Review.-Cappe's Discourses.

quainted with the former volume of sermons, [M. Repos. I. 31 & 93.] by this truly Christian preacher, we should think it unnecessary to do more than announce the present publication. They know what to expect, and they will not be disappointed.-Simplicity and godly sincerity, unaffected earnestness in the cause of religion and virtue, benignity and zeal in happy union, speak in their proper language through the whole volume. The name of Baxter has often occurred to us in the perusal of it; for like the works of that very impressive preacher, it abounds in affectionate, practical ap peals, ardent expostulations, and that persuasiveness of address which is suggested, and therefore recognised by the heart. We no where detect an endeavour to win admiration or extort applause by ornament or artifice or labour. The author appears to have lost sight of himself, his thoughts and feelings wholly occupied by the grandeur and importance of his subjects; and the serious reader can scarcely fail to lose sight of him too, attending solely to the matter and objects of his address.

For the sake of such of our readers as may not be acquainted with the preacher's manner, we insert the following specimens of his devout oratory. In one of the sermons on the final Consequence of our present Conduct, he thus pours forth his convictions:

"Could I make you privy to the good man's thoughts, to the best man's feelings in his happiest hours, when, musing on the works and providence of God, or meditat. ing on the glorious discoveries of his gospel, his soul, dilated into the noblest sentiments of charity, and elevated into the sublimest transports of devotion, triumphs in the government of God, and with all the ardour of gratitude for what is past, unites all the prospects of the liveliest and most exalted hope in respect of what is yet to come; when, finding all things right within, be forgets whatever is amiss without, overlooks the sufferings that are present with him, overlooks the sufferings he has yet to undergo, overlooks the death he has to die, and anticipates his union with the innumerable company of angels, with his departed friends, with the spirits of just men made perfect, with Jesus, whom not having seen he loves, and with God the standard of excellence and the fountain of all good; could I make you privy to his feelings in these happy hours, when, encouraged by the testimony of his conscience, he is not afraid to indulge his hope and confidence in God, you might think that these wanted

103

nothing but stability and immortality, to convert this earthly happiness into Heaven." Pp. 262, 263.

The following passages are extracted from the series of sermons on Christian Perfection.

"We must propose to ourselves an exalted standard if we mean no more than to make a moderate progress.

"Every man's experience may be appealed to, how much in all affairs, and particularly in those of religion, our designs ordinarily surpass our execution. We propose great things; it is but little ones we perform. In the most enlarged views, with vated purposes, with all the ardour and the most intense desires, with the most eleambition of our souls stretching forward towards perfection, if we make no speedier progress in the Christian character, and our progress is liable to so many interruptions, disgraced by so many failures, what would be done, how much less could be expected from narrow views, from groveling purposes, from cold desires, and faint endeavours? To rest content with the attainments we have already made, bespeaks self-confidence as bodes very ill to our pasuch a degree of self-complacency and tient continuance in well-doing; it bespeaks much of that pride which goeth before destruction, and of that haughty spirit which precedes a fall." Pp. 115, 116.

66

Departed hours, and neglected talents, are like departed and neglected friends. When they come to stand upon the margin of the grave, when from the bed of death, they look back upon their forepast life, and on their former talents, then it is that men wish most earnestly to call back the years that are gone by; then it is that they lament their insensibility and negligence. They might have made better preparation for the tribunal of their Judge; they might have raised a better harvest from this only seed-time of their existence but, alas! the season is gone, and they too must go, with what they have done, and what they have neglected to do, to the bar of an all-knowing and all-righteous God." Pp. 121, 122.

The following animated appeal to Christian professors is in the last series of discourses, on the great Importance of the public Ministry of Christ.

"Among all your schemes and purposes of improvement, does it never enter into your thoughts, that your capacities of usefulness may and ought, not only to be employed, but to be enlarged? Are the riches of beneficence, the only riches you have no solicitude to increase Are these the only pleasures of which you are contented with a little sphere? Are these the only honours in which you are willing to be undistinguished? Can you pass from week to week, and from year to year, so

licitous in every thing that regards yourselves and your sublunary interests, to be making progress; without labour, with out care, without desire to become more capable of serving those who are within the sphere of your beneficence ? Can your capacities of usefulness be actually though not intentionally enlarged, and yet your good works become neither more numerous, nor more perfect; neither more, nor greater? Can you content yourselves to have more of the sources of human happiness within your power, and not a soul of the human race be the more happy for it?" P. 435.

