ation of that vigorous heat in autumn, so as the sap returns back into the root, we could never look to see but one year's fruit. And thus also it is spiritually if our prosperity were not intermixed with vicissitudes of crosses, and if the lively beams of grace were not sometimes interchanged with cold desertions, we should never know what belongs to spiritual life. What should we do then but be both patient of, and thankful for our changes, and make no account of any constancy; till we attain to the region of rest and blessedness?

ON THE DUTY AND ADVANTAGES OF PASTORAL

VISITS.

By the Rev. Mr. CLAPHAM.

[From a most valuable Discourse, preached at a Visitation in Southampton, 1803; and inserted in the second Volume of the Author's judicious Collection of Select Sermons, recently published.]

THE first advantage I shall mention is, that the Lord's

transcendent holiness. With many of the lower class of people, Sunday is a day of dissipation. Some houses of entertainment, it is well known, receive more company of that description, exhibit more disgraceful scenes of riot and intemperance, on that day, than on any other in the week. And the Lord's day, instead of being, as it ought to be, to all families a blessing, is, to some, I tremble whilst I pronounce it! a curse. The parents and masters not being employed in their secular avocations, and not attending public worship, hasten with impatience, to the society of those who are as profligate as themselves; and regardless of the wants of their families at home, they not only expend their money, but corrupt their principles, and thus become odious to themselves, and reproachful to their Christian profession; living either in forgetfulness or contempt of the Being, from whom

they have received life, and breath, and all things." Whereas, if men are once persuaded to attend, together with their housholds, the public worship of Almighty God, they will soon learn to esteem the Lord's day, as instituted

instituted to promote his glory, and their own salvation. They will employ a part of their leisure in acquainting themselves with the nature and the will of God, as revealed in his holy word, and in communicating a knowlege of it to their families: instead of conniving at, perhaps encouraging, their children in the most abominable excesses on that day, they will warn them by precept, against the sacrilegious profanation, and engage them by example, to the devout observance of it.

If then this single advantage would arise from visiting our parishioners from house to house, I may, without the apprehension of incurring your displeasure, appeal to yourselves, whether it does not become a part of our ministerial duty, which we are bound, by the most solemn obligations, religiously to fulfil ?

Among those who attend public worship, there is a very small proportion who celebrate the sacrament of the Lord's supper. Now by visiting them personally, when we enforce, in our conversation, the necessity of the duty, they relate their sentiments of the nature of the ordinance, they urge their objections, and express their fears of receiving it unworthily. Thus we have an oppor tunity of making them better acquainted with the tendency and importance of the doctrine of persuading them to a radical amendment of their lives, if they are openly addicted to sin-in order that they may be prepared to commemorate their redemption in the way appointed by the Author of it; and if they are under the impression of scrupulous fears-if they are afraid of eating or drinking judgment to themselves-we can dispel their apprehensions, and comfort their souls; and thus communicate the enlivening blessings of the gospel, which are contemned by infidelity, over-looked by indifference, and rejected by superstition.

If the command delivered by our blessed Lord in the institution of the sacrament is general, and to be imposed upon all, who are called by his name, and profess his Religion; if it be as we are taught from his own words to believe it is-indispensable to salvation, surely it is incumbent on Us to explain the nature, and urge the obligation of it upon all, as far as it is practicable, individually, that they, "by eating of that bread, may live

See the sixth chapter of John, and three admirable Sermons by the Lord Bishop of Bangor.

for

for ever." And this can only be done, by teaching, as the apostle expresses it, both publicly, and from house to house?" for however perspicuously the subject may be treated from the pulpit, it is liable to be misunderstood; however earnestly enforced, to be misrepresented. There seems, therefore, no way of instructing our parishioners properly in the truth of the doctrine, but by familiar conversation-by adapting our language to their comprehensions, securing at the same time their good opinion, by the interest we discover, and the solicitude we express, for their present welfare, and their future happiness. The neglect of the holy communion is so very general throughout the kingdom, that the clergy cannot, either too soon, or too earnestly, devote their time, apply their zeal, and consecrate their talents, to correct the opinions, inform the judgment, and interest the affections of our several flocks on this most important subject.

