properly describe such a work by his expressive phrase, as one of "the fairest productions of human wit," we know not any other of such productions, more worthy of the elegant description which he applies to the subject of his comments. "He who hath once tasted its excellences, will desire to taste them again; and he who hath tasted them oftenest will relish them best." And we reckon it a happy circumstance that this choice, refreshing food for devout souls has hitherto been largely distributed among American Churchmen, not only by cheap editions of this Commentary, but also through that excellent work, Bishop Brownell's Commentary on the Book of Common Prayer.

We proceed to consider the character of Bishop Horne, as a preacher. Of his qualities in this respect, his biographer speaks in the highest terms, and in a very engaging manner. Mr. Horne, after his ordination at Oxford, an event which he considered " a very serious affair," and contemplated and met with the most earnest and solemn resolutions, went to preach his first sermon in the curacy of Finedon, Northamptonshire, then the residence of Mr. Jones. Of that sermon this excellent judge says,

"The discourse was admirable in respect of its composition and moral tendency. Give me an audience of well-disposed Christians, among whom there are no dry moralists, no fastidious critics, and I will stake my life upon the hazard of pleasing them all by the preaching of that sermon." (Vol. i, p. 43.)

Of a subsequent effort of his esteemed friend, perhaps we ought to say favorite, he speaks thus:

"With farther preparation, and a little more experience, he preached in a more public pulpit, before one of the largest and most polite congregations, at London. The preacher, whose place he supplied, but who attended in the Church on purpose to hear him, was so much affected by what he had heard, and the manner in which it was delivered, that when he visited me shortly after in the country, he was so full of this sermon, that he gave me the matter and the method of it by heart; pronouncing at the end of it what a writer of his life onght never to forget, that George Horne was, without exception, the best preacher in England.' Which testimony was the more valuable, because it came from a person who had, with many people, the reputation of being such himself.” (p. 44.)

And when Mr. Jones mentions the subject and text of the sermon, we are not inclined to dispute such testimony of the ardent admirers of a young preacher of great promise. We have long admired that earnest expostulation, founded on Rev. i, 7, and the great doctrine of the Second Advent, as one of the best of Bishop Horne's sermons; but we could almost wish that Mr. Jones had given some clue to the name of the

man who had, with many people, the reputation of being the best preacher in England, and yet modestly gave that high praise to one who was then a very young man. We are not disposed to depreciate the strong testimony of Mr. Jones, to the excellence of Bishop Horne as a preacher. We heartily respond to the assertion that "in his sermons his sense is strong, his language sweet and clear, his devotion warm, but never inflated or affected; and from the editions through which they pass, it is plain the world does see, and will see, better every day, that they are not the discourses of a varnisher of visions ;"* a phrase suggested to Mr. Jones by the remark of an adversary of the Bishop, that he "diffused a coloring of elegance over the wild but not unlovely visions of enthusiasm." At the same time, we think the following description of his character as a preacher, in one of the Quarterly Reviews of twenty-five years ago, equally just, and more complete:

"Bishop Horne, indeed, in some degree deviated from this unimpassioned and didactic style;" the style of Clarke and Butler. "With an elegance sometimes bordering on prettiness; with tenderness of feeling, rarely, if ever indulged beyond its proper limits; had his life been cast in a different sphere; if, instead of addressing an highly cultivated congregation in the University, he had undertaken the charge of a populous parish, it is probable that he would have felt the imperious necessity of increasing the power and energy, without detracting from the grace, of his language; that he would not have subdued himself to his uniform gentleness of manner, but taken a bolder flight; that, in short, his discourses might have ranked not only among the more elegant and attractive, but the more solid and eloquent, in the language."

This judgment of the reviewers respecting the characteristics of an excellent preacher, is fully sustained by Bishop Horne's remarks on "Eloquence" and "Preaching," in his "Essays and Thoughts on Various Subjects;" a portion of his works which we are by no means disposed to overlook, but rather to commend to the diligent study of every reader of those works. From the remarks to which we allude, and from the assertion of Mr. Jones, that the Bishop "was, both for matter and manner, one of the first orators and teachers that the Church of England could boast," it might be inferred that his sermons derived no little power and popularity from the great aid of a good delivery. Upon this important point, the

p. 75. † Vol. i. p. 12.

biography by the learned chaplain is not very full. But an anonymous writer of the same period, very intelligent, and manifestly impartial, though claiming a share of the Bishop's friendship, as his regular correspondent for years; testifies, that notwithstanding the shortness of his sight, which deprived him of some of the graces of oratory-as in his youth, according to Mr. Jones, it had deprived him of the exercise of athletic sports, and kept him at his books and music-yet not only the excellence of his matter, and the simple elegance of his style, but also the sweetness of his voice, caused thousands of people, of very various descriptions, to hang with rapture on his lips, in the Cathedral and Metropolitan Churches. And whatever may be the judgment of any respecting his discourses, in comparison with those of other celebrated preachers of the last century, he may be safely regarded by theological students and young clergymen, as one of the best models furnished by that period. There are, indeed, peculiarities in the style of Bishop Horne, which, however becoming in him, can not be largely adopted by others, without betraying the servility of faulty imitation. But doubtless, his attractive example and admirable instructions, as preacher and President of Magdalen College, in conjunction with the similar example and efforts of other diligent promoters of earnest piety, at Cambridge as well as Oxford, contributed much to raise up in the Church of England a generation of excellent preachers; men, whose faithfulness and fervency in the ministry of the simple gospel of redemption and grace, have been, for half a century past, under God, rolling back the tide of dissent and disorder, which, toward the close of the preceding century, threatened to overwhelm or undermine that venerable Church.

