majority, without which it becomes incapable of rendering those services to the state, for the sake of which its privileges and emoluments were conferred. Nothing but an extreme infatuation can accelerate such an event. But if pious and orthodox men be prevented from entering into the church, or compelled to retire from it, the people will retire with them; and the apprehension of the church being in danger, which has so often been the watchword of party, will become, for once, well founded.

REVIEW

OF

GISBORNE'S SERMONS.

Sermons, principally designed to illustrate and to enforce Christian Morality. By the Rev. T. GISBORNE, A. M. 8vo. pp. 430. 1809.

WE have read these sermons with so much satisfaction, that, were it in our power to aid their circulation by any testimony of our approbation, we should be almost at a loss for terms sufficiently strong and emphatic. Though the excellent author is possessed already of a large share of the public esteem, we are persuaded these discourses will make a great accession to his celebrity. Less distinguished by any predominant quality than by an assemblage of the chief excellencies in pulpit composition, they turn on subjects not very commonly handled, and discuss them with a copiousness, delicacy, and force, which evince the powers of a master. They are almost entirely upon moral subjects, yet equally remote from the superficiality and dryness with which these subjects are too often treated. The morality of Mr. Gisborne is arrayed in all the majesty of truth and all the beauties of

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holiness. In perusing these sermons, the reader is continually reminded of real life, and beholds human nature under its most unsophisticated aspect, without ever being tempted to suppose himself in the schools of pagan philosophy. We cannot better explain the professed scope and object of the author than by copying a few sentences from his preface. "Of late years it has been loudly asserted, that, among clergymen who have shewed themselves very earnest in doctrinal points, adequate regard has not been evinced to moral instruction. The charge has perhaps been urged with the greatest "vehemence by persons who have employed little "trouble in examining into its truth. In many "cases it has been groundless, in many, exagge"rated. In some instances there has been reason, "I fear, for a degree of complaint; and in more, "a colourable pretext for the imputation. I believe "that some preachers, shocked on beholding ex"amples, real or supposed, of congregations starv

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ing on mere morality, substituted for the bread "of life; eager to lay broad and deep the founda"tions of the gospel, and ultimately apprehensive "lest their own hearers should suspect them of reverting towards legality, have not given to morals, as fruits of faith, the station and the

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amplitude to which they have a scriptural claim. "Anxious lest others should mistake, or lest they "should themselves be deemed to mistake, the "branch for the root; not satisfied with proclaim

ing to the branch, as they were bound habitually

"to proclaim, Thou bearest not the root, but the root

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thee, they have shrunk from the needful office of tracing the ramifications. They have not left morality out of their discourses, but they have

kept it too much in the back-ground. They have "noticed it shortly, generally, incidentally; in a "manner which, while perhaps they were eminent as private patterns of moral duties, might not. sufficiently guard an unwary hearer against a "reduced estimate of practical holiness, nor exempt themselves from the suspicion of undervaluing "moral obedience." Pref. pp. vii. viii.

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To the truth of these remarks we cordially assent, as they point to a defect in the ministration of some excellent men, which the judicious part of the public have long lamented, and which Mr. Gisborne, in his present work, has taught his contemporaries how to remedy. Extremes naturally lead to each other. The peculiar doctrines of the gospel had been so long neglected by the most celebrated preachers, and the pernicious consequences of that neglect, in wearing out every trace of genuine religion, had been so deeply felt, that it is not to be wondered at if the first attempts to correct the evil were accompanied with a tendency to the contrary extreme. In many situations, those who attempted to revive doctrines which had long been, considered as obsolete, found themselves much in the same circumstances as missionaries, having intelligence to impart before unknown, and exposed to all the contempt and obloquy which assailed the

first preachers of christianity. While they were engaged in such an undertaking, it is not at all surprising that they confined their attention almost entirely to the doctrines peculiar to the christian religion, with less care to inculcate and display the moral precepts which it includes in common with other systems than their intrinsic importance demanded. They were too much occupied in removing the rubbish and laying the foundations, to permit them to carry their superstructure very high. They insisted, in general terms, on the performance of moral duties; urged the necessity of that holiness without which "none shall see the Lord;" and, by a forcible application of truth to the conscience, produced in many instances the most surprising, as well as the most happy, effects. But still, in consequence of limiting their ministry too much to the first elements of the gospel, and dwelling chiefly on topics calculated to alarm the careless and console the faithful, a wrong taste began to prevail amongst their hearers-a disrelish of moral discussions, a propensity to contemplate christianity under one aspect alone, that of a system of relief for the guilty, instead of a continual discipline of the heart. Those wished for stimulants and cordials, whose situation required alteratives and correctives. Preachers and hearers have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the fear of being reproached as "legal," deterred some good men from insisting so much on moral and practical subjects as their own good sense would have dictated. By this means the

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