wrapt in eternal gloom, (p. 75.) But our principal objection arises from the concluding paragraph of the discourse, which, notwithstanding Mr. Hall's ingenious vindication of it in the preface, (p. ix,) we still think calculated to mislead. We wish that instead of defending, he had consented to alter it in his second edition. Of the sermon, however, as a whole, we think most highly; and we take this occasion of requesting our readers to bear in mind, that our notice of smaller faults is sometimes only an indication of our opinion of the excellence of the work, which we have been at so much pains to criticise. That before us proves its author to possess a mind of extraordinary vigour; an intellect capable of grasping the most extensive relations, and throwing light on the most abstruse subjects in the science of morals, so far as that science comes within the province of reason: while he seems to have both the discernment and modesty to know those bounds, which the human understanding is forbidden to pass; and while the views of evangelical religion, which he has incidentally introduced, are just, elevated, and affecting. To conclude.-We cannot but regard the accession of such a man as Mr. Hall to the side of true religion and social order as a public benefit, and we trust that his talents will in no long time be employed in some work of a less perishable nature than sermons on subjects of temporary inte rest. preachers to forward the purposes of the society. The text of the first sermon is Rom. ii. 7; from which the preacher purposes to set forth the "advantages of patience" in missionary exertions. "The Motives to Patience," would have been a better description of it; for though it well deserves the attention of a person engaged in the work of missions, yet little will be found in it which the title might lead us to expect: the whole of what directly relates to the exercise of patience being contained in a single paragraph. The subject therefore is yet open, and may be resorted to on some future occasion. The title of the second Sermon is "St. Paul's Conduct, a Pattern for Missionary Exertions." Rom. xv. 20, 21. is the text, from which the preacher enlarges on the object the apostle here proposed, viz. the instruction of the heathen; the means he employed for this purpose; and the spirit by which he was actuated. On the last point, Mr. Young apprizes his hearers, that he means not to confine himself to the single trait of the apostle's spirit mentioned in the text, but to enforce the duty of a Missionary by a general view of St. Paul's character. This he has done in a manner calculated to raise the Missionary above every mean and selfish consideration, in the discharge of his office. "The ignorance of the Heathen, and the conduct of God toward them" is the subject of the third Sermon, which is founded on the 30th and 31st. verses of Acts xvii. In this discourse, the darkness of the heathen world, with respect to religion and morals, is fairly stated; and the duty of supporting and encouraging all endeavours to bring them to the knowledge of the gospel, clearly deduced from the divine command now given to all men to repent. If this discourse be not so animated as the two which precede, it has greatly the advantage as to correct composition. It is a sober, though by no means a frigid demonstration of the duty incumbent on Christians, to endeavour to propagate the gospel of Christ. "St. Paul's mission to the Gentiles," from Acts xxii. 21. makes the subject of the fourth Sermon. From these words the preacher endeavours to accomplish the purpose of the meeting, by shew ing, first, that the salvation of the Gentiles is an object of divine delight." This proposition he supports by many appropriate passages of holy scripture. He encourages the undertaking by considering, 2dly," the certainty of the event," to those who labour for the salvation of mankind. In addition to the arguments arising from the assurances of God's word, and the divine helps which the Christian Missionary has to depend on, Mr. Newell brings forward. under this head many encouraging instances of the success attending evangelical labours. The 3d head of the discourse, viz. that the salvation of the Heathen is " an infinite blessing," makes way for an earnest address to the hearers, in which they are urged to assist the missionary cause, by such means as they can best apply to so important an undertaking. These Sermons are superior, in point of composition, to some which have preceded them. And they possess more of that simplicity, which when accompanied with warmth and energy, best becomes the Christian pulpit. Prefixed to the Sermons is the Report of the Directors of the Institution: an abstract of which has already been given in our Religious Intelligence, Vol. II. p. CXL. The Mild Tenour of Christianity; an Essay. pp. 153. 8vo. London. 