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condescension to the Puritans, of whom it has long been the fashion to speak with respect, instead of holding them up to the contempt and infamy and abhorrence which they have so richly merited. They have been extolled by their descendants and successors as models of patriotism and piety; and the success with which this delusion has been practised is one of the most remarkable examples of what may be effected by dint of affrontery and persevering falsehood.

That sentence I am certain will not be disapproved at Fulham or Lambeth. Dr. Southey, or Dr. Phillpots might have written it.

The general standard of the Clergy has undoubtedly been very much raised since the days when they were not allowed to preach without a license for that purpose from the ordinary. Nevertheless it is certain that many persons who are in other, and more material respects well, or even excellently qualified for the ministerial functions, may be wanting in the qualifications for a preacher. A man may possess great learning, sound principles and good sense, and yet be without the talent of arranging and expressing

his thoughts well in a written discourse: he may want the power of fixing the attention, or reaching the hearts of his hearers; and in that case the discourse, as some old writer has said in serious jest, which was designed for edification turns to tedification. The evil was less in Addison's days when he who distrusted his own abilities, availed himself of the compositions of some approved Divine, and was not disparaged in the opinion of his congregation, by taking a printed volume into the pulpit. This is no longer practised; but instead of this, which secured wholesome instruction to the people, sermons are manufactured for sale, and sold in manuscript, or printed in a cursive type imitating manuscript. The articles which are prepared for such a market, are for the most part copied from obscure books, with more or less alteration of language, and generally for the worse; and so far as they are drawn from such sources they are not likely to contain any thing exceptionable on the score of doctrine : but the best authors will not be resorted to, for fear of discovery, and therefore when these are used, the congregation

lose as much in point of instruction, as he who uses them ought to lose in self-esteem.

But it is more injurious when a more scrupulous man composes his own discourses, if he be deficient either in judgement or learning. He is then more likely to entangle plain texts than to unravel knotty ones; rash positions are sometimes advanced by such preachers, unsound arguments are adduced by them in support of momentous doctrines, and though these things neither offend the ignorant and careless, nor injure the well-minded and well-informed, they carry poison with them when they enter a diseased ear. It cannot be doubted that such sermons act as corroboratives for infidelity.

Nor when they contain nothing that is actually erroneous, but are merely unimproving, are they in that case altogether harmless. They are not harmless if they are felt to be tedious. They are not harmless if they torpify the understanding: a chill that begins there may extend to the vital regions. Bishop Taylor (the great Jeremy) says of devotional books that " they are in a large degree the occasion of so great indevotion as

prevails among the generality of nominal Christians, "being," he says, "represented naked in the conclusions of spiritual life, without or art or learning; and made apt for persons who can do nothing but believe and love, not for them that can consider and love." This applies more forcibly to bad sermons than to common-place books of devotion; the book may be laid aside if it offend the reader's judgement, but the sermon is a positive infliction upon the helpless hearer.

The same Bishop,—and his name ought to carry with it authority among the wise and the good, has delivered an opinion upon this subject, in his admirable Apology for Authorized and Set Forms of Liturgy. "Indeed," he says, "if I may freely declare my opinion, I think it were not amiss, if the liberty of making sermons were something more restrained than it is; and that such persons only were intrusted with the liberty, for whom the church herself may safely be responsive,—that is men learned and pious; and that the other part, the vulgus cleri, should instruct the people out of the fountains of the church and the public stock, till by so long ex

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ercise and discipline in the schools of the Prophets they may also be intrusted to minister of their own unto the people. This I am sure was the practice of the Primitive Church."

"I am convinced," said Dr. Johnson, “that I ought to be at Divine Service more frequently than I am; but the provocations given by ignorant and affected preachers too often disturb the mental calm which otherwise would succeed to prayer. I am apt to whisper to myself on such occasions, How can this illiterate fellow dream of fixing attention, after we have been listening to the sublimest truths, conveyed in the most chaste and exalted language, throughout a liturgy which must be regarded as the genuine offspring of piety impregnated by wisdom!"— "Take notice, however," he adds, "though I make this confession respecting myself, I do not mean to recommend the fastidiousness that sometimes leads me to exchange congregational for solitary worship."

The saintly Herbert says,

"Judge not the Preacher, for he is thy Judge;

If thou mislike him thou conceiv'st him not.
God calleth preaching folly. Do not grudge
To pick out treasures from an earthern pot.

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