live in these latter days, the Sun of righteousness himself hath arifen; and labour, by maintaining a juft refpect for the inftitutions of the gofpel, to diffufe among your brethren the influence of a system so worthy of God and fo confolatory to man.'

The 8th fermon, on the reputation of the righteous, is beautifully chafte in the language, and the matter is impreffive. Were it only from the intereft we take in the author, we wish that the funeral panegyric with which the fermon concludes may be as just as it is elegant. The following paffage will fhew the author's manner :

But if the righteous man has been called to act in a fuperior flation, if he has been fent by heaven, like an angel of mercy, to fcatter bleffings through a guilty land, to fupport the glory of a falling conftitution, to itrengthen the arm of justice, and to diffufe her influence to the remoteft corners of an empire, his reward will bear a proportion to the good he has performed. Appearing on a more confpicuous ftage, his actions are more expofed to the obfervation of his brethren; the effects of his conduct extend to a greater distance; and a more numerous multitude is called to witness and approve his virtue. Though envy may fometimes feek to blast his rifing glory, and rivals threaten to fap the foundation of his greatness, yet integrity is his fure defence, and the applauding voice of a nation is lifted up to deprecate his fall. Every heart takes an intereft in his fortunes. To his declining years good men look forward as to a public calamity. If he ficken, the fkilful of the land attend his couch with filial folicitude; the anxious voice of inquiry is heard at his door; and the prayers of the faithful ascend to heaven for his recovery. And when he falls his country mourns. Her forrowing nobles affemble in crowds to pay the last tender tribute to his memory; the poor bewail the lofs of their protector; and the widow and the orphan are feen weeping at his grave. But angels have bended from their thrones to receive their kindred fpirit, to rejoice with him at the remembrance of the labours he has fuftained, and to welcome his arrival in the manfions of the juft. His bleeding country, with a generous ardour, labours to perpetuate his worth. The tears of genius fall around his tomb. The faithful page of the hiftorian records his fame, and the sculptured marble tranfmits to pofterity the image of the dead. O! may it roufe them to the imitation of his virtues; and, like the mantle of Elijah, convey to future patriots a portion of his fpirit!'

The two fermons upon alms have a confiderable fhare of originality. This is a quality fo rare in fermons that it must attract attention; and where it is the refult of fimplicity and genius, not the offspring of affectation and eccentricity, it must command applaufe. We find a very beaten fubject placed in new lights; we obferve our minds to be not only convinced by ftrong argument of the importance and neceffity of the duties recommended,

recommended, but our feelings quickened to that particular tone which makes us in love with our duty and the fentiments of the author.

This effect of eloquence is produced chiefly by a felection of picturefque and tender fentiments exhibited through the different parts of the fubject in a manner apparently the most artless.

But while we feel the ftrength and eloquence of this author, and applaud his production, we are at the fame time prompted to diffuade from an imitation of his writings. We think his ftyle and manner not the beft, even while they are his own; for, inftead of being a happy vehicle for his fentiments, the excellence of the latter is neceffary to atone for the defects of the former. The author's ftyle is the ftyle of maxims, not of popular difcourfes. To be particular and characteri&tic in fermon illuftration, without being too familiar, is a chief perfection in preaching with a fingular talent for this manner, our author feems at no pains to avoid its extreme.

In illuftrating his fubject we find him introducing with great complacency fuch familiar names as Mr. Howard, Dr. Swift, Mr. Thomas Firmen, citizen of London, Francis de Sales, Richard Baxter, and Madame Maintenon, of virtuous memory.'

