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the only time they were in power, "they acted inconsistently by excepting Prelacy and Popery," yet, for all this, we are only to "remember that it was inconsistent," and rapine and sacrilege become venial things, and to the Independents we are indebted, as a nation, for whatever of civil or religious liberty we enjoy!" We have no doubt, even had we no better voucher than Mr. Binney, that if he and his sect could obtain their ends, they would deal us the same measure of " civil and religious liberty" which they graciously bestowed on our forefathers. For thus he speaks of the Church of Ridley and Latimer, of Hooper and Jewell, of Hall and Beveridge, of Wilson and Porteus, and of so many of their spirit since their time; the Church of Hale and Nelson, of Johnson and Hannah More, of Southey, and Coleridge, and Wordsworth :—

It is with me, I confess, a matter of deep, serious, religious conviction, that the Established Church is a great national evil; that it is an obstacle to the progress of truth and godliness in the land; that IT DESTROYS MORE SOULS THAN IT SAVES; and that, therefore, its end is most devoutly to be wished by every LOVER OF GOD AND MAN. Right or wrong, this is my belief; and I should not feel the slightest offence if a Churchman were to express himself to me in precisely the same words with respect to Dissent.-P. 20.

Ravings like these would deserve no notice, did not the professed organs of Dissent echo the cry, and repeat, "This is the truth, whatever some half-hearted Dissenters may say."

"If the Lord be God, For once we are quite

Let no Dissenter be "half-hearted" now. follow him; but if Baal, then follow him." agreed with Mr. Binney: "Every pious and patriotic man should feel that he is not permitted to be neutral. A judgment must be formed, a side taken, and every legitimate weapon appropriated and employed.”* Let the Dissenters form their judgment, and take their side. There are many, we believe, who agree with Mr. Binney in their hearts, but who will not venture on the shame of so revolting an avowal. Let them stand forth, that we may see them. If they really believe themselves true "lovers of God and man" in consigning the majority of Churchmen to everlasting perdition, let them proclaim their belief aloud, and let them see how many will reëcho it. Let them see, whether after all they say about their numbers, they will find the great body of the Christian people of England ready to agree with them that every Churchman, because he is a Churchman, if he escape hell at all, can only escape so as by fire." Such Dissenters dare not express their thoughts, lest they share the contempt and disgust which has already been cast upon Binney by every heart capable of a moral feeling. But there are Dissenters who not only shrink from the contact of such a man as Mr. Binney-a very humble degree of right feeling is requisite

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*P. 24.

for that but who, while conscientiously deserting our communion, still are friendly to the principle of an Established Church as the safeguard of Christianity, while they are thankful for the entire toleration and liberty of conscience they enjoy beneath her shadow. On these too we call, not to be "half-hearted." Let these openly renounce all connexion with the bitterness and blasphemy of the Weigh-house orator. This, we are happy to find, some have done. And, O that our feeble voice might enter into the ears of some Dissenters whom we love and cherish not less dearly than souls of our own communion! O that we could prevail upon them calmly and solemnly to deliberate on the points that divide us, and, as we are convinced such deliberation must issue, return into the bosom of the Church! And we would tell those religious Dissenters who still wish to see the Church established and effective, and who would cheerfully unite their endeavours to save her, that there is no other way of promoting their object than by

JOINING HER COMMUNION.

And we say, let not Churchmen be "half-hearted" either. "A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways." With the whole heart let Churchmen profess their attachment to their Church. We are glad to find that a declaration of the Laity, on broad principles, is in circulation. Every Layman of the Church must sign it. There must be no halting between two opinions. Sorry indeed should we be, and degraded, could we entertain towards nonconformity the feelings expressed towards the Church by Mr. Binney. Let the guilt and the shame of such things rest with those who profess or do not disown them. But, when such principles are at work against the Church, let neither exposure nor opposition be wanting for a moment.

