is stayed on God, it will be kept in perfect peace," before deliverance comes. Such may say, with David, "God is our refuge, therefore w^e will not fear, though the earth be removed, and the mountains carried into the midst of the sea" (Psalm xlvi. 1-2). Or with Habak- kuk, "Though the fig-tree should not blossom, nor fruit be in the vine ; though the ohve too should fail, and the fields yield no meat ; though the flock be cut off from the fold, and no herd be found in the stalls, yet will I rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation." The prop of God's faith- ful word cannot break ; and a human heart, restuig firmly on it, never can sink. And men might learn to feel their unbe- lief from want of this support in trouble. The prop stands ready on the king's high-road, to suj^port all weary passengers ; but they have not faith to lean upon it, else they would find rest. In speculation, it seems as easy to trust a faithful God as trast an upright man ; but in practice, it is found otherwise. When trials come, men cannot trust a faithful God without divine assistance ; so trust Him as to cast their burden on Him, and obtain His perfect peace. Here the charm of faith ceaseth, because there is no faith to charm. W^ILLIAM ROMAINE. Consider, O my soul, those motives to an holy walk. Put them all together; weigh them carefully again and agam; do it faithfully, as in the presence of God; and then try whether thou art walking in the way of duty with a free spirit. Dost 284 THE GREAT REVIVAL, AND ITS EVANGELISTS. thoii proceed upon evangelical or upon legal principles ? Dost thou serve God for wages or for love ? Examine thy heart. God looks chiefly at it. How is it in duty? Is thine obe- dience to justify thee in the least, or does it spring from thy sense of being justified freely and fully? Art thou going about to establish thine own righteousness, or dost thou sub- mit to the righteousness of God ? Art thou working from life, or for life ? I rec[uire thee to examine diligently, by the light of the Word, and by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, what thy motives are; for there is no acceptable obedience but what is done in faith. Whatsover is not of faith, is sin. If thou art acting aright, the love of Christ is constraining thee to obe- dience. Thou art living under the influence of free grace. Thy conscience is at peace with God. Thou hast sweet liberty to serve Him without fear. Thy heart delights in His service, and love makes His ways the joy of thy soul. Thou knowest what Jacob felt when he served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed unto him but a few days for the love he had to her. A gospel spirit does the same to God — love makes long service short, and hard service easy. Nothing is pain which love does. And this is gospel obedience. It is fjiith working by love which refines duty into a grace — the commandments are exalted into privileges — the ordinances become happy means of fellowship with God. The believer meets God in them, and by free converse he exercises and improves liis love. He draws near to God, and God draws near to Mm in prayer, in praise, in hearing the Word, at the Lord's Supper, and in all Sabbath duties. In these ways God manifests His gracious presence, and the believer rejoices in it. God communicates His grace, and the believer receives it with thankfulness. O my soul, pray before duty for nmch of this communion with God in it. Seek it as the one great end of all duty. And if thou findest it, bless and praise the goodness of thy God. But still seek to be more spiritual and evangelical, that the GOSPEL OBEDIENCE. 285 fruits of thy fellowship with God may appear in thy practice of the duties of the second table. Love to God will manifest itself by love to men ; for the Holy Spirit teaches all His dis- ciples to love one another, and He teaches effectually. He not only makes them understand what brotherly love is, but He also gives it. They become partakers of the grace, and are enabled to practise it. Thus He recommends and enforces His lessons. He renders His scholars kind to one another, and tender-hearted. He puts forth His mighty power, and subdues the vile, selfish tempers of the old man, and brings into use the benevolent tempers of the new man. While He carries on the gracious work. His disciples grow more acquainted with themselves, and learn heart humility. He makes them feel their fallen state, their sinfulness, and their danger; in the sense of their guilt and of their distance from God, they are willing to receive Christ for their whole salvation, and then to enjoy in Him all the blessings of the Father's love in earth and heaven. If thou findest it difficult, O my soul, to walk according to this rule — if to obey from love to God, to love men for God's sake, and in the sense of thine own vileness to be humbled to the dust — if these be hard lessons, consider what makes them so. Where is the difficulty? Is it not in thyself? And is it not chiefly in thy not using, and not bringing into practice, the principles advanced in the former chapters? Duty must be hard if the spring of obedience be not in motion ; but if this act freely, then all will go on well. Thy whole conduct through life depends upon the nature of the salvation of which thou art a partaker by grace. Consider it attentively. The growing knowledge of it Avill engage thine affections to a willing obedience. Is it not a complete salva- tion — an absolutely perfect work — yea, the greatest work of God? Because all the rest come from it, and lead to it. Is it not the infinitely "wise contrivance of the eternal Three, for 286 THE GREAT EEVIVAL, AND ITS EVANGELISTS. wliicli everlasting glory is to be given to every divine attribute ? When every other work of God shall cease, for this all heaven will to eternity be ascribing honour, and blessing, and praise to Father, Son, and Spirit. Attend, O my soul, to the Scrip- ture account of this salvation. Ke\iew the glory of it. Piead again and again the revealed descriptions of it, till thy heart be satisfied that this salvation is as perfect and complete as the Lord God Almighty could make it. This is its character. Hast thou studied it well, and art thou well grounded and established in the belief of it? ]Mind, this is the foundation. If this totter, so will all the superstructure. O pray, then, and be earnest in prayer, that God would enlarge thy views of the infinitely glorious and everlastingly perfect salvation which is in Christ Jesus. As thou growest more acquainted with it, thou wilt see less reason to be discouraged at the experience of what thou art in thyself. It is a salvation for sinners, such as thou art, and no way differing from thee. Only vv'hen they are called to the knowledge of the truth they are acquainted with their fallen state, are made sensible of their helplessness and of their misery, but are made wilhng to cast their souls at God's com- mand upon the Lord Jesus, trusting to the peace which He made by the blood of the cross. And art not thou in the happy number of these redeemed sinners? Dost not thou believe the record which God hath given of His Son, and look uj)on it as thy lawful warrant — to make use of what is laid up in the fulness of Jesus — thine to take freely — thine to use fully, the more the better — thine for receiving, without any condition or any qualification? He loves to give, and with- out money or money's worth. He thhiks Himself honoured by the pensioners of His grace, who bring nothing to recom- mend themselves but their sins and miseries, and yet trust in His promised relief. Herein He glories. When they come to Hun believing, He bestows His royal gifts upon every one FOLLOW CHRIST. 287 of tliem; and so far as they believe, He witliliolds iiotlniig that is needful for their holy walk in the way of duty. These are the principles which thou art to bring into prac- tice. Carry them, O my soul, into every act of obedience. Go to prayer and every duty mth this faith, that thou art in Christ, and in Him a partaker of His finished salvation. Then the Father's love to thee will be manifest, and thou wilt have sweet fellowship with Him in all tliine approaches to the throne. Whatever thou undertakest, forget not this leading truth. If thou lose sight of it, thou wilt get into darkness. If thou art not influenced by it, thou wilt be brought into bondage. Upon this absolutely perfect salvation thou art to live by faith upon earth, and thou ^vilt have nothing else to live upon by sense in heaven. Trusting to the complete work of Jesus, thou art to walk with thy God in time, as thou wilt follow the Lamb in eternity, receiving all out of His fulness. O view Him in this light, and it will have the happiest effects upon thy daily walk. While thou art receiving from Him gTace for grace, thou wilt live with Him in sweet friendship — duty will be the way and means of enjoying the love of thy Divine friend — and the more thou art in His company, the more delightful will be the way of His commandments. These are the privi- leges. Read the promises concerning them. Call to mind what thy Father in .Jesus has engaged to give His children. Has He not pro\idcd grace sufficient for them? And is it not for His honour, as well as thy profit, that He should give both the will and the power to walk humbly with Him? O plead His promises. Bind Him mth His faithfulness. Be impor- tunate with Him, and pray without ceasing. THOMAS ADAM. Ecsirjnation. Submission to the will of God, with experience of His sup- 288 THE GEEAT REVIVAL, AND ITS EVANGELISTS. port in pain, sickness, nffliction, is a more joyous and liappy state, than any degree of health or worldly prosperity. In pain, sickness, trouble, methinks I hear God saying, Take this medicine, exactly suited to the case, prepared and weighed by ;My own hands, and consisting of the choicest drugs which heaven affords. Be not disturbed for trifles. By the practice of this rule we should come in time to think most things too trifling to dis- turb us. The highest angels are at an infinite distance from the knowledge of God ; and, therefore, there must of necessity be always something in His nature and acts mysterious even to them : Why, then, should not we be content with our dark- ness, and submit to live by faith here, when we must do it to all eternity? )Suffering is an excellent preacher, sent immediately from heaven, to speak aloud in the name of God to the heart, mind, and conscience, and has saved many a soul, when, humanly speaking, nothing else could. God is always with me, though I am not with Him ; and because I do not advert to His presence. He sends pain to in- troduce and even force me mto His company. We are always thinking we should be better with or with- out such a thing ; but if we do not steal a little content in present circumstances, there is no hope of any other. PRACTICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL WRITERS. BISHOP BEVERIDGE. At the outset of the eighteenth century, there was no man more to be envied than Dr William Beveridge. As a preacher he was much admired, but no reputation could be more inde- pendent of rhetorical artifice : for no preacher of that day was more exclusively beholden for the attraction and success of his ministry to the seriousness of his own spirit, and the surpassing importance of the truths he proclaimed. Although he was known to the learned as the author of masterly treatises on chronology, Church history, and the Oriental languages, it wa^ the exemplary assiduity and success with which he had dis- charged the laborious duties of a protracted parochial pasto- rate which gained for him the good report of all men. And although it was a time of fierce political rancour, there were circumstances in his position which went far to exempt him from the opposing antipathies of Whigs and Tories. The kingdom to which he belonged was evidently " not of this, world," and whilst his allegiance to the House of Orange saved him from the irritations and hardships incident to the lot of a non-juror, his refusal to succeed Kenn, the deprived Bishop of Bath and Walls, gained him the respect of the Jacobites. This good man was born in 1G37, at Barrow, in Leicester- shire, where his father and grandfather had each held the vicarage. He was educated at St John's College, Cambridge. The successive cures he held were Ealing, in Middlesex, and St Peter's, Cornhill. In July 1704, he was consecrated Bishop of St Asaph, and died at Westminster, March 5, 1708. Early in life — when he was about twenty-three years of age — he drew up a series of practical resolutions for the guidance VOL. IV. 2 B 290 PRACTICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL WRITERS. of liis ovi-ii conduct. These ^Yere publislied after Lis death, under the title, " Private Thoughts on Eeligion." Of their style the follo^^ing specimen will give some idea : — jFlattcrg auti Qf traction. " I am resolved, by the grace of Grotl, to speak of other men's sins only before then- faces, and of their virtues only behind their backs." To commend men when they are present, I esteem almost as great a piece of folly as to re^Drove them when they are absent : though I do confess, in some cases, and to some persons, it may be commendable ; especially when the person is not apt to be puffed up, but spurred on by it. But to rail at others, when they hear me not, is the highest piece of folly imaginable ; for, as it is impossible they should get any good, so is it impossible but that I should get much hurt by it. For such sort of words, make the very best we can of them, are but idle and unprofitable, and may not only prove injurious to the person of whom, but even to whom they are spoken, by wounding the credit of the former, and the charity of the latter ; and so, by consequence, my own soul ; nay, even though I s^^eak that wliich is true in itself, and known to be so to me ; and, there- fore, this way of backbiting ought by all means to be avoided. But I must, much more, have a care of raising false reports concerning any one, or of giving credit to them that raise them, or of passing my judgment, till I have weighed the matter ; lest I transgress the niles of mercy and charity, which command me not to censure any one upon others' rumours, or my otmi surmises ; nay, if the thing be in itself true, still to interpret it in the best sense. But, if I must needs be raking in other men's faults, it must not be behind their backs, but before their faces ; for, the one is a great sin, and the other may be as great a duty, even to reprove my neighbour for doing any- tliing offensive unto God, or destructive to his own soul ; still LADY RACHEL RUSSELL. 291 endeavouring so to manage the reproof, as to make liis sin loathsome to him, and prevail upon him, if possible, to forsake it : however there is a great deal of Christian prudence and discretion to be used in this, lest others may justly reprove me for my indiscreet reproof of others. I must still fit my reproof to the time when, the person to whom, and the sin against which it is designed : still contriving with myself hov7 to carry on this duty so, as that by "converting a sinner from the evil of his ways, I may save a soul from death, and cover a multi- tude of sins : " not venting my anger against the person, but my sorrow for the sin that is reproved. Hot, passionate, and resiling words, will not so much exasperate a man against his sin that is reproved, as against the person that doth reprove it. It is " not the wrath of man that worketh the righteousness of God." But this, of all duties, must be performed with the spuit of love and meekness. I must first insinuate myself into his affections, and then press his sin upon his conscience, and that directly or indirectly, as the person, matter, or occasion shall require ; that so he that is reproved by me now, may have cause to bless God for me to all eternity. LADY RACHEL RUSSELL. Lajdy Each EL Wriothesley was the second daughter of Thomas Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. Her mother, Rachel de Rou\igne, belonged to an ancient French Hugonot family. She was born in 1636. In 1653 she married Lord Vaughan, eldest son of the Earl of Carberry, who died twelve years afterwards, leaving no children. In 1669 she became the wife of Mr, afterwards Lord William Russell, with whom her union appears to have been one of rare and unmingled happiness. But in 1683, when Charles II. had sold himself and the country to the King of France, and obstinately resisted the measure for excluding from the succession his Popish 292 PRACTICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL WRITERS. brother, Lord Russell, in concert with the Earl of Essex, Algernon Sidney, and some others, began to consult as to the measures needful for preserving the constitution and independ- ence of the country. At the same time, a wilder party was plotting schemes for assassinating the King and the Duke of York ; and their conspiracy coming to light. Lord Russell and his friends were accused and condemned as accessories. Lord William was beheaded in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, July 21, 1683. His own demeanour during his trial and after condemnation, and that of his noble mfe, are among the redeeming traits of a disgraceful period of our national annals, and the pulse of the patriot beats with a quickened throb as he reads the stoiy of more than Roman fortitude, sublimed and softened by a tender love and a blessed hope, such as the Roman never knew. Lady Rachel survived her husband forty years. She lived to see, first, the House of Orange, and eventually, the House of Hanover, seated on that throne which Charles II. filled so infamously, and from which, with almost equal infamy, his Popish brother absconded. Her only son was created Duke of Bedford ; her eldest daughter became Duchess of Devonshke, and the other Duchess of Rutland. Lady Rachel herself died September 29, 1723. Of the strong sense and firm nerve which Lady Rachel re- tained through life, the following little incident which occurred at Southampton House in the reign of King William III., and related by herself, may serve as an illustration : — " As I was reading in my closet, the door being bolted, on a sudden the candle and candlestick jumped off the table, a hissing fire ran on the floor, and, after a short time, left some paper in a flame, which with my foot I put into the chimney, to prevent mischief ; then sat down in the dark to consider whence this event could come. I knew my doors and windows were fast, and there was no way open into the closet but by the chimney ; and that something should come down there, and strike my LADY EACHEL RFSSELL. 293 candle off the table in that strange manner, I believed impos- sible. After I had wearied myself with thinking to no pur- pose, I rang my bell ; the servant in waiting, when I told him what had happened, begged pardon for having, by mistake, given me a mould candle, with a gunpowder squib in it, which v,'as intended to make sport among the fellow-servants on a rejoicing day. I bid him not be troubled at the matter, for I had no other concern about it than that of not finding out the cause." Dr Fitzwilliam, to whom the following letters are addressed, had been chaplain to Lady Rachel's father. Ecttcrs. The future part of my life will not, I expect, pass as perhaps I would just choose. Sense has been long enough gratified — indeed so long, I know not how to live by faith ; yet, the pleasant stream that fed it near fourteen years together being gone, I have no sort of refreshment but when I can repair to that living Fountam from whence all flows ; while I look not at the things which are seen, but at those which are not seen, expecting that day which will settle and compose all my tumultuous thoughts in perpetual peace and quiet — but am undone, irrecoverably so, as to my temporal longings and con- cerns. Time runs on, and usually wears off some of that sharpness of thought inseparable from my circumstances ; but I cannot experience such an effect — every week making me more and more sensible of the miserable change in my condi- tion. But the same merciful hand which has held me up from sinking in the extremest calamities, will, I verily believe, do so still, that I faint not to the end of this sharp conflict, nor add sin to my grievous weight of sorrows, by too higli a dis- content, wliich is all I have now to fear. WoBURN Abbey, 20th April 1684. 2b2 294 PRACTICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL WRITERS. Good Doctor, — I am sure my lieart is filled with the obli- gation, how ill soever my words may express it, for all those hours you have set apart (in a busy life) for my particular benefit, for the quieting my distracted thoughts, and reducing them to a just measure of patience for all I have or can suffer. I trust I shall, with diligence and some success, serve those ends they were designed to : they have very punctually, the time you intended them for, the last two sheets coming to my hands the 16th of this fatal month; 'tis the 21st completes my three years of true sorrow, which should be turned rather into joy, as you have laid it before me, with reasons strongly maintained, and rarely illustrated. Sure he is one of those has gained by a dismission from a longer attendance here : while he lived, his being pleased, led me to be so too, and so it should do still; and then my soul should be filled of joy; I should be easy and cheerful, but it is sad and heavy. So little do we distinguish hov.^, and why we love, to me it argues a prodigious fondness of one's self; I am impatient that is hid from me I took delight in, though he knows much greater than he did here. All I can say for myself is, that while we are clothed with flesh, to the perfectest some displeasure Mill attend a separation from things we love. This comfort I think I have in my affliction, that I can say, Unless Thy law had been my delight, I should have perished in my trouble. The rising from the dead is a glorious contemplation, Doctor — nothing raises a drooping spirit like it ; His Holy Spirit in the meantime, speaking peace to our consciences, and through all the gloomy sadness of our condition, letting us discern that we belono- to the election of grace, that our persons are accepted and justified. But still I will humble myself for my own sins, and those of our families, that brought such a day on us. ISth July 1686. I can divine no more than yourself, good Doctor, why a LADY EACHEL EUSSELL. 