Subícription to charity for promoting cleanliness might have been inculcated without the household detail of woollen cloth, flax, and foap. Industry might have been fuitably recommended to men of fortune without calling them idle gentlemen.' We give the following extract as affording a fpecimen of the author's manner, and likewife as a proof of his acutenefs and good fenfe :

Compaffion, improperly cultivated, fprings up into useless fenfi-. bility. The pleasure which attends it foothes and deceives the heart. An interefting account of human wretchednefs excites pleasurable fympathetic emotions: the tongue utters kind wishes, Be ye clothed, be ye warmed;' and the heart exults in virtuous fenfibility. But, to enter the dwelling of the wretched; to examine debts, and wants, and diseases; to endure loathfome fights and finells, within the fphere of infection; to give time, and thought, and hands, and moneythis is the fubftance, not the fhadow of virtue; the pleasure of fenfibility may be less, but fo is the danger of self-conceit which attends it. Death-beds, in the page of an eloquent writer, delight the imagination; but they who are moft delighted, are not the first to vifit a dying neighbour, and fit up all night, and wipe off the cold fweat, and moiften the parched lip, and remove the phlegm, and give eafy poftures, and bear with peevishnefs, and fuggelt a pious thought, and confole the parting fpirit. They often encompass the altar of virtue, but not to facrifice.

• Extreme

It unfits us

• Extreme fenfibility is a diseased state of the mind. to relieve the miferable, and tempts us to turn away. The fight of pain is fhunned, and the thought of it fuppreffed; the ear is ftopped against the cry of indigence; the houfe of mourning is paffed by; even near friends are abandoned, when fick, to the nurfe and the phyfician, and when dead, to those who mourn for a hire; and all this under pretence of fine feeling, and delicate fenfibility, and a tender heart. The apples of Sodom are mistaken for the fruit of paradife.'

The two fermons on The Gospel adapted to the State and Circumstances of Man' appearing to us, from internal evidence, to be the production of a young man capable of improving in public compofition, we fhall be more particular in our remarks upon them, in hopes of being useful to the author.

Our conjecture of the author's youth arifes from his style, which is fluent, unartificial, and exuberant; from the manner in which he has arranged his fubject; from the heads of his difcourfe, and from the opinion he has delivered concerning his fubject: My fubject is evidently important; it places the fcheme of the gospel not perhaps in a new, yet certainly in a moft interefting point of light.' Here we were furprised to find it a matter of doubt with the author whether he had not been the first who had pointed out divine revelation as happily adapted to the ftate and circumftances of man. Had we been called upon to mention a fubject in preaching which has been more frequently and more fully handled than others, we fhould very probably have mentioned this view of revelation. Nor is this to be wondered at, for, without a full conviction on this point, there can be no belief in the gofpel, nor any trust cr confidence in the wisdom and goodness of the God of Christians. Yet the manner in which the author has arranged his fubject and expreffed himself, would lead us to conclude that to him this view of the gospel was not familiar. From the concurrence of fo many writers in adopting the fame plan, and the fame manner of stating it, we were led to think that, upon the subject of revelation, there is but one right and obvious arrangement; our author's departure (in form though not in fubftance) from this arrangement, appears to us complex and inaccurate, carrying upon the face of it an air of wordy oftentation. Mr. Kemp means to fhew,

• First, That man, although endued with the capacity of receiving information, yet by his own unaffifted efforts, is totally unable to acquire the knowledge of those truths with which it chiefly imports him to be acquainted.

Secondly, That, upon his being enlightened with the true knowledge of God and of his duty, he muft neceffarily be impressed with a deep fense of his own depravity and guilt.

< Thirdly,

Thirdly, That he has a confcioufnefs of moral obligation, and ideas of moral excellence, which experience tells him he cannot by his own efforts fulfil and realise.

Fourthly, That he is fubject to many afflictions, for which, upon the principles of reason, he cannot account, nor difcover to what good purpose they tend.

Laftly, That although he feels both prefages of, and defires after, a future ftate of being, yet, from the light of nature, he neither derives affurance of its existence, nor any certain information concerning it.'

