V ONE great advantage, which has forcibly struck us in precomposed discourses over those delivered extempore, or from notes, is the power gradually acquired, in the first case, of giving at once solidity, polish, and perpetuity to common, practical, exhortatory divinity. As every acquirement of art demands the slow and silent operation of habit, it seems self-evident to us that the habit of writing frequently in any given style, will be a necessary condition to writing well in it. And if that easy and apparently spontaneous flow of thought, which is 'so essential to impressive exhorta tion, be not amongst the easiest attainments of composition, we see no reason for making any exception on this head. On the contrary, with an equal share of zeal in both cases, we should expect to find the habitual writer the most clear, easy, measured, and, at the same time, useful and impressive; and the extemporaneous speaker, we should rather expect to find, as a writer, loose, embarrassed, and unguarded; his pen "either acting like a torpedo" in his hand, to cramp and paralyse his native energies, or else like a treacherous echo to his feelings, giving multiplicity to copiousness, and endless confusion to animated variety. That the world of sermon-writers, ancient and modern; will furnish both examples and exceptions to our rule, we have little doubt. Perhaps the number of exceptions might be materially diminished, if, of the supposed extemporaneous preachers who have been also good writers, we should happen to know how many have been in the habit of precomposing their sermons entire, and then committing them to memory for delivery. We apprehend, that, in this case, we might have the whole school of French preachers, Protestant as well as Popish, who abound perhaps more than any other in the most animated, and, at the same time, most measured declamation on practical subjects, mainly on the side of our remark. Baxter, on the other hand, and many of our most distinguished Puritans, who, in the composition of their sermons, we apprehend, avoided ink" sanguine viperino cautius," afford eminent examples of the ill effects of an extemporaneous style reduced to writing; and, with all their inimitable force of manner and fulness of matter, still require the incessant labour of abridgments, compilations, and selections, to render them applicable to the purpose of general and popular instruction. We are led to this obvious remark by the style of the two interesting sermons at the head of this article. They convey to our minds the idea of that which we deem most valuable, such a clear, correct, and measured, and, at the same time, animated and impressive, appeal to the conscience and the feelings, as strongly portends a long familiarized habit of this species of composition, and does equal credit to the bead and heart of a preacher. The very reverend author needs not any, designation, much less any "letter of commendation," from our humble pages. Those who have shared with us the pleasure of attending on his late valuable exertions in the metropolis, in behalf of more than one religious institution, will feel no difficulty in forestalling any observations we might have to make on the eloquence or the man. It is an increased satisfaction to know, that the apostolical feelings which manifested themselves in the pulpits of London, were only the same which had found their active exercise in the Rectory of Lutterworth-the former sphere of a Wickliffe's labours. And when we know the same feelings to have been further transferred into the important cathedral and city of Wells, in the person of their Dean, we shall not easily express, we shall not attempt to express, our hearty com gratulations to the Christian cause may We observe, that the first of the two sermons we have now to notice, having been first delivered in the parish churches of Lutterworth and Claybrook, was afterwards preached, with some alteration, in the parish church of Wells; and we think it no small excellency of that species of composition, which unites force and plainness with ease and correctness, that it is equally adapted for every audience. The poor listen to it with delight, the rich cannot turn away in disgust. The Greek or the Jew, the village or the city, may be equally edified. divine may be instructed by it; and The the sinner awakened. The sceptic may find in it the voice of wisdom, the mourner the language of comfort. The incipient Christian may read in it "the first principles of the doctrine of Christ;" the more advanced be led" on to perfection." Such we conceive to be one great standard and test of excellence in pulpit compositions; and the most ordinary subjects receive from such a mode of delivery a grace and a novelty which leave us little more in the main to desire. The title respectively of these two valuable sermons is the very ordinary one of the Minister's Farewell, and the Minister's Greeting." The subject has been somewhat desecrated of late in the eyes of the general reader, by the sonnetteering effort of a modern sentimentalist*, in his comparison between "the Farewell" and "the Welcome" of friends. The tender and affectionate sympathies awakened in the bosom by the former circumstance the mutual friendship, never till then so satisfactorily betrayed; the last monitory injunctions; the partVide Spencer's Poems." 