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It will be observed that, in illustrating the niceties or the anomalies of language or construction, references have been occasionally, though not very frequently, made to MATTHIE'S Greek Grammar. That admirable work, however, does not treat upon the peculiar forms and idioms of the Hellenistic Greek; nor has any publication yet appeared in this country which can be said to supply the deficiency. It was at first intended to adopt Professor STUART'S Translation of WINER'S " Greek Grammar of the New Testament," for the purposes of grammatical reference; but it proved to be so incomplete and unsatisfactory, and at the same time so limited in its use among English students, as to be utterly worthless as a standard authority, on which to form a correct estimate of the character and style of these writings. The editor has therefore turned his occupation upon the present work to further account, by noting down his observations upon the principles developed by Planck, Winer, Altt, Tittman, Bishop Middleton, and others, in relation to this subject. The materials thus collected will shortly be offered to the public in the form of a Supplement to the last edition of the Translation of Matthia's Grammar, by the late Mr. Blomfield; forming, it is hoped, a concise and comprehensive view of the character and structure of the Greek language, as employed by the inspired writers of the New Testament. - Pp. vii. viii.

We shall gladly welcome this important undertaking.

ART. II.-Sermons preached at St. Mary's Church, Bathwick. By the Rev. F. KILVERT, M.A., late Evening Lecturer. Published by request. London Taylor and Walton. Rivingtons. Hatchard.

8vo. Pp. ix. 296.

AMONG the various benefits which the Church owes to her kind though unintentional friends the Dissenters, is that of a check to a practice which was creeping into the pulpits, of imitating their style of preaching. The "voluntary system" exacts from its ministers a complete subserviency to their maintainers-and consequently the doctrine and eloquence of dissenting pulpits must be such as the congregation will not only approve, but enjoy. That the character of dissenting sermons must be popular, in this sense, is certain; it must be such as to attract and please a class of the people remarkable neither for information nor good taste. Tawdry bombast will always be more attractive with such auditors, as the wild African will always prefer the coloured shell and the gaudy bead to the diamond and the pearl; nor will coarse and colloquial vulgarity be uncongenial; so that a preacher who adopts either of these styles can never be other than popular, in the sense of always assembling a large congregation.

The Clergy of our Church are too closely bound by her forms, by their engagements, and by their information, to be greatly in danger of lowering their doctrine to the standard of their hearers. But they are not altogether out of the peril of attracting large congregations by arts which have been proved successful. In the adoption of these they may be swayed by the very purest motives. It is doubtless only christian pru

dence and duty to avail ourselves of any lawful means to bring souls within hearing of the Gospel, and promote attendance on it. And in this light a Clergyman may often be disposed to offend his own taste, for the edification of those whose taste may be coarse, but whose souls are immortal. Hence the dissenting style of preaching had begun to infect many of our pulpits; and the infected became "popular preachers;" the plainer of whom offended by their grossness, while the more sublimated shocked the sober Christian by employing the truths of eternity as trinkets to set off some meretricious period.

The Dissenters, by showing how little they are imbued with the greatest of all christian requisites, charity, have taught Churchmen to reflect whether those who are so importantly deficient are likely to be much better provided with christian furniture in other respects; Churchmen have considered too whether a system of preaching which can show no better fruits than all manner of uncharitableness, can, notwithstanding its popularity, be founded in sound christian wisdom. The result is, that they see the means of congregating large masses to be by no means identical with the means of improving them, and that a popularity, to be acceptable to sober-minded Christians, must be one that includes benefit as well as attraction.

Such a popularity there doubtless is, without injuring the simplicity, or compromising the dignity, of Christianity. Her divine Author was followed by "multitudes," and, in particular, "the common people heard him gladly." In his discourses there is nothing but what the meanest capacity may comprehend, nothing but what the loftiest must admire. In this perfect model the preacher may find the secret of that popularity to which he may and ought to aspire, the assemblage of large congregations for their eternal profit. It was hither that the great fathers of the English Church repaired; it is this wisdom which charms alike in the homely dignity of Latimer, the fervid eloquence of Taylor, the thoughtful majesty of Barrow, and the polished eloquence of Sherlock. It is to this divine school of oratory, which has never wanted disciples in the Church of England, but from which some of the Clergy have wandered, that recourse seems now to be generally had-and though it may not always assemble such crowds as a system which consults the ear only or principally, it can never, when faithfully pursued, fail of a competent auditory, or a beneficial effect.

The little volume before us is an exemplification of this pure school. It is simple, graceful, and grave. There is nothing in it ambitious, laboured, overstrained, but all is natural, even, perspicuous. The object is not to excite admiration or astonishment, but to tell old apostolic truth in language at once simple and impressive. We are pleased to see this class of sermons published by request," as it is a favour

able indication of the state of religious feeling in Mr. Kilvert's congregation.

