to Faith in Jesus Christ; in which the Supposed Advantages of Mr. Fuller's leading Fropositions are called in question,' 1791: a Review of some Things Pertaining to Civil Government,' 1791: Remarks on Future Misery,' 1794: an able Sermon entitled 'The Advantage of Correct Thoughts on the Sinfulness of Sin; with an Appendix, containing Observations on Antinomians and Arminians,' 1795: A View of the Evidences of Believers' Baptism; in Four Parts,' 1796: a Series of Letters to the Rev. Mr. Horsey, in Defence of Adult Baptism, 1786:

The Conquest of Canaan;' and Seventeen Sermons on the Character of Christ,' 1793. Excepting the work called Some Account of the Life and Writings of the Rev. John Martin,' the foregoing, though not the whole, are some of the principal of his publications.

'It is tiresome for me,' remarks Mr. Martin, to consider whether the pointing is regular, free, or stiff; whether a word may not, here and there, be misplaced or mispelled; whether the quotation marks are exact, and chapter and

verse always properly produced; whether the style is sufficiently polished, and varied; and whether every argument, in every place, is not

the very best I could have used,' Still there are those who yet wish to see him take up this task in part. Having written much that is worth reading, and of which much is not now to be bought, might it not be worth his while, drawing as he is to the close of his great career, to re-collect and re-publish, arranged and uniformly, the whole of his works? Let him hesitate to delegate this trust. It should form no clause of his last will. M

EDWARD PARSONS.

WHAT is called Extempore Preaching was always popular with us. Even the late Dr. Gregory admits, apparently with reluctance, the estimation which extempore preaching has commanded, and its effects on the people.

It has been debated,' observes this writer, in his Letters on Literature, treating of the eloquence of the pulpit, 'whether Sermons may be most advantageously delivered from written notes, memory, or perfectly extempore. Dr. Beattie 'decides in favor of written sermons. Indeed there is scarcely any extempore discourse,' continues Dr. Gregory, which is not too diffuse for the time usually allotted for the pulpit; that might not, in fact, be comprised in much fewer words; and which does not abound in impertinences, tautologies, or solecisms. Yet, a good Extempore Dis

course has more effect, in a common audience, than a written one.' The issue is clear. Granting, as Dr. Gregory says, that Extempore Preaching is, generally understood, the most effectual mode of preaching; and if also it is, as we shall see, judged most agreeable to the nature of that holy exercise ;' -why is it not encouraged among the ministers of our national pulpits?

As to the practice of reading sermons," this, it should seem, according to the StatuteBook of one of the universities, took beginning from the disorders of the times' preceding the restoration of our monarchy; and was countermanded, as no light error in the church, by Charles the Second, when king. Burnet, in his History of the Reformation, seems to account for the disuse of extempore preaching. Many complaints,' affirms this prelate, were made of those who were licensed to preach; and, that they might be able to justify themselves, they began, generally, to write and read their sermons; and

thus did this custom begin.' So says Dr. Gregory; adding, that the ease which this practice afforded, and the correctness, it induced, has continued it in the Church of England ever since.' Widely does this writer here differ from the monarch. What Dr. Gregory terms 'ease,' Charles the Second calls supine and slothful;' and that very 'correctness' of which this writer seems so much to approve, is reprobated on pain of the displeasure' of the monarch! Perhaps it is now impracticable to ascertain what effect the royal mandate produced: how long extempore discourses only were heard; or, at what time the body of our clergy relasped into their supine and slothful way' of reading sermons.' Methodism latterly confirmed them in this spiritual sluggishness. Certainly it is from the origination of methodism that we must date, for some time, the almost entire discontinuance of extempore preaching. Equally anxious to avoid the imputation of ignorance and fanaticism, churchmen and dis