443 ing look, and soothing hope of a and animated, as well as highly under the just indignation, and exposed to in their disobedience, and braving their "Behold some of them awakened to to the uplifted sword of Justice, an "And behold, on the other hand, an am bassador, who has been dispatched to these rebels by their Sovereign, coming to offer, under his sanction, free forgiveness, restored favour, and possessions of unspeakable value; coming to require only repentance and faith, firm belief in the Sovereign's offer, in his power, and his mercy; coming to present to their knowledge and acceptance his only beloved Son, as the cause and author of this his mercy, as able and ready to communicale to them these qualifications, and to confer upon them this reward. "What then will be the chief subject of this ambassador's address? What will be the prominent feature? The sum and substance, the beginning and end of his message? The Son, the only beloved Son, through whom ard on whose account alone the mes sage is devised and dispatched, through whom alone the offer will be accepted and fulfilled. The ambassador will magnify, no doubt, the justice, the power, and the goodness of the Sovereign. He will represent in their just proportion and their proper colours, the offences of the subjects: but all this will be as an introduction to exalt the love, the labours performed, the labours continued, the promise and the faithfulness of the Son, who interposes, reconciles, re-establishes peace and happiness for ever. From his intercession, the commission and credentials of the ambassador proceed. On him he rests all the ground of his arguments, from him he derives all the force of his exhortations and the influence of his per sua-ions. It is in the Son alone that he finds the way to glorify the Sovereign, who sent him, and to save those to whom he is sent. Now, my brethren, ye are the mẹn, by nature the rebel subjects of your God: we are as really rebels ourselves by nature, but according to our office his appointed mes sengers and ambassadors; the almighty God is our offended but forbearing Sove reign, and Jesus Christ is his only beloved Son, for whose sake alone he will become a reconciled Father to penitent believing sin ners; the Son, who has done and must do for you and in you all that is neediul for your salvation. Ought not then the Lord Jesus Christ to be the chief subject of our addresses? Ought not we to preach him in this holy temple of the Lord, and from house to house, in our public ministrations and in our private counsel, in our instructions, reproofs, and consolations? Should we be faithful ambassadors of the Father of mercies, if we omitted to exalt continually the Son of his love, in whom he is well pleased? Should we be serviceable ministers to the souls of our brethren, if we were not continually raising before their view, and urging them to embrace their only Saviour." pp. 1-3. " This noble and well-wrought apostrophe, which stands proxy for a thousand remarks of our own on the orthodoxy and purity of the author's sentiments, is followed by an affecting contrast between the feelings which would have attended his parring moments, had these doctrines been fully preached and fully and those which the more mixed received by all in the love of them, and imperfect characters, both of preacher and hearer, are calculated to produce. Equally mixed and imperfect must be that hallowed satisfaction with which otherwise the departing minister would have surveyed the field of his labours all whitening for a future harvest, the flock of his pasture all healthful and vigorous, and safely fenced in from the assaults of the enemy. Still, however, the numerous deficiencies from this happy consunimation afford ground for pathetic exhortation. "Still, however, a day of grace remains, wherein to seek the things belonging to our peace: still does Christ, our peace, offer himself unto us: still is he preached: still may you hear and hear, under grace, even to the conversion, the edification, and salvation of souls. “Oh, listen as though it were for your last time: listen to Christ preached as your Saviour, as though you were next to hear him passing sentence as your Judge: listen ministration of the Spirit: receive the appli to the preaching of the Cross: listen to the cation of those condemning yet saving doo trines, each to his own conscience: receive them with attention, meekness, simplicity, and desire of profit: peradventure the door of many heart, yet closed, may now be opened, and Christ, who has been so long excluded, enter in through his word, and dwell there, to your everlasting blessing and glory." p. 6. To the full and free invitation held out by our respectable preacher for all sinners to come unto Jesus, we cannot but be highly pleased to see the addition of such strong and searching practical appeals as the following: "Be ever then anxiously seeking for evidences in yourselves, that Christ in all his offices is yours. Be not satisfied with a temporary frame and temper of piety, a sudden impulse of joy, a strong conviction or a ray of hope. All these many have had, whose dawn of promise has set in a night of utter disappointment and woe. Be not satisfied with the sacrifice of some sins, to which you are no longer tempted, while you retain others, by which you are most easily beset. Be not satisfied with a religious state, in which all speak well of you, with such professed devotion to God as is consistent with service to mammon and with the friendship of the world, and compatible with sinful compromises and compliances; the church on one day, and the dissipated amusement on the next; the godly talk and the worldly practice." pp. 8, 9. Nor are we unwilling to accept his interesting advice to ❝ seek a closer intercourse and communion with Christ, in hearty persevering prayer, which serves as wings to lift the soul to Christ, or as an attractive chain, perinitted through free grace to prevail, to draw him down to man." pp. 7, 8. The sermon concludes with a strong and earnest appeal in behalf of the all-sufficient Saviour," to the several classes of the profligate abandoned sinner, the covetous and the proud, the wavering halfChristian, the lambs of the flock, [both] the multitude among them who stray from the fold in wilful heedlessness and pursuit of vicious pleasure, and the few who are followers of Joseph and of Ruth; the stilldoubting penitent, and the true practical believer." To every one "Jesus Christ is preached as the all-sufficient Saviour, suited to every case and every want, as the Saviour of each, not in their sins, but from their sins," "Such preaching may be, through their own voluntary perverseness of mind, to some foolishness, to others a stumbling-block; but it is, we know by the Word of God that cannot lie, it is the only preaching that can save a soul." p. 16. The second sermon welcomes the minister home to his flock. The joyous sensations of greeting seem evidently to outweigh in our