We select a specimen in confirmation of our criticism, and as also adverting to a practice too frequent and too mistaken, to say the least of it, not to be appropriately noticed in the pulpit. The preacher, from St. Paul's message to Archippus, takes occasion to advert to the "ministry" which every Christian has "received in the Lord."

Another temptation is, to spend the energy thus withdrawn from bounden duties upon voluntary performances, good indeed in themselves, but foreign from our peculiar calling. There is something in the prosecution of new and chosen schemes of duty gratifying to the passions of our unrenewed nature. To drudge on in the beaten road of duty marked out for us by God has nothing in it of independence and self-determination;-nothing which gratifies the vanity and feeds the appetite for change which so strongly characterise the remains of the natural man in each of us. But to adopt some untried line of duty, to strike out some new path of usefulness or of benevolence, presses at once our pride, our vanity, our love of novelty into the service; and shall instantly command the vigorous exercise of those powers, which had drooped and languished in going through the bounden duties of life. Let us take a familiar instance or two. The mistress of a household, the mother of a family! charged with the duties of ruling her own bouse well, and bringing up her children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord! What a definite line of duty, what an important ministry in the Lord, do the very names of these relations of themselves imply! But how common is it to see such an one, dazzled by the notion of public usefulness, leave her known and undoubted duties within, for schemes of doing good without, often dubious and at all events foreign from her vocation. Again the child of an infirm and aged parent, the solace of decaying nature, the prop of declining years! What call so imperative in this instance as to "show piety at home;" and yet how often in our times is this call rejected for occupations abroad, which whatever their intrinsic goodness, are not the duty arising from the relation of the individual, not the ministry which such an one has received in the Lord! Here, however, let me not be misunderstood-God forbid that anything I have said should be thought to apply to those who, having no nearer or inore pressing ties, devote themselves to a wide range of doing good. They are labouring in their proper vocation; they have chosen that good part which no Christian would take from them; they are and will be blessed in their deed.

Well then does the apostle's precept caution us to fulfil our ministry, not to rest in an empty form of duty, whilst we deny its power; not to be satisfied in doing our least, whilst our utmost is but an unprofitable service; not to spend on voluntary acts of benevolence those energies which we withhold from our positive obligation;-but "whatever our hand findeth to do," as Christians or as men, in the relative stations or specific employments of life, to "do it with our might," as unto the Lord and not unto man."-Pp. 12-15.

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Such is a specimen of the uniform tenor of these excellent discourses. There are only two passages which we would recommend Mr. Kilvert, in a second edition, to revise; in p. 106, "the sacra ment" is mentioned as "the channel of the divine gifts;" where the eucharist is manifestly intended, and where baptism seems excluded from the dignity of a sacrament; an error the very appearance of which we are now more than ever bound to avoid, not only from the mistakes on the subject prevalent within the Church, but from the insidious attack on the sacrament of baptism made in the New Registration Act.

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Of the same tendency is the passage in p. 133, where Repentance is said to be expressed in Scripture by being born again; which assuredly it is not. The spiritual birth, like the natural, cannot be repeated; if it could, the analogy of the term would fail. But a man may repent seven times a day*—therefore if repentance were the new birth, a man might be new born as often. We notice these as blemishes to be removed in the next edition, not as impeachments of Mr. Kilvert's orthodoxy, for he speaks twice of "the seed of baptismal grace" (pp. 229 & 259). The expression "protoplasts" (p. 106) might perhaps be advantageously exchanged for first progenitors. But our readers will, we are assured, be gratified if not benefited by the perusal of this useful volume.

LITERARY REPORT.

Letters from an Absent Grandfather, or a Manual of Religious Instruction for Young Persons. By the Rev. J. E. RIDDLE, M.A., Curate of Harrow; Author of "First Sundays at Church," &c. London: Longman, Orme. 8vo. 1837. Pp. 205. THIS little work is what it professes to be, a compendious view of our religion, grounded upon the ritual and public documents of our Church, her Catechism, Articles, and Homilies. It is principally a compilation. "The writer regards the words which he has quoted as so much solid gold; and he discovers no reason why he should beat the precious metal thin, and spread it over a larger number of pages, to be thence

forth called his own.' Upon the Baptismal Covenant and the Sacrament of Baptism the compiler adduces Dr. Bradford, Bishop of Rochester in the reign of George II., and Mr. Wilberforce, whose Practical View of Christianity is aptly introduced in various portions of this valuable little work. Under these heads also Hooker and Barrow are alleged. On the Doctrines of the Atonement and Justification we are referred to the Homilies, Beveridge's Private Thoughts, and Gurney's Essays on Christianity. We meet in succession with Bishops Bull, Jeremy Taylor, and Wilson of Sodor and Man; Dr. John Scott, Fenelon,

