DIVINITY.

ART. 30. Sentiments fuitable to the Times: A Sermon preached in the Parish Church of Hotham, in the East Riding of the County of York, on Wednesday, March 20, 1811; being the Day appointed by Royal Proclamation to be observed as a General Faft. By the Rev. E. W. Stilling fleet, M. A. 8vo. 27 PP. is. 6d. Rivingtons. 1811.

In a fhort, but well written advertisement, Mr. Stillingfleet informs us, that in this fermon he makes his firft appearance be fore the public in the character of an author; and that the profits arifing from the publication, if any, will be thrown as a mite into the national contribution for the relief of British prisoners in France. This information would difarm our criticism of feverity, were there room for feverity; but there is room for nothing but approbation. The difcourfe, which was preached from 1 Sam. ii. 6, 7, inculcates, in perfpicuous, fimple, and nerVous language, fentiments and principles truly fuitable to the times; and, without regard to the particular view with which it has been published, it will be found a cheap purchase at one fhilling and fixpence. It is indeed fuch a fermion as will make us glad of an opportunity of again paying our refpects to the author, on any fimilar occafion.

ART. 31. The Blefedness of the Chriftian in Death: Two Ser. mons, occafioned by the Death of the Rev. Richard Cecil, M. A. Late Rector of Biley, and Vicar of Chobham, Surrey; and Minifter of St. John's Chapel, Bedford Row, London. Preached at the above Chapel: The first, on Sunday, August 26; the fecond, on Sunday, September 2, 1810. By Daniel Wilson, M. A. Minifter of St. John's Chapel, and Vice-Principal of St. Edmund Hall, Oxford. 8vo. 78 pp. 2s. 6d. Hatchard. 1810.

The first fentence of the advertisement prefixed to thefe fermons, excited in our minds a kind of prejudice, which the perufal of the fermons themselves completely removed. We mention this cir. cumftance, that others may not be prevented from reading them with candour, by the ftrange declaration of the author, that they "are defigned to improve the death of the eminent minifter," whom he had fucceeded in St. John's Chapel. To improve the death of a dead man, is fomething not very intelligible, except perhaps by fuch as are accustomed to the phrafeology of thofe preachers, who arrogate to themfelves exclufively the title of evangelical; but we can affure the reader that he will find little

or

or nothing of this fort of cant in the difcourfes themselves. They are rather too declamatory for the prefs; but, we think, they must have been liftened to with attention when pronounced from the pulpit, and must have contributed, under God, to the improvement-not of Mr. Cecil's death-but of all who heard them, in the practice of virtue and godlinefs. Such will be their effect on thofe likewife who read them with a fincere wish to profit by what they read. The text of both is Rev. xiv. 13, which the author explains in a perfpicuous and practical manner, and then applies to the confolation of those who were forrowing for their beloved and venerable paftor. He feems, however, to mif. take St. Paul's meaning, when he fays, that

"The inftant the foul leaves the dark and afflictive abode of this earthly tabernacle, it is clothed upon with a building of God; an house, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." The text, to which he muft refer for this doctrine, is 2 Cor. v. 1, 2; but that text, as Whitby hath fhown, will bear no fuch mean. ing, though it was fo understood by fome of the platonizing fathers of the church. The foul indeed will pafs in one short moment from a vale of tears to a ftate of peace but it is con-` trary to the whole fcheme of redemption to fuppofe that it will he clothed upon, in the fenfe in which St. Paul ufed thefe words, until the general refurrection.

*

To thofe, who think learning not neceffary to a minister of Chrift; and defert the church for the conventicle of the illiterate methodist, because he is fuppofed to preach the gofpel in greater pu.. rity than the regular clergy in general preach it, we recommend an attentive confideration of the following paffage. It may. have a better effect on their minds than any thing which we could fay on the fubject; because it contains the fentiments of a preacher, who was, hinfelf, 'admitted to be what the party calls evangelical.

