The plans of the Sermons are generally inartificial, even to carelessness; the reader must sometimes look back to keep the preacher's design present to his mind. Figurative language is sparingly used; and the figures adopted bespeak less imagination than feeling. The style has few faults and many excellencies; it is easy, flowing and sonorous: the parts of sentences rise naturally one upon another, and the close is usually pleasing to the ear; the composition thus combining the two important qualities of strength and

sweetness.

The second Sermon in the volume appears to us entitled to the first place in point of merit. The argument is maintained in a masterly manner, and there is no falling off (which we think we perceive in some of the other discourses) in the strength and spirit with which the subject is discussed. From the animation that pervades the whole discourse, we infer that this is the preacher's favourite topic. He founds the argument, from the inequality of present good and evil to future retribution, on the parable of Dives and Lazarus, taking nearly the same view of these allegorical characters as is represented in Massillon's celebrated sermon upon the same subject. He

considers the rich man as a mere voluptuary, and the beggar as a mere sufferer. The difference of moral character strengthens the argument, but is not essential to it. The Author's powers are unusually exerted to combat the two objections, that inequality of outward condition does not imply inequality of happiness, and that the most wretched have, all things considered, a preponderance of enjoyment. Upon the whole, we think he succeeds; though his pictures of human misery are traced with a bold and rapid pencil, and he makes, perhaps, too little allowance for the power of habit in accommodating the human being to his condition. With much abatement of the actual wretchedness which is here supposed, the argument is still solid and incontrovertible.

In sketching the character of the Sadducees, the Jewish Epicureans, whom our Lord intended to reprove in the parable, the Author thus exposes the want of motive to virtue, which there is in any scheme of infidelity:

"Their system was, to enjoy the passing hour by indulging freely in every luxury, bodily and mental, which their circumstances could afford, without any regard to a future account. Had their of this system would have been incontroinfidelity been well grounded, the wisdom vertible. The only restraint which a man, acting upon their principle, should impose upon himself, is that of a prudent attention to health and reputation; for, to pay the least respect to moral duties, independently of immediate advantage, would be the height of inconsistency. Where pleasure is the sole end of living, (as to those who are convinced that their pleasure and their existence must end together, it ought undoubtedly to be,) morality is matter of mere convenience and duty, a word without a meaning. They may admit virtue as an auxiliary; they cannot consider it as a principal. It may be employed to promote or to secure enjoyment; but should never be suffered to interfere with it, where there is a competition. In ordinary cases, indeed, it may be advantageous, and consequently expedient, even upon this plan, to abstain from the great transgression.""-Pp. 31, 32.

And again,

"It has indeed been argued by some, that the feelings of pleasure and pain, which by the constitution of our minds form of themselves a retribution, suffiare inseparable from virtue and vice, cient both for the purposes of society, and for the vindication of Providence in the unequal distribution of good and evil. It is not intended to undervalue these feelings as they are an inherent part of our moral frame. But we must insist, that their influence both in supporting and rewarding virtue, depends chiefly, if not solely, upon that reference, which nature and reason uniformly give them lief of this, and what do you leave? You to a future account. Take away the bereply, The dictates of conscience. What then are these dictates, considered as a recompense to the righteous? Some undefined admiration of moral beauty, some transient feelings of self-satisfaction, than which, when unconnected with the anticipation of a future judgment, nothing can be more fallacious and nugatory! And what are they as a punishment to the wicked? Merely a few vain remonstrances, which they ought to regard no such feelings an adequate encouragement more than the croaking of a raven. to suffering virtue, or such remonstrances an adequate infliction of divine justice upon easy, voluptuous and domineering vice?"-Pp. 58, 59.

Are

The design of the whole of this able sermon, and the best manner of the preacher will be seen in the following passage:

"Let us put the case of a man living within the gripe of upstart power, holding his tenement and his means of support from one of those profligates, unhappily too numerous, who stick at no crime to gratify their pride and sensu ality-compared with whom the rich man in the parable is an angel of light. His poor dependent fears God and hates wickedness. He will not become the instrument of oppression; he will not sacrifice his daughter to a tyrant's lust; he will not contribute by his vote to send a wretch into the council of the nation, who would sell his country, as Judas did his Master, for thirty pieces of silver; nay, perhaps, he can but ill conceal his honest indignation, when he hears him praised by unprincipled selfishness. In his rectitude he finds his ruin. A debt which he cannot pay, or a vexatious suit which he cannot support, sends himself to a jail, and exposes his innocent and destitute family to hazards and sufferings, from the very contemplation of which the heart recoils.