1803. Clarke. THIS work opens with some quotations from scripture, which are commented upon with the extravagance of a writer of romance, rather than with the gravity and simplicity of a Christian. These are followed by little more than a strange collection of ecclesiastical anecdotes, chiefly intended, as it should seem, to prove what no Protestant denies; that the austerities of monachism do not coincide with the mild tenour of christianity. The edition of the gospel, which the author appears to have studied, is that corrupted one which, divesting the Almighty of his retributive justice, exhibits him as a God "all mercy:" and overlooking the spirituality and extent of the divine law, and the purity and heavenly mindedness required by the gospel, attempts to reconcile a love of the world and a conformity to its spirit, with the service of God, and the hope of future glory. The subject our author has selected is, doubtless, an interesting one; but it requires a very different treatment from that which it is likely to receive from the flippant pen of a gay and confident writer, who, in delineating the mild genius of the Gospel, passes over, without notice, all those facts and denunciations by which, in scripture, the dreadful consequences of sin are depicted. The excellency of christianity in this view of it, arises in no degree from the indulgence it affords to the omission of any duty or the breach of any divine injunction; nor chiefly even from its condemnation of the gloomy austerities of the anchorite, or the exterminating zeal of the persecutor, but from the representation which it gives of the love, and clemency, and forbearance, and tender compassion of the Almighty towards sinners; from the encouraging and consolatory language with which it addresses the penitent, the contrite, and the afflicted; from the richness and efficacy of its provisions for the restoration of fallen man to the image and favour of his God; from its authoritatively calling men to the renunciation of pride, anger, malice, hatred, revenge, and other sinful passions; from the mild treatment it requires towards offenders; and from the indispensable obligation it imposes of administering freely to the temporal and spiritual wants of our fellowcreatures. Nay, so little occasion is there to divest christianity of its sanctions, in order to establish its mild tenour, that it will be found on enquiry, that even its loudest threatenings are designed to operate as gracious warnings; and are calculated, by the salutary influence of fear, to reclaim the sinner from the error of his ways; and that the most self-denying sacrifices which it demands tend directly to the promotion even of present peace and happiness. We should not have thought it necessary to notice this work, but for the commendation it has received from some of our critical brethren. CXLI. The Substance of a Speech in- daff. Second Edition. London, Cadell and Davies. pp. 46. THE Compositions of different authors bear, with different degrees of strength, the impression of the mind of the writer. And of different works of the same person one will be much more forcibly characterised than another by his peculiar sentiments and manner. The publication before us presents so strong a picture, not merely of the known opinions, but, if we may so express ourselves, of the very port and demeanour of the Bishop of Landaff, that we think a perusal even of the two first paragraphs would satisfy most men to which member of the Right Reverend Bench the tract, were it anonymous, must be ascribed. The Bishop, after employing some introductory pages, replete with strains somewhat Tyrtæan, in laudable exhortations to loyalty, patriotism, and heroic exertion under the impending crisis, and in merited encomiums on our free constitution, proceeds to mention measures which he conceives would be of essential moment in contributing to our national defence. His lordship proposes in the first place, "That the first class of the people, adopting the division prescribed by a late act of parliament, should be called out and taught the use of arms, not merely as a temporary expedient to answer the present exigency, but annually continued as a permanent measure of the executive government." (p. 11.) "I readily join," he adds, " in the general praise so justly given to the volunteers; but this commercial nation ought so far to become a military nation, as always to have within itself a sufficiency of men ready disciplined for its defence. This may be completely effected for the present occasion in a short time: and when the pressure of the present occasion is removed, it may be established as a permanent measure in the course of six years, without giving any sensible interruption to our agriculture, our manufactures, or our commerce." (p. 11, 12.) Concluding that the population of the country would annually supply fifty thousand youths, who, in the preceding twelve months, had attained their seventeenth year, the Bishop calculates that in six years we should thus have three hundred thousand young men sufficiently instructed in the use of arms. Our own occupations give us so little insight into any other warfare than that of authors, that we shall not venture to pronounce on the military merits or demerits of the plan. We shall only say that, among evils inferior to that of subjugation under a foreign power, there are few which are more to be deprecated than that of this nation becoming a nation of soldiers. The second proposition which the bishop recommends is the payment of the national debt, or, at least, of that part which has been added during the present and the three preceding wars, by a proportional contribution from every man's property. This plan his lordship recommends not only as ea sily