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These sermons abound with a species of instruction in which modern discourses are not unfre quently deficient. They accurately and thoroughly unfold the distinguishing nature of religion. They not only display with precision its genuine characteristics, expressions, and evidences, but clearly mark what is opposite, and vigilantly detect the infinite variety of methods in which it is counterfeited. The recesses of the human heart are laid open, its windings developed, and its various deceits exposed. The mask is plucked from hypocrisy, and every false hope is undermined. Sinners of every class, the moral and profane, the enthusiast and formalist, the secure and convinced, are addressed in language alarming and pungent, yet affectionate and alluring: While the balm of heavenly consolation is ⚫ gently distilled into the soul of the doubting, desponding Chris

tian.

some

Dr. T.'s style is his own. Varying with its subject, it is at sometimes concise, at others, remarkably copious; at times, plain and unadorned; at others, rich even to luxuriance. Through an extreme ramification of thought, his sentences are sometimes too complicate for the less accurate or attentive reader. But, generally, his prominent characteristics are energy and perspicuity. He is much conversant with those metaphorical forms of expression which, as a great critic remarks, give us two ideas for one-conveying the meaning more luminously, and generally with a perception of delight.

It were casy to illustrate the foregoing remarks by a variety

of apposite quotations. But our selections must be few and brief.

In the sermon on the "love of our neighbour," we meet with the following just and accurate observations.

There

"It is obvious to remark, that there are many things, which wear some appearance of love to mankind, which yet fall essentially short of the spirit of the duty before us. is an instinctive and painful sympathy awakened by the sight of a fellow creature in distress, which engages our immediate efforts for his relief. There is a strong natural affection towards our kindred, especially towards our tender offspring. There is a characteristic sweetness and goodness of temper, which forms an early and constitutional feature in hu

man characters. There is also an artificial politeness and generosity, the product of civilization and refinement, losophical considerations. There is or at best of merely rational and philikewise a warm affection to others, which grows out of a likeness or union of sentiment and disposition, of party or country, or which is nourished by the enjoyment or the hope of their partial friendship, and beneficence to us; not to add, that there is sometimes an affected display of kindness and munificence to individuals, or of noble patriotic zeal for the public, which is prompted by merely

vain or selfish motives, and sometimes by views very base and iniquitous. It is evident, at first sight, that neither of these apparent instances of benevolence, nor all of them combined, fulfil the extensive precept in the text."

In the sermon on the first three petitions of the Lord's prayer, we have a short, but animated description of millennial purity and bliss.

"How transcendent must be the

prosperity of that holy community, which obeys the laws, and enjoys the protection of this glorious Sovereign! What a golden age of the world must that be, in which his benign govern

ment shall immediately embrace the whole brotherhood of man! Figure to yourselves, my hearers, the divine religion of Jesus enthroned in the hearts, in the families, and in all the societies of mankind! What an aggregate of private and public happiness is the immediate result! Behold each individual emancipated from the vile and destructive tyranny of sin and Satan, and restored to inward freedom, purity, and joy! See every family possessing that domestic harmony and bliss, which flows from mutual love and fidelity among its several members, and from the Constant, delightful experience of the divine benediction upon their common cares, endearments, and satisfactions! Behold every civil society enjoying that public liberty and defence, prosperity and greatness, internal and external peace, which naturally arise from the universal prevalence of private and social virtue among its various members and rulers! See the benevolent principles of Christianity cementing them all into one harmonious body, and devoting their several functions, their united affections and efforts to the general welfare! See each member loving his neighbour as himself, cheerfully losing private interest in the public good, steadily practising those personal, patriotic, and divine virtues, which nourish and perfect human society, and at once zealously promoting, and delightfully enjoying, the virtuous and happy state of every fel. low member, and of the community at large!"

The following remarks occur in an ordination sermon, preached on Ephes. iii. 8, 9, 10. Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, &c.

"As the spirit, expressed in the text, characterizes every penitent believer, so it eminently suits the proHis fession of a Christian minister. official studies and religious addresses constantly place before him the awful presence and majesty, the infinite holiness and grace of God, the wonderful condescension and sacrifice of Christ, the dependent and wretched condition of apostate man, the du