We are not afraid for the firmness of our Calvinistic brethren, nor ever were. There are some indeed who "went out from us, but they were not of us;" but such are few. We envy them not as they read the following, which we extract for their edification.

In spite of Acts of Parliament, Creeds and subscriptions, the Church of England is the most discordant and divided christian denomination in the land. The most opposite and conflicting opinions are professed and inculcated by her sons-by men who have solemnly signed the very same identical declarations. The clergy are separated into parties; the pretence that uniformity exists among them is a pretence, and nothing more; and every man knows it to be so, who has an eye to observe, or an ear to hear, or a head to think; and every such man will admit the assertion, who has honesty to acknowledge what he cannot but perceive. And these differences of opinion are not confined to minor and insignificant matters, but, upon the showing, and according to the current language, of some of the clergy themselves, enter into the very essentials and fundamentals of the faith. Hence it is customary for them to speak of large tracts of the country, in which there is only here and there a solitary clergyman who "preaches the gospel;" and this man is often represented as despised by his brethren, and persecuted by his neighbours, for his adherence to the truth. Hence, too, we hear of the "gospel" (the gospel, observe,) being "introduced" into a place, in which it had not beep declared for thirty,

or fifty, or a hundred years. By such facts, incessantly obtruded on our attention, we are given to understand that anti-evangelical clergymen are an overwhelming majority. If any of an opposite character are elevated and dignified, the wonder is announced with triumph and trumpets, and we are thus left to the natural inference, that, in the high places of the Establishment, spiritual religion is the exception, and not the rule.-Pp. 9, 10.

We need not say that all this only applies to the language of a very few. Mr. Binney has admitted that those who hold it are opposed to "an overwhelming majority." In fact, it is the language of men who are much more justly to be classed with Mr. Binney's friends than with ours. It has a close affinity with his. The Calvinistic Clergy, as a body, repudiate it. The communion which Mr. Binney charges with being "the most discordant and divided Christian denomination in the land," cannot, even by himself, be accused of being divided into more than Two parties! and those two, such as have divided the boasted unity of Rome itself. Let this be contrasted with a communion which admits to its pulpits the Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, the Anabaptist, the Methodist, and the Quaker!* for such is Mr. Binney's. Our Calvinistic friends will hurl back Mr. Binney's insinuations with the shame and scorn they deserve; and one UNITED cry will ring through the tents of Israel,- -"The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon!"-" The Lord his God is with him, and the shout of a King is among them!"

ART. II.-Hora Homiletica: or Discourses (principally in the form of Skeletons) now first digested into one continued Series, and forming a Commentary upon every Book of the Old and New Testament; to which is annexed, an Improved Edition of a Translation of Claude's Essay on the Composition of a Sermon. In Twenty-one Volumes. By the Rev. CHARLES SIMEON, M. A. Senior Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. London: Holdsworth & Ball. 1833. 8vo.

(Continued from p. 20.)

WE come now to consider, II. The peculiar and especial objects of Mr. Simeon's work; and these are, 1. To assist, and in some manner, instruct, in the art of composing sermons. 2. To afford a practical and applicatory interpretation and exposition of Scripture.

We would not be understood to depreciate either the labour or the intrinsic value of this great work, in stating what is, however, most necessary to be remembered, that it was not written originally with either of these views. The skeletons were not at first composed with a view to assist or instruct others in composition, but were written as a

* P. 14.

preacher would write a sermon, for his own use in his own fold; they were, indeed, Mr. Simeon's sermons; all, at least, that he ever committed to paper, of what he preached in his own church. This is, indeed, palpable, from the personal and peculiar allusions with which they abound; which would certainly have been retrenched, had it been Mr. Simeon's object to make his volumes in all respects applicable to general use. So little, indeed, does the system of analysis enter into the essence of the work, that when Mr. Simeon wrote a sermon, (which he always did for the University pulpit,) he did not analyse it for the Hora, but published it in its place at full length. In like manner, the idea of a continued expository comment on Scripture, is no part of the original design. In discourses on 2536 independent texts it cannot happen but that there must result something which may fairly be called a commentary on the Bible; yet the work is such, not substantially, but only incidentally. A complete commentary the reader would look for in vain. Many texts, important for their difficulty, or their doctrinal purport, are altogether unnoticed. It would be unjust to the work, and unfair to the reader, to treat it as a systematic exemplification of either Claude's theory, or any other; or to consider it in the light of a complete expository comment on the whole Scriptures. It is published indeed both as an exercise and a commentary; it was written with a very different view.