295 letter writ the 18tli July, should come to you before one tliat was writ the 13th; they went from hence in order, I am very sure. I answer yours as soon as I can, and yet not soon enough to find you at Cottenham, as I guessed; being, you ^^Y) y^^ intend to be at Windsor the middle of September, and the greatest part of the interval at Hereford, and I remember you have, in a former letter, told me you intended a visit at Lord Gainsborough's : so tliat this paper being likely to be a wanderer, and so in hazard of not coming to you at all it may be, I will not charge it with those letters you ask for; they are too valuable to me to be ventured, es23ecially since mine loiter so by the way ; therefore I will hear again from you before I send them, with particular directions w^here they shall come to you. I read with some contentment, Doctor, that as either to speak or write a compliment would ill become you, 'tis your opinion my nature is averse to be so treated. It is so indeed, if I know myself; and I thank you for your justice to me. I have long thought it the meanest inclination a man can have, to be very solicitous for the praise of the world, especially if the heart is not pure before God. 'Tis an unfaithfulness I have been afraid of, and do not fear to say it has often excited me to be what I found good people thought me. I do con- fess there is a beauty in godliness, that draws our love to those we find it in ; and it does give me a secret pleasure to have that attributed to one's self that one finds so charming in another. I am very certain, Doctor, your judgm^ent is without error — that the fastest cement of friendship is piety. One may love passionately, but one loves unquietly, if the friend be not a good man ; and, w^hen a separation comes, what veneration do we give to their memory [whom] we consider as loved by God from all eternity ! WoBURN Abbey, I2th August 1636. 29G PRACTICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL WRITERS. WILLIAM LAW. " Wlieii at Oxford," says Dr Johnson, " I took up Law's ' Serious Call to a Holy Life,' expecting to find it a dull book (as such books generally are), and perhaps to laugh at it. But I found Law quite an overmatch for me; and this was the first occasion of my thinking in earnest of religion, after I became capable of rational incjuiry."" The author whose book produced such deep impression on minds like those of Samuel Johnson and the Wesleys, was no common man, and it is to be regretted that the mystical vagaries of his later years, and a certain deficiency of evangelical statement in the works themselves, have tended to throw out of sight some of the most acute, eloquent, and impressive treatises of the by- gone century. William Law was born at King's Cliff e, Northampton- shire, in 1686. Educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and subsequently chosen to a fellowship, he resigned it rather than take the oath of allegiance. As a non-juror he never obtained any clerical preferment. Part of his time was spent at Putney, as tutor to the ftither of the historian Gibbon, and the last twenty years of his life he resided at his native Cliffe, acting as a sort of private chaplain to two elderly ladies, one of them Mrs Hester Gibbon, the historian's aunt. He died April 9, 1761. According to Gibbon's testimony, Mr Law " had left in our family the reputation of a worthy and i)ious man, who believed all that he professed, and practised all that he enjoined. His master-work, the ' Serious Call,' is still read as a popular and powerful book of devotion. His jDrecepts are rigid, but they are founded on the gospel ; his satire is sharp, bat it is drawn from the knowledge of human life ; and many of his portraits are not unworthy of the pen of La Bruyere. If he finds a * " Croker's Boswell," vol. i., p. 69. WILLIAM LAW. 207 spark of piety in liis reader's mind, lie will soon kindle it to a flame; and a philosopher must allow that he exposes, with equal severity and truth, the strange contradiction between the faith and practice of the Christian Avorld."'"' ^ iFatJer's Counsels. Paternus lived about two hundred years ago ; he had but one son whom he educated himself in his own house. As they were sitting together in the garden, when the child was ten years old, Paternus thus began to speak to him : — The little time that you have been in the world, my child, you have spent wholly with me ; and my love and tenderness to you, has made you look upon me as your only friend and benefactor, and the cause of all the comfort and pleasure that you enjoy : your heart, I know, would be ready to break with grief, if you thought this was the last day I should live with you. But, my child, though you now think yourself mighty happy, because you have hold of my hand, you are now in the hands, and under the tender care of a much greater Father and Friend than I am, whose love to you is far greater than mine, and from whom you receive such blessings as no mortal can give. That God whom you have seen me daily worship ; whom I daily call upon to bless both you and me and all mankind ; whose wondrous acts are recorded in those Scriptures which you constantly read : that God who created the heavens and the earth ; who brought a flood upon the old world ; who saved Noah in the ark ; who was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; whom Job blessed and praised in the greatest afllic- tions; who delivered the Israelites out of the hands of the Egyptians ; who was the Protector of righteous Joseph, Moses, * ''Memoir of E. Gibbon" (1830), vol. i., p. 17. 298 PEACTICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL WRITERS. Joshua, and holy Daniel ; who sent so many prophets into the world ; who sent His Son Jesus Christ to redeem mankind : this God, who has done all these great things ; who had created so many millions of men ; who lived and died before you was born, vdih whom the spirits of good men, that are departed this life, now live; whom infinite numbers of angels now worship in heaven : this great God, who is the Creator of worlds, of angels, and men, is your loving Father and Friend, your good Creator and Nourisher, from whom, and not from me, you received your being ten years ago, at the time that I planted that little tender elm which joii there see. I myself am not half the age of this shady oak under which we sit; many of our fathers have sat under its boughs; we have all of us called it ours in our turn, though it stands, and drops its masters, as it drops its leaves. You see, my son, this wide and large firmament over our heads, where the sun and moon and all the stars appear in their turns. If you was to be carried up to any of these bodies at this vast distance from us, you would still discover others as much above you, as the stars that you see here are above the earth. Were you to go up or dowii, east or west, north or south, you would find the same height without any top, and the same depth without any bottom. And yet, my child, so great is God, that all these bodies added together are but as a grain of sand in His sight. And yet you are as much the care of this great God and Father of all worlds, and all spirits, as if He had no son but you, or there were no creature for Him to love and protect but you alone. He numbers the hairs of your head, watches over you sleeping and waking, and has preserved you from a thousand dangers, which neither you nor I know anything of. How poor my power is, and how little I am able to do for you, you have often seen. Your late sickness has shewn you how little I could do for you in that state ; and the frecj[uent AVILLIAM LAW. 299 pains of your head are plain proofs that I have no power to remove them. I can brmg yoii food and medicines, but have no power to turn them into your relief and nourishment; it is God alone that can do this for you. Therefore, my child, fear, and worship, and love God. Your eyes indeed cannot yet see Him, but all the things you see are so many marks of His power and presence, that He is nearer to you than anything that you can see. Take Him for your Lord, and Father, and Friend ; look up to Him as the fountain and cause of all the good that you have received through my hands; and reverence me only as the bearer and minister of God's good things unto you : and He that blessed my father before I was born, will bless you when I am dead. Your youth and little mind is only yet acquainted with my family, and therefore you think there is no haj^piness out of it. But, my child, you belong to a greater family than mine ; you are a younger member of the family of this Almighty Father of all nations, who has created infinite orders of angels, and numberless generations of men, to be fellow-members of one and the same society in heaven. You do well to reverence my authority, because God has given me power over you, to bring you up in His fear, and to do for you, as the holy fathers recorded in Scripture did for their children, who are now in rest and peace with God. I shall in a short time die, and leave you to God and your- self; and if God forgiveth my sins, I shall go to His Son Jesus Christ, and live amongst patriarchs and prophets, saints and martyrs, where I shall pray for you, and hope for your safe arrival at the same place. Therefore, my child, meditate on these great things, and your soul will soon grow great and noble by so meditating upon them. 300 rRACTICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL WRITERS. Let your thouglits often leave these gardens, and fields, and farms, to contemplate uj)on God and heaven, to consider angels and the spirits of good men living in light and glory. As you have been used to look to me in all your actions, and have been afraid to do anything, unless you first knew my will; so let it now be a rule of your life, to look up to God in all your actions, to do everything in His fear, and to abstain from everj^thing that is not according to His will. Bear Him always in your mind; teach your thoughts to reverence Him in every place, for there is no place where He is not. God keepeth a book of life, wherein the actions of all men are written; your name is there, my child; and when you die, this book will be laid open before men and angels, and according as your actions are there found, you will either be received to the happiness of those holy men who have died before you, or be turned away amongst wicked spirits that are never to see God any more. Never forget this book, my son; for it is written, it must be opened, you must see it, and you must be tried by it. Strive therefore to fill it with your good deeds, that the hand- writing of God may not appear against you. God, m.y child, is all love, and wisdom, and goodness; and everything that He has made, and every action that He does, is the eff"ect of them all. Therefore you cannot please God, but so far as you strive to walk in love, ^dsdom, and goodness. As all wisdom, love, and goodness proceeds from God ; so nothing but love, wisdom, and goodness can lead to God. When you love that which God loves, you act with Him, you join yourself to Him; and when you love what He dis- likes, then you oppose Him, and separate yourself from Him. This is the true and the right way; think what God loves, and do you love it with all your heart. First of all, my child, worship and adore God, think of Him WILLIAM LAW. 301 magnificently, speak of Him reverently, magnify His provi- dence, adore His power, frec|uent His service, and pray nnto Him constantly. Next to tliis, love your neighbour, which is all mankind, with such tenderness and affection as you love yourself. Think how God loves all mankind, how merciful He is to them, how tender He is of them, how carefully He preserves them, and then strive to love the world as God loves it. God would have all men to be happy, therefore do you will and desire the same. All men are great instances of Divine love, therefore let all men be instances of your love. But above all, my son, mark this ; never do anything through strife, or envy, or emulation, or vainglory. Never do any- thing in order to excel other people, but in order to please God, and because it is His will, that you should do everything in the best manner that you can. For if it is once a pleasure to you to excel other people, it will by degrees be a pleasure to you, to see other people not so good as yourself. Banish therefore every thought of pride and distinction, and accustom yourself to rejoice in all the excellencies and perfec- tions of your fellow-creatures, and be as glad to see any of their good actions as your own. For as God is as well pleased with their well-doings, as with yours ; so you ought to desire, that everything that is wise, and holy, and good, may be performed in as high a manner by other people, as by yourself. Let this therefore be your only motive to all good actions, to do everything in as perfect a manner as you can ; for this only reason, because it is pleasing to God, who writes all your actions in a book. When I am dead, my son, you will be master of all my estate, which will be a great deal more than the neces- sities of one family require. Therefore as you are to be charit- able to the souls of men, and wish them the same happiness VOL. IV. 2 c 302 PRACTICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL WRITERS. witli you in heaven ; so be charitable to their bodies, and en- deavour to make them as happy as you upon earth. As God has created all things for the common good of all men j so let that part of them, which is fallen to your share, be employed, as God would have all employed, for the common good of all. Do good, my son, first of all to those that most deserve it, but remember to do good to all. The greatest sinners receive daily instances of God's goodness towards them ; He nourishes and preserves them, that they may repent, and return to Him ; do you therefore imitate God, and think no one too bad to re- ceive your relief and kindness, when you see that he wants it. I am teaching you Latin and Greek, not that you should desire to be a great critic, a fine poet, or an eloquent orator. I would not have your heart feel any of these desires ; for the desii-e of these accomplishments is a vanity of the mind, and the masters of them are generally vain men. But I teach you these languages, that at proper times you may look into the history of past ages, and learn the method of God's Providence over the world : that reading the writings of the ancient sages, you may see how wisdom and vii-tue have been the praise of great men of all ages, and fortify your mind by their wise sayings. Let truth and plainness therefore be the only ornament of your language, and study nothing but how to think of all things as they deserve, to choose everything that is best, to live according to reason and order, and to act in every part of your life in conformity to the will of God. fStudy how to fill your heart full of the love of God, and the love of your neighbour, and then be content to be no deeper a scholar, no finer a gentleman, than these temj^ers will make you. As true religion is nothing else but simple nature go- verned by right reason ; so it loves and requires great plainness and simplicity of life. Therefore avoid all superfluous shows, WILLIAM LAW. 303 finery, and equipage, and let your house be plainly furnished with moderate conveniencies. Do not consider what your estate can afford, but what right reason requires. Let your dress be sober, clean, and modest ; not to set out the beauty of your person, but to declare the sobriety of your mind, that your outward garb may resemble the plainness of your heart. For it is highly reasonable, that you should be one man, all of a piece, and appear outwardly such as you are inwardly. As to your meat and drink, in them observe the highest rules of Christian temperance and sobriety : consider your body only as the servant of your soul ; and only so nourish it, as it may best perform an humble and obedient service to it. But, my son, observe this as a most princij^al thing, which I shall remember you of as long as I live : Hate and despise all human glory, for it is nothing else but human folly. It is the greatest snare, and the greatest betrayer, that you can possibly admit into your heart. Let every day therefore be a day of humility, condescend to all the weakness and infirmities of your fellow- creatures, cover their frailties, love their excellencies, encourage their virtues, relieve their wants, rejoice in their prosperities, compassionate their distress, receive their friendship, overlook their unkind- ness, forgive their malice, be a servant of servants, and conde- scend to do the lowest offices to the lowest of mankind. Aspire after nothing but your own purity and perfection, and have no ambition but to do everytliing in so reasonable and religious a manner, that you may be glad that God is every- where present, and sees all your actions. The greatest trial of humility is an humble behaviour towards your equals in age, estate, and condition of life. Therefore, be careful of all the motions of your heart towards these people. Let all your behaviour towards them be governed by unfeigned love. Have no desire to put any of your equals below you, nor any anger 304 rRACTICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL WEITEES. at those that would put themselves above you. If they are proud, they are ill of a very bad distemper ; let them there- fore have your tender pity, and perhaps your meekness may prove an occasion of their cure ; but if your humility should do them no good, it vnll however be the greatest good to yourself. Eemember that there is but one man in the world, with whom you are to have perpetual contention, and be always striving to exceed him, and that is yourself. The time of practising these precepts, my child, will soon be over with you ; the world will soon slip through your hands, or rather you will soon slip through it ; it seems but the other day since I received these same instructions from my dear father, that I am now leaving \\dth you. And the God that gave me ears to hear, and a heart to receive what my father said unto me, will, I hope, give you grace to love and follow the same in- structions. BISHOP HOENE. Like Beveridge, Geoege Hoene was the son of a clergy- man. His father was rector of Otham, near Maidstone, in Kent, and there he was born, November 1, 1730. He had a very happy childhood. His fiither, a man of remarkably mild and gentle dispositions, was fond of music, and when his son was an infont, he used to awake him by playing on a flute ; no wonder that George carried through life a love of music, and an affectionate veneration for his ftither's memory. As a student of University College, Oxford, Home became a good general scholar, as well as a zealous disciple of Hut- chinson. The best of his theology he derived from the two folios of Leslie, the author of " A Short and Easy Method with the Deists;" and from the writings of William Law his piety received an intense and elevating impulse. To his sus- ceptible temperament there was a great charm in an author- BISHOP HORNE. 305 ship so ingenious, so original, and so earnest as Law and Hutchinson ; but in Home there was an amount of good taste and sober judgment which saved him from the extravagances of Behmenism, and of those who sought to make a " Prin- ci^Dia" of the Bible. He was early elected a fellow of ]\Iagdalen College, of which he became eventually president, and shortly before the close of his life he was appointed BishojD of Norwich. He died at Bath, January 17, 1792. Bishop Home spent twenty years preparing his " Commen- tary on the Book of Psalms," '"' and his devout painstaking has resulted in a work of imperishable value. Much more learned than it looks, it displays no pedantry to weary or repel the ordinary reader, whilst its warm devotional feeling, its beauti- ftd but natural and unforced reflections, and its exquisite language have made it one of the dearest companions of Chris- tian retirement for the last two generations. Cje Psalntg of ©abitr. Let us stop for a moment, to contemplate the true character of these sacred hymns. Greatness confers no exemption from the cares and sorrows of life. Its share of them frequently bears a melancholy pro- portion to its exaltation. This the Israelitish monarch expe- rienced. He sought in piety that peace which he could not find in empire, and alle\iated the disquietudes of state mth the exercises of devotion. His invaluable Psalms convey those comforts to others which they afforded to himself. Composed upon particular occasions, yet designed for general use ; delivered out as services for Israelites under the law, yet no less adapted to the circum- stances of Christians under the gospel ; they present religion * Life of Ilorne, by W. Jones, p. 121. 2 c 2 306 PRACTICAL AND EXrERIMENTAL WRITERS. to US in the most engaging dress ; communicating truths which l^hilosophy could never investigate, in a style which poetry can never equal ; while history is made the vehicle of prophecy, and creation lends all its charms to paint the glories of redemp- tion. Calculated alike to profit and to please, they inform the understanding, elevate the affections, and entertain the imagi- nation. Indited, under the influence of Him to whom all hearts are known, and all events foreknown, they suit man- kind in all situations, grateful as the manna which descended from above, and conformed itself to every palate. The fairest productions of human wit, after a few perusals, like gathered flowers, wither in our hands, and lose their fragrancy ; but these unfading plants of paradise become, as we are accus- tomed to them, still more and more beautiful ; their bloom appears to be daily heightened ; fresh odours are emitted, and new sweets extracted from them. He who hath once tasted their excellencies, will desire to taste them yet again ; and he who tastes them oftenest will relish them best. And now, could the author flatter himself that any one would take half the pleasure in reading the following exposi- tion which he hath taken in writing it, he would not fear the loss of his labour. The employment detached him from the bustle and hurry of life, the din of politics, and the noise of folly ; vanity and vexation flew away for a season, care and disquietude came not near his dwelling. He arose fresh as the morning to bis task ; the silence of the night invited him to pursue it ; and he can truly say, that food and rest were not preferred before it. Every psalm improved infinitely upon his acquaintance with it, and no one gave him uneasiness but the last ; for then he giieved that his work was done. Hai^pier hours than those which have been spent on these meditations on the Songs of Sion, he never expects to see in this world. Very pleasantly did they pass, and moved smoothly and swiftly along : for when thus engaged, he counted no time. They EEV. H. VENN". 