consolation of asking, "Where is my thou art fallen lower than the lowest!— Father?" The answer will be, "He is STOP at once!-STOP instantaneously!— there, in heaven; he is your JUDGE, he | If sinners entice you to go where you has banished you, justly disdaining to admit you into his presence for ever!""THEN WHEN LUST HATH CONCEIVED, IT BRINGETH FORTH SIN; AND SIN, WHEN IT IS FINISHED, BRINGETH FORTH DEATH."

The consequences of transgression which extend themselves into the eternal world, as far exceed the powers of conception, as the eternal state of the happy. "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man," what God hath reserved for them that sin against him!

have promised, and where you have been before! consent not. Let them laugh as they may; go not:-yield not to be damned for compliment. "If sinners entice thee, consent thou not." If you will not believe me, believe what God says, "THEN WHEN LUST HATH CONCEIVED, IT BRINGETH FORTH SIN; AND SIN, WHEN IT IS FINISHED, BRINGETH FORTH DEATH." My dear, dear known or unknown friend or brother, possessing with myself a depraved nature, exposed to snares most insinuating and destructive, let me beseech you, when you retire from the tabernacle to-night, pray to be kept from the evil that is in the world. But besides prayer, do one thing as most effective to resist temptation, and to purify the heart;

saved through faith in his most precious blood. Till you do this, you will strive against the power of sin in vain.

Your time is gone. If I had consulted my own convenience, I should have dismissed the congregation before. But I will trespass still longer to say, "THIS IS A FAITHFUL SAYING, AND WORTHY OF ALL. ACCEPTATION, THAT JESUS CHRIST CAME INTO THE WORLD TO SAVE SINNERS, EVEN THE CHIEF." Look by faith to the efficacy of his death, and then you will have a power to resist evil, while its influence will cleanse you from all impure associations, and make 66 you PARTAKERS or The Divine nature."

1. Allow me to make an appeal to those who are invested with parental authority. Beware, lest by connivance, and withholding due restraint, you become accessories to the ruin of your children. I give it as my decided opinion, that many pa--apply to the Lord Jesus Christ to be rents may trace up the ruin of their children, to a lax system of domestic government. Therefore, my friends, while I would not have you become domestic tyrants, I wish you to exercise due discipline. And endeavour to make home your children's happiest place. Let fathers and mothers live in harmony and peace, and you will find your reward in the virtue, if not in the religion, of your children. 2. Let me warn the young against the danger of yielding to the first temptation. "I think, notwithstanding all that you have said to-night; and what our venerable friend Mr. Wilkes says from time to time; and what the departed Hyatt so often said; I think that I have strength enough to resist temptation. I have no doubt but I may just look at the world, and taste of its pleasures, without being overcome." Indeed!—Then I suppose you have acted on this persuasion ?—Then I suppose you did it slily?—Then I suppose when you asked the other night to spend an hour or two with a friend, you went to VAUXHALL, or to SADLER'S WELLS! Well then; let me ask you a question. Did you meet the eye of your parent as formerly? Did you join the MR. EAST preaches to a respectable family circle as usual? Did you sleep independent congregation at Birmingham, as soundly as before? Ah, my friend!- and also visits London every year as one STOP, ere thou art ruined!-STOP, ere of the Tabernacle preachers, where his

THE PULPIT GALLERY.

NO. V.

THE REV. TIMOTHY EAST,
Birmingham.

I love a plain serious preacher, who speaks for my sake, and not for his own; who seeks my salvation, and not his own vain glory.

FENELON.

proved.

sermons and labours are valued and ap-|Stop, Gabriel, stop, Gabriel! Stop ere you enter the sacred portals, and yet He is the reputed author of the Evan- carry with you the news of one sinner gelical Rambler, a series of papers so converted to God.' He then, in the most called, and which are written to enforce simple, but energetic language, described the practice of pure and undefiled religion. what he called a Saviour's dying love to They were republished in this country, sinful men; so that almost the whole with some slight alterations, by the late assembly melted into tears. This address venerated and pious Dr. Bedell, and have was accompanied with such animated yet had a considerable circulation. Al-natural action, that it surpassed any thing though there is not in them that depth of I ever saw or heard in any other preachthought, and profound knowledge of hu-er." Happy for the church would it be man nature, which distinguish the essays if all its ministers were so heartily enof Johnson, yet they display considera- | gaged in their work as to feel for souls ble power of observation, and many of as Whitfield did! the sketches of characters and scenes evince a great felicity of illustration and talent for easy narrative.