We must take, here, some farther view of the character of Bishop Horne, as a theologian. To a certain extent, the theologian is included in the preacher; but many persons of various shades of opinion, would pronounce the sermons of Bishop Horne defective, for want of a larger exhibition in them, of distinctive theology, according to some favorite system of doctrine or discipline. Indeed, his characteristic neglect of nice discussion of the more questionable tenets of various schools or systems, exposed his most elaborate discussion of such tenets, in the sermon on Jas. ii, 24, to a very plausible, but groundless objection of Mr. Wesley. A brief view of the matter will sufficiently illustrate and vindicate the character of Bishop Horne as a theologian. In the sermon, having made an unhappy, and for him, a most unwonted allusion, to "the new lights of the Tabernacle and Foundry," he says,

"It is by no means my design in the following discourse to endeavor to conduct you through all the windings and foldings of the polemical labyrinth of justification ;" and presently speaks of "those happy times, when faith and a good life were synonymous terms." This gave Mr. Wesley opportunity for the remark, that "there never were such times, because faith is the root," and a good life "the tree springing therefrom."* With what reason, however, an objection so nicely drawn was urged against the expressions of Mr. Horne, the following passages from the Apology already noticed, which sets forth plainly his theological views, then generally known, will show. "We preach faith, the root from whence they [moral duties] spring." Vol. ii, p. 453.

"The fruit receives its goodness from the tree, not the tree from the fruit, which does not make the tree good, but shows it to be so, because men do not gather grapes from thorns; so works receive all their goodness from faith, not faith from works, which do not themselves justify, but show a prior justification of the soul that produces them; as it is written, 'We know that we have passed-usrabenxaμsv-from death unto life, because we love the brethren.' 1 John, iii, 14." pp. 453-4.

"Faith has one intrinsic excellency, of which works are destitute; and that is, that it will justify a sinner, and carry him to Heaven, as it did the thief upon the cross: this, I think, gives it a vast pre-eminence over works, which can not justify, otherwise than as fruits, they evidence the faith that does for we are justified by faith only, says the eleventh Article, upon the authority of Scripture." Vol. ii, p. 465.

:

Many similar brief statements of this and other important points of distinctive theology, might be cited, both from the early and the later writings of our author. Such, for instance, is his eloquent description of the "change from sin to righteousness, and from the world to Christ," in the sermon on Eph. v, 14. His charge also contains very decided remarks, showing "a justice and propriety in our being saved by faith rather than by works," as well as upon "the unedifying morality," which had in like manner just then been treated with zeal and earnestness by a learned and able prelate, Bishop Horsley, and upon "the Constitution and use of the Church of Christ." Vol. ii, pp. 568-9.

We have yet to consider Bishop Horne in the character of a politician. Unhappily, until of late, this was a part of the official character of all Bishops in the Church of England. Recently, however, we have been permitted to behold, in her colonial Bishops, a few successors of the Apostles, who, like them, are not burdened with the cares and policy of the king

doms of this world. And we should hail with joy and thankfulness, any judicious arrangement, by which, through an increase of the number of dioceses in England, some Bishops might be appointed there, to have only the care of spiritual things. We doubt not that their position and influence would prove vastly beneficial, in every way, to the highest interests of the Church.

Bishop Horne, in his brief Episcopate, spent but a few months in the House of Lords. But, like most Bishops of the English establishment, he had been, while Dean, quite zealous and earnest in maintaining its claims. He did not, like some, hold moreover, exclusively, the divine right of kings. But the space which his sentiments, as a loyal Briton, occupy in some of his sermons, for anniversaries, fasts, and other special occasions, will render such sermons, to American Churchmen, the least interesting portion of his works. The grievous neglect, which, through the policy of the British government, in the middle of the last century, left them destitute of immediate Episcopal care, until the Revolution, taught them effectually that not all kings, though allied with the spiritual governors of the Church, are its nursing fathers. It is true, that a grateful recollection of the good will and watchful beneficence of many of the Bishops, Clergy, and Laity of the Mother Church, caused their brethren here to say, in the preface to our Book of Common Prayer, that the Protestant Episcopal Church in these States was indebted to the Church of England for a long continuance of nursing care and protection. But American Churchmen know how to distinguish between the Church of England, consisting of Bishops, Clergy, and Laity, as an integral part of the Catholic Church of Christ, and the English Ecclesiastical Establishment, with the king or queen of the British realms for its head. Our author, as we have seen, had, in one of his earliest publications, spoken nobly and earnestly of the wants and claims of Churchmen in the Colonies, with respect to the Episcopate. And yet, had we space left, we should be inclined to examine some of the fallacies, which he, in common with many other English divines, employs upon the subject of religious establishments. But we deem it more important, and equally appropriate, to notice briefly here, in connection with a farther reference to his life and works, the grand fallacy of most other writers, which is one that we have not observed in any of his arguments, upon this subject.

The fallacy, by which religious establishments are most plausibly advocated or defended is, that they render the ministers of religion more independent of their hearers, than they