307 are gone, but have left a relish and a fragrance upon the mind, and the remembrance of them is sweet. HENRY VENN. Few biographies are more delightful and edifying than the life of the wise, faithful, and eminent rector of Yelling. From its Images we extract two characteristic letters. SLife in tjjc ^ arson nrje. You tell me you have no idea how we go on. Take the following sketch. I am up one of the first in the house, soon after five o'clock ; and when prayer and reading the blessed Word is done, my daughters make their appearance ; and I teach them till Mrs Venn comes down, at half-past eight. Then family prayer begins, which is often very sweet, as my mother's maid, and my own servants, are all, I believe, born of God. The children begin to sing prettily, and our praises, I trust, are heard on high. From breakfast, we are all em- ployed, till we ride out, in fine weather, two hours for health ; and after dinner employed again. At six, I have always one hour for solemn meditation and walking^"' in my house, till seven. We have then, sometimes twenty, sometimes more or less, of the people, to whom I expound the Word of the blessed God : several appear much affected ; and sometimes Jesus stands in the midst, and saith, " Peace be unto you !" Our devotions end at eight : we sup, and go to rest at ten. On Sundays, I am still enabled to speak six hours, at three different times, to my own great surprise. O the goodness of God, in raising me up ! * It was Mr Venn's habit to engage in devotional exercises of meditation and prayer during this hour, whilst walking alone, either in a large rcom of the house, or sometimes in the church. 308 PRACTICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL WRITERS. Hctter to a Qaucjl^tcr, Yelling, JiOy 14, 1734. My dear Jane, — Yesterday jowy welcome letter arrived ; and we all, as you conclude, unite in praising our God, who liears our prayers, and is richly deserving our love, for His benefits bestowed upon us in this world, even of a temporal nature. The natural man loses the sweetest part of enjopnent, even of the only things he can enjoy. He eats and drinks, and feasts upon the creature, as a brute, not knowing from whence it comes. If his pleasure and comfort are in a tender and beloved wife, an amiable child, or affectionate friend — the wife, or child, or friend, is all. A true Christian, on the con- trary, enjoys the gift more richly, as a gift from his bountiful God. " Tliis excellent woman, so beloved by me," he says, " the Ijord found out and bestowed upon me. This pleasant child, who gives me growing delight, is a plant of His plant- ing. Care, in education, would have been fruitless, had not His grace crowned it mth success." I am rejoiced to see you are led to be thankful, and to re- ceive, with thanksgi\ing to our blessed God, His tender pro- tection. By returning praise for the daily favours we receive, we shall acquire a habit of thankfulness, which is pleasing and honourable to God, comfort to the mind, and health to the body in most cases ; for a cheerful heart doeth good, like a medicine. Such improvement my beloved daughter is enabled, glory be to God, to make of temporal blessings. Yet these only lead the way to, and prepare the mind to be the more affected with, the spiritual blessings we enjoy. What cause have all those to break out in holy joy, who have a heart given them to seek after God, to desire restoration to the jjroper state of an immortal creature — a state of love to his Maker, of entire dependence upon Him, of union of will with Him, of delight EEV. H. VENN. 309 ill His name, of an al3iding supreme desire to please Him in our place and station ! What cause to sing with joy, that the certain possession of these tempers is gained by the know- ledge of God manifest in the flesh : — for there, love, beyond everything seen or known by men or angels, is displayed ! " My God," the believer says, " who hast lived, and laboured, and fought, and been wounded, and slain, in getting life and salvation for me — how shall I thank Thee with becoming ardour ! how shall I love Thee as I ought ! — I am Thine ! Oh, save me from ever grieving Thee, by forgetting my im- mense debt to Thee ! " Such aspirations as these, souls which are born from above, at times, feel ; though the best are often dull, and stupid, and cold, to astonishment, in this matter. When you find your precious soul in this unbecoming frame towards your God and Saviour, be not discouraged, much less call in question your faith, but confess, frankly, your corruption, and enlarge upon it, and then humbly beg : " Quicken me, O Lord, according to Thy word — according to Thy loving-kindness ! I should never have had one thought of gratitude and love, hadst Thou not excited it in me 1 Hast Thou begun to restore my soul, and wilt Thou not carry on the work ? That be far from Thee 1" Such humble expostulations are pleasing to the Lord, and not without success. The very same thunder-storm you were in, reached, in great violence, to Orlingbury. It is good to be above fear that "hath torment," in such awful weather. Christians should labour much not to fear, as men without God have cause to do. And if fear of death makes us dismayed at the storm, we ought to examine whence that fear arises, and not rest, till we can say, " Death is ours." It is but a bad return for all His precious promises — and love stronger than death, which Christ has had for us — to tremble and quake, in case He should take us to Himself. I grant that our nerves are soon 310 PRACTICAL AND EXPEEIMENTAL WRITERS. shaken, but our God has access to our spirits, and can strengthen us, and give us firmness ; and will, when we pray- to Him, that for the credit of our faith in His name, we may not fear for the body, but sanctify the Lord God in our hearts, and let Him be our fear, and let Him be our dread. Wishing you much of His presence, much more knowledge, and faith, and love, and every divine temper — and often, every day, thinking of you — with kind love from your dear mamma, I remain your affectionate father, H. Yexx. P.S. — ^Yhat is this ? All this a postscript ! Why, it is almost as long as the long letter ! — So it is. And all this postscript is, to inform you, and your dear fellow travellers, how it fared wdth me after we parted, and of several other particulars in the way of conversation. Charming was the summer's breeze, and nothing, in my way to Kettermg, to interrui:)t my most serious thoughts on the constitution of things here, plainly concurring, with the Word of God, to prove that " this is not our rest." Friends who are most happy in each other, and tender relations, are not long to- gether ; their interviews are soon at an end. How is the mind relieved by particular prayer for them, and lively hope of their safety, being interested in the great salvation of God ! With thoughts of this kind, and prayer, and singing, I reached my destination. No sooner was I come to Orlinbury, than Mr and Mrs Scott from Olney (who were visiting in the parish) came in ; and very glad we were to meet. He is a man of right spirit, always about his Master's business ; and has a tongue given him, which is " a well of life," always ministering grace to the hearers. One hour ^vas all the time we could spend to- gether ; and then he engaged me to make an exchange on the last Sunday in August, God willing. Kitty sets out well. James M. sent for medicine for his EEV. JOHN NEWTON. 311 Avife, who has a fever. Kitty desired, immediately, she might walk over to see the patient ; for she could not otherwise tell what to prescribe. I am very glad to see her tread in your steps. Oh, may we all love the poor more, and study to help them, and not fear the fulfilment of the promise ! I paid J. Peters her eight shillings ; and she gets into her little house this day. She went away from the parsonage rejoicmg. A parsonage should be a place of refuge — a house of mercy. The ver>^ sight of it should be pleasing to the poor and desolate. Prayer, to be helped, and enabled to help the poor, will be answered ; — and such aid, so obtained, is matter of great thank- fulness. JOHN NEWTON. To this father of many faithful, — so quaint, so kind, so shrewd, — our readers have already been introduced.''' His sermons are not remarkable, and his volume of Church History is inferior to Milner ; but " his letters are weighty," and few hymns are more endeared than '•How sweet the name of Jesus sounds," and some others which he added to the Ohiey collection. ^' Whatsoever 'tilings are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, — think on these things."— Phil. iv. 8, Dear Sir, — The precept wliich I have chosen for my motto is appHcable to many particulars, which are but seldom and occasionally mentioned from the pulpit. There are improprie- ties of conduct, which, though usually considered as foibles * Christian Classics, vol. iv. p. 250. t From *' Letters by Oinicron," &c. 312 rRx\CTICAL AND EXPEKIMENTAL WRITERS. that hardly deserve a severe censure^ are properly sinful ; for though some of them may not seem to violate any exj)ress command of Scripture, yet they are contrary to that accuracy and circumspection which become our profession. A Christian, by the tenor of his high calling, is bound to avoid even the appearance of evil ; and his deportment should not only be \i^~ right as to his leading principles, but amiable and engaging, and as free as possible from every inconsistence and blemish. The characters of some valuable persons are clouded ; and the influence they might otherwise have, greatly counteracted by comparatively small faults : yet faults they certainly are; and it would be well if they could be made so sensible of them, and of their ill effects, as that they might earnestly watch, and strive, and pray against them. I know not how to explain mj'self better than by attempting the outlines of a few portraits, to each of which I apprehend some strong resemblances may be found in real life. I do not wish to set my readers to work to find out such resemblances among their neighbours; but would advise them to examine carefully, Avhethcr they cannot, in one or other of them, discover some traces of their own features : and though I speak of men only, counterparts to the several characters may doubtless be found here and there among the women ; for the imperfections and evils of a fallen nature are equally en- tailed upon both sexes. Austerus is a solid and exemplary Christian. He has a deep, extensive, and experimental knowledge of divine things. Inflexibly and invariably true to his iDrinciples, he stems with a noble singularity the torrent of the world, and can neither be bribed nor intimidated from the path of duty. He is a rough diamond of great intrinsic value, and would sparkle vnth a dis- tinguished lustre if he were more polished: but though the "Word of God is his daily study, and he prizes the precepts, as well as the promises, more than thousands of gold and silver, there is one precept he seems to have overlooked; I mean that HUMAN US. 313 of the apostle, " Be courteous." Instead of tliat gentleness and condescension which will always be expected from a professed follower of the meek and lowly Jesus, there is a harshness in his manner which makes him more admired than beloved; and they who truly love him, often feel more constraint than pleasure when in his company. His intimate friends are satisfied that he is no stranger to true humility of heart; but these are few. By others he is thought proud, dogmatic, and self-important; nor can this prejudice against him be easily removed, until he can lay aside that cynical air which he has unhappily contracted. Humanus is generous and benevolent. His feelings are lively, and his expressions of them strong. No one is more distant from sordid views, or less influenced by a selfish spirit His heart burns with love to Jesus, and he is ready to receive with open arms all who love his Saviour. Yet with an upright and friendly spirit, which entitles him to the love and esteem of all who know him, he has not everything we would wish in a friend. In some respects, though not in the most criminal sense, he bridleth not his tongue. Should you, without wit- ness or writing, intrust him with untold gold, you would run no risk of loss; but if you intrust him with a secret, you thereby put it in the possession of the public. Not that he would wilfully betray you, but it is his infirmity. He knows not how to keep a secret ; it escapes from him before he is aware. So likewise as to matters of fact : in things which are of great importance, and where he is sufficiently informed, no man has a stricter regard to truth; but in the smaller concerns of common life, whether it be from credulity, or from a strange and blamable inadvertence, he frecpiently grieves and surprises those who know his real character, by saying the thing that is not. Thus they to whom he opens his very heart, dare not make him returns of ec|ual confidence ; and they who in some cases would venture their lives upon his word, in others VOL. IV. 2 D 314 PRACTICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL AVRITERS. are afraid of telling a story after him. How lamentable are such blemishes in such a person ! Prudens, though not of a generous natural temper, is a par- taker of that grace which ojDens the heart, and inspires a dis- position to love and to good works. He bestows not his alms to be seen of men ; but they who have the best opportunities of knowing what he does for the relief of others, and of com- paring it with his ability, can acquit him in good measure of the charge which another part of his conduct exposes him to. For Prudens is a great economist; and though he would not willingly wrong or injure any person, yet the meannesses to which he will submit, either to save or gain a penny in what he accounts an honest way, are a great discredit to his profes- sion. He is iDunctual in fulfilling liis engagements ; but ex- ceedingly hard, strict, and suspicious in making his bargams. And in his dress, and every article of his personal concerns, he is content to be so much below the station in which the pro^d- dence of God has placed him, that to those who are not ac- quainted with his private benefactions to the poor, he appears under the hateful character of a miser, and to be governed by that love of money which the Scripture declares to be the root of all evil, and inconsistent with the true love of God and of the saints. Volatilis is sufficiently exact in performing his promises in such instances as he thinks of real importance. If he bids a person depend upon his assistance, he will not disappoint his expectations. Perhaps he is equally sincere in all his promises at the time of making them; but for want of method in the management of his affairs, he is always in a hurry, always too late, and has always some engagement upon his hands with which it is impossible he can comply : yet he goes on in this way, exposing himself and others to continual disappoint- ments. He accepts, without a thought, proposals which are incompatible with each other, and will perhaps undertake to be VOLATILIS. 315 at two or three different and distant places at the same hour. This has been so long his practice, that nobody now expects him till they see him. In other respects he is a good sort of man; but this want of punctuality, which runs through his whole deportment, puts everything out of course in which he is concerned, abroad and at home. Yolatilis excuses himself as well he can, and chiefly by alleging, that the things in which he fails are of no great consequence. But he would do well to remember, that truth is a sacred thing, and ought not to be violated in the smallest matters, -Rdthout an unforeseen and unavoidable prevention. Such a trifling turn of spirit lessens the weight of a person's character, though he makes no pre- tentions to religion, and is a still greater blemish in a pro- fessor. Cessator is not chargeable with being buried in the cares and business of the present life to the neglect of the one thing needful ; but he greatly neglects the duties of his station. Had he been sent into the world only to read, pray, hear sermons, and join in religious conversation, he might pass for an emi- nent Christian. But though it is to be hoped, that his abounding in these exercises springs from a heart-attachment to divine things, his conduct _ evidences that his judgment is weak, and his views of his Christian calling are very narrow and defective. He does not consider, that waiting upon God n the public and private ordinances is designed, not to excuse us from the discharge of the duties of civil life, but to instruct, strengthen, and qualify us for their performance. His affairs are in disorder, and his family and connexions are likely to suffer by liis indolence. He thanks God that he is not worldly- minded; but he is an idle and unfaithful member of society, and causes the way of truth to be evil spoken of Of such the apostle has determined, that " if any man mil not work, neither should he eat." Curiosus is upright and unblamable in his general deport- 316 PRACTICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL WRITERS. ment, and no stranger to tlie experiences of a true Christian. His conversation upon these subjects is often satisfactory and edifying. He would be a much more agreeable companion, were it not for an impertinent desire of knomng everybody's business, and the grounds of every hint that is occasionally drojjped in discourse where he is present. This puts him upon asking a multiplicity of needless and improper questions ; and obliges those who know him, to be continually upon their guard, and to treat him with reserve. He catechises even strangers, and is unwilling to part with them until he is punctually in- formed of all their connexions, employments, and designs. For this idle curiosity he is marked and avoided as a busy-b(>dy; and they w^ho have the best opinion of him, cannot but wonder that a man, who aj^pears to have so many better things to em- ploy his thoughts, should find leisure to amuse himself with what does not at all concern him. Were it not for the rules of civility, he would be affronted every day : and if he would attend to the cold and evasive answers he receives to his in- quiries, or even to the looks with w^hich they are accompanied, he might learn, that, though he means no harm, he apj^ears to a great disadvantage, and that this prying disposition is very unpleasing. Querulus wastes much of his j^recious time in declaiming against the management of public affairs; though he has neither access to the springs which move the wdieels of govern- ment, nor influence either to accelerate or retard their motions. Our national concerns are no more affected by the remonstrances t:)f Querulus, than the heavenly bodies are by the disputes of astronomers. While the newspapers are the chief sources of his intelligence, and his situation precludes him from being a competent judge either of matters of fact, or matters of right, why should Querulus trouble himself with politics ? This would be a weakness, if we consider him only as a member of society ; but if we consider him as a Christian, it is worse QUERULUS. 317 than weakness : it is a sinful conformity to tlie men of the world, who look no further than to second causes, and forget that the Lord reigns. If a Christian be placed in a public sphere of action, he should undoubtedly be faithful to his calling, and endeavour by all lawful methods to transmit our privileges to posterity : but it would be better for Querulus to let the dead bury the dead. There are people enough to make a noise about political matters, who know not how to employ their time to better purpose. Our Lord's kingdom is not of this world ; and most of His people may do their country much more essential service by pleading for it in prayer, than by finding fault with things which they have no power to alter. If Querulus had opportunity of spending a few months under some of the governments upon the continent (I may, indeed, say under any of them), he would probably bring home with him a more grateful sense of the Lord's goodness to him, in ap- pointing his lot in Britain. As it is, his zeal is not only un- profitable to others, but hurtful to hmiself It embitters his spirit, it diverts his thoughts from things of greater importance, and prevents him from feeling the value of those blessings, ci^il and religious, which he actually possesses : and could he (as he wishes) prevail on many to act in the same spirit, the governing powers might be irritated to take every opportunity of abridging that religious liberty which we are favoured with above all the nations upon earth. Let me remind Querulus, that the hour is approaching, when many things, which at pre- sent too much engross his thoughts and inflame his j^assions, will appear as foreign to him as what is now transacting among the Tartars or Chinese. Other improprieties of conduct, which lessen the influence and spot the profession of some who wish well to the cause of Christ, might be enumerated, but these ma}'' suffice for a specimen. 2d 2 THE LAITY. The names of Addison, of Soame Jenyns and Abraham Tucker, have already passed under our review ; William Cowj^er and several others will come before us among the poets of the eighteenth century; and amongst its apologists it was only the want of space which constrained us to omit Lord Lyttleton and Gilbert West. But it would be injustice to our subject and to our readers if we took no notice of others who were amongst the most popular writers of the period ; and of one at least who, if not precisely a popular author, is a genius of whom Britain is proud, and for whom the ci-dlised world is grateful. SIR ISAAC NEWTON. When inaugurating the statue at Grantham, ■''■ Lord Brougham began his address by saying : " We are this day assembled to commemorate him of whom the consent of nations has declared that that man is chargeable with nothing like a follower's exaggeration or local partiality, who pronounces the name of Newton as that of the greatest genius ever bestowed by the bounty of Providence, for instructing mankind on the frame of the universe, and the laws by which it is governed : — ' Whose genius dimmed all other men's as far As does the mid-day sun the midnight star.' " But it was not the frame of the universe alone, and its material laws, which this gi'eat thinker desired to look into. Early in life he had turned his powerful understanding to the study of theology, and found a special attraction in the pro- * September 21, 1858. SIR ISAAC NEWTON. 