practicable, but as universally profitable. He decidedly encounters the prevailing opinion, that in taxes on income the rich ought to pay after a higher rate than the poor. "A man of ten pounds a-year is as able to pay (I mean with as little privation of his comforts) ten shilling annually, as a man' of five hundred a-year is to pay five hundred shillings. If we trace the matter to the bottom, and speak of luxuries, as distinguished from necessaries, we shall find every thing comparatively speaking to be feed on the bark of trees; beer is a luxury a luxury. Bread is a luxury to those who to him whose beverage has been water; wine is a luxury to him whose ordinary be verage is beer; and a savage in America with a blanket on his shoulders, is a man of luxury compared with his neighbour who has none. Our inimitable bard has expressed this idea in better language that I can use, where he introduces Lear arguing with his daughter about what was needful for his state. O, reason not the need: our basest beg gars Are in the poorest thing superfluous; read this passage, and inveterate preWe actually thought, before we judices dispose us still to cling to the opinion, that there exists a real distinction between necessaries and superfluities. We have a lurking repugnance to be convinced that we ought to exchange our bread, however coarse, for the bark of trees, and our coats, however threadbare, for blankets; and our logical powers are unhappily fettered by a prepossession, that, in the present depraved state of human nature, if the life of a man is to be as cheap as that of a beast, it must be very like that of a beast. We must confess too that we extremely doubt whether the speedy removal of the whole, or of nearly the whole, of our national debt would be a national advantage. We avow,and we make the avowal without any special reference to the present ministers, of whose moderation we, in truth, think very highly, that in our opinion a public debt of some magnitude operates as a salutary check to that facility of entering into wars, and that extravagant enterprise in conducting war, to which, if suddenly released from our burthen, we should be continually obnoxious. His lordship, in the next place, recommends the payment of stated salaries from the public revenue to the Roman Catholic bishops and clergy of Ireland, as a measure of conciliation and of justice. If public rumour be entitled to credit, such a plan has for some time been under the contemplation of his Majesty's ministers. The questions which it involves are of too extensive a nature to be canvassed in this place; but we think it deserves the deliberate consideration of all concerned, whether the same principle which would sanction government in giving direct countenance and support to Roman Catholic clergymen, the adherents of a church acknowledged to be not only Anti-christian, but Anti-christ itself, would not justify the payment of Hindu priests and Mahometan Imams, with a view to the propagation of their respective tenets in our eastern dominions. We should be glad that a measure of this nature, so nearly affecting the interests of religion proceeded on some other ground than that of a calculation of expediency. In discussing this subject the Bishop makes, among other remarks, the two following observations:-"I love to have politics, on all occasions, founded on substantial justice; and never on apparent temporary expedience in violation of justice." (p. 26.)-"I wish any one to consider whether there is any time in which it is improper either for individuals, or for nations, to do justice.' (p. 28.) We wish that many of our politicians, who profess to be christians, would apply these observations universally, We should not then groan another month under the guilt of the Slave Trade. The repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts is the concluding measure which the Bishop advises as most conducive to unite all the inhabitants of Great Britain in cordial zeal for the defence of the country; his Lordship recommends moderation and loyalty to the Dissenters; disclaims any wish to be their champion; admits that, on the point in question, he thinks differently from many members of the upper house; and adduces as delivered personally and decidedly to himself the opinion of the late Lord Camden, that the repeal of the acts could not be, in any respect, prejudicial to the interests of the Established Church. We cannot help wishing that his Lordship had forborne to agi- ' tate this delicate question at the present moment. In the close of the pamphlet, as in other parts, the Bishop characteristically alludes to himself and his own proceedings; and we think in a way which will not always produce on the mind of the reader the impression, or the kind of impression, which was meant to be excited. He states the preservation of the balance of power to be the true and just cause of the war, a cause which his lordship says has been kept too much out of sight, as if we were ashamed of it. He reverts with proper satisfaction to the loyalty and exertion of Britons. But in ascribing to every one of our naval defenders, from the admiral to the sailor, the very unchristian sentiment, "Within my sword's length set him, if he 'scape Then heav'n forgive him too," we apprehend that he does not do honour either to them or to himself. We cannot conclude without expressing our sense of the spirit of independence, as well as of zeal and patriotism, which appear in this speech; and though we by no means concur in every position of the learned prelate, we entertain the firmest persuasion that his aim in writing it was the good of his country. CXLII. God glorified in his ministring Servants; a Sermon, preached in the Parish Church of Chedder, in the County of Somerset, on Monday, October 17, 1803, at the Funeral of the Reverend Thomas Drewitt, A. M. Curate of the said Parish. By the Reverend THOMAS BIDDULPH, A. M. Minister of St. James's, Bristol, and Chaplain to the Right Honourable the Dowager Lady Bagot. Bristol, 8vo. pp. 31. 