ty and importance of humble repent-
ance and thankful praise on the part of
redeemed sinners, and his own pecu-
liar obligations to divine mercy for
making him not only a partaker, but
a public herald of the gospel salva-
Can we wonder, that these
tion.
combined ideas roused in the bosom
of Paul the most humble and grate-
ful emotions? Ought they not to pro-
duce similar effects on every minis-
ter? Can a man, who is a stranger to
these sentiments and affections, be
qualified to enforce them on others?
Can he skilfully and tenderly admin-
ister that spiritual medicine, the ne-
cessity and value of which he does
not perceive, whose healing and com-
forting efficacy he has never felt?
Can he suitably lead the devotions of
Christians, who has never imbibed
the gospel spirit; whose heart has
never been tuned to the harmony of
Christian love and praise? In short,
the soul of a minister must be cast in
the humble mould of Christianity, be-
fore he can relish and faithfully per-
form the condescending and self-de-
nying duties of his office; before he
can readily become all things to all
men, and even take pleasure in in-
structing, reproving, or comforting
the weakest and lowest forms of hu-

man nature. On the altar of Chris-
tian humility he must sacrifice that
fondness for human applause, mental
luxury, or worldly emolument; that
pride of literary, ministerial, or moral
eminence; that unfeeling or haughty
neglect of the common people, which
superior station, knowledge, and
fame, assisted by human frailty or
corruption, are apt to inspire. To
subdue these evils, and to nourish
the opposite virtues, the Christian
pastor must carly and deeply imbibe
the self-abasing, yet ennobling views
presented in our text."

The last sermon in the volume (the last which the author preached) contains a striking description of the misery of the irreligious.

"Without religion the soul cannot enjoy peace, and of course the man cannot be happy. For happiness or misery flows not so much from exterior circumstances, as from the inter

nal state of the mind. Now a rational mind, which feels no love to its infinite Creator and Benefactor, no delight in the Supreme Good, no confidence in the favour of Him, on whom its eternal fate depends, must be inwardly poor and wretched, though surrounded with all the sources of earthly felicity. Such a creature must feel himself in an unnatural, distempered, and therefore painful condition. He must feel the torture of desires unsatisfied, of faculties prostituted, of hopes disappointed; of passions at once contradictory, clamorous, and unbounded; he must, whenever he soberly reflects, endure the anguish and terror, inflicted by an upbraiding conscience and a frowning God. His only refuge from this anguish is in thoughtless dissipation," or in a rapid succession of worldly pursuits and indulgences. But this refuge forsakes him in the gloomy intervals of solitude, of external danger and distress, and especially on the bed of death. The honest and great teacher, death, gives new light and activity to his reflecting powers; it brings into lively view his God dishonoured and incensed, his Redeemer insulted, his soul neglected and ruined, his fellow men, and even his dearest friends, corrupted, and perhaps destroyed by his criminal example, principles, or unfaithfulness. To complete this picture of wo, the hand of death separates him forever from those worldly objects, to which all his affections, habits and pleasures

were attached. At the same time it excludes him from the beatific presence of that Being, who only could make him happy; or rather his own confirmed depravity renders him incaple of sharing in the pure and refined enjoyments of the invisible world, and of course subjects him to extreme and hopeless misery."

In the course of the volume, some inaccuracies occur; but they are not numerous; nor is it needful to particularise them. In a posthumous work they will be readily overlooked.

The world is full of sermons. Yet so much is there of the original and impressive in the volume

before us, that we doubt not it has already engaged its share of the public attention. Nor are we less confident, that the more it is known, the more it will be prized by readers of sentiment and taste, and especially by the cordial friends of evangelical truth and vital piety.

2. On

3. On

Essays in a Series of Letters to a Friend on the following Subjects. 1. On a Man's writing Memoirs of himself. Decision of Character. the Application of the Epithet Romantic. 4. On some of the Causes by which evangelical Religion has been rendered less acceptable to persons of culti vated Taste. By John Foster, 2 vols. in one. 13mo. First American from third London Edition. Hartford, (Con.) Lincoln & Gleason.

THESE Essays, though occu pying, on an average, half a volume each, appear in the form of Letters. For this the Author has offered the best apology in his Preface, where he tells us that they were real Letters, written to a friend. To the man, who reads the work, however, no apol. ogy will be necessary. If he has the emotions, which we have felt, the embodied thoughts will so wholly engross his attention, that he will hardly think of their dress; much less will be find time to examine the fashion of it, and still less to point out its defects.

The first Essay, “On a man's writing Memoirs of himself," is a striking proof, that a subject, apparently old, and, at first glance, connected with those which are decidedly so, can, in

the hands of a man, who understands his business, lose in a moment its threadbare dulness, and excite a lively and eager attention. The yvale σidutor of antiquity has hardly escaped a single moralist, (and who is not a moralist?) since the days of Solon; yet here it will be seen standing in a posture and with a dignity, which Solon never knew, and which the well meant enthusiasm of his followers hardly contrived to realize.

