their respective flocks. There are thirty-nine vacant parishes in the state; most of which have become so by the dismission of their ministers." In England, the leading Dissenting journals avow that "Dissent cannot coalesce with pauperism," or, in other words, that money-making is an essential part of Dissent. And from the whole of these circumstances combined it is clear, beyond the possibility of refutation, that the Dissenting clergy gain their livelihood, not by instructing their people, but by speaking to the people that which they already know and approve, but no more. In this state of things, it is not possible that religion should thrive among them; it is impossible that it should not retrograde. As surely as it belongs to the faithfulness of God to bless the ordinance of preaching, when conducted according to his appointment; so is it necessary to the same faithfulness that He should curse that church in which His ordinance is abused. Men invoke the faithfulness of God to fulfil his promises of blessings upon things carried on in compliance with his word, and act in things contrary to his word; as if He were but a negative, and as if the same faithfulness did not oblige Him to act in a contrary manner, in opposite circumstances. No other argument, no other proof, is necessary to shew that religion must be declining and let their accounts of revivals be as numerous as they please, we may feel assured that the appearances are hollow and false. America has long been the beau ideal of the disaffected in England, whether to the church or to the state; and, among other claims to our admiration, its highly religious character has been constantly vaunted. How much truth there has been in these statements, the following document will prove. "SYNOD OF NEW JERSEY.-The Committee appointed to take into consideration the state of religion within the bounds of the synod, and report such measures as the exigency of the case requires, reported "That, having carefully inquired into the state of religion within the bounds of the synod, and maturely considered what ought to be done in the present exigency on this exceedingly momentous subject, they recommend to the synod the adoption of the following resolutions, viz. : "1. Resolved, That, in the opinion of the synod, with very few exceptions, in the churches throughout their bounds vital religion is in a low and declining state; and that there is evidently an unusual and alarming absence of Divine influences. "2. Resolved, That ministers are solemnly called upon most seriously and attentively to look at the state of things in their own congregations and around them; and most seriously to inquire into the cause, and, particularly, whether any thing in their own feelings or conduct, or manner of performing their official duties, has caused the present cloud which hangs over their own individual church, and the churches generally; and, by private meditation and prayer, to endeavour to get their own hearts affected with the present deplorable state of things. "3. Resolved, That it be recommended to the sessions of the respective churches to have a sessional meeting as soon as practicable, to converse on the state of their particular church, to unite in prayer for the influences of the Spirit, and to devise measures for the promotion of religion in their respective congregations. 66 4. Resolved, That it be recommended to the sessions to call their respective churches to fasting, humiliation, and prayer, on account of the present low state of religion, at such time and in such manner as they shall judge best. "5. Resolved, That it be recommended to the ministers and elders of each presbytery to meet in some central place within their bounds, and spend together a day in fasting, prayer, conversation, and mutual counsel, in reference to the state of religion." The great cause of there being such a large supply of shallow sermons is, that there is a great demand for them: and it would be contrary to the first principles of economical science, if, where there is efficient demand, and the supply costs little trouble, it should not be superabundant. Those for whom they are written have no great powers of mind, and therefore they can never create a demand for what would excite it in others. Our regrets do not lie against these being supplied with what is adapted to them, but that, so very anxious have been our pastors to shew their deference, and please them, that they have left the rest of the world to shift for themselves; whereby, instead of leading the church on step by step to the greatest height of the divine life which can be attained, they have, so far as in them lies, contributed to reduce all to the level of the capacity of the uninquiring portion of their flocks. Another cause of the poverty of modern sermons is, the perversion and abuse of the word practical, which is generally prefixed to them, and which is intended to convey the idea of most universal utility. In this, the authors fall into the identical error which Mr. Whately well exposes, in his treatise on Logic, on the misuse of the word plain:-" It is not improbable that many indifferent sermons have been produced by the ambiguity of the word plain. A young divine perceives the truth of the maxim, that, for the lower orders, one's language cannot be too plain, (i. e. clear and perspicuous, so as to require no learning nor ingenuity to understand it); and when he proceeds to practice, the word plain indistinctly flits before him, as it were, and often checks him in the use of ornaments of style-such as metaphor, epithet, antithesis, &c.-which are opposed to plainness in a totally different sense of the word." This is precisely the case with respect to the use of the word practical: They have an indistinct idea flitting before them about making their sermons conduce to practice; and this, they think, is only to be attained by discussing points of social duty, and exhorting to their observance. Now, we contend that these ethical compositions do not lead to Christian practice; and that the more the ministrations from the pulpit tend to unfold the revealed Being of God, as manifested in the assumed relationships of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in order to shew forth Himself in the salvation of a portion of the fallen sons of Adam, the more holythat is, the more devoted to the service of God will the practice of that congregation become. " It is very true, that illiterate men often fasten upon some one point of the revealed character of God; speak on it exclusively; and thereby distort it out of its due proportion, jar the harmony of truth, and thus produce a set of harsh, proud, and ostentatious followers. Such men were the late William Huntington and Dr. Hawker; and such are many of the close-communion Baptists. But the bad effect here produced is not attributable to the doctrines of God; for so to say, would be blasphemously to charge God with folly; but it is attributable to want of more knowledge in the preachers. The use of the word "practical is commonly arrogated by men of narrow minds, and who have but one idea, and that idea drawn from their own solitary experience. "In matters connected with political economy," observes Whately, "the experience of practical men is often appealed to in opposition to those who are called theorists: even though the latter, perhaps, are deducing conclusions from a wide induction of facts; while the experience of the others will often be found only to amount to their having been long conversant with the details of office, and having all that time gone on in a certain beaten track, from which they never tried, nor witnessed, nor even imagined, a deviation !" The style aimed at by these practical Protestant Evangelical preachers, is precisely that which is the object of the Popish preachers namely, appeals to the passions, founded upon the assumption of some acknowledged elementary Christian doctrine. The class, then, being one and the same, the only variety which one volume admits from another, depends upon the talent for composition in the writer. Massillon and Chalmers and Dr. Thomson are interesting, while Daniel Wilson and Dealtry are dull, merely because the former are eloquent and the latter are not their class is the same; they are only varieties of the same genus. If there were any one department of truth which we should be disposed to exclude in toto, as unfit for sermons from the pulpit, it would unquestionably be moral duties. We do not, however, go so far as to say, that any thing which the book of God contains is not proper to be discoursed of in the pulpit; but, if we are obliged to institute comparisons between degrees of importance where all are important, then we say, that the details of moral duties, and of domestic and of social life, are more fit for private than for public instruction. If the proof of this position is sought in the fact, it will be easy to shew that moral duties are enforced with far greater power of eloquence by many of that body of the clergy commonly called Worldly, than by those called Evangelical; and the evident want of effect no one will call in ques tion. But since the observance of all moral duties may be as perfectly performed by men who are not Christians as by those who are→ as, for example, the Brahmins-it follows, that the internal principle is that which alone constitutes the essential distinction between a Christian and another man. This principle is the love of the True God. But the True God is invisible, and has revealed Himself in Word, and manifested Himself in flesh and, consequently, it is only as this revelation and this manifestation are studied that the True God is known; and, consequently, only so far that the True God is loved. Now, it is very possible that there may be a great deal of observance of moral duty, and a considerable degree of knowledge of doctrinal religion, and of sentimental love of the Creator, combined with an unsubdued hatred of the True God: and hence it is that we see how every additional development of the character of the True God confers such pleasure on some, and stirs up such malignity in other professors. It will be maintained, that the preachers who confine themselves to the lowest walk of theology produce as many truly spiritual hearers as others who take higher flights. To this it is to be answered, that, as less of God's character is unfolded, the hostility of the natural man to that character has less opportunity of being manifested: that, therefore, there may be a great apparent increase of approvers, who are, in fact, only in accordance with the words of their preacher, but not with the ideas which he attaches to those words. Moreover, the true state of men's hearts will never be known until the secrets of all are revealed; and, at all events, this is a day of too much advantage for religious profession to make us very confident of its ability to abide much sifting. Making all necessary deductions, however, on these two grounds, we may still admit that many souls are really converted to God by the ministrations of the pulpit such as they are, and yet those souls remain but babes during the whole of their sojourn here below. This effect would necessarily follow the bare reiteration of the same elementary truths, sermon after sermon, sabbath after sabbath, without either preacher or hearers advancing one single step in the knowledge of God. Mr. Davison, in the introduction to his work on Prophecy, observes on the power of the cumulative force of a multitude of small particulars. This principle is well stated in the following extract from the work of a physician of the present day, most learned in every department of his art, and one of the most amiable of men :— "It is so well known that the mind may brood over a subject till it loses the power of seeing it in a right point of view, that it is commonly said a man may tell a lie till he believes it. 'I wish,' said Dr. Johnson, rebuking Boswell for the zeal into which he had worked himself about the history of Corsica,-ʻI wish there were some cure like the lover's leap for heads of which some single idea has obtained possession.' Objects which have had frequent access to the mind seem to have a double power over it....This is the case, not only with the objects of fancy, but with propositions which appeal to the understanding. An opinion produces effect, partly in proportion to the manifest proof which it contains, partly to the frequency with which it has been presented to the mind. This is capable of incalculable accumulation, till at length the object produces an effect and gains a power over the individual totally different from what it possesses over one less frequently impressed by it. Objects by repetition lose their power over the senses, for the senses have no memory; while they incalculably augment it over the understanding and the affections. It is on this principle that so many trifles acquire an influence over us so disproportionate to their importance; that with the generality of mankind opinions owe their power more to habit than to evidence; that an old song, however bad, pleases more than a new, however good; that a wag tickles those who are accustomed to him more than those who are not; that the ploughman prefers his coarse and awkward mistress to the loveliest lady of the land; that the constant dropping of daily circumstances on the character wears in it deeper channels than the transient torrents of persuasion."-Gooch. : This is exactly the case with the majority of Christians of the present day their "opinions owe their power more to habit than to evidence. And hence two consequences flow: the one is, that scarcely any man of ordinary capacity is converted by our evangelical preachers; and, secondly, that Christians have no soundness, no root, no durability, that can stand any assault of Satan, whether by the introduction of heresy, the rise of persecution, or the assault of infidelity. We do not deny that there are some men of great powers of mind, in the present day, who are really |