What a difference between Christ and Christians; between his life and their lives; between his sentiments and theirs! What a contrast, between the constancy, the ardour, the perfection of his beneficence; and the interruptions, the languors, and the blemishes of theirs! How deplorable is the dissimilitude that appears between the exemplar that is proposed unto the sons of men, and many who avow the obligation, and even make profession of conforming to it! How glaring is the opposition between his activity, and their indolence in doing good ; between his use- / fulness, and their self-indulgence; between his disinterested zeal in works of charity and kindness, and their undiverted application to the gains and profits of the

world! P. 437.

These sermons are presented to the public by the pious hand of affection, and we join most cordially in the earnest prayer of the Editor Mrs. Cappe,

66

that by a wider circulation, sentiments like these, so serious and awful, yet at the same time so just and important, may eventually contribute to form in many others those habits of diligence, of resignation, and piety, which were a source of continual satisfaction to himself, and of consolation, hope, and jor, when all other

consolations failed." P. 130. Note.

This volume of practical sermons consists principally of four series of discourses: the first on Christian Perfection; the second on the Final Consequences of our present Conduct; the third on the Imperfection of our Knowledge concerning God; and the fourth on the great Importance of the public Ministry of Christ. They are all very properly styled practical sermons, but with some difference of character notwithstanding. Into the third series on the imperfection of our knowledge concerning God, the nature of the subject has thrown a mixture of speculation; but the speculation is chastised and reverential, neither presumptuous nor timid, always pious and

sometimes original. In the last series on the importance of the public Ministry of Christ, the reader, who is acquainted with the "Critical Remarks ture," by the same author, will recogon many important Passages of Scripnise with pleasure the same ingenious and satisfactory mode of illustrating the language of the New Testament. On the whole, we cannot better explain the leading objects of these discourses, than as the editor has explained them in her preface,

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able importance of holiness of heart and -simply to demonstrate the unspeaklife; of piety, humility and benevolence; hension of mind, which habitually looks of attaining to that truly Christian compreforward, beyond the present to the future." Pref. p. 10.

And after the specimens which we have laid before our readers, it is superfluous to add our recommendation of what must so well recommend itself to the pious and intelligent of every Christian denomination.

The volume is dedicated in a very sensible and affectionate address to the Divinity and Lay-students, educated in the Dissenting College, York; and in addition to the reasons alleged by the editor, her dedication of it has this propriety, that it offers to their perusal the discourses of an eminent Christian Minister, written in the pure and ardent spirit of his religion, and in a style which has nothing in common with the false eloquence that often seduces the young and sometimes dazzles the old, that incumbers truth with crnament which it does not require, and invests in a gaudy rhetoric subjccts too lofty to be raised by a metaphor, and interests too grave and momentous to be decked in flowers.

Review.-Layman's Second Letter to Goddard,

and master of the English language. He treats the most common topics with originality. If we were to single out one excellence amongst so many, we should name the skill with which he detects and the ability with which he exposes the fallacies by which Calvinists cheat themselves in matters of religious feeling.

ART. VII.--A Second Letter to the Rev. Dr. Goddard. By A Layman. 12mo. pp. 90. Chichester printed: Sold by Longman and Co. London. 3s. bds. 1815.

THE

HE character which we gave of the Layman's first Letter [M. Repos. vii. 642, 643,] belongs to this Second: it is decorous, elegant and spirited.

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years been so successfully assailed both with reasoning and ridicule as to render hopeless any attempt to build an argument on its exploded foundations." Whilst the Layman objects to an alliance between Church and State, he says very smartly and very truly,——

but there is one species or mode of this alliance which I admit to be excerned, and to have been exemplified in tremely convenient to the individuals conhistory, I mean that close and intimate connexion which has occasionally subsisted between infidel statesmen and bigoted ecclesiastics. Had a bishopric been at the disposal of Lord Bolingbroke, he would much sooner given it to Dr. Swift than to (independently of personal friendship) have Dr. Clarke." Note. P. 67.

pre

Dr. Goddard had quoted Mr. Hume's eulogium upon the English Church, as "mitigating the genius of the ancient superstition" and " serving itself in a happy medium.' The Layman lays open the unmean. ing verbosity of the passage, and says, in the language that becomes the unfettered Christian advocate,

66

a consistent Protestant will not waste a thought on any medium between error and truth, and between inte grity and imposture, and an honest and enlightened reformer will feel that he has something else to do than merely to mitigate superstition." P. 65.