But the efficacy of visiting the people committed to our charge will still further appear by our progressive success, in persuading them to establish in their several families domestic worship. This is an act of devotion to which very many housholds are, it should seem, entire strangers. Public admonition must, on this subject more especially, be seconded by private exhortation. And until the observance of this duty becomes general, vain will be our endeavours to implant a principle of religion in the heart. The reverence due to the Lord's day, the celebration of. the blessed sacrament, the practice of family devotion must be the distinguishing features in the lives of our several flocks, if we hope to " render them a people prepared for the Lord." Now experience may convince us, that we might as well expect "the Ethiopian to change his skin, or the leopard his spots," as to attempt to esta blish our hearers in an habitual obedience to these holy laws, merely by teaching in public the indispensable ne cessity of fulfilling them,

Why men have so notoriously failed in the observance of these duties is foreign to my purpose to enquire; but it may give strength to my argument to consider, that, wherever we are successful, by our pastoral visits, in persuading men to discharge these neglected duties, we are introducing into every such family, indescribable and invaluable blessings. And if the observation of the wise man be true, that "the child, trained up in the way he should

should go, will not hastily depart from it, we may, with out presumption, entertain the hope, that both they and their housholds, "their children and their children's children, will walk in the way of the Lord, and observe his ordinances to do them."

(To be concluded in our next. )

REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS.

The first Report of the British and Foreign Bible Society, 1805, with an Appendix and a List of Subscribers and Benefactors. 8vo.

OF

F this Society we have already been obliged to take considerable notice in the Review of 66 an Address to the President;" and also in our observations on the "Sub-Urban Clergyman's Answer to that Address*."

The present Report we have examined with close, and we trust impartial attention: the result is, that our opinion of this boasted institution remains the same. One of its resolutions is of too much consequence to be passed over without notice: it is that "every clergyman or dissenting minister who is a member of this society, shall be entitled to attend and vote at all meetings of the com.mittee." On reading this it was natural for us to examine the proportion of clergymen and dissenting and methodist ministers in and near the metropolis, who are the most likely to attend the committee, and we find that the latter are more than four to one; and if those who are at a distance, but who occasionally come up to the annual meeting of the Missionary Societies, and other synodical assemblies, be added, the balance will be about as many more. In the number of lay members, the dissenters and methodists, have still a greater advantage. These circumstances considered, we still augur no good to the interests of the church of England from this society; but on the contrary, it is natural to expect that sectarian zeal will, notwithstanding the professions here so artfully set forth of godly simplicity and integrity, make this institutution a powerful engine of schism and enthusiasm.

The circulation of the scriptures, the unadulterated word of God, is a good plea, and they who engage in it

*See our Review for March and April.

upon

upon pure principles, deserve praise. But we are aware that even the best of things may be perverted to the worst of purposes, and under the pretence of distributing the Bible, a man may propagate the vilest heresies and the foulest corruptions that ever disgraced the worst of times. Such may not indeed be among the evil consequences of the present society, but we have every reason to apprehend from the prevailing influence which the methodists and other sectaries possess in it, that the cause of Christian truth and Christian order will not be benefited by its exertions. We have a long account, for instance, of the zeal displayed on its behalf in the principality of Wales, and a string of collections made for it in different congregations in that quarter makes a consi derable figure in the appendix. But what are these congregations, and who has had the direction of these collections? They are methodists of the highest Calvinistic cast, and their leader is as far gone in the wilds of enthu siasm as Howell Harris, George Whitfield, Daniel Rowland, or any other chieftain of the predestinarian class ever went. We are bold to ask, why was not a sober and discreet mode adopted of printing the Bible in the Welsh language, instead of managing it in this itinerating way? With what degree of consistency can those members of the church of England who belong to this society, sanction such proceedings as these? All the collections here made were obtained in conventicles by itinerant preachers. The approbation they have received is therefore no less than an approbation of the mode itself, by which they have been obtained. It behoves the managers of the Bible Society to vindicate themselves from the charge of encouraging schism; and we recommend it to the SubUrban clergyman, or to the person who may be appointed to draw up their second report, to shew the consistency of these proceedings with a due obedience to the consti tution of the church. The dissenters may collect what they can, and appropriate it as they please among themselves but our principles, as members of the established church, restrain us from violating the order of that venerable establishment to which we belong. Here, on the contrary, we see a beneficed clergyman going about with his briefs, we will not say indulgencies, from place to place, out of his line, out of his parish, nay out of his diocese, gathering contributions from mixed assemblies of Vol. IX. Churchm. Mag. July 1805. I people,