310 plietical books of the Bible. Soon after liis death appeared his " Observations upon the Pro^jhecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St John" (1733), and his "Lexicon Propheti- ■ciim" in 1737. One great merit of these works is their effort to establish general principles of interpretation, and to furnish n key to the symbolical Language of Scripture ; nor need it be any disparagement to the illustrious author if his prophetical investigations have failed to command the general and final tissent accorded to the " Principia Mathematica." Sir Isaac Newton was born at Woolsthorpe, six miles south from Grantham, in Lincolnshire, December 25, 1642. He studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, and in 1667 became n fellow. His analysis of light and other optical discoveries were made before 1672. The " Principia," unfolding the laws •of universal gravitation, appeared in 1686. Succeeding Dr Isaac Barrow as Lucasian professor of mathematics in 1669, he represented the university in the convention parliament in 1689, and was appointed master of the mint in 1697. From the year 1703 he held the presidency of the Ptoyal Society until his death, which took place at Kensington, March 20, 1728.-"- ^erfotis of ^ri3p]^etic UnsjJtrattcn. In the infancy of the nation of Israel, when God had given them a lav\^, and made a covenant with them to be their God if they would keep His commandments. He sent prophets to reclaim them as often as they revolted to the worship of other gods ; and upon their returning to Him, they sometimes re- newed the covenant which they had broken. These prophets He continued to send till the days of Ezra ; but after their prophecies were read in the synagogues, those prophecies were thought sufficient. For if the people would not hear Moses * See the copious and eloquent ''IMemoirs of Sir Isaac Newton," by Sir David Brewster. 2 vols. 1855. 320 THE LAITY. and the old prophets, they Avoukl hear no new ones, no not though they should rise from the dead. At length, when a new truth was to be preached to the Gentiles — namely, that Jesus was the Christ, God sent new prophets and teachers; but after their writings were also received and read in the synagogues of the Christians, prophecy ceased a second time. We have Moses, the prophets and apostles, and the words of Christ himself j and i^ we will not hear them, we shall be more inexcusable than the Jews. For the prophets and apostles have foretold, that as Israel often revolted and brake the covenant, and upon repentance renewed it, so there should be a falling away among the Christians soon after the days of the apostles, and that in the latter days God would destroy the impenitent revolters, and make a new covenant with His people. And the giving ear to the prophets is a fundamental character of the true Church. For God has so ordered the prophecies, that in the latter days the wise may understand, but the wicked shall do wickedly, and none of the wicked shall understand (Dan. xii. 9, 10). The authority of emperors, kings, and princes is human ; the authority of councils, synods, bishops, and presbyters is human. The authority of the pro- phets is divine, and comprehends the sum of religion, reckon- ing Moses and the apostles among the prophets; and if an angel from heaven preach any other gospel than what they have delivered, let him be accursed. Their writings contain the covenant between God and His people, with instructions for keeping this covenant, instances of God's judgments upon them that break it, and predictions of things to come. While the people of God keep the covenant, they continue to be His people ; when they break it, they cease to be His people or Church, and become the synagogue of Satan, who say they are Jews and are not. And no power on earth is authorised to alter this covenant. SIR R, STEELE. 321 SIR RICHARD STEELE. The fame of Sir Eicliard rests on "The Tatler," "The Spec- tator," " The Guardian," and " The Englishman," — the first in that unique and charming series known as " The British Essayists." But his first publication was " The Christian Hero." He wrote it when an ensign in the Guards, and pub- lished it with his name in 1701. He hoped that, even if it did no other good, it would be a stimulus to his own virtuous exertions, and a monitor when he fell short of his own stan- dard. Even in this respect it is to be feared that it was not always quite successful. Steele was a native of Dublin, and born there in 1671. He died at his own estate, Llangunnor, in AYales, September 1, 1729. ^t ^auL Meekness is to the mind, what a good mien is to the body, without which the best limbed and finest complexioned person may be very disagreeable ; and with it, a very homely and plain one cannot be so : for a good air supplies the imperfec- tion of feature and shape, by throwing a certain beauty on the whole, which covers the disagreeableness of the parts. It has a state and humility peculiar to itself above all virtues, like the holy Scripture, its sacred record, where the highest things are expressed in the most easy terms, and which carries throughout a condescending explanation, and a certain meek- ness of style. With this circumstance, and this ready virtue, the faithful followers of a crucified Master were to shape their course to an eternal kingdom, and, with that in prospect, to contemn the hazards and disasters of a cruel and impenitent generation. Great were the actions and sufferings of all our blessed Savi- our's apostles ; but St Paul being peculiarly sent to us who 322 THE LAITY. were or are Gentiles, he, metliiiiks, more particularly challenges our regard. God, who bestowed upon others supernaturally the gift of tongues, but not of arts, thought, therefore, fit to make use of him, already master in some measure of both, and qualified to converse with the politer world, by his acquaint- ance with their studies, laws, and customs. But though he shews himself, by frequent brisk sallies and quick interroga- tories, skilful in approaching the passions by rhetoric, yet he is veiy modest in any of these ornaments, and strikes all along at the reason, where he never fails to convince the attentive and unprejudiced ; and though his person was very despicable (which to a stranger is almost an insuperable inconvenience), yet such was the power of the commanding truth which he uttered, and his skill how and when to utter it, that there everywhere appears in his character either the man of business, the gentleman, the hero, the apostle, or the martyr; which eminence above the other apostles might be well expected from his sanguine and undertaking complexion, tempered by educa- tion, and c[uickened by grace. It is true, indeed, he had opposed, in the most outrageous and violent manner, this new faith, and was accessory to the murder of the glorious leader of the army of martyrs, St Stephen ; but that fierce disposition fell off with the scales from his eyes, and God, who ever regards the intention, changed his mistaken method of serving Him, and he is now ready to promote the same religion by his sufferings, which before he would have extirpated by his per- secutions. He and his companion had made very great pro- gress in the conversion both of Jews and Gentiles, but certain unbelievers prompted the multitude to a resolution at a general assembly to assassinate them (Acts xiv.) ; but they, advertised of it, fled unto Lycaonia, where their actions and eloquence were very successful. But at Lystra, a certain poor cripple (from his mother's womb) heard him with very particular attention and devotion, whom the apostle (observing in liis SIE R. STEELE. 323 very countenance liis warm contrition and preparation of soul to receive the benefit) commanded to stand up, upon which he immediately jumped upon his legs and walked. This miracle alarmed the whole city, who believed theii* gods had descended in human shapes. Barnabas was immediately Jove, and Paul his Mercury. The priest of Jupiter now is commg to sacrifice to them wdth oxen and garlands ; but they ran into the multi- tude (ver, 15), exclaiming, " We are men like you, — subject to the same weakness, infirmities, and passions with yourselves. We, alas ! are impotent of the great things ourselves have done; your and our Creator will no longer let you wander in the maze and error of your vanities and false notions of His deity, but has sent us with instances of His omnipotence to awake you to a worship worthy Him and worthy you." graceful passage, to see the gTeat apostle oppose his own success ! Now^ only Ms vehemence, his power, and his eloquence are too feeble when they are urgent against themselves j for with prayers and en- treaties the crowd could hardly be prevailed upon to forbeai! their adoration. But this applause, like all other, was but a mere gust ; for the malice of certain Jews followed them from Iconium, and cjuickly insinuated into the giddy multitude as much rancour as they had before devotion, who in a tumultuary manner stoned St Paul, and dragged him as dead out of the gates of the city ; but he bore their aifronts with much less indignation than their worship. Here was in a trice the highest and lowest condition, the most respectful and most insolent treatment that man could receive ; but Christianity, which kept his eye upon the cause, not effect, of liis action (and always gives us a transient regard to transitory things), depressed him when adored, exalted him when affronted. But these two excellent men, though they had the endear- ments of fellow-suffering, and their friendship heightened by the yet faster tie of religion, could not longer accompany each other, but upon a dispute about taking Mark with them (Act 32^ THE LAITY. XV. 39), "\t1io it seems had before deserted tliem, their dissen- sion grew to the highest a resentment between generous friends ever can, even to part and estrange them; but they did it mthout rancour, malice, or perhaps disesteem of each other j for God has made us, whether we observe it at the instant of being so or not, so much instruments of His great and secret X:)urposes, that He has given every individual man, I know not ■what peculiarly his own, which so much distinguishes him, from all other persons, that it is impossible, sometimes, for two of the same generous resolutions, honesty, and integrity, to do well together ; whether it be that Providence has so ordered it to distribute virtue the more, or whatever it is, such is the frequent effect. For these noble personages were forced to take different ways, and in those were eminently useful in the same cause ; as you may have seen two chemical waters asunder, shining, transparent, — thrown together, muddy and offensive. The apostle (Acts xvi.) was warned in a ^dsion to go into ISIacedonia, whither he and his new companion Silas accord- ingly went. At Philippi he commanded an evil spirit to depart out of a young woman ; but her master (to whom her distrac- tion was a revenue, which ceased by her future inability to answer the demands usually made to her), with the ordinary method of hiding private malice in public zeal, raised the multitude upon them, as disturbers of the public peace and innovators upon their laws and liberties ; the multitude hurried them to the magistrates, who, happening to be as wise as themselves, commanded them to be stripped, whipped, and clapped in gaol; the keeper receiving very strict orders for their safe custody, put them in irons in the dungeon. The abused innocents had now no way left for their redress, but apijlying to their God, who, when all human arts and forces fail, is ready for our relief, nor did St Paul on less occasions implore preternatural assistance. THE PKISON AT PHILIPPI. 325 Nec Deus intersit nisi clig-nns vindice nodus Incident r Let not a God approach the scene, In cases for a God too mean. (We must, to men of wit and gallantry, quote out of their own scriptures.) Their generous way of devotion and begging assistance was giving thanks for their present extremities. In the midst of their sores and chains, tliey sang hjanns and praises to their Creator ; immediately the bolts flew, the manacles fell off, the doors were opened, and the earth shook ; the jailer awakes in terror, and believing all under his custody escaped, went to despatch himself; but St Paul calls to him, he comes and beholds his prisoners detained by nothing but their amazing liberty — the horror, sorrow, torture, and despair of a dungeon turned into the joy, the rapture, the hallelujah, the ecstasy of an heaven — he fell trembling at the apostle's feet, resigned himself to his captives, and felt in himself the happy exchange of his liberty for that yoke in which alone is perfect freedom. Early the next morning, upon this stu- pendous occasion, the magistrates sent orders those men might be released ; but St Paul, w^ho knew he had law on his side, and that his being a prisoner made him not the less a gentleman and a Roman, scorned their pretended favour, nor would regard their message, until they had themselves, in as public a manner acknowledged their oftence as they had com- mitted it, which they did by attending them in the jail, and desiring, in a ceremonious manner, they would leave the €ity; upon which the apostle accepted his enlargement, and when he had settled what business he had in that town (Acts xvi.), left it and its rulers to forget that painful truth, which they had neither power to gainsay nor ingenuity to ac- knowledge. VOL. IV. 9 r: 326 THE LAITY. DANIEL DEFOE. If Steele was tlie earliest of the British essayists, the author of "Moll Flanders" and "Captam Singleton" maybe con- sidered as the father of English novelists ; and his " Religious Courtship," anticipating by a century the " Caslebs " of Mrs More and the " Modern Accomplishments " of Miss Sinclair, is the first attempt at conveying Christian instruction through a romantic medium. From this work, once almost as popular as " Robinson Crusoe," we have chosen our extract. Defoe was born in the parish of St Giles, Cripplegate, and in the same parish he died. His birth took place about the year 1663 ; he died in April 1731. STJe Squire anti tjc Cottaifcr. He was seriously musing on this part one evening, walking all alone in a field near his house, when he began to look, with great concern, upon the want which he felt, of an early foundation laid in his mind by a religious education. Sure, said he to himself, we that are men of fortune are the most unhappy part of mankind; we are taught nothing: our ances- tors have had so little notion of religion themselves, that they never so much as thought of it for their children: I don't wonder they have thought it below them, for knowing little or nothing of it themselves, they had no other excuse to one another for the leaving their children entirely destitute of it, but by pretending it was below their quality. This flung him into a reflection which raised this sudden passionate expres- sion, God be merciful unto me ! says he ; what is become of my father and grandfather? He went on thus: Who am I? A gentleman! I am attended by servants; sirred and wor- shipped and honoured here by a parcel of poor workmen and tenants, that think themselves nothing to me, and are half frighted if they do but see me; and I am in the sight of THE SQUIRE. 327 Him that made me, and in my own too, a dog, a monster, a creature a thousand times worse than the meanest of them, for I am a wretch with a soul, and yet know nothing of Him that gave it me — a soul commanded to serve and obey the God that made it, and yet never taught to know Him. There lives a poor ploughman, and yonder lives a poor farmer, they both fare hard and work hard ; how sober, how religious, how serious are they ! How are they daily teaching and instructing their children! And how were they taught and instructed by their parents ! And there 's scarce a boy of ten years old in their families but knows more of God and religion than I do; I have been taught nothing and know nothing but this, that I am under the curse of darkness in the midst of light, ignorant in the midst of knowledge, and have more to give an account of than a negro of Africa, or a savage of America. He had wandered so long in these meditations, not minding his way, that he found night coming on, and he scarce knew he was so far from his own house, till he looked about him; hen he resolved to go back; so he broke off his thoughts awhile, and made a little haste homeward. In his way he necessarily went by a poor labouring man's door, who, with a wife and four children, lived in a small cottage on the waste, where he, the gentleman, was lord of the manor. As he passed by, he thought he heard the mail's voice, and stepping up close to the door, he perceived that the poor, good old man was praying to God with his family. As he said afterwards, his heart sprang in his breast for joy at the occasion, and he listened eagerly to hear what he said. The poor man was, it seems, gi^ing God thanks for his condition, and that of his little family, which he did with great affection ; repeating how comfortably they lived, how plentifully they were pro\ided for, how God had distinguished them in His goodness, that they were alive when others were snatched away by diseases 328 THE LAITY. and disasters, in liealtli when others hingnished with pain and sickness, had food Avhen others were in want, at liberty when others were in prison, were clothed and covered when others were naked and without habitation, concluding with admiring and adoring the wonders of God's providence and mercy to them who had deserved nothing. He was confounded and struck, as it Avere speecliless, with surprise at what he had heard. Nothing could be more affecting to him : he came away (for he had stayed as long as. his heart could hold), and walked to some distance, and there he stojjped, looked up and round him, as he said, to see if he was awake, or if it was a dream. At last he got some vent to his thoughts, and throwing out his arms. Merciful God ! says he, is this to be a Christian ! What then have I been all my days? What is this man thus thankful for? Why, my dogs- live better than he does in some respects, and he is on his. knees, adoring infinite Goodness for his enjoyments ! AVhy, I have enjoyed all I have, and never had the least sense of God's- goodness to me, or ever once said, God, I thank Thee for it, in my life. Well might a sober woman be afraid of me. Is this humble temper, this thankfulness for mere j)overty, is this the effect of being a Christian ? Why, then, Christians are the happiest people in the world ! Why, I should hang myself if I was to be reduced to a degree a hundred times above him;, and yet here is peace, ease of mind, satisfaction in circum- stances; nay, thankfulness, which is the excess of human felicity; and all this in a man who just lives one degree above starving. We think our farmers poor slaves, Avho labour and drudge in the earth to support us that are their landlords, and who look upon us like their lords and masters : why, this poor wretch is but a drudge to these drudges, a slave of slaves, and yet he gives God thanks for the happiness of his condition 1 Is this the frame of religious people ! What a monster am I !: Then he walked a little way further, but not being able ta THE COTTAGEE. 329 contain his astonishment; I'll go back, says lie, to poor William (for he knew liis name), he shall teach me to be a Christian, for I am sure I know nothing of it yet. Away he goes back to the poor man's house, and standing without, he whistled first and then called, WiUiam, William. The poor man, his family worship being over, was just going to supper, but hearing somebody whistle, he thought it might be some stranger who had lost his way, as is often the '^ase in the country, and went to the door, ^Yhel•e he saw a gentleman stand at some distance; but not seeing him perfectly, because it was dusk, he asked who he was, but was surprised when he heard his voice and knew who he was. Don't you know me, William ? says his landlord. William. Indeed, I did not know your worship at first. I am sorry to see you out so late, an't please your worship, and all alone ; I hope you an't on foot, too ? Landlord. Yes, I am, William, indeed. I have wandered through the wood here a little too far before I was aware; will you go home with me, William ? Wil. Yes, an't please your worship to accept of me, with all my heart ; you shall not go alone in the dark thus : an't j)lease your worship to stay a bit, I'll go call Goodman Jones and his son too; we'll all see you safe home. Land. No, no; I '11 have none but you, William; come along. Wil. An't, please you, I'll take my bill in my hand, then; it is all the weapons I have. Land. Well, do then; but how will you do to leave your wife and children ? Wil. God will keep them, I hope, an't please your worship : His protection is a good guard. Land. That's true, AVilliam; come along then: I hope there are no thieves about. [They go together. Wd. Alas ! an't please your worship, it is a sorry thief would rob a cottage. 