The ufual method, however, is to fhow that the gospel is adapted to the circumftances of mankind, 1ft, As they are ignorant; 2dly, As they are guilty; and, 3dly, As they are weak. Now, not to mention the inconvenient length of each of our author's heads, nor the inaccurate manner in which some of them are expreffed, the other mode, more fimple, naturally includes the illustration of all that is propofed. Accordingly we find that the author has, under his divifions, introduced the fame fentiment, and also the fame method of illuftrating it, which we find generally adopted. He fhews the deficiency of heathenifm and unaffifted human nature refpecting the object under difcuffion, and, winding up his argument, points out the light disclosed by the gospel on that particular topic. The difcuffions themselves, and the manner of the preacher in his 2d and 3d heads, are exactly what are common under the 2d, Guilt, and 3d, Weakness.' But what he brings under a fifth head is in fact a part of the firft, as men's darknefs concerning immortality is an effential portion of that ignorance which there comes under review. The fourth head alfo is not a proper divifion. The confolations of the gospel refult from it in the joint view of its being accommodated to weakness, ignorance, and guilt; yet to a review of his fubject placed in this afpect we would not willingly object; and indeed many of the ufual illuftrations of the fubject are here touched upon, if not with energy yet with clearners.

Those that have been omitted are the advantages of the gofpel, not only in conveying pofitive truths and light (which are ftated), but in delivering us from that mafs of error with which the light and truths derived from unaffifted reason were nearly overwhelmed, and from which it had been found impoffible to separate them. The light derived from the example of Jefus in removing our ignorance; and the means by which we procure the aids of the Divine Spirit, are an effential difcovery of the gofpel not recognised by our author. The ordinances alfo, and the preaching of the word, as adapted to the state and circumftances of man, are all of them unnoticed.

Ingenious

Ingenious men who have fet themselves the task of paraphrafing portions of fcripture indifcriminately, have not been able to efcape ridicule when in plain paffages they have laboured a paraphrafe with no earthly effect but to darken counsel with words. But in the argumentative part of a difcourfe, when the preacher has fubjoined in proof a very clear paffage of holy writ, to detain us with a long paraphrafe upon this paffage, is a more fingular abuse of time. An inftance of this fault we find in pages 255 and 6 of our author.

Inftances of inaccurate and redundant language in Mr. Kemp might be mentioned. A conscioufnefs (fee head 3d) of, &c. ' which he cannot fulfil and realife.' The Cartefians held consciousness to be the only reality which we have. We do not fuppofe our author intends to impugn this fyftem, but means only to exprefs this plain and familiar truth, which we think he has done obfcurely, viz. That there is in the human mind a standard of virtue and duty, which in practice we can never reach they tend,' (fee head 4). In this ill-conftructed fentence we are to understand that man cannot difcover any good purpofe to which the principles of reafon tend; principles being the nearest antecedent to they; but this is not the meaning of the author- the dark benighted world' the field or page of controverfy' the clear and confiftent, grand and fublime confolations of the gospel'—' grand and capital doctrines' the most flagitious enormities,' i. e. the moft wicked wickedness- the moft undaunted fortitude.' There is nothing,' fays the author, in the circumstances of man that can vindicate the rejection of this precious doctrine.' This is proper language. But when he mentions a perfon whofe extenfive knowledge and deep fenfe of religion vindicated a correfponding practice,' we are reminded of the anecdote of Lord Chesterfield's orator, who, upon hearing it afferted that the conduct of a certain perfon made him liable to the cenfure of the house, replied that he was of a contrary opinion, and thought that the gentleman's conduct made him liable to the praife and thanks of his country.

The 14th fermon, on the revolution, is a fpirited popular addrefs, well adapted to the end for which it is preached. The author difcovers an accurate knowledge of the hiftory of his country, and his sentiments are a pleafing union of ardour for freedom and native rights, with loyalty, love of order, and good magiftrates.

Of the plain fermons written on the fimilar fubjects of searching the fcriptures and studying the fcriptures, we prefer the former.

Upon a general view of the volume before us, justice requires that we recommend it as containing feveral excellent dif

courfes,