"He (Mr. Cecil,) was laborious in his ftudies. He was capable, beyond moft men, of relying on his genius and invention; but no one could be more careful and painful in his preparation for the pulpit. Hafte, and folly, and prefumption, and indolence, in a minifter, he confidered as an infult to an auditory and a difhonour to God. He ufed to obferve, that there was a wide dif ference between what St. Paul calls, the foolishness of preaching, and, foolish preaching. He faid to me once; If reading and meditation were recommended by St. Paul to Timothy, in an age of inspiration, how much more must they be effential to the ordinary minifter of the church." P. 37.

The following extract deferves the attention of every Christian, but more efpecially of thofe who hope to be inftantaneously

Hell.

See bishop Horley's Sermon on the defcent of Chrift into

converted,

converted, perhaps on a death bed, from a ftate of fin to a flate of grace. A further point of inftruction is, to call off our notice from the circumstances of the death of the Chriftian, to the tenor of his. life. The feripture in no one place directs us to form our efti mate of characters by the fcenes of a death-bed. The habitual ftate of the heart and of the life, are our only certain evidences. We have not a fingle account in the bible of a blissful death, with the exception of the perfectly exempt cafe of the thief on the cross, where it was not preceded by a courfe of consistent devotednefs to God. The cafes of Ifaac, Jacob, Mofes, and Stephen, are fall to this point. If we are careful to love and ferve God in life, we may cheerfully leave it to him to order the circumftances of our death. It pleafed God, indeed, to grant that our now glorified minifter fhould be enabled, amidit weeknefs and difcafe, to give the moft unequivocal proofs of the firi tual state of his mind: but he wanted no fuch evidences: his whole life had been one uniform teftimony to the truth. If his complaint, inftead of merely oppreffing his hope, had crushed at once all his powers, and left not one mark of grace behind, his ftate before God would have been precifely the fame." P. 63.

In fermons abounding with fuch good fenfe and fober piety as are difplayed in this paitage, we were forry to meet with the fol lowing information.

"A fhort time b tere his deccafe, he requested on of his family to write down for him in a book the following funterce:→ "None but Chrift, none but Christ, faid Lambert dying at a take; the fame, in dying circumftances, with his whole heart, faith Richard Cecil." The name was figned by himself, with his left hand," he had loft the ufe of his right hand by a paralytic affection,) in a manner hardly legible through infirmity. Since his death, his family have difcovered a mark made by him in the margin of his Bible, at the 12th verfe of the 5th of Revelation; "Worthy is the Lamb that was flain, to receive power, and riches, and wifdom, and ftrength, and henour, and glory, and bleffing" and a correfponding mark at the bottom of the page, with thefe words in a trembling hand, "Amen, R. C. P. 54.

mark was made either that the or that he was The writing in

We can hardly conceive for what purpose this in private, as Mr. Cecil did not furely fuppofe truth of the verfe ftood in need of his atteftation, the only Chriftian who gave a full aflent to it. the book is more easily accounted for. As Addifon fent for Lord Warwick to fhow him how a Chriftian could die, fo Mr. Cecil might have requested one of his family to write in a book the words of Lambert, and figned them himself, with a view to imprefs more strongly on the mind of the writer, the im portance of repofing all his truft in Christ. But is there not

fomething

fomething like pharifaical oftentation in recording these things in a fermon given to the public?

ART. 32. Two Difcourfes on the Origin of Evil. Founded on the Hiftory of Cain and Abel, and on the Reply of Jefus Chrift relative to the Man born blind. By. T. Drummond. 8vo. 37 PP. 1s. 6d. Johnson. 1809.

This publication has long efcaped our notice; and had it efcaped us for ever, neither we nor the public would have fuffered any lofs. The author appears to be a Unitarian preacher at Ipfwich, very ill qualified to throw any light upon the origin of evil;-a queftion which has perplexed the most profound philofophers and most learned divines that ever lived; on which multitudes of volumes have been written; and of which we may venture to fay that no complete folution will ever be given in this 'world. That Mr. Drummond poffeffes not talents for purfaing with fuccefs an investigation, in which fo many have failed, the following paragraph, in which mixed modes (to ufe the language of Locke) are compared with powers or faculties of the human mind and human body, will convince all our readers who are not abfolute ftrangers to fuch fpeculations.