2e2 330 THE LAITY. Land. Well, but that little you have, William, is something, to you, and you would be loth to lose it. Wil. Indeed, I could ill spare what I have, though it be veiy mean, because I could not buy more in the room of it. Land. J \^o^Y you are poor, William; how many children have you 1 Wil. I have four, an't please you. Land. And how do you all live 1 Wil. Indeed, an't please you, we all live by my hard labour^ Land. And what can you earn a-day, William ? TT^ii7. Why, an't please you, I cannot get above lOd. a-day now; but when your worship's good father was alive, he always gave the steward orders to allow me 12d. a-day, and that was a great help to me. Land. Well, but William, can your wife get nothing] Wil. Truly, now and then she can, in the summer, but it ic? veiy little ; she 's but weakly. Land. And have you always work, William? Wil. Truly, an't please you, sometimes I have not, and then it is very hard with us. Land. Well, but you do not want, I hope, William ? Wil. ISTo, blessed be God, an't please you, we do not want:, no, no, God forbid I should say we want; we want nothing, but to be more thankful for what we have. [This struck him to the heart, that this poor wretch should say he wanted nothing, &c.] Land. Thankful, William ! Why, what hast thou to be thankful for? Wil. Oh, dear ! an't please you, I should be a dreadful TVTctch, if I should not be thankful ! Wliat would become of me if I had nothing but what I deserve ? Land. Why, what couldst thou be worse than thou art, William? Wd. The Lord be praised, an't please your worshij,), I might THANKFULNESS, 331 be sick and lame and could not work, and then we must all perish, or I might be without a cover; your worship might turn me out of this warm cottage, and my wife and children would be starved with cold; how many better Christians than I are exposed to misery and want, and I am provided for ! Blessed be the Lord, I want for nothing, an't please you. [It was dark and William could not see him, but he owned afterwards, that it made his heart burn within him, to hear the poor man talk thus; and the tears come out of his eyes so fast, that he walked thirty or forty steps before he coiild speak to him again.] Land. Poor William ! thou art more thankful for thy cot- tage than ever I was for the manor-house ; pr'ythee, William^ can you tell me how to be thankful too ? Wil. An't please your worship, I don't doubt but you are more thankful than I; you have a vast estate, and are lord of all the country, I know not how far; to be sure you are more thankful than I, an't please you. Land. I ought to be so, you mean, William; I know that, for it all comes from the same hand. Wil. I don't doubt but you are very thankful to God, an't please you ; to be sure you are, for He has given your worship great wealth, and where much is given, you know, ant please you, much is required ; to be sure you are much more thankful than I. Land. Truly, William, I 'd give a thousand pounds were I as happy and as thankful as thou art; pr'ythee, William, tell me how I shall bring myself to be thankful; for though thou art a poorer man, I believe thou art a richer Christian than I am. WU. Oh ! an't please your worship, I cannot teach you : I am a poor labouring man, I have no learning. Land. But what made you so thankful, William, for jittle more than bread and water ? WU. 0, sir, an't please you, my old father used to say to 132 THE LAITY. lie, that to comiDare what we receive with what we deserve, \ill make anybody thankful. Land. Indeed, that's true, William. Alas! we that are jentlemen are the unhappiest creatures in the world, we :annot quote our fathers for anything that is fit to be named. >Vas thy father as thankful as thou art, William ? Wil. Yes, an't please you, sir, and a great deal more. Oh ! " shall never be so good a Christian as my father was. Land. I shall never be so good a Christian as thou art, fVilliam. Wd. I hope you are, an't please you, much better already : >od has blessed your worship with a vast, great estate, and if 3e gives you grace to honour Him with it. He has put means n your worship's hands to do a great deal of good with it, m't please you. Land. But you have a better estate than I, William. Wd. I an estate! an't please you, I am a poor labouring nan ; if I can get bread by my work for my poor children, it s all I have to hope for on this side eternity. Land. William, William ! thou hast an inheritance beyond :his world, and I want that hope ; I am very serious with thee, ^Villiam. Thou hast taught me more this one night, of the ;rae happiness of a Christian's life, than ever I knew before; [ must have more talk with thee upon this subject, for thou [last been the best instructor ever I met with. ]VU. Alas ! sir, I am a sorry instructor. I want help myself, m't please you, and sometimes, the Lord knows, I am hardly ible to bear up under my burden; but, blessed be God, at )ther times I am comforted, that my hope is not in this life. Land. I tell thee, William, thy estate is better than all mine ; thy treasure is in heaven and thy heart is there too ; I would give all my estate to be in thy condition. Wd. O sir, I hope your worship is in a better condition tlian I every way. " A GOOD OLD ENGLISH GENTLEMAN !" 333 Land. Look you, William, I am very serious with tliee; thou knowest liow I have been brought up, for you remember my father very well. Wil. Yes, I do indeed; he was a good man to the poor; I was the better for him many a day ; he was a worthy gentle- man. Land. But, William, he never took any care of us that were his children, to teach us anything of religion ; and this is my case, as it is the case of too man}^ gentlemen of estates; we are the unhappiest creatures in the world; we are taught nothing, and we know nothing of religion, or of Him that made us ; it is below us it seems. Wil. It is a great pity, indeed, an't please you, but I know it is so too often. There is young Sir Thomas • , your worship's cousin, he is a pretty youth and may make a fine gentleman, but though he is but a child, he has such Avords in liis mouth, and will swear so already, it grieves me to hear him sometimes. It is true his father is dead, but sure if my lady knew it, she would teach him better ; it is a pity so hope- ful a young gentleman should be ruhied. Land. And who d(3 you think spoiled him ? Wd. Some wicked children that they let him play with, I believe, or some loose servants. Land. No, no, William, only his own father and mother. I have seen his father take him when he was a child, and make him speak lewd words and sing immodest songs, when the poor child did not so much as know the meaning of what he said, or that the words were not fit for him to speak : and you talk of my lady ! why, she will swear and curse as fast as, her coachman : how should the child learn any better ? Wd. Oh, dear, that is a dreadful case indeed, an't please you ; then the poor youth must be ruined of necessity; there's no remedy for him, unless it please God to single him out by His distinguishing, invisible grace. 334 THE LAITY. Land. Why his case, ^yillialn, is my case, and the case of half the gentlemen in England. AVhat God may do, as you say, by His invisible grace, I know not, nor scarce know what you mean by that word; we are, from our infancy, given up to the devil, almost as directly as if we were put out to nurse to him. ^Yil. Indeed, sir, an't please you, the gentlemen do not think much of religion ; I fear it was always so : the Scripture says, " Not many rich, not many noble are called," and it is ''the poor of this world that are rich in faith" (James ii. 5). Land. I find it so, indeed, "William, and I find myself at a dreadful loss in this very tiling ; I am convinced the happiness of man does not consist in the estate, pleasures, and enjoy- ments of life ; if so, the poor alone would be miserable, and the rich men only be blessed ; but there is something beyond this world which makes up for all that is deficient here; this you have, and I have not ; and so, William, you, in your poor cottage, are richer and more happy than I am with the whole manor. Wil. Indeed, sir, if in this world only we had hope, the poor would be of all men the most miserable; blessed be the Lord that our portion is not in this life. But, sir, an't j)lease you, I hope you will not discourage yourself neither, for God has not chosen the poor only : rich men have temptations from the world and hindrances very many, and it is hard for them to enter into the kingdom of heaven ; but they are not shut out; the gate is not barred upon them because they are rich. Jjand. I know not how it is, William, nor which way to begin, but I see so many obstructions in the work, that I doubt I shall never get over it. ir<7. Do not say so, I beseech you, sir, an't please you; the promise is made to all ; and if God has given you a heart to seek Him, He will meet you and bless you, for He has said, " Their heart shall live that seek the Lord." Many great and rich men have been good men ; we read of good kings and J WHAT IS THE FIRST STEP 1 335 good princes ; and, if your difficulties are great, you have great encouragements; for you that are great men have great oppor- tunities to honour God and to do good to His church; poor men are denied these opportunities; we can only sit still and be patient under the weight of our sorrows and our poverty, and look for His blessing, which alone makes rich, and adds no sorrow to it. Land. But tell me, William, what is the first step such a poor uneducated thing as I am should take ? I see a beauty in religion which I cannot reach; I see the happiness which thou enjoy est, William, in an humble, religious, correct life ; I would give all my estate to be in th}^ condition; I would labour at the hedge and the ditch, as thou dost, could I have the same peace within and be as thankful, and have such an entire confidence in God as thou hast; I see the haj^piness of it, but nothing of the way how to obtain it. Wil. Alas ! sir, an't please you, you do not know my con- dition. I am a poor disconsolate creature ; I am sometimes so lost, so dark, so overwhelmed with my condition and with my distresses, that I am tempted to fear God has forgotten to be gracious; that I am cast off and left to sink under my own burden; I am so unworthy, so forgetful of my duty, so easily let go my hold and cast off my confidence, that I fear often I shall despair. Land. And what do you do then, William ? Wil. Alas ! su', I go mourning many a day, and waking many a night ; but I bless the Lord I always mourn after Him, I always cleave to Him, I am not tempted to run from Him, I know I am undone if I seek comfort in any other. Alas ! whither else shall I go? I cry night and day, Keturn, return, Father ! and resolve to lie at His feet ; and that " Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." And blessed be the God of my hope, He does send comfort and peace, though some- times it is very long. 33G THE LAITY. Land. Well, William, and is tliis a disconsolate condition? Would yon change your condition with me, that am the rich glutton? Wil. Oh, do not say so of yourself, an't please you; God has touched your Avorship's heart, I perceive, with an earnest desire after Him; you have a gracious promise, that would greatly encourage you, if you would but take it to yourself. Land. Encourage me, William! that's impossible. What can encourage me ? What promise is it you talk of that looks towards me ? WU. Why, an't please you, I heard you say you would change your condition with such a poor wretch as I; you would labour at the hedge and the ditch to have the know- iedoe of God and relioion, and to be able to be thankful to O 7 Him and have confidence in Him ; this implies that you have a " longing, earnest desire after Him," and after the knowledge of this truth. Land. Indeed, that is true, William. Wil. Then there are many comforting Scriptures which S2)eak directly to j^ou, sir, viz., " Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled ;" " the longing soul shall be satisfied:" He will "satisfy the desires of all those that fear Him :" and the like. Land. But what must I do ? Which is the way an ignorant wretch must take ? Land. I told you, William, you hardly knew who you were talking to. You talk of my reading the Scripture. Why, I '11 tell thee, William, I have not a Bible in the world, and never had one in my life. There 's the manor-house yonder ; I ques- tion whether God was ever prayed to in it, or His name ever mentioned there, except profanely, or perhaps to swear by it, since it was built. Why, you know, as well as I, what a family it was that lived in it when my father purchased it. They DR JOHNSON, 337 were as mncli strangers to religion, William, as thou art to Greek and Hebrew; and ours were but little better tliat came after them. Wil. I fear, indeed, an't please your worship, it was so. Poor gentlemen ! they lived badly, indeed, very badly. Alas ! gentlemen must not be told of it by us poor men : but they were a sad wicked family ; I remember it well. Land. But, William, thou canst lend me a Bible; canst thou not? and I'll read it all over while I live in the country. Wil. Yes, an't please your worship, I '11 lend you a Bible ; I '11 bring it in the morning. Land. Do, William, and come and stay with me to-mor- row ; I '11 make thee amends for thy day's work, and there's something for thy good advice and coming so far with me. SAMUEL JOHNSON. With the life-size fac-simile supplied by Boswell, and with the coloured stereoscope of Macaulay, so familiar to every reader, there is no need that we should attempt a sketch of the great literary dictator. Nor is it needful that we should vindicate his claim to a place among '• Our Christian Classics." With all his practical shortcomings, for many of which an extenua- tion may be found in a physical constitution singularly cum- bersome and unhappy, there can be no dispute as to the strength of Dr Johnson's religious convictions ; and if his *' Meditations and Prayers" reveal much of our human weak- ness, they also betoken the struggles of a nobler principle, which, it is pleasant to believe, has now obtained the victory. Samuel Johnson was born at Lichfield, September 18, 1700, and died at London, December 13, 1784. VOL. Vs. 2 F 338 THE LAITY. lstJan.l78i. p.m., 11. Lord God, heavenly Father, by whose mercy I am now living another year, grant, I beseech Thee, that the time which Thou shalt yet allot me, may be sjoent in Thy fear and to Thy glory. Give me such ease of body as may enable me to be useful, and remove from me all such scruples and perplexities as encumber and obstruct my mind ; and help me to pass, by the direction of Thy Holy Spirit, through the remaining part of life, that I may be finally received to everlasting joy, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. AsHBouRN, 5th Sept. 1784. Almighty Lord and merciful Father, to Thee be thanks and praise for all Thy mercies, for the awakening of my mind, for the continuance of my life, the amendment of my health, and the opportunity now granted of commemorating the death of Thy Son, Jesus Christ, our Mediator and Kedeemer. Enable me, O Lord, to repent truly of my sins. Enable me, by Thy Holy Spirit, to lead hereafter a better life. Strengthen my mind against useless perplexities. Teach me to form good resolutions ; and assist me that I may bring them to eifect. And when Thou shalt finally call me to another state, receive me to everlasting hapi>iness, for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. 5th Dec. 1784. Almighty and most merciful Father, I am now, as to human eyes it seems, about to commemorate, for the last time, the death of Thy Son, Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Redeemer. Grant, O Lord, that my whole hope and confidence may be in His merits and in Thy mercy. Forgive and accept my late conversion ; enforce and accept my imperfect repentance ; make DR EUTTY. 339 this commemoration available to the confirmation of my faith, the establishment of my hope, and the enlargement of my charity ; and make the death of Thy Son, Jesus Christ, effec- tual to my redemption. Have mercy upon me, and pardon the multitude of my offences. Bless my friends ; have mercy upon all men. Support me by the grace of Thy Holy Spirit in the days of weakness, and at the hour of death ; and receive me at my death to everlasting happiness, for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen, DR JOHN RUTTY. One of the most curious books of last century is " A Spirit- ual Diary, by John Kutty, M.D." Some specimens of it which fell under the eye of Dr Johnson, exceedingly amused him, " particularly his mentioning, with such serious regret, occasional instances of 'swinishness in eating, va\^ doggeclness of temper.'"* Yet, the great moralist must have felt a certain respect for the rigid self-accuser. He is the most faithful of autobiographers, and if there are entries in his diary at which it is impossible not to smile, the reader cannot help admiring the severity of the censor, and the honesty of the historian. Dr Ptutty was a native of Ireland. He was born December 26, 1698, and died at Dublin, April 27, 1775. He belonged to the Society of Friends, and, besides being a physician in large practice, obtained some distinction by his publications on Materia Medica, on Mineral Waters, and on other subjects connected with his own profession. 1754. Third month, 29. Lord, deliver from living to eat, drink, sleep, smoke, and study. Fourth month, 2. Snappish on hunger. * Croker's " Boswell/' vol. vi. p. 314. 3^0 THE LAITY. Ninth montli, 27. Soundness and integrity of mind, blessed be the Lord, is returned, and my late delirium clearly seen, in a wliim of a voyage to, and settlement in, New England ; an absurd conceit, and which would have ended, at least, in trouble and danger ; and quitting the bird in hand (my com- fortable settlement here) for one in the bushes ! Oh my weak- ness ! Tenth month, 2. Perfection in knowledge was never in- tended for us (for we take a trip or two, and then go down to the grave) ; therefore, aim not at it. Again, neither was happiness intended for us ; therefore, do not expect it : but frequent and wholesome courses. Twelfth month, 11. A poor, dull, sickly day : indigestion and choler. 25. Finished my cast-up. I am a hundred pounds less rich than a year ago, by my sickness, which hath been egregiously sanctified, blessed be the Lord ! for surely the power of dark- ness is crushing under the triumphant powers of light and truth. 1757. Fourth month, 3. P. J. a-dying, and J. A. cadu- cous. The Lord is mowing down my associates in an awaken- ing manner. IL Piggish at meals. 14. Unrighteously snappish. 27. Lord, thou hast given to be content with a little, and to enjoy the fruit of my labours sweetly. Ninth month, 15. AU crossness is a breach of "Thy will be done." Eleventh month, 1. My servant says, " I am actually more cross, notwithstanding my late higher pretensions." Indeed, I do not altogether believe her : Lord, however, help to falsify any such testimony from this time. Twelfth month, 3. A sober computation with my servant and help-meet in my work, on finishing the same, and enjoying the fruit of our labours. MRS MORE. 341 5. Meclianically, and perhaps a little diabolically dogged tliis morning. G. A dead load of books lying by useless. 22. Dogged, not only weakly but wickedly. 23. A silent meeting, but luminous, thus : " We are bom crying, live complaining, and die disappointed" — a true account : Why, then, so fond of life ? Lord, improve this im- pression to a due contempt of it. 1760. Seventh month, 6. An exercise of patience from an unrighteous detention of fee : but, in Canaan's language, so much the more glory. 22. Proceeded in a social capacity to admonish an offend- ing brother, even a dram-drinker in high station, discharging our consciences faithfully. Eighth month, 6. Attended the school-meeting, and Lucifer was at my back. 7. Five in the morning. Sang praises in the night. 