As a preacher Mr. East is variablesome of his sermons are very excellent, and even eloquent; others are said to be "flat, stale, and uninteresting." At times he gives a degree of energy to his statements which commands breathless attention, and few men are equally successful in making a deep impression by the delivery of a few sentences. When this is the case his voice is full and solemn, his action appropriate, and his whole manner strikingly illustrative of his zeal to win souls.

PREACH CHRIST.

OUR hearers need only examine how we preach Christ, to form an idea how far we are evangelical. Shall we glory in the beauty of our composition—in the flowers of rhetoric-in the force of oratory-in the harmony of periods—and leave the cross out as unfashionable? Thus did not Paul.-Shall we glory in the teachings-in the example of Christ

and not in the cross of Christ also? So did not Paul. See! he is going into Greece, the eye of the world—and what did he do? "I determined not to know any thing among you, but Jesus Christ, and him crucified." He is going to HUME'S ACCOUNT OF WHITFIELD'S PREACHING. Rome, the imperial city-among sages, An intimate friend of the infidel Hume, generals, poets, legislators, and statesasked what he thought of Mr. Whitfield's men. Will he not there change his preaching; for he had listened to the theme? Will he not there talk of the latter part of one of his sermons at Edin-"Supreme being-eternal providence,burgh. "He is, sir," said Mr. Hume, destiny," &c.? No. "I am not ashamed "the most ingenious preacher I ever heard. It is worth while to go twenty miles to hear him." He then repeated a passage towards the close of that discourse which he heard. "After a solemn pause, he thus addressed his numerous audience :-The attendant angel is just about to leave the threshhold, and ascend to heaven. And shall he ascend and not bear with him the news of one sinner, among all this multitude, reclaimed from the errors of his ways?'

"To give the greater effect to this exclamation, he stamped with his foot, lifted up his hands and eyes to heaven, and with gushing tears, cried aloud, VOL. I.-15

of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power
of God unto salvation, to every one that
believeth, to the Jew first and also to the
Gentile." And when he heard that the
Galatians were about to conceal the cross,
O what were his feelings! They were
about to blot the sun out of the firmament,
and what would they have left but dark-
ness, desolation, and death! The cross
of Christ is the grand luminary of the
gospel system, from which all its parts
derive light, life, and influence. All else
is darkness; and God forbid that we
should glory in earth or in heaven, in life
or in death, save in Christ our crucified
Lord!-Rev. Robert Newton.
K 2

SERMON X.

PREACHED AT THE PRIMARY VISITATION OF THE BISHOP OF LONDON.

BY THE REV. CHARLES WEBB LE BAS,

RECTOR OF ST. PAUL'S, SHADWELL.

"He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes."-Matt. vii. 29.

THE first sight of the contrast here pre- | saith the tradition, I have heard it from sented to us might appear somewhat men whose praise and whose glory are remarkable and strange. The scribes, it in Israel." Not so the teacher of Nazamight be said, and the doctors, and the reth. The language of the scribes was, wise men of Israel, taught as having au- Thus said the men of ancient days; but thority. They sat in the chair of Moses; the language of the son of Mary was, they seized upon the key of knowledge; "Verily, verily, I say unto you;" and and when obscure and humble men dared, men were filled with amazement, that for an instant, to question their judgment, one reared amid the care and the toil of they were always ready to turn upon an obscure craft, should come forth and them and to ask, "Dost thou teach us?" teach them with that authority which And thus, it may be thought, we too, neither scribe nor prophet had ever taken teach with authority. A prophet could to himself; and who told them that if scarcely exact obedience with an air of they did his sayings, they should build loftier command; nay, many a prophet | upon a rock; and that if they did them was received with far less honour than these masters of Israel. Jerusalem, we know, paid implicit obedience to the accents of her scribes and her doctors, but "she stoned the prophets, and slew them that were sent unto her."