"Tafting, fmelling, feeing, feeling, and hearing, are powers enjoyed in common by every one in the ordinary course of nature but virtue and vice are not to be ranked in the fame order as the fenfes; they are not faculties of the body, neither are they capacities of the mind, like perception, reflection, and judgment. They may be acquired in a greater or lefs degree, but neither of them is a component part in the nature of

man.'

In the fecond difcourfe there are a few truisms of more practical utility than this; but nothing which tends in the fmalleft degree towards the folution of the long agitated que lion, Toe To xaxor, which will probably be folved to us in that state in which we shall not fee, as through a glass, darkly.

ART. 33. The Excellence of the Liturgy. A Sermo, preached in the Parish Church of St. Mary, Aylesbury, at the Vifitation of the Archdeacon of Bucks, on Wednesday, June 27, 1810. By the Rev. Bafil Woodd, M. A. Rector of Drayton Beauchamp. 30 pp. Rivingtons. 1810.

We do not expect to meet with any thing new, as to the beauty or excellence of our Liturgy, but the fermon before us places those well known beauties in a confpicuous and agreeable point of view. The text is well chofen from 2 Tim. i. 13. "Hold faft the form of found words, which thou haft heard of me, in faith and love, which is in Chrift Jefus." This "form of found words" our author proceeds to discuss under the following heads: ift. As a fummary of our holy religion. 2dly. As a courfe of

fcriptural

fcriptural inftruction. 3dly. As an exercise of pure, rational, and exalted devotion. Each of thefe fubjects is treated in a clear and impreffive manner, entering occasionally, into the various expreflions and forms of prayer adopted by the church; the author then proceeds to give us this general character of the whole.

"This form of found words, may be confidered, at once, as an epitome of the Chriftian religion, and as a standard of paftoral inftruction. It carefully avoids thofe fubjects of controversy, which have unhappily divided the church of Chrift. The Com. mon Prayer Book has been justly styled the poor man's body of divinity; and it certainly contains a general fummary of what a Chriftian ought to know, believe, and practife to his foul's health. As Bishop Beveridge (in a fermon on the Common Prayer, printed by the Society for Promoting Chriftian Knowledge) has well reprefented it." Here follows the quotation, which it appears hardly fair to re-quote, but the truth and excellency of it will perhaps allow us to do fo. "There is nothing in our Liturgy but what is neceflary for our edification; and all things that are or can be for our edification are plainly in it. You will find nothing afferted but what is confonant to God's word; nothing prayed for, but according to his promife; nothing required as a duty but what is agreeable to his commandments." Thus far Bp. Beveridge; the author proceeds, "The Liturgy not only is prefented to us as a form of prayer, but it is, at the fame time, a ftanding Chriftian fermon, delivered every returning fabbatk, in upwards of ten thousand churches; diffufing an atmosphere of religious knowledge throughout the kingdom; eftablishing a pure and unfophifticated standard of evangelical truth; fo combined, that, no man can duly attend to the fervice, and remain ignorant of the nature of the gospel."

We heartily join with the author in thefe fentiments on the Liturgy of the Church of England; the whole difcourfe abounds in pious and well-directed reflections on the bieflings we derive from fuch an establishment; and we may fafely conclude with him in the prayer, that "the truly Apoftolical Church of England may long be continued, under the protection of the great head of the church; a guardian and bulwark let for the defence of the gospel! May her fons grow up as young plants, and her daughters be as the polished corners of the temple! May her influence long diffuse edification to her community, and bleflings to furrounding nations." ESTO PERPETUA.

ART. 34. A Letter on Confirmation, addressed to a young Perfon about to be confirmed. 35 pp. Newcastle, Akenhead and Sons; London, Rivingtons and Hatchard. 1810.

This little tract on confirmation, is particularly adapted for the purpose intended. The connection between baptim and confirmation, as well as its fubfequent connection with the facra

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