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little of the preacher. He partakes more of the lecturer than the apostle. Conviction surpasses consent; yet Dr. Andrewes, though he always compels consent, seldom follows up with conviction. While he subjugates scepticism, he leaves contrition at rest. While he confounds the infidel, or establishes the faithful, still he fails to alarm the transgressor. I know not, indeed, how far he may have felt solicitous to accommodate his discourses to the peculiar cast of this age; which, instead of being anxious to imbibe the vital principles of belief, asks to be. instructed in the very elements of religion. This fact is characteristic of our times.

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He plumps on his text, and comes too soon to the theme of it. Abruptness is at all times disagreeable, but it seems particularly so in the studied effusions of oratory.

When will the ministers of religion confide more in the assurance of their Divine Master to his primitive disciples, extending as it does, through them, to all ages of the church? • Take no thought, how or what ye shall say;

for it shall be given you, in that same hour, what ye shall speak.' Acquainted as he is with this consolatory assurance, and while acknowledging its force, still does Dr. Andrewes seem fearful of trusting himself, even but for some few moments, out of the leading-strings of manuscript...

Happy am I to observe Dr. Andrewes's improvement in his manner of delivering our Lord's Prayer. He seems to have reflected on what I formerly wrote on this head, and I shall not, owing to this reform, remind him of it now.

Dr. Andrewes has published one Sermon, preached before the Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy, in the year 1798. Towards the conclusion of the present volume, the reader will find some account of this preacher's Lectures on the Liturgy, during the Lent of 1809, in St. James's church.

Enjoying vigour of talent and maturity of experience, and alike estimable for soundness of doctrine and purity of living, Gerrard An

drewes must be considered as one of the most eminent existing ministers of our ecclesiastical establishment. Defects he has-defects, con

templating him oratorically, of voice, of manner, of action; but these deficiencies are so compensated by, or rather lost in, his substantial excellencies-his intelligence, his sincerity, his earnestness, that they become, in the general estimate of him, immaterial, if not imperceptible.

SAMUEL CROWTHER, M. A.

ADVERSE as some respectable individuals appear to what is now called popular preaching, my sentiments, formerly favourable to it, become daily more confirmed as to its eligibility and importance. Charm he ever so wisely, since human nature still turns her deafened ear to the voice of the spiritual charmer; since, though he speak as it were with the tongue of an angel, the preacher is frequently unheeded, -is it difficult to conjecture the injury resulting to our religion from the incompetency of those who undertake to explain and enforce its most holy doctrines and precepts? Unfortunately, indeed, the consequences produced by the inability of some clerical instructors, and the indifference of others, are no longer chimerical. Schism has every where erected her decoying and destructive standard. The brazen serpent is again lifted up, without the camp; not to

heal, but to afflict the people! I behold with pain, therefore, a disposition to resist the only measures likely to counteract the progressive influence of such calamities. Samson has dis

closed to us the secret of his strength; and let it not be proved that, from any feeling of false dignity, infatuated with superiority, we disdain to profit even by our enemies.

It is to the essential business of out-preaching their evangelizing antagonists, who are no mean ones, that I would particularly direct the energies of the national priesthood. Let them earnestly endeavour at preaching back the souls who have been preached from the bosom of the church. While the disposition of the people is turning strongly in favor of this plan, the circumstances of the times are not less auspicious to it. Even evangelical hearers are beginning to prefer, as clerical instructors, those who have been trained in the universities of their country; partly supposing such men to be more respectable as gentlemen, and partly because the diffused intelligence of the age, ema

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