In order, then, to enter into the spirit of this contrast, we must remember, that if the scribes spoke as with authority, their authority was not their own but borrowed from the great names that went before them. It belonged not to their present chair, nor to their office, but rested upon the learning or wisdom of ancient days. The school would be deaf to the words of the scribes, if they spoke not of the traditions of the fathers, and the maxims of the sages of old. Even the light of the synagogue, the illustrious Illel himself, as we are told, might teach wisely and learnedly, but he taught wholly in vain, unless he upheld the doctrines he advanced by adding, "Thus

not, they should build upon the sand, and be at the mercy of the tempest and the flood. When they heard these words their souls were bowed down, as it were, with the hidden majesty which might not be withstood, and the people were lost in wonder at the thought, that virtue and power should go forth from the lips of one who had never approached the schools of the wise, and of the scribes, and of the disputers of this world.

At length the King of glory threw off the fashion of a servant, and ascended up on high, and sent down gifts for the unthankful and the rebellious; and "he gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints; for the work of the ministry; for the edifying of the body of Christ." How did these fulfil their ministry? Did they call up the wisdom of former days to avouch the truth of their sayings?

may be led to doubt whether Christ of Plato were the master.

Let us pass onward to darker times. The season was advancing when the

Did they lean for support upon the strength of the schools or of the synagogue? Did they fly for aid to the decrees of the doctors or of the sages, while they were delivering the oracles of hea- splendours of truth were overshadowed ven-the words of eternal life? Did by a still more disastrous eclipse; for they not, like their divine Master, speak while Plato held and defended the empire with authority? Did they not speak like of Christ, Aristotle, it may be said, for men who were conscious that their au- ages usurped the supremacy over the thority was delegated to them from church. It is not my purpose to cast Christ? And what was the effect? Why, presumptuous disparagements on the stuthey went forth, the people strengthening pendous labours which established and their hands, and they confounded the maintained the dominion of the schools wisdom of man, by that simplicity and (for the toil of a whole life would scarcely foolishness of preaching which moved suffice to estimate rightly and duly those the scorn of the Greek, and excited the prejudices of subtlety;) but when we hatred of the Jew; but which, in truth, survey the gigantic appeals to the law was the power of God and the wisdom which they for centuries were heaping of God. up-when we think of the weariness and the painfulness to which they condemned the spirits of men, and when we reflect that the way of life was not so much a steep and narrow path as a dark and bewildering labyrinth; when we think on these things do they not force one question upon us? Do they not impel us to ask, Can these be the works of men who are the disciples of him that spoke with authority and not as the scribes? Can these be the works of men devoted to the pure, serene, omnipotent wisdom that came forth from God and returned to God of that truth which confounded the great and the wise, but proclaimed comfort to the poor and liberty to the captive? Can these be the works of men who were followers of him that came to make a high way for our God, "wherein the way-faring man and the simple should not go astray?"

For

Apostles, and prophets, and evangelists, are now no more; but pastors and teachers have always been left to the church in their several orders and degrees. In what manner have they discharged their sacred office to the souls of men? Have they always spoken as with authority? Have they always spoken as men having less to do with flesh and blood than with the eternal and invisible Head of the universal church? The history of the church furnishes, on the whole, a somewhat perplexing answer to this question. some time the church spoke with that majestic and commanding simplicity which became her celestial origin, but policy and false deceit soon conspired to make a spoil of her, and, like the first traitor, they betrayed her with a kiss. They induced her to give her glory to another than her rightful Lord, and they whispered to her that the plain word of God often spoke in a manner unworthy of the nature and the excellency of God, and that, therefore, it would tend to the divine honour if the subtlety of man were called in to unwrap the integuments which disguised its hidden wisdom. Under this treacherous discipline she became at last almost too much ashamed of the simple words of eternal life to speak them with authority; and hence it is, that if we listen to her doctrines, even before the footsteps of apostolic men were well effaced from the earth, we sometimes