15. Ten paupers occasioned muttering : my strength in good- ness is very small. Ninth month, 17. Oh the imperfections of science clearly manifested in the present controversy in hydrology ! of which I now finished the first draught, blessed be God ! Twelfth month, 9. A luminous silent meeting. Saw, in a clear vision, divers brethren coming up in their services like •half-dro\sTied animals. God grant me so nnich the more fer- vour of love, and to be still so much the more loose from these worldly entanglements, and the rather because the judge is at the door. 12. Exercised in church-business, even in hunting a fox ^who" would elude our discipline. HANNAH MORE. It was no ordinary brilliancy which secured for this gifted lady the friendship and admiration of Dr Johnson, of Horace 342 THE LAITY. Walpole, and David Garrick ; and it was no ordinary service to the cause of the revi\ing religion of her native land which she rendered by works like her " Christian Morals " and " Prac- tical Piety." But of all the achievements of her pen, the greatest was " The Cheap Repository Tracts," of which two millions of copies were circulated in a single year. For ]SIrs ^loRE may be claimed the honour of being the first, and in some respects the best, of all our writers of religious tracts. She was born at Stapleton, in the county of Gloucester, in 17-45, and died at Clifton, September 7, 1833. Qiliijcnt Qick " A false witness shall not go unpunished; and be who speaketh lies shall perish." Don't be frightened, reader ! Although I set out with a text^ I am not going to preach a sermon, but to tell a story. On the right side of Marshmoor Common, and not more than five hundred yards out of the turnpike road, stood a lone cottage inhabited by one Richard Rogers, a day-labourer, commonly called Diligent Dick. Though poor, he was as much noted for his honesty as for the care and industry with which he had brought up a large family in a very decent manner. About fifteen years ago, in the month of January, there suddenly fell a deep snow, attended by such a high wind, that many travel- lers lost their lives in it — when, all on a sudden, as Rogers and his family were crowding round a handful of fire, to catch a last heat before they went to bed, they heard a doleful cry of " Help ! help ! for God's sake, help ! " Up started Rogers in an instanj; ; when clapping the end of a farthing candle into a broken horn-lanthorn, and catching up his staff, out he sallied, directing his steps towards the spot from whence the cries came. In one of the sand-pits, he found a gentleinan who had fallen from his horse and was nearly buried in the DILIGENT DICK. 343 snow. Eogers, though with much difficulty, at length dragged him out; and after securing the horse, conveyed them both home. The gentleman appeared elderly, and seemed almost perished with cold : for a long time he was c[uite speechless, his jaws appeared locked, and it was only by inward groans they could perceive he had any remains of life in him, so benumbed and stiffened was he mth cold. After they had rubbed his limbs for some time before the fire, the gentleman by degrees re- covered himself, and began to thank Rogers and his wife, whom he saw busied about him, as well as his children. " Sir," said Betty Rogers, '' although we be poor in pocket, we may nevertheless be kind in heart." Here the stranger, after fetching a deep sigh, said, "if liis life were granted him, he hoped it would be in his power to reward them for their kind- ness." Rogers replied, " that what he had done for him, he would have done for his worst enemy." Here the gentleman groaned heavily, saying he had been long sick himself, and that he could not enough admire the healthy looks of Rogers's children. " Blessed be God, sir," said Rogers, " although my fiimily is numerous, I never paid a shilling for doctor's stuff in my life, nor do I know even the price of a coffin. If my wealth is small, my wants are few; and though I know I am a sinner, and need daily repentance, yet my conscience is quiet, for I have knowingly done wrong to no man; nor would I forfeit my peace of mind, sir, to become the highest man in Old England. I am not covetous of wealth, sir, since I have seen liow little comfort they often enjoy who possess it; the honest man, sir, sleeps soundly on the hardest bed; whilst he who has ' made too much haste to be rich,' may lie down on the softest bed with an aching heart, but shall not be able to find rest." All this while Betty Rogers sat pi ffing and blowing the fire 344 THE LAITY. with a pair of broken-nosed bellows, in order to boil lier kettle, to make tlie gentleman a disli of lier coarse boliea-tea, as sbe had no spirits, or liquor of any kind, except spring water, to offer him : she also toasted a bit of bread, though she had no butter to spread over it. Here the gentleman attempted to partake of Betty's tea and toast, when all at once he began to tremble all over so exceedingly, that he begged she would set it down for the present, for if he was to attempt to swallow it, he was certain it would choke him. "It is but cold comfort to be sure, sir," said Eogers, "we have to offer you; but nevertheless, we must hope you will take the will for the deed. I suppose, sir, you are very rich ; and yet you now see that all the wealth in the world cannot help a man in certain situations. I had a pretty education, sir; and I remember when I was a boy at school, to have read the history of a great king, who, when harassed by the enemy, and being overcome with thirst, was thankful to a poor soldier who brought him a draught of cold water in his helmet, which he drank off greedily, saying, that amidst all his pomp he had never tasted such luxury as that cup of water yielded him. So you see, sir, what strange ups and downs there are in life : therefore, people of all degrees should be careful to keep pride out of their hearts, since the most prosperous man to-day may be thankful for the poor man's assistance to-morrow." " And after all," cried Betty Rogers, " high and low, rich and poor, should pray daily for God's grace, since that alone can give peace to their poor souls when the hour of affliction cometh. But bless me," cried she, clasp- ing hands, " what shall we do 1 our last inch of candle is burnt out !" "Then," said Rogers, " we must content ourselves, my Betty, with passing the rest of the night in the dark." The gentleman said he must be content to do as they did. " ;Many is the dark night, sir," said Richard, " have I sat by my dame's bed-side when she has been sick or lying-in, endea- DILIGENT DICK. 345 voiiring to make np to her in kindness wliat I could not pro- vide for her in comforts, when I have not had the least glim- mering of light but what came from the tvdnkling stars through our tattered casement. " Amidst all our poverty, sir, we have ever been the happiest pair in each other. It is a brave thing, sir, to be able, by the grace of God, to drive pride out of the cottage when poverty enters in, for sin is the father of shame. A man, sir, amidst the extremest poverty, yet may stand high in the favour of God, by patience, prayer, and a hearty faith in his Redeemer.'' Here the stranger appeared under very great distress both of body and mind; he sliivered all over as if he had an ague- fit upon him, and by a little blast which was just then lighted up, they perceived he looked as pale as death; they begged him to lie down on their bed, saying, "it was very clean, though it was ill provided with sheets and blankets." '-O my good people," cried the gentleman, " your goodness will be the death of me ; the kindness of your hearts proves to me the unkindness of my own. Go, go you to bed, and let me sit here till morning." " That," Rogers said, " they could not do." The gentleman then replied, ''he should be glad if Rogers would give him a little history of himself and family, to beguile the time." " That I will do most readily, sir," said he, " if so be it will oblige you in the least. " ^ly name is Rogers, although my neighbours are pleased to call me Diligent Dick. I have a wife and seven children ; I rise with the lark, and lie down with the lamb. I never spend an idle penny or an idle moment ; though my family is numerous, my children were never a burden to me. That good woman there, sir (pointing to his wife), puts her hand to the labouring oar ; she brings up her children at home in such a sober, industrious manner, that our neighbours, as soon as they are capable of earning a penny, are glad to take them off 346 THE LAITY. our hands. I am proud to say, sir, tliey have no little pilfering tricks, as many children have. ' Train up a child in the way he should go,' is our way, sir ; and I am certain both my wife and I have felt the benefit of the text — for our children are kind and affectionate towards each other, dutiful to us their parents, and obliging and ci^dl to their employers. Ah, sir, the richest man in England is not happier than I am, when I return home of an evening, wearied by the heat and labour of the day, to be received with looks of kindness by my vrife, as she is preparing our frugal supper, whilst two or three of my little babies climb my knees to fondle me round the neck." [Again the traveller groaned piteously, but Rogers went on.] " I was born to a pretty fortune, sir, but by the villany of my father's brother I lost my inheritance. My uncle, Charles Eogers, through the indulgence of his mother, proved to be a very malicious child, and, as he grew up to a man s estate, the faults of the child became hardened vices in the man, inso- much that his wicked behaviour broke his mother's heart. My own dear mother, sir, like the parents of Samuel, taught me betimes to fear the Lord ; yet my grandfather was so much offended at my father's marrying her, that he made his will, and cut him off with a shilling. He and my poor mother died within a twelvemonth of each other, and left me penniless by the time all their debts were paid. I was then about twelve years of age, and my Betty's father kindly took me to live with him. He soon received a message from my grandfather, -with a present of twenty guineas to pay for my board, saying he was very ill, and that he would send for me when he was better. The next news I heard of him was that he was dead ; and though he had promised to make a will in my favour, yet none was to be found, althouoh one of his old servants de- clared he had signed a great sheet of parchment, which a law- yer had been writing by my grandfather's bed-side. Every- body now judged my uncle Charles very hardly, as having DILIGENT DICK. 347 made away with this last will, because he brought forward the old one, wherein my grandfather had left his whole property to him. Some kind friends of my father wishing to see justice done by me, commenced an action against both him and the lawyer, who was known to be a rogue, and ready to do any dirty work for money. "The trial was brought on at the next assizes, when my uncle employed such arts in securmg the witnesses, that a ver- dict was given against me. After some months, however, my uncle sent me twenty guineas that I might be put apprentice to a carpenter, but desired he might never be troubled about me again. Accordingly I was bound out; but my master proved one of those negligent tradesmen who loved his ease better than his work : by neglecting his business his business began to neglect him. He broke at length for a considerable sum of money, and was thrown into prison, where he died soon after of the jail distemper ; so, at the end of the third year of my apprenticeship, I was once more left to seek for bread. I returned again to my Betty's father, who got me employment under his master. I was about one and twenty when I mar- ried, and then I and my wife followed my master's son into this county, who had an estate left him, and with him I have worked ever since, and with truth I can say, I have never re- ceived an unkind w^ord from him, for he never saw me drunk, not even at sheep-shearing, or harvest-home. My Betty's pious meekness, sir, has sweetened all my toil, whilst the dutiful behaviour of my children has fulfilled every wish of my heart. Whether my cruel uncle be dead or lining, I know not; but be it as it may, I do not envy him his ill-gotten wealth; and I can only pray that he may repent him of his sins before sickness brings him to a death-bed ; for it is a horrible thing, sir, to have the conscience racked with despair, when the body is afilicted with pain." " Look, Eichard," cried Betty Eogers, " you are talking on 348 THE LAITY. and on, whilst I am sure the poor gentleman is going into a fit." The gentleman at that instant gave a deep groan, and would have fallen from his chair, if Eogers had not caught him in his arms ; his wife snatching up his little mug of tea, which she still kept warm in the ashes, she put it to the stranger's lips, begging him to take a sip, as she was sure it would do him good; whilst her husband, on the other hand, begged him to eat a bit of the toast. The gentleman could but just make shift to say, "My good people, you are too kind to me." " Not at all, sir," said Rogers, " we do no more for you than we would for our worst enemy." " God," cried the traveller, "what will become of me? My sight fails me, my flesh trembles, and my joints ache; I freeze and burn at the same moment!" " Poor dear gentleman," said Betty Rogers, wiping her eyes, " I am afraid he is going light-headed ; do, pray, sir, drink a drop more of the tea," — " and eat a bit of the toast also," added Richard. *'I dare not taste it, my good friends," re- plied the gentleman, " for I feel as if it would choke me, were I to attempt it ; but tell me, I pray, is there not somewhere a text of Scripture which says, 'If thine enemy hunger, feed him ; if he thirst, give him drink : for in so doing, thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head?' O Rogers, Rogers, thou "vvilt say, indeed, thou art heaping coals of fire on my head, when thou art told I am thy wicked uncle Charles!" Here Rogers and his wife had nearly swooned away with astonishment. " Then I am heartily glad to see you, uncle," cried Rogers; "and if you have really done me wrong, I for- give you with all my soul, as I hope to be forgiven myself" Here jNIr Rogers's grief ajipeared so great, he seemed almost beside himself. "But do not be surprised," cried he, as soon as he could speak, "to see me here; it is not by accident; this is the second attempt I have made, Rogers, to visit thy humble dwelUng; but more of that hereafter." In about a quarter of DILIGENT DICK. 349 an hour, Mr Rogers, after sliedding bitter tears, spoke as fol- lows : — " yiy neighbours, Richard, have long believed me to be a very hapj^y man, seeing that I possessed an abundance of the good things of this world ; but wdiat man ever yet was happy who carried secret guilt in his bosom ? Thy grandfather, on his deathbed, became duly sensible of his unforgiving spirit toward thy poor father, for no other crime had he committed than having married a woman who brought him no money : he therefore resolved that the last business of his life should be doing an act of justice towards thee his only son ; accord- ingly he sent for his attorney, made a new Avill, becjueathing thee that property which he would have given thy father had he been living ; he also desired much to see thee, which I took especial care to prevent, fearing thy youth and innocence would win upon his love. After his decease, by the advice, and with the assistance, of his rogue of an attorney, we burnt my father's last will, and produced that which he had made many years before, wherein he had cut thy father off with a shilling. The deed was no sooner done, than I felt, as it w^ere, all the torments of hell raging in my soul ; it was done at the very moment the people were laying my aged father's body in the coffin." Here Mr Rogers grew so faint he could not go on. " Merciful heaven !" cried Richard, with hands and eyes uplifted, " how covetousness hardens the heart of man ! What a safeguard has my poverty been to me ! riches might have ensnared my soul too." As soon as Mr Rogers could speak, he went on. " Thou hast just mentioned, Richard, the trial that was brought forward after my father's decease, respecting his "will, when the attorney, to whom I was to pay five hundred pounds for the villanous part he had acted, swore he never had made a second will for my father, and I swore to the same effect ; VOL. IV. 2 G 350 THE LAITY, yes, RicliarJ, I swore upon the Holy Bible — that Bible which l^ronounces a deadly curse on him that swears falsely ; yea, I called on that eternal God to witness a lie, before whom I must shortly be judged for it ; and now my grey hairs are brought to the brink of the grave, I begin to feel that the sting of death is sin ; very miserable has been my life, and very terrible, no doubt, will be my death. Being now in pos- session of a clear .£400 a-year, I began to fancy all things would go prosperously and swimmingly on ; I bought and sold, and no man's traffic seemed to turn to better account ; but no success in life, Richard, could blunt the sting of guilt within me ; when I laid me down to rest at night, I feared to trust myself to sleep, lest I should betray the secret ; and my very dreams became so disturbed, that the servants would often hear my screams at the other end of the house. " One night I dreamt I was going to be executed for de- stroying a will, and the next I foncied I was going to be tran- sported for perjury. All my neighbours believed me to be a happy man, only because they saw me a prosperous one. My covetous desires were never satisfied, and, wliilst I went on heaping up guinea upon guinea, my mind was hourly afflicted with the dread of poverty. My wife all of a sudden gTCW melancholy, and, by an accident, she fell into the j^ond and was drowned. When my son came of age, I settled on him the estate which my fsither in his will had left to thee ; he was a dissolute young man, and coming home one night very much intoxicated with liquor, he fell across the bed with a lighted candle in his hand, which instantly set fire to the curtains, and he perished in the flames. One of my daughters turned out very vicious, and the other died of a broken heart, from the cruel usage of her husband. Besides all these trials, I had another very severe one from the attorney, who was always racking me for more money, and telling me he would turn king s evidence, and impeach me, if ever I refused him. DILIGENT DICK. 35 1 " At length, without a moment given him for repentance, he was suddenly carried off by a paralytic stroke. ^ly spirits began to re-sive after his death, as my crime now was known only to myself ; but peace can never dwell in the guilty bosom. I left off going to church, for there my condemnation stared me full in the face. The ten commandments were written in golden letters on each side of the altar ; then my own mcked conscience would whisper me how many of those sacred com- mands I had broken ; I had taken the holy name of God in vain, I had profaned the Sabbath, I had been undutiful to my parents, I had borne false witness against my neighbour. At length, however, so grievously burdened was my conscience, that I resolved occasionally to attend church, hoping it would be a kind of sponge to rub out some of my sins. One Sunday, I remember our parson told us in his sermon, there can be no real repentance for sin without forsaking it ; adding, moreover, that if any of his congregation had defrauded liis neighbour of aught, he entreated them, if ever they hoped their souls would find mercy in the day of grace, that they should make restitu- tion, before death should cut them off from the land of the living, since there was no repentance in the grave. " These words so worked upon my mind, that I fell sick, and during my sickness I called on heaven to witness, that, if life were granted me, I would restore to thee what I had so unjustly kept from thee; but as my health returned, so did my good resolutions vanish away again ; I cheated myself with the thought that I might yet enjoy life many years : thus I went on till the restless workings of my conscience almost over- powered me ; and having inquired out the place of thy abode, mounted my horse, and set out with the resolution to discover the whole history of my villany to thee; but when I came within sight of thy cottage, I found my principles were not strong enough to bring me to confess myself a rogue before thee ; I turned my horse about, and went home again. I next 352 THE LAITY. took to hard drinking, to stifle reflection, but all would not do, for still tlie gnawings of a guilty conscience devoured me : as my health declined, the stronger the fear of death came upon me. Again I resolved once more to go in search of thee, and earnestly did I pray to God to assist my endeavours; and the nearer I ai^proached to thy little dwelling the more was my courage strengthened to proceed. The sudden fall of snow coming on was the cause of my being benighted, and, missing my way, I fell into the pit; but ah! Richard, it seems as if Heaven had appointed thee to preserve my life in this world, and my soul from destruction in the next, by jDointing out to me the only path in which a penitent sinner can tread with safety. It is not for mortal man, Richard, to tell what agony of mind I have endured this night : thy kindness and that of thy wife nearly overcame me, and I the less feared to make a discover}^ of ni3-self to thee, when I found every action of thy daily life was governed by the principles of religion ; I know Christianity alone tan teach men heartily to forgive their ene- mies. " O Rogers ! Rogers ! how blest is thy condition, when com- pared with mine ! if thou art poor, thou art honest ; in addition to a quiet conscience, thou hast a healthful and happy family smiling around thee. I abound in wealth, it is true, but my health is gone ; I have lost my rest, and I carry in my bosom the sharp goadings of a wounded spirit, which I am unable to bear." Here !Mr Rogers finished his melancholy history, at which both Rogers and his wife shed abundance of tears, and at the same time they did all in their 2:)ower to comfort him. The next day Rogers attended his uncle home, Avhen he sent for the clergyman of his parish; Rogers made a full confession of his guilt to him, hoping he would give him his best advice how to fit and prepare himself for another world. Mr Rogers lived but a few weeks after this, and died full of horror at the MR WILBEEFOECE. 353 sins of bis past life, and earnestly imploring mercy from the Saviour of sinners. How mysterious are tlie ways of Providence, wlio in an in- stant can bring, tbe most secret plots to light ! and how does the eye of God pursue us ! " If we say, Peradventure the dark- ness shall cover us, then shall our night be turned into day : the darkness and the light to him are both alike." WILLIAM WILBEEFOECE. On the 12th of April, 1797, was published, " A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Chris- tians in the Higher and Middle Classes of this Country, con- trasted with Real Christianity. By William AVilbeefoece, Esq., Member of Parliament for the county of York." At that time, the demand for religious books was very small; but Mr Cadall, the publisher, said to the author, " You mean to put your name to the work ? Then, I think, we may venture upon 500 copies." However, in the course of half a year, five editions were called for, representing 7500 copies; and through- out the remaining life of its eloquent and amiable author, it continued to be in extensive demand, and probably contributed more than any other book to awaken attention to the one thing needful among the upper classes of society. Somewhat dif- fuse, and not very well arranged, it has, in our own tune, been nearly superseded by a more terse and vivid authorship, and portions of it are scarcely applicable to the state of things now existing ; but in consideration of the attention which it ex- cited, and the effects which it produced, the publication of the "Practical View" may be regarded as no ordmary event in the later history of English Christianit}'. Mr Wilberforce was born at Hull, August 24, 1759, and died at London, July 2), 183?. 