1803. Ir there was an age in which funeral sermons were so frequent as to deprive them of the greater part of their appropriate effect, the present generation has run into the opposite, and not a less unreasonable extreme. There are, undoubtedly, circumstances in the course of human affairs powerfully calculated to enforce the truths and duties of christianity; and none, perhaps, possessing greater efficacy to such a purpose than the translation of an immortal soul into an eternal state, either of happiness or misery. Of occasions so favourable to religious impressions, it is unques. tionably the wisdom, if it is not the duty, of a christian minister to avail himself. And we know of no one who has acquitted himself in this neglected field of ministerial exertion, with greater credit than the author of the sermon now before us. Nor will the present production detract from the reputation which he has already earned in the same province of practical divinity. Mr. Biddulph was, indeed, favoured in his subject when he undertook to celebrate the character, and improve the premature departure, of such a man as Mr. Drewitt. And to his felicity in this respect may, perhaps, in some measure, be ascribed that animation both of thought and expression, by which the reader feels his attention rivetted, and his affections warmed, in the perusal of this discourse. Mr. Biddulph has taken his text from Gal. i. 24.-"They glorified God in me;" and the division of his subject is as follows: "A representation of the manner in which God is glorified in his servants. An exhortation to an imitation of their conduct, of whom the Apostle says, "They glorified God in me."-And an appropriate address to the consciences of all present." (p. 3.) What occurs of a more personal nature in this sermon is, for the most part, inserted in a communication which has been transmitted to us for our Obituary; to which the reader is referred. There is contained, however, in a note, (p. 13,) a short account of the zeal of Mr. Drewitt, and the affection which was entertained for him by the poor among his parishioners, omitted in the communi cation just mentioned, which cannot but be highly grateful to those whọ feel an interest in the prevalence and extension of christian truth. A well connected discourse can be represented with justice, neither by an abridgment of its contents, nor by a selection of detached passages. There are, however, in that under our present review, many separate portions, of which the merit would be sufficiently conspicuous, were they exhibited only as extracts. Our general plan determining us to this method, we will present to our readers the two following passages; the first being the commencement of the first division; and the second being the conclusion of the discourse. "In the first place, God is glorified in the appointment of such instruments as He employs for the accomplishment of His gracious purposes towards fallen man. Had He commissioned angels to be preachspondence might have appeared to exist ers of His gospel; a more proper correbetween the dignity of the King of Kings who sends, and the ambassadors whom He delegates to make known His will. But it is to be remembered that, though the servant derives all his ministerial importance from the majesty of his Lord, his Lord can receive no honour from him. An abject worm, like myself, speaking in the name of God, and producing credentials from Him, has the same right to demand an atwith light. And we may, moreover, add, that the glory of God is more promoted by the plan which His wisdom has adopted, than it could have been by any other. For, had beings of a superior order been employed in the promulgation of the tidings of reconciliation with God, through the blood of the cross, fallen man (so gross is his stupidity) might have attri buted the glory of the blessings thereby communicated, in part at least, to the inimpossible by the gracious constitution of strument. But this mistake is rendered His kingdom which God has established. tentive audience, as an angel crowned For we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us.' It is made evident that it is not by created might or power, but by the Spirit of Jehovah,' that sinners are translated out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear Son. In like manner, when our Lord opened the eyes of the blind by the application of dust mingled with His spittle (of which the apparent tendency was rather to extinguish than to restore sight) He demonstrated the source from which the miraculous cure was derived But had He used an eye-salve of approved |