But this is not all, nor is it the worst. If Plato were seated by the side of Christ, and if Aristotle well nigh thrust him from his throne, what shall we say of him who clothed himself with the name and title of Jesus, and yet plucked out the heart of "the truth as it is in Jesus?" What shall we say of him, who when God had said, "Ye shall not eat of it nor touch it, lest ye die," dared neverthelesss to say, "Ye shall not surely die?" Think, I would beseech you, for a moment, of the sermon on the mount, in which we have words spoken with authority; words

which mere man never spake; words would fail were we to attempt to describe
which come home to the heart, and bring the evils that crept into the chair of learn-
it into captivity; and then think of the ing, when once a breach was made in the
mystery of iniquity which grew up into bulwark of authority which our preaching
deadly strength in that fatal school which derives from the example and dignity of
beguiled the souls of men from the sim- Him who taught not like the scribes.
plicity that is in Christ. You will then Why is it that I now invite you, my
see what it is to desert the artless style revered and honoured brethren, to medi-
of confidence and of authority in proclaim- tate on the footsteps and on the dangers
ing the oracles of God. You will then which have hence befallen the cause of
perceive the difference between the say-truth? Why, but because it never can
ings of one who spake to the world those
things only which he heard from the
Father, and the sayings of them who took
counsel of the devices and of the desires
of man's crafty heart. You will thus
discern between the power and wisdom
which binds the strong man, and which
spoils him of the armour wherein he
trusted, and the ignominious craft which
parleys with the strong man, and which
enters into stipulations with him, till he
has time to collect his might, to turn
upon his adversary, and to lead him cap-
tive according to his will. With autho-
rity from heaven the Saviour declared,
that better were it to enter into life halt
and maimed, than to be cast whole into
hell fire. With the subtlety that became
the father of lies, the disciples of Leo
have told us that we may well enter into
life with whole and proper limbs, and not
only so, but that we may carry thither
the adulterous eye, and the voluptuous
heart, and the hand that worketh iniquity,
and the feet that are swift to shed inno-
cent blood. It was thus that they belied
the Lord, and turned his truth into a lie.
How did they effect this? How, but be-
cause they were unfaithful to the majesty
of the divine word, and contemned the
speaking of it in simplicity and with au-
thority. Hence it was that in their hands
it became a medium through which the
lusts of men might be accompanied with
serpentile craft, and whereby they might,
as it were, fall away from the grasp of
God's eternal and undefiled law. Hence Whenever this voice calls upon us it is
it was that the schools of divine wisdom the duty of reason to answer and to say,
were converted into secret chambers," Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth."
where each man offered incense to the
abominations of his heart, and learned to
believe that there might be concord be-
tween Christ and Belial. The time

be unseasonable for us to call to mind the
direct relationship wherein we stand to-
wards God and man; and because such
recollections never can be more season-
able than when we come together as a.
consecrated brotherhood, the ministers
and stewards of the manifold mysteries
of God. The occasion is one which calls
upon us, with the voice of deep solemnity,
to reflect that we are not the teachers of
a science, but the messengers of the Lord,
the ambassadors of Jesus Christ, the ser-
vants of him who taught with dignity,
and power, and majesty unutterable.
Our commission is not to recite the
words and sentences spoken by wise and
thoughtful men, but to give utterance to
the oracles of heaven.

Theology may well indeed be called the mistress and the queen of sciences: for all the sciences are bound to do her homage, to bring presents unto her, to honour her with their frankincense, with their treasures, and with all their pleasant and their brightest things. All this is nothing more than a reasonable service due from the intelligent faculties of men towards her, and it should be the matter of her peace and joy. But when she speaks with her own voice, it is a voice like that which proclaims "Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace and good will towards men”—it is a voice like that which issued from the excellent glory, and proclaimed to the world the beloved of the Father, in whom he was well pleased.

But it is not the business of reason to start forward in obedience to the call with an impetuous step, and to rush headlong into dark and perilous extremities.