Dr. Goddard appears to have judged the Layman's Letter worthy of consideration, and accordingly he attempted a reply in " a Sermon lately delivered at the Consecration of the Bishop of London." The Layman could not have flattered himself with the hope of such a distinction. The arguments delivered ex cathedrâ on this notable occasion have not, how ever, either satisfied or silenced our author; he boldly investigates the learned dignitary's well-written passages; and has, we think, put in an effectual claim to a more detailed answer than can be given in the florid In a Postscript the Layman inserts periods of an oration before the clergy, some reflections on the Council of The Layman had endeavoured to Nice, from the pen of Dr. Lardner, shew that no alliance subsists between whom he justly characterizes as "one the Church of England and the State; whom divines of every sect, party and Dr. Goddard considers the expedien- denomination regard with great and cy of such an alliance so ably proved increasing deference : [by Bp. Warburton] that it is unne. cessary to enter into the argument: but the Layman maintains that the alliance is impossible.

"The meaning of the term forbids it. An alliance supposes a treaty, and a treaty supposes the mutual independence of the parties who treat. To contend therefore for an alliance between Church and State, is to contend for a principle which would introduce imperium in imperio, and thus incur the offence called præmunire.”* Pp. 39, 40.

Of Bp. Warburton's book, the Alliance, the Layman says, (p. 41,) that it "has in the course of the last fifty

"See Blackstone's Comment. Vol. iv. p. 115,"

VOL. XI.

Crescit, occulto velut arbor ævo,
Fama."

Would our laymen of learning and leisure copy the example of this respectable writer, and embrace every opportunity of asserting truth and liberty, the cause of Protestantism and liberal and rational Dissent would be a certain and great gainer.

ART. VII.-An Essay on the Principles
of Dissent in which the True
Ground of Separation from the
Established Church is stated and
proved. By Richard Wright, 12mo.
Pp. 24. 6d.

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WE

E cannot," says Mr. Wright, give too much for a good conscience." Hence he argues the

question of Dissent morally as well as theologically. His arguments are wotthy of the attention particularly of unthinking Conformists and incomistent Non-conformists.

Mr. Wright is well known as an Unitarian Dissenter, (the terms should be tautological,) but he treats the subject of Dissent so generally, that any Dissenter may read his Essay with satisfaction, and so candidly, that any churchman may read it without of fence.

ART. IX.-Zeal in a good Cause Recommended and Enforced. A Sermon preached, Tuesday, May 16, 1815, at Worship Street, be fore, the General Baptists' Annual

SIR,

Assembly. By John Coupland. 8vo. pp. 32. Eaton. 1s.

a

HIS is evidently the composition of thinking and serious man. It is particularly adapted to the General Baptists, but will be unsuitable to the taste of no Christians who set a value upon plainness of appearance, simplicity of manner and solidity of judgment. Since the Sermon was printed Mr. Coupland has been removed from the present stage of ac tion: this gives a peculiar interest to the publication, especially as we believe that the sale of it will be of service to a widow and several fatherless children, who have no provision besides the interest which the family of a Dissenting minister usually cre ate amongst his surviving friends.

POETRY.

Feb. 13, 1816. The following lines, though not origiual, may be worthy of your insertion, as peculiarly seasonable, for there can be no better employment of an interval of peace than to inculcate and apprehend the true character of war

-a game which, were their subjects wise, Kings would not play at.

The Great Victory was an offspring of Mr. Southey's Muse in her juvenile days, and then published in one of the Anthologies, yet now apparently deserted, though not disowned, by the Poet Laureat. He has lately collected his smaller pieces into three volumes, among which I was rather sorry than surprised not to find the uncourtly dialogue of Old Kaspar and Peterkin.

PACIFICES.

The Great Victory.

And first the old man shook his head,

Then heav'd a deep-drawn sigh: "Tis some poor fellow's scull," said he, "Who fell in the great victory."

"Now tell us what 'twas all about?"

Young Peterkin, he cries,
And little Wilhelmine looks up

With wonder-waiting eyes;
"Now tell us all about the war,
And what they kill'd each other for ?"

"It was the English," Kaspar cried, "That put the French to rout; And what they kiil'd each other for

I ne'er could well make out : But every body said," quoth he, "That 'twas a famous victory.

"My father liv'd at Blenheim then,
Yon little stream hard by,

They burnt his dwelling to the ground,
And he was forc'd to fly;

Ode on the Battle of Blenis, by Mr. So with his wife and child he fled,

IT

Southey.

was a summer evening, Old Kaspar's works done, And he before his cottage door

Was sitting in the sun!

And by him sported on the green
His little grandchild Wilhelmine.
She saw her brother Peterkin

Roll something large and round,
That he beside the rivulet,

Whilst playing there, had found;
He came to ask what he had found
That was so large, and smooth, and round.

Old Kaspar took it from the boy,
Who stood expectant by;

Nor had he where to rest his head.