With this reservation, we proceed to examine the objects of the work as published; and, 1. That of assisting the preacher in the composition of sermons.

It is a fact universally admitted that no sermon can be clear, comprehensive, and adequate to the just elucidation and application of its subject, unless composed on a plan. This plan may either be reduced to writing, or it may exist solely in the mind, and the preacher may work from it by simple recollection; but a plan there ought to be; and, where there is sufficient leisure, it will be highly desirable to write it, both for impressing the memory, and accumulating richer and better arranged resources than the mind, without this aid, can commonly retain. In regard to the younger clergy, and probationers for the ministry, the system of writing outlines is, in the highest degree, important; and perhaps there could not be a more profitable exercise in this way than to anatomize the sermons of our standard divines;-to write out the naked outline of divisions, &c. accompanied with an abstract of the mode in which each division or subdivision is treated. Our readers may find a very valuable specimen of this exercise in the "Summaries" prefixed by Mr. Hughes to the several sermons and treatises in his "Divines of the Church of England;" although, in practice, we should recommend something still more simple, and departing somewhat further from the actual language of the authors. After the skeleton

has been sometime laid by, let the student flesh it in his own language; he can then read over again the original sermon, and it will afford that impulse to his mind which, in retouching, will give richness and vigour to his own composition, without any of the servility of the plagiarist or imitator. But this system, it is obvious, is only calculated for temporary practice. It is by no means desirable that a preacher should confine himself to a certain number of texts; and he knows little of the art of composition, if he is unable to take a text of his own, and arrange the plan of a discourse on it for himself. As an intermediate step between analysis of sermons already written, and construction of outlines on given texts, no help can be more valuable than sketches on the plan of Mr. Simeon's skeletons. The analytical system is defective without the synthesis. He who can well reduce a good sermon to its elements, and faithfully and vigorously fill out a good outline, wants no qualification for a preacher which matter and argument can bestow. Let him be well acquainted with his Bible, he may choose his own text, and treat it successfully.

From these observations it will appear that we are not agreed with some of Mr. Simeon's "most judicious friends," who fear" that these skeletons may administer to sloth and idleness.' We apprehend, that, had these gentlemen made the experiment themselves, they would have found the skeletons" so constructed that they cannot possibly be used at all, unless a considerable degree of thought be bestowed upon them."† In our own judgment, an outline of this nature could not be accurately and energetically filled, without much more labour than would be required for original composition. If the student who cannot compose flatters himself that he can use Mr. Simeon's skeletons, he is deceived. He may, indeed, write a series of words, "which, if read distinctly, will оссиру the space of nearly half an hour;" but he will not realise Mr. Simeon's idea. We may here be said to be inconsistent with the opinion we have expressed above, that written skeletons are good introductions to composition; we are not, however, here speaking of mere attempts on the skeletons, exercises which are, doubtless, excellent introductions; but of correct and animated completions of the outline, which, if our clerical readers have a mind to try, they will, we doubt not, find much more difficult than the ordinary composition of a sermon. The productions of Raphael and Phidias are justly employed for the instruction of the tyro; but should we give no credit for original powers to him who should produce an exact copy from either? The skeletons not being originally written with a view to regular composition, the question of this application comes naturally to be discussed. Mr. Simeon's practice may be considered in favour of

* Pref. p. xi.

† Ibid.

Pref. p. x.