themselves; and that the best service we can render to our parishioners is to induce them to read these Scriptures at home, and with attention. Now the way to induce men to read, is to enable them to understand. When a private person, reading the Scripture, is stopped by perpetual difficulties, he grows tired of the employment; on the other hand, when he is furnished as he proceeds with illustrations of apparent obscurities, or answers to obvious doubts, the attention is both engaged, sustained, and gratified. There are difficulties in Scripture, in common with all ancient books, which cannot be resolved, if resolved at all, without a minute and critical disquisition, which will end probably at last in a dubious or controverted explication. Topics like these cannot be accommodated to the apprehension of a popular audience, or be successfully agitated in a public discourse. Again, there are difficulties which a simple recourse to the original,-to a parallel text,—to circumstances of time, occasion, and place,—or a short reference to some usage or opinion then prevailing, or to some passage in the history of that age and country, —will render clear and easy. Points of this sort may be set forth, to the greatest part of every congregation, with advantage to their minds, and with great satisfaction. I am apt also to believe, that admonitions against any particular vice may be delivered, in commenting upon a text in which such vice is reproved, with more weight and efficacy than in any other form.

This describes the direct purpose to be aimed at in the exercise I am recommending; but there is also a secondary object, of no small utility, which it will be found in a good measure to promote, and that is, the increasing of the afternoon congregations. Some expedient for this end is peculiarly necessary in this

diocese, in most parishes of which the inhabitants are dispersed through a wide district, living, some one, some two or three miles distant from their church, which is commonly situated in a small village, or within the vicinage of a few straggling houses. Where the parishioners must go so far to church, if nothing but evening service be performed, they do not go at all; and their vacant afternoons are often so ill employed, that I am afraid it may be said, of a numerous part of many parishes, that Sunday is the worst spent day of the week. This thinness and desertion of the afternoon congregation no incumbent of a country parish can be insensible of; and there are two ways of treating the evil; one, in discontinuing evening service entirely, the other, in endeavouring to bring our parishioners to it. Which of those resolutions is more conscientious, and more satisfactory, judge ye. Now, I have reason to believe, that this want of due attendance would be remedied by some such exertion, on the part of the minister, as that I am now suggesting. As I did not think myself at liberty to recommend an experiment to others which I had not tried myself, I have for some short time past attempted these expositions in my own parish church, and I will tell you the result. The afternoon congregation, which consisted of a few aged persons in the neighbourhood of the church, seldom amounted to more than twelve or fifteen; since the time I commenced this practice, the congregation have advanced from under twenty to above two hundred. This is a fact worthy your observation; because I have not a doubt but every clergyman, who m like attempt, will meet with the same success, suaded, with much more.

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gregation was greater than I looked for, and some abatements are to be made; some effect must be attributed to novelty, which, of course, will not hold long; perhaps, also, there exists some small diminution of the morning congregation: but, with both these deductions, it still shows, as far as a single instance can show it, the complete efficacy of the expedient for the purpose of collecting a congregation. I am ready to admit, that much of the same benefit would arise from many other modes of instruction: from lectures upon the Catechism, upon the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Commandments, the Thirty-nine Articles; and if any clergyman prefers any of these matters to that which I am suggesting, or judges himself better prepared for one than the other, he certainly ought to exercise his discretion in adopting what he thinks best. All that I mean to advance, is that something should be done. This opportunity could not be less usefully employed than in setting one good thing in competition with another good thing; or, where both are excellent, in contending which is best. Nevertheless, I may be allowed to remark, that expositions of Scripture possess manifest advantage over other schemes of teaching; that they supply a more extensive variety of subject; as one short chapter, or half of a long one, will always be sufficient for one occasion. A lecturer may hold on for a considerable length of time before he be brought back to begin his course anew, or to repeat what has been heard before.

Having thus stated what I apprehend to be the use of this expedient, it remains that I add something to show its practicability; for whatever was the advantage or merit of the plan, if it was only practicable by men of extraordinary attainments, I should not have proposed it in this place-such men want no directions

from me; but unless I am much deceived in my notions of this measure, it will be found as easy in the execution as it is laudable in the design. Any one commentary upon the New Testament will supply materials for the work, and is indeed all the apparatus necessary for undertaking it. I say any one; because those subtle and recondite criticisms, in which different commentators hold different opinions, cannot be brought within the compass of this design. Grotius, Whitby, Hammond, Clark, and, above all, Doddridge, will any of them be found to contain what is sufficient for the present purpose. I mention this last author in preference to the rest, because his paraphrase, beside that it for the most part exhibits a sound and judicious interpretation of the text, is both more copious and expressive, in clearer and better-chosen terms, than any other I have met with-qualities which render it peculiarly adapted to the province of public expounding. His notes likewise discover great learning, and in many instances much sagacity and acuteness. But in recommending this author, it is necessary to warn you against a part of his work, extremely unlike and unworthy of the rest; and that is, what he calls his improvements of the several sections, into which he divides the text. These improvements betray such a straining to raise reflections out of passages of Scripture, for which there is often no just place or real foundation,—and are delivered in a style so impassioned, not to say fantastical, at least so inconsistent with the sober and temperate judgement which pervades the paraphrase itself,-that no account can be given of the incongruity, but that this excellent person found it necessary to accommodate his language to the prevailing tone of the dissenting congregations of those times. All that I mean to guard

against is, that I may not be thought, in praising the work itself, to recommend to your imitation this part of it.

I have said that any one commentary will furnish what is necessary for expounding Scripture to a mixed congregation; nevertheless, I must take the liberty of adding, to the younger clergy especially, a recommendation which, whether applied to this purpose or not, will be found an useful direction in the conduct of their studies; and that is, to provide themselves with an interleaved Greek Testament, into the blank pages of which they may not only transcribe the substance of such commentary as they regularly go through, but in which they may, from time to time, insert such occasional remarks on any text as they happen to collect in the course of their reading: this in time will grow into a commentary, in some measure, of a man's own; it will possess more variety and selection, as well as be more familiar and commodious to the compiler himself, than any published commentary can be.

For the purpose of public expounding, a different preparation will be necessary for different persons, and for the same person in the progress of the undertaking: one may choose at first to write down the greatest part of what he delivers; another may find it sufficient to have before him the substance of the observations he means to offer, which will gradually contract itself into heads, or notes, or common-places, upon which he will dilate and enlarge at his discretion. In the mode also of conducting the work great room is left for difference of choice: one may choose to expound the Second Lesson; another, the Gospel of the day; another, portions of Scripture selected by himself; and to another, it may appear best to begin with a Gospel and go re