Secker; Dr. Knox's "Christian Philosophy;" Robinson of Leicester; the present Bishop of Calcutta; Richard Baxter and Coleridge. It would have been better if, in the third chapter or rather beyond, the author had confined himself to the Homilies and older writers in our Church. We would suggest in another edition the removal of Pp. 40-42 to the quotation from the Homily of Salvation. It is, moreover, safer to give every doctrine as closely as possible in the words of Scripture, than to introduce long definitions, which are only apt to perplex the young. After the very complete and accurate statement of Dr. Barrow on the necessity and nature of divine influence, there was no need to have given the feebler exposition of Paley in p. 70, which appears to limit (to say the least) the preventing grace of the Holy Spirit.

The Way of Christ prepared: an Address to the Christians and Jews, on the Duty and Blessedness of removing their mutual Stumbling Blocks. By the Rev. E. BICKERSTETH, Rector of Walton, Herts. London: Seeley & Co. 1837. Pp. 16.

THIS tract, which is the substance of a sermon, is a compendium of the Millenarian doctrine respecting the Jews, as it is held by Mr. Bickersteth.

* See Luke xvii. 4.

The Young Christian's Sunday Evening or, Conversations on Scripture History. Second Series: On the Four Gospels. By Miss PARRY ; Author of "The Infant Christian's First Catechism." London: J. G. and F. Rivington. 1837. Pp. 636. THE value of this volume is of no ordinary kind. It is useful alike for all persons, although more especially adapted to youth. It is in truth an admirable practical comment upon the Gospel History, and well deserves a place in every family library.

The Heart's Ease; or, a Remedy against all Troubles: together with a Consolatory Discourse particularly directed to those who have lost their friends and dear relations. By SIMON PATRICK, Bishop of Ely. Cambridge: T. Stevenson. 1837. Pp. 282.

To this little work is prefixed a brief memoir of the learned author by the Rev. Henry H. Swinney, Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge. Patrick's industry and erudition were alike remarkable. This little volume is adorned with numerous passages, both from classic authors and the works of the Christian Fathers, especially those of the Eastern Church. More ample reference might at the same time have been made to the example and death of Christ, the greatest of all consolations to all who are called by his name.

Working of the Tithe Commutation Act.

London: J. G. and F. Rivington. 1838. Pp. 11.

THIS tract disapproves of the Tithe Commutation Act, inasmuch as the only variation contemplated is in the price of produce, while the amount is entirely overlooked. The writer asserts (upon calculations which the tract contains) that the effect of the Tithe Commutation Act," if adopted in 1536, would by this time have been to injure tithe property, in thirty-seven parishes in West Surrey alone, to the extent of about twelve thousand pounds a-year, at the very lowest estimate.

"The total loss which the parochial endowments in England and Wales

would have sustained by this time, if the Act had been passed in 1536, approaches nearly to two millions and a quarter.

The Form of Prayer and Ceremonies used at the Consecration of Churches and Chapels and Churchyards. London J. Burns. 1837. 24mo. THIS is a little book which has long been wanted, and the best thanks of our readers and the public are due to Mr. Burns for so cheap and so useful a publication.

Episcopal Address to the Annual Convention of the Diocese of New Jersey, June 1, 1837. By the Right Rev. GEORGE WASHINGTON DOANE, D.D., Bishop of the Diocese. Burlington at the Missionary Press. 1837. Pp. 28.

The

EPISCOPAL charges are generally useful. The present is, however, of more value to our transatlantic brethren than to us; yet as detailing the labours of an indefatigable chief shepherd over an extensive division of the flock of Christ, it has claims on our attention of a striking kind. American Bishops appear to have about them a sort of primitive character, which renders them particularly deserving of esteem; and we know of none amongst them who more completely justifies our admiration than the excellent man whose name is appended to the present publication.

An Address to the Members of the Church of England, both Lay and Clerical, on the Necessity of placing the Government of the Church in the hands of Members of its own Communion. By the Rev. JOHN WarREN, M.A., Chancellor of Bangor, and Rector of Graveley, Cambridgeshire, late Fellow and Tutor of Jesus London : College, Cambridge. Simpkin, Marshall & Co. 1837. Pp. 38.

MR. WARREN objects to the revival of the Convocation, and advocates a Synod composed of clerical and lay members of the Church. His views

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