destroying the harmony of its parts, in breaking off the fine points of its most exquisite passages; and when they have committed all these ravages, and converted the book of God into a book of quibbles and conundrums, they please themselves with the self-flattery of having performed wonders of instruction and edification. Typical and figurative texts must be hunted to death. The more points of resemblance, the abler, of course, is the preacher; and the more he can find in a figure than other people can, the more, are they taught to believe, do they see of the fulness of the Scriptures. How he made his discoveries, is a question which few think of asking. The marvellous has a patent for a sort of implicit faith. For the many, it is sufficient that he made them; sagaciously concluding that if the wonders had not been there, he could not have found them. There is, indeed, one consolation, and it is not a small one, that preachers who love the precious doctrines of the cross, will preach what is true in itself, however they may desert or mangle their texts. Yet this is no excuse for coupling with it all manner of nonsense, and fathering it upon the wisdom of God.

The most insufferable departure from the principles of sound exposition is that perversion of the plain facts of the Bible which is called spiritualizing them. As if there were not passages enough which contain fairly and unequivocally, according to the laws of proper construction, every doctrine of the Gospel! as if the Spirit of God had not made his own book spiritual enough!

It is inconceivable what havoc this species of mania, for it deserves no better name, has made in the sober and dignified lessons of divine revelation. And it shows how powerful is the influence of an irrational fashion, when even great men are swept by it into the bog of absurdity. Massillon's sermon on the im

potent folk around the pool of Bethesda, with all its eloquence, cannot escape from this censure. We have before us a thing called a sermon, prepared for the press too; which is a morceau in this kind of skill.

The authour takes for his subject the history of Ehud's adventure when he killed Eglon, the king of Moab, and delivered Israel. After pathetically lamenting, in his introduction, the blindness of those who perceive in the context nothing but a plain history, he proceeds to unfold the mysteries which unveiled themselves to his eye. Every thing is transformed into a type. Ehud is a type; his dagger is a type; his left-handedness a type; the quarries by which he passed a type. In a word, he and his adventure are types of Christ and his providence. Eglon, too, is a type; a type of Satan; his big belly, fat, dirt, and all. But how was Eglon's fat typical of Satan? You may wonder, reader, but if you have any sense, you will never guess- -Why even thus. Satan is the god of this world; he works in the children of disobedience. These children of disobedience are a vast multitude. The whole of them together serve as a body for Satan; so that he is a fat devil indeed! We are not caricaturing. We are relating a simple fact without exaggeration, and even below the truth! And this vile gibberish must be palmed upon plain people as spiritual preaching! Another sample occurred in a discourse upon Gen. xxix. 2. where Jacob is related to have "looked, and "behold, a well in the field; and lo! there were three "flocks of sheep lying by it." This is all type. The three flocks typify the three dispensations, to wit, the Patriarchal, the Mosaic, and the Christian. The well, too, is typical. And the preacher having desired his hearers carefully to observe that the "well was in the field," broke out into this edifying exclama Vol. III.-No. XI.

4b

tion, "What a mercy, my brethren, that the field was not in the well!!"

We have quoted strong cases, but not stronger than others we could quote. They are the genuine consequences of that vicious mode of parodying the Bible, from which good sense is the only preservative. Considering how much of this harlequin trumpery is bandied about in the Church under the garb of spiritual preaching, it is little short of a miracle that the religion of Christ Jesus is not burlesqued out of the world.

ANECDOTE.

A Baronet of the last century, whose mansion was in Yorkshire, was supposed to be dead; when the following conversation took place between his jester or fool, and his servants:

off;

Serv. Our master is gone. Fool. Ah! whither is he gone? Serv. To heaven, to be sure. Fool. To heaven! no, that he is not, I am certain. Serv. Why so? Fool. Why, because heaven is a great way and when my master was going a long journey, he used for some time before to talk about it, and prepare for it; but, I never heard him speak of heaven, or saw him make any preparations for going: he cannot therefore, be gone thither. The Baronet, however, recovered, and this conversation being told him, he was so struck with it, that he immediately began to prepare for his journey to the eternal world.

REVIEW.

ART. V.

The excellence of the Church: a Sermon, preached at the consecration of Trinity Church, Newark, New-Jersey, by the Right Reverend Bishop Moore, on Monday, May 21, A. D. 1810. By John Henry Hobart, D. D. An Assistant Minister of Trinity Church, New-York. Published by request. New-York, T. & J. Swords, pp. 41. 8vo.

(Continued from p. 524.)

PLAIN dealing is honourable in all ; but especially

in the ministers of religion. Thus saith an authority which Dr. Hobart cannot avowedly reject. We use great plainness of speech: but have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God-We also believe, and therefore speak*.

The use of "Confessions" or "articles" adopted by the Churches, is, accordingly, to give a plain and summary exposition of the sense in which they understand the word of inspiration; and if the " public Creed" do not plainly express the "belief" of the Church, it becomes worse than useless. It is extremely uncandid in any man, or body of men, to profess adherence to any article which is not believed to be true, or to maintain pub

* 2 Cor. 3. 12. and 4. 2, 13.

lic standards which do not plainly express their private sentiments about the same doctrines. Assuredly, it is as necessary that we should observe honesty toward God, and toward man in things pertaining to God, as that we should be honest in our common transactions.

Dr. H. says, "It is worthy of remark, that "in the General Convention of the Protestant Epis"copal Church in the United States of Ame"rica, when the articles were ratified, there was "not one advocate of the Calvinistic doctrines *." That Convention could not have been ignorant of the interpretation given of the thirty-nine articles, in the articles of Lambeth, published by the highest authority in the Church of England. They could not but have known, that the Protestant Church of England was Calvinistic, in doctrine, for nearly a century after the Reformation; and that a great part of it has always embraced the Anti-arminian creed. They must have understood that the Calvinistic Churches universally admitted the Calvinism of the thirtynine Articles. Why, then, if they were themselves Arminian, did they not speak as they believed, and so alter their Creed as to render it a candid Confession of their own faith? The object of a Creed, we repeat it, is to express unequivocally the faith of the Church; and certainly an Arminian Convention, if they wished to be fully understood by all men, might have contrived articles equally explicit with the Sermon of Dr. Hobart-clearly Arminian. If the fact, respecting the convention, be as Dr. H. states it, although it does not at all affect the grammatical signification of the " Articles," it proves beyond all dispute, that plain dealing, according to our old fashioned ideas of it, did not, at that time, suit

*Note, page 22.