preacher's mind the "pleasing melancholy" of the parting mood. Then he imagines" the feelings of friendship are most lively, and its expressions flew most directly from the heart." "We rejoice at the sight of our friend and at the sound of his voice: we eagerly enter into converse with him: we anxiously desire to hear, from his own mouth, an assurance of his safety, his welfare, and the health of all in whom he is interested. We pour forth a multitude of affectionate inquiries upon these subjects. Joseph asked his brethren of their welfare, and said, Is your father well. the old man of whom ye spake? Our whole attention appears to be bent upon his answers; and our friend is, for the moment at least, the chief earthly object of our care." p. 20. The care is, in this case, an anxious care; the inquiries are of a spiritual nature. The question of Jehu responds exactly to the ministerial feelings upon this occasion. heart right?" And "this question is expressed, if we may venture as humble instruments to borrow from the mouth of the Almighty himself, in the words of the text, Where art thou?" Finely, as well as affectingly, it is remarked— J Is thine God would not have addressed the question "Had Adam been thus walking, the Lord to him. He would indeed have then been in constant direct intercourse and communion with his Heavenly Father. He would, like Enoch, have walked with God, and would have had no shame to cover, no searching question, as a trial of sincerity, to undergo.” p. 29. As it is, the question befits alike fallen Adam and his fallen offspring. "Oh! that all your consciences, enlightened by Divine grace and authorised by evidences in your life and conversation, could enable each of you to make a satisfactory answer to this searching question." "Oh, Lord Jesus Christ, who wouldest often have ga thered this people, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, but they would not, still forbear to destroy, still interpose to save! Be with thy minister this night, speak through him and work for him, make an entrance for thy word into many a closed heart, and give to the dawn of the opening year, the honour of the new birth, the birth of sons to God." pp. 21, 22. The question our preacher then proceeds to put to the consciences of nearly the same several classes to which he had before addressed his exhortation, viz. the profligate and careless sinner, the covetous and worldly-minded, the proud and selfrighteous, the wavering, the backslider, the growing Christian, and the established believer. It was something peculiarly felicitous, as we suppose it was intended, to admonish, on his return, the same classes as before, as to the changes made, or the fruit produced, in consequence of his exhortations to them when they parted. We are also obliged to the Dean for giving us to see, in this repetition, his own steady and marked classification of hearers to be addressed from the pulpit, as embracing the whole congregation. We always refer to the Divine Parable of the Sower, as containing the four grand primary classes or colours into which our unerring Teacher would have all hearers divided; the careless, the irresolute, the worldly minded, and the honest. But we have no objection to some intermediate classes, some secondary colours, composed of the respective elements of the primary, and which may be endlessly, as well as profitably, multiplied according to the peculiar circumstances of each minister, his own personal experience, or his sphere of public observation. We consider this as the most searching, and, on the whole, the most affecting, sermon of the two. We shall, however, contentourselves, with recommending it to the atten. tion, to the closets and the prayers, of those who may feel themselves severally addressed under the abovementioned heads: and we shall only give one specimen of the generally close and serious strain of its appeals. not like the former, sold under sin and taken captive by Satan at his will, without a wish to be free, but halting rather between two opinions, doubtful whether to prefer the service of God or of Satan, the wages of sin or the free gift of God, through Jesus Christ. Such I left thee. And there was a hope that the wind, which bloweth where it listeth, the blessed Spirit of God, might take the sail, as it fluttered in suspense, and carry the vessel forward to the point of peace and glory. "But where art thou? Not such now; no longer undecided. You shew no evidence that you have chosen the right side, and therefore the wrong side is yours beyond a doubt. There is no alternative, and this interval has been long enough to give the final decisive bent and sway to your thoughts and disposition. Agrippa halted a day. He was almost persuaded, and Paul prayed for him too, but it was in vain. He would not take the badge the Cross of Christ, and, after Paul had done preaching, he settled down into persevering impenitence and rooted unabelief. Do not, then, be satisfied with the thought that you are still neutral. "There is no such compromise between You are not for God: God and mammon. you are therefore against Him, in the enemy's camp and service, and have nothing to expect but his wages. Still, however, even to you the offer of reconciliation is made, though it sounds, as it were from afar, and seems about to die upon the ear. "Rush forward, then, to seize perhaps your last opportunity, and close, under grace, at length and for ever, with your only true Master, your only rightful Lord, Jesus Christ, the Saviour and the King. "Your minister's inquiry, my friends, to these three descriptions of persons, has, I trust, been made in serious concern for their souls. They are plants in the vineyard, which he was commissioned to rear: they are sheep in the flock, which he was appointed to tend." pp. 25, 26. which we have given principally Perhaps the above quotation, "honoris causâ," contains at the same time one of the very few questionable positions into which even the ardour and affection of our preacher have at any time betrayed him. In declaring that class who were halting between two opinions when he left them, to be "no longer such, no longer undecided;","to |