He rarely reaches the sublime, or aims at the pathetic; but in a clear, manly, flowing style, he delivers the most important doctrines, confirmed on every occasion by well applied passages from Scripture. If he was not a shining orator, according to the ideas of rhetoricians, he was a very agreeable as well as useful preacher. He was not perfectly orthodox in his opinions; a circumstance which has lowered his character among many. Certain it is, that he would have done more good in the world, had he confined his labours to practical divinity. Speculative and polemical divinity commonly diffuses scepticism, without contributing any thing to moral reformation.

The sermons that have been preached at Boyle's Lectures are among the best argued in the language. They have been the laboured productions of the most ingenious men. But the whole collection never did so much good as a single practical discourse of Tillotson.

Atterbury was a polite writer. His sermons probably owed some of their fame, among his contemporaries, who have lavishly applauded him, to his mode of delivery in the pulpit; for the Tatler says, it was such as would have been approved by a Longinus and Demosthenes. He seems to have introduced the very judicious method of addressing the understanding in the beginning of the sermon, and the passions at the close.

Rogers, says his panegyrist Dr. Burton, possessed an eloquence, nervous, simple, persuasive, and beautiful. An unstudied elegance marks his style. He seems to have attained to that nice judgment, which adapted the same discourse to a rustic, a city, an academical congregation. In a professed elogium it is indeed allowable to exaggerate; yet what Burton has advanced is confirmed by perusing the

sermons of Rogers. They are perspicuous, solid, and written with remarkable ease.

Seed has obtained a great and deserved popularity. With a rich and sportive fancy he combined a solid judgment. Unlike the generality of those writers who affect to be flowery, he abounds in sound argument, and in just remarks on human life. A severe critic would condemn him for a profusion of embellishment: but I know not how it is, he had the skill to give repeated pleasure without satiety.

Such are the more popular of our English sermon writers, the models of those many divines, who, with very great merit, possess not the reputation of remarkable originality. To enumerate them all were an endless task; for of no books in the English language has there been so unceasing a succession as of sermons; and to speak of living writers with freedom is too often like thrusting a hand into the nest of the hornet.

Of late there have appeared publications of sermons addressed to persons of particular ages or descriptions. Though some of them exhibited a highly florid eloquence, and were received with great applause, yet they were too much ornamented, and, like many kinds of food, possessed a sweetness which delights for a moment, but soon terminates in loathing. They amused the imagination, and sometimes touched the heart; but they left to the understanding little employment.

Sermons, which came forth with less eclat, will stand a better chance of descending to posterity. Such are those of Sherlock, Secker, and Jortin. The happiness of mankind is concerned in the preservation of their works, while those of the frothy declaimer are daily dropping unregretted into the gulf of oblivion.

It is to be lamented, that the glaring and mere

tricious embellishments of the superficial writer are more commonly imitated by young preachers than the chaster beauties of the sound divine. Fine language, as it is called, with a few hackneyed sentiments and addresses to the passions, often constitute the whole merit of discourses preached before the most numerous congregations in the metropolis.

The pastors of the largest flocks usually affect popularity. Extemporary preaching is one of the most effectual means of obtaining it. It always pleases the vulgar; probably because it conveys the idea of immediate inspiration. It is true also, that by pleasing the vulgar, it is enabled to affect them. But yet there are many reasons to prevent its reception among the judicious. It may raise the passions, it may communicate a momentary fit of devotion; but from its hasty production it can seldom be correct or solid. It is, indeed, seldom attempted but by the superficial. The greatest divines have not been presumptuous enough to lay before their audience the effusions of the moment, but have usually bestowed much time and care in the composition of a single sermon. We are, indeed, informed, that Clarke sometimes preached without written notes; but the number of his printed sermons is a proof that this was not his general practice. They who possess the abilities of a Clarke may, however, safely venture to produce an unpremeditated harangue. But they also would do right to recollect, that the orations even of Demosthenes himself smelt of the lamp.

Against those who prepare their discourses, a general complaint has been made, that sermons are become in these days merely moral essays. There was a time when a passage from scripture, well introduced, was esteemed a flower of speech far surpassing every ornament of rhetoric. It is now

avoided as an ugly patch, that chequers with deformity the glossy contexture.

A professed Christian preacher, addressing a professed christian audience, should remember, that however beautiful his discourse, if it is no more than a moral discourse, he may preach it, and they may hear it, and yet both continue unconverted heathens.

Every congregation of real Christians wishes to find all morality deduced from scripture, and confirmed by it. Moral precepts, thus adorned, come from the pulpit as from an oracle. Scriptural language is not inelegant; but if it were, a preacher should let motives of duty exclude ostentation. In truth, he never appears to greater advantage than when he seems to forget his own excellence, and to lose sight of himself in the earnestness of his endeavours to promote the welfare of his audience.

No. CLXIX.

On the Neglect of Ancient Authors. In a Letter.

THOUGH it be true, as you remark, that, in the present times, learning is universally admired, and the character of a man of taste and letters is affected not only in colleges, but in polite circles; not only by the philosopher, but by the beau and the coxcomb; yet is it to be lamented, that there seems to remain no general relish for solid erudition, very little veneration for the inimitable productions of Greece and Rome, and but a slight attention to the more abstruse sciences and abstracted disquisitions. We read for pleasure, for amusement, for mere pastime, which dry argument and connected reasoning cannot always furnish. Light, airy, superficial compositions, without fatiguing the intellect, flatter the imagination; and for the sake of this empty satisfaction, to this trivial kind of reading is our time devoted, without regard to improvement of morals, or enlargement of understanding.

From neglecting the writers of antiquity we become ignorant of their beauties, vainly suppose that excellence is confined to modern authors, and that the ancients can be admired only by prejudice and bigotry. Even they who are really sensible of the excellence of the classics are willing, because they have neglected the study of them, to depreciate their merits, and to extenuate the infamy of their ignorance, by pretending that the knowledge of them is not desirable. Some there are, who, though they profess an admiration of the ancients, read them not in the originals, because they think it possible, with