2 G 2 354 THE LAITY. Eaolu'nty unto ^rsus. " Looking unto Jesus ! " Here best ye may learn- to grow in the love of God. The certainty of His pity and love towards repenting sinners, thus irrefragably demonstrated, chases away the sense of tormenting fear, and best lays the ground in us of reciprocal affection. And while we steadily contemplate this wonderful transaction, and consider, in its several relations, the amazing truth, "that God spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all ; " if our minds be not utterly dead to every impulse of sensibility, the emotions of admiration, of preference, of hope, and trust, and joy, cannot but spring up within us, chastened with reverential fear, and softened and quickened by overflowing gratitude. Here we shall become animated by an abiding disposition to endeavour to please our great Benefactor ; and by a humble persuasion, that the weak- est endeavours of this nature will not be despised by a Being who has already proved himself so kindly affected towards us. Here we cannot fail to imbibe an earnest desire of possessing His ftivour, and a conviction, founded on His own declarations thus unquestionably confirmed, that the desire shall not be disappointed. Whenever we are conscious that we have of- fended this gracious Being, a single thought of the great work of redemption will be enough to fill us with compunction. We shall feel a deep concern, grief mingled with indignant shame, for having conducted ourselves so unworthily towards one who to us has been infinite in kindness : we shall not rest till we have reason to hope that He is reconciled to us ; and we shall watch over our hearts and conduct in future with a renewed jealousy, lest we should again offend Him. To those who are ever so little acquainted with the nature of the human mind, it were superfluous to remark, that the affections and tempers which have been enumerated are the infallible marks of the constituent properties of love. Let him, then, who would LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 355 abound and grow in this Christian principle, be much conver- sant Avith the great doctrines of the gospel. It is obvious, that the attentive and frequent consideration of these great doctrines must have a still more direct tendency to produce and cherish in our minds the principle of the love of Christ. But on this head, so much has been already said as to render any further observations unnecessary. !Much, also, has been already observed concerning the love of our fellow-creatures, and it has been distinctly stated to be in- dispensable, and indeed the characteristic duty of Christians. It remains, however, to be here further remarked, that this grace can nowhere be cultivated with more advantage than at the foot of the cross. Nowhere can our Saviour's dying in- junction to the exercise of this virtue be recollected ^ith more effect, " This is my commandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you." No where can the admonition of the apostle more j)Owerfully affect us, " Be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you." The view of mankind which is here presented to us, as having been all involved in one common ruin ; and the offer of deliverance held out to all, by the Son of God's giving of himself up to pay the price of our reconciliation, produce that sympathy tov^ards our fellow-creatures, which, by the constitution of our nature, seldom fails to result from the consciousness of an identity of interests and a similarity of for- tunes. Pity for an unthinking world assists this impression. Our enmities soften and melt away : we are ashamed of think- ing much of the petty injuries which we may have suffered, when we consider what the Son of God, " who did no wrons:, neither was guile found in His mouth," patiently underwent. Our hearts become tender while we contemplate this signal act of loving-kindness. We grow desirous of imitating what we cannot but admire. A vigorous principle of enlarged and active charity springs up witliin us; and we go forth with alacrity, 356 THE LAITY. desirous of treading in tlie ste^^s of our blessed Master, and of manifesting our gratitude for His unmerited goodness^ by bear- ing each other s burthens, and abounding in the disinterested labours of benevolence. " Looking unto Jesus ! " He was meek and lowly of heart, and from the study of His character we shall best learn the lessons of humility. Contemj)lating the v.^ork of redemption, we become more and more impressed with the sense of our natural darkness, and helplessness, and misery, from which it was requisite to ransom us at such a price; more and more conscious that we are utterly unworthy of all the amazing condescension and love which have been manifested towards us; ashamed of the callousness of our tenderest sensibility, and of the poor returns of our most active services. Con- siderations like these, abating our pride and reducing our opinions of ourselves, naturally moderate our pretensions to- wards others. We become less disposed to exact that respect for our persons, and that deference for our authority, which we naturally covet; we less sensibly feel a slight, and less hotly resent it; we grow less irritable, less prone to be dis- satisfied; more soft, and meek, and courteous, and placable, and condescending. We are not literally required to practise the same humiliating submissions to which our blessed Saviour himself was not ashamed to stoop;'"' but the sfjirit of the remark applies to us, "the servant is not greater than his Lord :" and we should especially bear this truth in mind, when the occasion calls upon us to discharge some duty, or patiently to suffer some ill treatment, whereby our pride will be wounded, and we are likely to be in some degree degraded from the rank we had possessed in the world's estimation ; at the same time the sacred Scriptures assuring us, that to the powerful operations of the Holy Spirit, purchased fur us by * '' Ifl then, your Lord aad Master, have v. ashed your feet j ye also ought 10 wash one another's feet," d'.c.— John xiii. 1^-17% THE CHRISTIAN TEMPER. 357 the death of Christ, we must be indebted for the success of all our endeavours after improvement in virtue ; the conviction of this truth tends to render us diffident of our own powers, and to suppress the first risings of vanity. Thus, while we are conducted to heights of virtue no otherwise attainable, due care is taken to prevent our becoming giddy from our eleva- tion. It is the Scripture characteristic of the gospel system, that by it all disposition to exalt ourselves is excluded ; and if we really grow in grace, we shall grow also in humility. '' Looking unto Jesus ! " " He endured the cross, despising the shame." While we steadily contemplate this solemn scene, that sober frame of spirit is produced within us which best befits the Christian militant here on earth. We become impressed with a sense of the shortness and uncertainty of time, and that it behoves us to be diligent in making provision for eternity. In such a temper of mind, the pomps and vanities of life are cast behind us as the baubles of children. — We lose our relish for the frolics of gaiety, the race of ambi- tion, or the grosser gratifications of voluptuousness. In the case even of those objects which may more justly claim the attention of reasonable and immortal beings — in our family arrangements, in our plans of life, in our schemes of business — we become, -uithout relinquishing the path of duty, more moderate in pursuit, and more indifferent about the issue. Here, also, we learn to correct the world's false estimate of things, and to " look through the shallowness of earthly grandeur]" to venerate what is truly excellent and noble, though under a despised and degraded form ; and to cultivate within ourselves that true magnanimity which can make us rise superior to the smiles or frowns of this world ; that digni- fied composure of soul which no earthly incidents can destroy or ruffle. Instead of repining at any of the little occasional inconveniences we may meet ■with in our passage through life, we are almost ashamed of the multiplied comforts and enjoy- 358 THE LAITY. ments of our condition, wlien we think of Him, who, though '- the Lord of glory," '' had not where to lay His head." And if it be our lot to undergo evils of more than ordinary magni- tude, we are animated under them by reflecting, that we are hereby more conformed to the example of our blessed Master : though we must ever recollect one important difference, that the sufferings of Christ were voluntarily borne for our benefit, and were probably far more exquisitely agonising than any which we are called upon to undergo. Besides, it must be a solid support to us amidst all our troubles to know, that they do not happen to us by chance ; that they are not even merely the punishment of sin ; but that they are the dispensations of a kind Providence, and sent on messages of mercy — " The cup that our Father hath given us, shall we not drink it ? " — " Blessed Saviour ! by the bitterness of Thy pains we may estimate the force of Thy love; we are sure of Thy kindness and compassion; Thou wouldst not wilhngly call on us to suffer; Thou hast declared unto us, that all things shall finally work together for good to them that love Thee ; and therefore, if Thou so ordainest it, welcome disappointment and poverty, welcome sickness and pain, welcome even shame, and contempt, and calumny. If this be a rough and thorny path, it is one in which Thou hast gone before us. Where we see Thy foot- steps we cannot repine. Meanwhile, Thou wilt support us with the consolations of Thy grace ; and even here Thou canst more than compensate to us for any temporal sufferings, by the possession of that peace which the world can neither give nor take away." " Looking unto Jesus ! " " The Author and Finisher of our fiiith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of God." From the scene of our Saviour's weakness and de- gradation, we follow Him, in idea, into the realms of glory, where " He is on the right hand of God ; angels, and princi- THE BLESSED HOPE. 359 palities, and powers being made subject unto Him." But though changed in place, yet not in nature ; He is still full of sjTnpathy and love ; and having died " to save His people from their sins," " He ever liveth to make intercession for them." Cheered by this animating view, the Christian's fainting spirits revive. Under the^hea\iest burdens he feels his strength recruited j and when all around him is dark and stormy, he can lift up an eye to heaven, radiant with hope, and glistening with grati- tude. At such a season, no dangers can alarm, no opposition can move, no provocations can irritate. He may almost adopt, as the language of his sober exultation, what in the philospher was but an idle rant ; and, considering that it is only the gar- ment of mortality which is subject to the rents of fortune — while his spirit, cheered with the Divine support, keeps its place within, secure and unassailable — he can sometimes almost triumph at the stake, or on the scaffold, and cry out amidst the severest buffets of adversity, " Thou beatest but the case of Anaxarchus." But it is rarely that the Christian is elevated with this "joy unspeakable and full of glory : " he even lends himself to these \iews with moderation and reserve. Often, alas ! emotions of another kind fill him with grief and con- fusion : and conscious of having acted unworthy of his high calling, perhaps of having exposed himself to the just censure of a world ready enough to spy out his infirmities, he seems to himself almost " to have crucified the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame." But let neither his joys intoxi- cate, nor his sorrows too much depress him. Let him still re- member that his chief business while on earth is not to medi- tate, but to act j that the seeds of moral corruption are apt to spring up within him, and that it is requsite for him to watch over his own heart with incessant care ; that he is to discharge with fidelity the duties of his particular station, and to conduct himself, according to his measure, after the example of his blessed blaster, whose meat and drink it was to do the work of 360 THE LAITY. His heavenly Father ; that he is diligently to cultiviite the talents Avith which God has entrusted him, and assiduously to employ them in doing justice and shewmg mercy, while he guards against the assaults of any internal enemy. In short, he is to demean himself, in all the common affairs of life, like an accountable creature, who, in correspondence with the Scrip- ture character of Christians, is " waiting for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ." Often, therefore, he questions himself, " Am I employing my tune, my fortune, my bodily and mental powers, so as to be able to ' render ujd my account with joy, and not with grief?' Am I '^adorning the doctrine of God my fSa\dour in all things ; ' and proving that the servants of Christ, animated by a principle of filial affection, which renders their work a service of jDcrfect freedom, are capable of as active and as persevering exertions, as the votaries of fame, or the slaves of ambition, or the drudges of avarice ? " SACKED POETRY. MATTHEW PRIOR. In tlie eiglateentli century, some valuable additions were made to our stores of sacred minstrelsy, by authors who, in the stricter sense of the word, were scarcely Christian poets. Perhaps it is for this reason that Mr Montgomery, in his " Christian Poet," has given no specimen of Prior ; but we think it would be almost as unfair to ignore his " Solomon," as to deprive ouf readers of Pope's " Messiah." Like an airy up- land in the midst of an unwholesome jungle, such a i^roduction is a welcome retreat from the frivolity and ribaldry in the midst of which it occurs ; nor should it lessen the value of the work that most of its thoughts and images are borrowed from Eccle- siastes and the Canticles. The form of a soliloquy, into wliich the author has thrown the poem, makes the three books rather tedi- ous ; but the reader's perseverance is often rewarded by passages vigorously emphasised or finely pointed, and the flattest inter- vals, with their melodious verse and happy diction, convey a certain pleasure, even in the midst of the i3revailing monotony. Matthew Prior was born July 21, 1664, and died at Wimple, near Cambridge, then the seat of Lord Oxford, Sep- tember 18, 1721. Efiz Fani'tg of Science. Forced by reflective reason, I confess That human science is uncertain guess. Alas ! we grasp at clouds, and beat the air, Vexing that spirit we intend to clear. Can thought beyond the bounds of matter climb? Or who shall tell me what is space or time ? VOL. IV. 2 H 362 SACRED POETRY. In vain we lift up our presumptuous eyes To what our Maker to their ken denies : The searcher follo^YS fast ; the object faster flies. The little wliich imperfectly we find, Seduces only the bewilder'd mind To fruitless search of son ' i: yet behind. A'arious discussions tear ou. ated brain : Opinions often turn ; still doub.s remain ; And who indulges thought increases pain. How narrow limits were to Wisdom given ! Earth she surveys ; she thence would measure Heaven Through mists obscure now wings her tedious way ; Now wanders dazzled w^ith too bright a day ; And from the summit of a pathless coast, Sees infinite, and in that sight is lost. Remember that the cursed desire to know, Offspring of Adam ! was thy source of woe. Why wilt thou then renew the vain pursuit, And rashly catch at the forbidden fruit V With empty labour and eluded strife Seeking, by knowledge, to attain to life : For ever from that fatal tree debarr'd. Which flaming swords and angry cherubs guard. Castl£-'2Sitiltim5. The power of wealth I tried, And all the various luxe of costly pride. Artists and plans relieved my solemn hours ; I founded palaces, and planted bowers. Birds, fishes, beasts of each exotic kind, I to the limits of my court confined. To trees transferr'd I gave a second birth, And bid a foreign shade grace Judah's earth ; rish-ponds were made Avhere former forests grew, And hills were levell'd to extend the view. Rivers diverted from their native course, And bound with chains of artificial force. From large cascades in pleasing tumult roU'd, Or rose through figured stones, or breathing gold. PRIOPv's " SOLOMON. ' 363 From furthest Africa's tormented womb The marble brought, erects the spacious dome ; Or forms the pillars' long extended rows, On which the planted grove, and pensile garden grows. The workmen here obey'd the master's call, To gild the turret, a' ' -ipaint the wall ; To mark the pavem( iiiere with various stone. And on the jasper-^^teps to rear the throne : The spreading cedar that an age had stood, Supreme of trees, and mistress of the wood. Cut down and carved, my shining roof adorns. And Lebanon his ruiu'd honour mourns. A thousand artists shew their cunning power, To raise the wonders of the ivory tower. A thousand maidens ply the purple loom. To weave the bed, and deck the regal room ; Till Tyre confesses her exhausted store, That on her coast the murex is no more ; Till from the Parian isle, and Libya's coast. The mountains grieve their hopes of marble lost ; And Lidia's woods return their just complaint, Their brood decay'd, and want of elephant. My full design with vast expense achieved, I came, beheld, admired, reflected, grieved ; I chid the folly of my thoughtless haste, For, the work perfected, the joy was past. ALEXANDER POPE. Satirist, pliilosopher, and critic, the translator of Homer and the imitator of Horace, there was nothing which the bard of Twickenham deemed beyond his powers, and of all which he attempted nothing proved an absolute failure. Even the l}Te of David and Isaiah he ventured to handle, and to his touch the chords were musical. In reading verses like the follow- ing, we forget the conceited correspondent of Lady Mary Wortley Montague, and we wish to forget the irascible career and perpetual embroilment of the author of " The Duneiad." 3G4 SACRED POETRY. Like " The Dying Christian," the "Messiah" was written early in life, and first saw the light in the pages of " The >Spectator." Pope was born in Lombard Street, London, May 22, 1G88, and on the 30th of the same month of May 1744, he died at Twickenham. Ye nymphs of Solyma ! begin the song : To heavenly themes subllmer strains belong. The mossy fountains and the sylvan shades, The dreams of Piiidus and th' Aonian maids, j Delight no more— Thou my voice inspire "Who touchVi Isaiah's hallow'd lips "with fire I Rapt into future times, the bard begun : A virgin shall conceive, a virgin bear a Son ! From Jesse's root behold a Branch arise, "Whose sacred flower with fragrance fills the skies : Th' ethereal spirit o'er its leaves shall move, And on its top descends the mystic Dove. Ye heavens ! from high the dewy nectar pour. And in soft silence shed the kindly shower ! The sick and weak the healing plant shall aid. From storm a shelter, and from heat a shade. All crimes shall cease, and ancient frauds shall fail ; Returning Justice lift aloft her scale ; Peace o'er the world her olive wand extend. And white-robed Innocence from heaven descend. Swift fly the years, and rise th' expected morn ! Oh spring to light, auspicious Babe, be born ! See, Nature hastes her earliest wreaths to bring, "With all the incense of the breathing spring: See lofty Lebanon his head advance. See nodding forests on the mountains dance : See spicy clouds from lowly Sharon rise. And Carmel's flowery top perfume the skies ! Hark ! a glad voice the lonely desert cheers ; Prepare the way ! a God, a God appears ! POPE S " MESSIAH. A God, a God ! the vocal hills reply ; The rocks proclaim th' approaching Deity. Lo ! earth receives Him from the bending skies ! Sink down, ye mountains ! and ye valleys rise ! With heads declined, ye cedars, homage pay ! Be smooth, ye rocks ! ye rapid floods, give way ! The Saviour comes ! by ancient bards foretold : Hear Him, ye deaf! and all ye blind, behold ! Me from thick films shall purge the visual ray, .And on the sightless eye-ball pour the day : ■'Tis He th' obstructed paths of sound shall clear, And bid new music charm th' unfolding ear : The dumb shall sing, the lame his crutch forego, And leap exulting, like the bounding roe. Ko sigh, no murmur, the wide world shall hear ; From every face He wipes off every tear, in adamantine chains shall death be bound. And hell's grim tyrant feel th' eternal wound. As the good shepherd tends his fleecy care. Seeks freshest pasture and the purest air ; Explores the lost, the wandering sheep directs, By day o'ersees them, and by night protects ; The tender lambs he raises in his arms. Feeds from his hand, and in his bosom warms : Thus shall mankind his guardian care engage. The promised father of the future age. No more shall nation against nation rise, Nor ardent warriors meet with hateful eyes, Nor fields Avith gleaming steel be covered o'er, The brazen trumpets kindle rage no more ; But useless lances into scythes shall bend, And the broad falchion in a ploughshare end. Then palaces shall rise ; the joyful son Shall finish what his short-lived sire begun ; Their vines a shadow to their race shall yield, And the same hand that sow'd, shall reap the field. The swain in barren deserts with surprise Sees lilies spring, and sudden verdure rise ; And starts amidst the thirsty wilds to hear New falls of water murmuring in his ear. 2 r2 366 SACRED POETRY. On rifted rocks, the dragon's late abodes, The green reed trembles, and tlie bnlriish nods. Waste sand}' valleys, once perplex'd with thorn. The spiry fir and shapely box adorn : To leafless shrnbs the flowery palms snccccd, And odorous myrtle to the noisome weed. The lambs with wolves shall graze the verdant mead, And boys in flowery bands the tiger lead. The steer and lion at one crib shall meet, And harmless serpents lick the pilgrim's feet. The smiling infant in his hand shall take The crested basilisk and speckled snake. Pleased, the green lustre of the scales survey, And with their forky tongue shall innocently play. Rise, cro\vn'd with light, imperial Salem, rise!. Exalt thy towery head, and lift tliy eyes ! See a long race thy spacious courts adorn ; See future sons, and daughters yet unborn, In crowding ranks on every side arise. Demanding life, impatient for the skies 1' See barbarous nations at thy gates attend^ Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend ; See thy bright altars throng'd with prostrate kings. And heap'd with products of Sabean springs ! For thee Idume's spicy forests blow, And seeds of gold in Ophir's mountains glow. See heaven its sparkling portals Avide display, And break upon them in a flood of day ! No more the rising sun sliall gild the morn. Nor evening Cynthia fill her silver horn ; But lost, dissolved in thy superior rays, One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze O'erflow thy courts : the Light himself shall shine Reveal'd, and God's eternal day be thine ! The seas shall waste, the skies in smoke decav. Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away ! But fix'd His Avord, His saving power remains ; Thy realm for ever lasts, thy own Messiah reigns ! YOUNG. 367 SEJe iSoi'ng Cfjristian to f)is ^otil Vital spark of heavenly flame ! Quit, oh ! quit this mortal frame : Trembling, hoping, ling-ering-, flying — Oh the pain, the bliss of dying ! Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife^ And let me languish into life. Hark ! they ■whisper ; angels say, '■'■ Sister spirit, come away." AVhat is this absorbs me quite, Steals my senses, shnts my sight, Drowns my spirits, draws my breath ? Tell me, my soul, can this be death? The world recedes ; it disappears ; Heaven opens on my eyes ; my ears With sounds seraphic ring : Lend, lend 3'our wings ; I momit, I fly grave ! where is thy victory ? death ! where is thy sting? DR ED WARD YOUNG. Edwaed Young was bom at Upliam, near Winchester, June ] 681. In liis earlier life lie was known as the author of " The Revenge," and other tragedies. At the age of fifty- seven he entered into orders; and in July 1730, lie was pre- sented to the rectory of Welwyn in Hertfordshire. Here he married Lady Elizabeth Lee, daughter of the Earl of Lich- field. She died in 17-41, and the disconsolate survivor sought to soothe his sorrows by the composition of " The Night Thoughts," — the poem with which his name is now identified. He died at Welwyn, April 1765. " The Night Thoughts" are an immense repository of moral- isings and maxims, too frecpicntly pinched into paradox or balanced in antitheses, and strung together on a very feeble 368 SACRED POETRY. thread. As a biographer has remarked — " There is a want of a clear connexion in the subject ; every image is amplified to the utmost ; every argument expanded and varied, as much as the greatest fertility of the fancy could effect. . . . There is no selection, no discreet and graceful reservation ; no mark of that experienced taste that knows exactly when the purpose has been effected, and which leaves the rest to be supphed by the imagination of the reader. Reflection follows on reflection, and thought on thought, in such close succession, that, as in books of maxims, one truth obstructs and obliterates another ; . . . and we feel, I am afraid, in reading this poem of Young, as we do in the perusal of Seneca, that no progress, no advancement is made ; we seem to move in a perpetually dazzling circle of argument, and reflection, and analogy, and metaphor, and illustration, without the power of passing be- yond it ; and it is on this account that the perusal of both these writers, however delightful for a season, soon fiitigues and dissatisfies the mind. Any one who will compare the moral writings of Cicero and Seneca in this respect, will soon mark the distinction to which I allude."'"' At the same time, such are the aphoristic force and the felicitous wording of many separate sentences, that they have almost passed into proverbs, and it would be difficult to name any author whose sayings so constantly recur to the preacher and moralist. As he turns over the pages, the reader will ever and anon recognise " household words" like the followiu"- : — " The first sure symptom of a mind in lieahli Is rc6t of licart, and pleasure felt at home." '' Like our shadows, Oui" wishes lengthen as our sun declines." " Men may five fools, but fools they cannot die." " The world's a prophecy of worlds to come." * Rev. Juhu ]\Iitford's '* Life of Young," Tiekering's edition; p. 38. YOUNG. SGO- " A Christian dwells, like Uriel, in the sun." " Eesembles ocean into tempest -wrought, To waft a featlier, or to drown a A}'.'" " How wretched is the man who never mouni'd!" ^])t Exm ILantJ of i\)t Hibmtj, Why then their loss deplore, that are not lost ? Why -wanders M-retched thought their tombs around. In infidel distress ? Tliey live I they greatly live a life on earth Unkindled, unconceived ; and from an eye Of tenderness, let heavenly pity fall On me, more justly number'd with the dead. This is the desert, this tlie solitude : How populous, how vital, is the grave ! This is creation's melancholy vault. The vale funereal, the sad cypress gloom ; The land of apparitions, empty shades ! All, all on earth, is shadow, all beyond Is substance ; the reverse is folly's creed : How solid all, Avhere change shall be no more? This is the bud of being, the dim dawn, The twilight of our day, the vestibule ; Life's theatre as yet is shut, and death. Strong death, alone can heave the massy bar. This gross impediment of clay remove. And make us embryos of existence free. Embryos -we must be, till we burst the shell. Yon ambient azure shell, and spring to life. The life of gods, .0 tran!=port ! and of man. m^z ^iwful Certamtg. Tell me, some god ! my guardian angel ! tell, Wiiat thus infatuates? what enchantment plants The phantom of an age 'twixt us, and death Already at the door? He knocks, Ave hear iiim. 37Q SACEED P0ETE7. And yet we will not hear. "What mail defends Our untouch'd hearts ? What miracle turns off Nw The pointed thought, which from a thousand quivers Is daily darted, and is daily shunn'd? We stand as in a battle, throngs on throngs Around ns falling ; wounded oft ourselves ; Though bleeding with our wounds, immortal still ! We see time's furrows on another's brow, And death entrench'd, preparing his assault ; How few themselves, in that just mirror, see ! Or, seeing, draw their inference as strong! There death is certain ; doubtful here : He must, And soon ; We may, within an age, expire. Though gray our heads, our thoughts and aims are green ; Like damaged clocks, whose hand and bell dissent ; Folly sings Six, while Nature points at TAvelve. Must I then forward only look for death V Backward I turn mine eye, and find him there. Man is a self-survivor every year. Man, like a stream, is in perpetual flow. Death 's a destroyer of quotidian prey. My youth, my noontide, his ; my yesterday ; The bold invader shares the present hour. Each moment on the former shuts the grave. While man is growing, life is in decrease ; And cradles rock ns nearer to the tomb. Our birth is nothing but our death begun ; As tapers waste, that instant they take fire. Boi^U iFricntis. Our dying friends come o'er us like a cloud, To damp our brainless ardours ; and abate That glare of life which often blinds the wise : Our dying friends are pioneers, to smooth Our rugged pass to death ; to break those bars Of terror and abhorrence Nature throws 'Cross our obstructed Avay ; and thus to make Welcome, as safe, our port from every storm. Each friend by fate snatch'd from us, is a plume YOUNG. 371 Pluck'd from the wing of human vanity, Which makes ns stoop from om* aerial heights, And, damp'd with omen of our own decease. On drooping pinions of ambition lowered, Just skim earth's surface, ere we break it up. "O'er putrid earth to scratch a little dust. And save the world a nuisance. Smitten friends Are angels sent on errands full of love ; For us they languish, and for us they die : And shall they languish, shall they die, in vain? Ungrateful, shall we grieve their hovering shades, Which wait the revolution in our hearts ? Shall we disdain their silent, soft address ; Their posthumous advice, and pious prayer? Senseless, as herds that graze their hallow'd graves, Tread under foot their agonies and groans ; Frustrate their anguish, and destroy their deaths? Eivxe, The bell strikes one. We take no note of time But from its loss. To give it then a tongue Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke, I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright. It is the knell of my departed hours : W^here are they ? With the years beyond the flood. It is the signal that demands despatch ; How much is to be done ! My hopes and fears Start up alarm'd, and o'er life's narrow verge Look down — On what ? a fiithomless abyss ! A dread eternity ! how surely mine ! And can eternity belong to me. Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour ? On Piety humanity is built ; And on humanity, much happiness ; And yet still more on piety itself. A soul in commerce with her God, is heaven ; 372 SACRED POETRY. Feels not the tumults and the shocks of life ; Tlie whirls of passions, and the strokes of heart. A Deity believed, is joy begun ; A Deity adored, is joy advanced ; A Deity beloved, is joy matured. Each branch of piety delight inspires ; Faith builds a bridge from this world to the next, O'er death's dark o-nlf, and all its horror hides ; Praise, the sweet exhalation of our joy, That joy exalts, and makes it sweeter still ; Prayer ardent opens heaven, lets down a stream Of glory on the consecrated hour Of man, in audience with the Deitj'. Who worships the Great God, that instant joins The first in heaven, and sets his foot on hell. Some angel guide my pencil, while I draw, AVhat nothing less than angel can exceed ! A man on earth devoted to the skies; Like ships on seas, while in, above tiie world. With aspect mild, and elevated eye. Behold him seated on a mount serene. Above the fogs of sense, and passion's storm ; All the black cares and tumults of this life. Like harmless thunders, breaking at his feet, Excite his pity, not impair his peace. Earth's genuine sons, the sceptred and the slave, A mingled mob I a wandering herd! he sees, Bewilder'd in the vale: or all unlike! His full reverse in all! AVhat higher praise? What stronger demonstration of tlie right? The present all their care; the future his. AVhen public welfare calls, or private want, Tiicy give to fame; his bounty he conceals; Their virtues varnish nature, his exalt ; Mankind's esteem they court, and he his own; Theirs the wild chase of false felicities, llis the composed possession of the true. YOUNG. 373 Alike tlirougliout Is his consistent peace, All of one colour, and an even thread; ^Vhile party-colour'd shreds of happiness, "With hideous gaps between, patch up for them A madman's robe; each puff of fortune blows The tatters by, and shews their nakedness. He sees with other eyes than theirs : where they Behold a sun, he spies a Deity; "What makes them only smile, makes him adore ; Where they see mountains, he but atoms sees; An empire, in his balance, Aveighs a grain. They things terrestrial worship, as divine; His hopes immortal blow them by, as dust That dims his sight, and shortens his survey, "Which longs in infinite to lose all bound. Titles and honours (if tliey prove his fate) He lays aside to find his dignity; No dignity they find in aught besides. They triumph in externals (which conceal Man's real glory), proud of an eclipse. Himself too much he prizes to be proud, And nothing thinks so great in man as man. Too dear he holds his interest to neglect Another's welfare, or his right invade; Their interest, like a lion, lives on prey. They kindle at the shadow of a wrong : "W^'rong he sustains with temper, looks on heaven, Nor stoops to think his injurer his foe; Nought but what Avounds his virtue wounds his peace. A covcr'd heart their character defends ; A cover'd heart denies him half his praise. "With nakedness his innocence agrees ; "While their broad foliage testifies their fall. Their no-joys end, Avhere his full feast begins: His joys create, theirs murder, future bliss. To triumph in existence, his alone; And his alone triumphantly to think His true existence is not yet begun. His glorious course was, yesterday, complete; Death, then, was welcome; yet life still is sweet. VOL. IV. 2 I 374 SACRED POETRY. JOHN GAMEOLD. Born near Haverfordwest in South Wales, April 10, 1711, after passing through Christ Church, Oxford, John Gambold became \dcar of Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire, where he remained till 1748, when he joined the United Brethren. Thereafter he officiated as minister of the Moravian Chapel, Fetter Lane, London, and eventually as a bishop of the United Brethren, until the close of his pious and useful life, which ended w^here it began, at Haverfordwest, September 13, 177L ^\)t iilgsterg of Eife. So many years I've seen the sun, And call'd tliese eyes and hands my own, A thousand little acts I 've done, And childhood have, and manhood known : what is life ! and this dull round To tread, why was a spirit bound? So many airy draughts and lines, And warm excursions of the mind, Have fill'd my soul with great designs, While i)ractice grovell'd far behind : what is thought ! and where Avithdraw The glories which my ftmcy saw ? So many tender joys and woes Have on my quivering soul had poAver ; Plain life with heightening passions rose, The boast or burden of their hour : what is all we feel ! why tied Those pains and pleasures o'er my heat! ? So many human souls divine, So at one interview display'd, Some oft and freely mix'd with mine, In lasting bonds my heart have laid : Avhat is friendship ! Avhy impress'd On my weak, wretched, dying breast? GAMBOLD. 375 So many wondrous gleams of light, And gentle ardours from above, Have made me sit, like seraph bright. Some moments on a throne of love : O what is virtue ! Avhy had F, "Who am so low, a taste so high? Ere long, when Sovereign Wisdom wills, My soul an unknown path shall tread, Aud strangely leave, who strangely fills This frame, and waft me to the dead : O what is death ! 'tis life's last shore. Where vanities are vain no more ; Where all pursuits their goal obtaiu, And life is all retouch'd again ; Where in their bright results shall rise Thoughts, virtues, friendships, griefs, and joys. WILLIAM COWPER. Of this most Christian of our poets — in his theology the most evangelical, in his standard of right and wrong the most scriptural, and in his tone and spirit, constitutional melan- choly notwithstanding, the most benevolent and cheerful — there is no need that we should say anything. No literary career has so often tempted the biographical pen, and, self- portrayed in his charming lays and no less charming letters, no figure is more familiar to the English mind than the bard of Olney. Evenings too dull for a severer task, or too ex- hausted for a brisker excitement, have often been beguiled by his inimitable epistles. Our classical exercitations are dissociated with his effort, so hard but so hearty, to transfer into curt but sturdy English the thoughts which wander at their will along the sunny tide of Homer's song ; and our knowledge of human nature has been enlarged by his clear intuitions, and his clever but not ill-natured descriptions. jMany a merry schoolboy has been made still merrier by " The 376 SACRED POETRY. Diverting History of Jolm Clili^iii," and many a mourner in Zion has been consoled whilst seeking with him "the calm retreat, the silent shade/' and praying for " a closer Avalk with C4od." And if art can desire no better picture of a homely modern Eden, than the Alcove at Olney, and its gentle occu- pant feeding his hares, the calamities of genius record few sadder tales than the dark eclipse of that fine mind, and its long and dreary setting. CowRER was born at Bcrkhampstead, November 2G, 1731, and died at East Dereham, April 25, 1800. It was about 1772 that Cowper wrote most of the hymns which, to the number of sixty-eight, afterwards appeared in the Olney Collection. The first volume of his jDoems was pub- lished in 1782, and its much more successful companion fol- lowed in 178-5, silencing at once the captiousness of criticism, and securing for ever the fame of the author of " The Task." Southey has well described the period at which Cowper's- star surmounted the horizon : — " ' The Task ' appeared in the interval when young minds were prepared to receive it, and at a juncture when there was no poet of any great ability or distinguished name in the field. Gray and Akenside were dead. Mason was silent. Glover, brooding over his. ' Atheniad,' was regarded as belonging to an age that was past. Churchill was forgotten. Emily and Bampfylde had been cut off in the blossom of their youth. Crabbe having, by the publication of his ' Library,' his ' Village,' and his ' Newspaper,' accomplished his heart's immediate desire, sought at that time for no further publicity ; and Hajlcy ambled over the course without a competitor. . . . ' The Task '" was at once descriptive, moral, and satirical. The descriptive parts everywhere bore evidence of a thoughtful mind and a. gentle spirit, as well as of an observant eye ; and the moral sentiment which pervaded them gave a charm in which de- scriptive poetry is often found wanting. The best didactic poems. cowPEPw 077 wlien compared with ' The Task/ are like formal gardens ill comparison with woodland scenery Its satire is alto- gether free from personality ; it is the satire, not of a sour and dis- contented spirit, but of a benevolent though melancholy mind ; and the melancholy was not of a kind to affect artificial gloom and midnight musings, but rather to seek and find relief in sunshine, in the beauties of nature, in books and leisure, in soli- tary or social walks, and in the comforts of a cjuiet fireside." '" 2rf)c ^utljor l^imsclf. I was a stricl?^!! deer, that left the herd Long- since; ^vith many an arrow deep inSx'd My panting side was charged, when I withdrew To seek a tranquil death in distant shades. There was I found by One who had Himself Been hurt by th' archers. In His side He bore, And in His hands and feet, the cruel scars. With gentle force soliciting the darts, He drew them forth, and heal'd, and bade me live. Since tlien, with few associates, in remote And silent woods I wander, far from those My former partners of the peopled scene ; With few associates, and not wishing more. Here much 1 ruminate, as much I may, With other views of men and manners now Than once, and others of a life to come. I see that all are wanderers, gone astray Each in his own delusions; they are lost In chase of fancied happiness, still woo'd And never won. Dream after dream ensues; And still they dream that they shall still succeed. And still are disappointed. Ef)e ^artioneb dinner. As when a felon, whom his country's laws Have justly doom'd for some atrocious cause, * Soutliey's " Life of Cowper," vol. ii. pp. 1S1-1S4. 2 I 2 378 SACRED POETRY. Expects, in darkness and heart-cliilling fears, The shameful dose of all his misspent years; If chance, on heavy pinions slowly borne, A tempest usher in the dreaded morn, Upon liis dung-eon walls the lightning play, The thunder seems to summon him away, The "warder at the door his key applies, Shoots back the bolt, and all his courage dies: If then, just then, all thoughts of mercy lost, When Hope, long lingering, at last yields the ghost. The sound of pardon pierce his startled car, He drops at once his fetters and his fear; A transport glows in all he looks and speaks, And the first thankful tears bedew his cheeks. Joy, far superior joy, that much outweighs The comfort of a few poor added days. Invades, possesses, and overwhelms the soul Of him whom Hope has with a touch made whole, 'Tis heaven, all heaven, descending on the wings Of the glad legions of the King of kings; 'Tis more — 'tis God diffused through every part, 'Tis God himself triumphant in his heart ! Oh, welcome noAv the sun's once hated light, His noon-day beams were never half so bright. Not kindred minds alone are call'd t' employ Their hours, their days, in listening to his joy; Unconscious nature, all that he surveys, Rocks, groves, and streams must join him in his praise. mjz Patriot anti tlje fHartgr. Patriots have toil'd, and in their country's cause Bled nobly ; and their deeds, as they deserve, Receive proud recompence. We give in charge Their names to the sweet lyre. Th' historic muse. Proud of the treasure, marclies with it down To latest times ; and Sculpture, in her turn, Gives bond in stone and ever-during brass To guard them, and t' immortalise her trust : But fairer wreaths are due, though never paid^ COWPER. To tliosG who, posted at the shiine of Truth, Have fallen in her defence. A patriot's blood, Well spent in such a strife, may earn indeed, And for a time insure to his loved land The sweets of liberty and equal laws ; But martyrs struggle for a brighter prize. And win it with more pain. Their blood is shed In confirmation of the noblest claim — Our claim to feed upon immortal truth, To walk with God, to be divinely free, To soar, and to anticipate the skies ! Yet few remember them. They lived unknown Till persecution dragg'd them into fame, And chased them up to heaven. Their ashes flew — No marble tells us whither. With their names No bard embalms and sanctifies his song : And history, so warm on meaner themes, Is cold on this. She execrates indeed The tyranny that doom'd them to the fire, But gives the glorious sufferers little praise. He is the freeman whom the truth makes free, And all are slaves beside. There 's not a chain That hellish foes, confederate for his harm, Can wind around him, but he casts it off With as much ease as Samson his green withes. He looks abroad into the varied field Of nature, and, though poor perhaps, compared With those AvhOoC mansions glitter in his sight, Calls the delightful scenery all his own. His are the mountains, and the valleys his, And the resplendent rivers. His t' enjoy With a propriety that none can feel, But who, with filial confidence inspired. Can lift to heaven an unpresumptuous eye, And smiling say — " My Father made them all ! " Are they not his by a peculiar right, And by an emphasis of interest his. Whose eye they fill with tears of holy joy, Whose heart with praise, and whose exalted mind With worthy thoughts of that unwearied love 37a 380 SACRED POETRY. That planivd, and built, and slill upliolds a world So clothed witli beauty for rebellious man ? Yes — ye may fill your g-arners, ye that reap The loaded soil, and ye may waste much good In senseless riot ; but ye will not find, In feast or in the chase, in song or dance, A liberty like his, who, unimpeach'd Of usurpation, and to no man's wrong. Appropriates nature as his Father's work, And has a richer use of yours than you. He is indeed a freeman. Free by birth Of no mean city ; plaun'd or e'er the hills Were built, the fountains open'd, or the sea With all his rolling multitude of waves. His freedom is the same in every state ; And no condition of this changeful life, So manifold in cares, whose every day Brings its own evil with it, makes it less : For he has wings that neither sickness, pain, Kor penury, can cripple or confine. No nook so narrow but he spreads them there With ease, and is at laige. Th' oppressor holds His body bound ; but knows not what a range His spirit takes, imconscious of a chain ; And that to bind him is a vain attempt. Whom God delights in, and in whom he dwells. €nrjlant(. England, with all thy faults, I love thee still — My coimtry ! and, while yet a nook is left Where English minds and manners may be found, Shall be constrain'd to love thee. Thougli thy clime Be fickle, and thy year most part deform'd With dripping rains, or wither'd by a frost, I would not yet exchange thy sullen skies. And fields without a fiower, for wanner France With all her vines ; nor for Ausonia's groves Of golden fruitage, and her myrtle bowers. To shake tl)y senate, and from heights sublime Of patriot eloquence to fla.