Our Author, in recommending this plan to his friend, does not intend that he should prosecute it with the view of publishing the Memoirs; neither is it his design, that he should collect those facts and events of his life, which might have befallen any other man, as well as himself. On the contrary, they are to be mere Annals of his Mind, a delineation of the most prominent of those circumstances, which have made him what he is. The motives, which he suggests to prompt him to this task, are these: The gratification of a laudable curiosity of knowing the past life and feelings of one in whom he cannot but be concerned-of himself: The discovery of the manner, in which he has thought and acted, and by what he has been influenced, in the few moments which have elapsed, since he commenced an in, finite duration: And, above all, the sight of a faint miniature of the character, he will probably sustain, through all the following ages of time.

This task, he acknowledges, will be difficult, because we neither mark what our feelings indicate, nor remember what they are. Occasionally,

however, past scenes flash on the mind with a vivid, but un-' accountable effulgence, and enable us to seize on their minutest circumstances with the distinctness of vision. Places and things too, by association, will raise to life thoughts and feelings long since forgotten, especially feelings of guilt.

"No local associations," says Mr. F." are so impressive as those of guilt. It may here be observed, that as each one has his own separate remembrances, giving to some places an aspect and a significance which he alone can perceive, there must be an unknown number of pleasing, or mournful, or dreadful associations, spread over the scenes inhabited or visited by men. We pass without any awakened consciousness by the bridge, or the wood, or the house, where there is something to excite the most painful or frightful ideas in the next man that shall come that way, or possibly the companion that walks along with us. How much there is in a thousand spots of the earth, that is invisible and silent to all but the conscious individual. I hear a voice you cannot hear; I see a hand you cannot see."

Our lives, thus reviewed, will appear to have been a course of education, formed by instruction, company, books, and the influence of the world. The first emotion will be regret at the small influence of instruction. Yet, though small, it will be seen to have been real, and in a few instances unaccountably great. These of course should be recorded. Our companions, too, in every period of life, will be found to have helped us to a great part of what we are; especially a few individuals among them. These of course we must judge, and often, when we would not, condemn. Among our books

also a very small number will be found to have fixed the attention, and to have made the indelible impression. The scenes of nature will have been laid under contribution by here and there a mind, like Beattie's in his own Minstrel, and to have yielded an hourly revenue of beauty and grandeur, to enrich the character, and ennoble the conceptions. But from the world of men we shall find we have borrowed the most of what we are. The feelings, excited by a scene of oppression, of atrocity, or of extreme distress; of the extravagance of wealth, or the frivolity of dissipation, if revived again at intervals, may have formed a Draco or a Montbar, a philanthropist or a cynic, a miser or a philosopher. A conviction too will be forced from us of the far greater frequency and facility of bad impressions, than of good ones.. We shall also find among the millions of objects, which have assailed us, that most have failed in their attack; while a few, no more powerful elsewhere than the rest, have gained over us a commanding control. This must have been owing to some capital bent of the mind,

early received and lastingly felt; the origin of which will be the great secret of our character. Few of these influences will be found consolatory, except those of religion.

"Were a hundred men," says our author, "to read you their memoirs, you would often, during the disclosure, regret to observe how many things may be the causes of irretrievable mischief."

He then proceeds to trace, in a masterly manner, the bent which a few of them received in

early life, as the misanthropist, the inan destitute of mental exertion, the man of mere genius, the projector, the antiquary, and the petty tyrant of a family and a neighbourhood.

The progress of the atheist is delineated, in, the next letter, with a rare degree of conviction and eloquence. Were we ignorant of mankind, wonderful indeed would seem the means, by which the atheist knows there is no God.

"For unless he is omnipresent, un'less he is at this moment in every place in the universe, he cannot know but there may be in some place manifestations of a Deity by which even he would be overpowered. If he does the universe, the one that he does not know absolutely every agent in not know may be God. If he is not himself the chief agent in the universe, and does not know what is so, that which is so may be God. If he is not in absolute possession of all the

propositions that constitute universal truth, the one which he wants may be, that there is a God. If he cannot with certainty assign the cause of all that he perceives to exist, that cause may be a God. If he does not know every thing that has been done in the immeasurable ages that are past, some things may have been done by a God. Thus, unless he knows all things, that is, precludes another Deity by being

one himself, he cannot know that the Being whose existence he rejects,

does not exist."

The progress of atheism is represented as gradual. The causes of it are original indifference; professions of liberality; the pride of differing from others; the sophistry of the man, of his friends, and of his books; the rejection of revelation, and the consequent darkness of the mind; the gratification of pride as he advances; the progress in

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