"Here is an instance of a good man suffering, from the violence of the wicked, for the sake of righteousness. Is it only a fictitious case to uphold an inference which fact would not bear out? Or is it one of a few solitary examples which are not to be heeded in a general estimate? Read the history of the world. Mark those little tyrants, so numerous in every country, who are for ever grinding the faces of the industrious poor, by exactions and oppressions, for which the law has no remedy. See the statesman and the lawyer, too often plundering under the pretence of defending; and O! that it could not be said, Behold even

the minister of religion, employing the name of God to bind slavery and degradation about the necks of his offspring. Honest simplicity and unprotected goodness become, in a thousand ways, the prey of artifice and malignity; and when we think of the numberless oppressors and deceivers of this description, in all parts of the earth, who seem to exist and to feed upon human misery, especially where despotism is established, it is impossible for a heart of sensibility to dwell, without horror, upon this single source of human wretchedness. And is it within the compass of credibility, that these evils, which have no compensation here, shall receive none hereafter? Can it be true, that for these cruelties the man of violence has nothing to fear; that for

these sufferings the man of righteousness has nothing to hope; that the oppressor and the oppressed, the tiger and his victim, are to lie down quietly together, and rise no more for ever? Then virtue is indeed a phantom, and religion a dream. Then even the monster who hates virtue upon principle, because it is the living reproach of his own character; who dreads patriotism, because it opposes a barrier to his ambition; who abhors honest piety, because it will not give its sanction to his usurpations and enormities; who organizes violence upon an extensive scale, and tramples upon the good that resist it, with the same indifference as he does upon the worm under his feet; who makes havoc his pastime, and rises to empire over the bodies of millions, and upon the awful ruins of justice and humanity-then may even this man repose upon his pillow in security and peace. He may occasionally have some fears for his personal safety, perhaps some remorse for his most flagrant atrocities. But the worst that can happen is death. And can this be the final result of a moral government, conducted by infinite wisdom and benignity? Upon such a scheme, what source of consolation is left to injured innocence and suffering worth? And who upon such terms would bear the proud man's scorn, with all the buffetings that patient merit of the unworthy takes, when he might either improve his state by dexterous villainy, or leave it by a voluntary death? A supposition involving such consequences must appear absurd and incredible. It were, indeed, more easy to believe that there is no God, than to believe that he governs the world upon such a plan.”— Pp. 62-66.

The fourth Sermon is a re-publication. It was preached and printed many years ago, on occasion of the death of Dr. Towers. Dr. Lindsay has consulted no less the gratification of his readers than his own reputation, by preserving it in this collection. The the text is I Cor. xv. 53-57, and in the following passage the subject is well stated and divided; we quote it the rather because it is one of the few instances in which the preacher follows the old and, in our judgment, most and numerically the division of a disuseful plan of announcing distinctly

course:

"What I propose in addressing you from these words is, to point out the ground of peculiar thankfulness to God, which both the common and enlightened Christian has above all other men in an

to which she is indebted for her preservation, and without which she must soon be extinct? The care of life devolves immediately upon the mother, who is to the child, as soon as it is born, in God's stead, to save and cherish its helplessness. If she were left to infer this duty from reasoning, like too many of our other duties, it would be forgotten and neglected. Has not Providence then, in guarding against this neglect, by the irresistible impulse of maternal tenderness, given to man a beautiful image of that incessant care, with which it is watching over the safety and happiness of all its creatures?

"But whilst man, in common with ether animals, owes to this instinctive feeling, the preservation, growth, and vigour of his body, he owes to it, what is still more important, the commencement of those moral affections, which constitate, in their progressive developement, the strength and the glory of his moral and social life. It is in the bosom of a mother, that these affections are generated. Accustomed to look to that bosom for nourishment, protection and pleasure, it raises thence its infant smiles; it catches answering smiles of complacency and joy its heart begins to dilate with instinctive gladness; its sensations of deIght are gradually modified into those of fondness and gratitude; and as it continues to mark the love of a mother, it learns from her the art of loving. Happy when she possesses the invaluable capacity of training with skill this nascent feeling. For, in loving her, the child is easily brought to love whatever she loves, and thus to lay the early foundation of filial and fraternal affection. Yet more, in imbibing sentiments of gratitude towards his parents on earth, he imbibes by degrees the more elevated sentiment of gratitude and love to the great Parent of the universe. Here then is the commencement of that simple, but admirable process, by which animal life is preserved and moral life acquired. Here is the first link of that chain, which encompasses the social world; to whose magic power we are indebted for all the virtues, and all the enjoyments of social life; azy, which reaches from earth to heaven, and unites us with the source of love in the Divine mind. All originates in the mysterious workings of a mother's heart. And can we ever cease to admire the wisdom and benignity of God in rendering this principle of nature so ardent, so patient, so unconquerable? Or shall we be guilty of the monstrous crime of Counteracting this all-gracious ordination?-If ever we would learn piety to our Maker, we must begin with cherish

ing piety to our mother. The Romans had one word for both. The feeling is nearly the same, differing only in its application, and in the perfection of its object."-Pp. 215-218.

We extract a fine passage from Sermon X., on what some of our fellowchristians term Christian experience; but we cannot forbear to point out, by italics, a grammatical error in the concluding clause, a relative without an antecedent, by which the effect is diminished:

"It is because men lose, in the progress of a sensual life, all relish for the higher attainments of intellect, and the more refined pleasures of a pious and good heart, that they are neither qualified nor disposed to see God. The sun may beautify the face of nature; the planets may roll in majestic order through the immensity of space; spring may spread her blossoms; summer may ripen her fruits; autumn may call to the banquet; the senses are regaled; but in the heart that is not purified by religious sentiments, there is no perception of spiritual beauty; no movement of spiritual delight; no reference to that hand which is scattering around the means of enjoyment, and the incentives to praise. But let the heart be touched with that ethereal spark, which is elicited by the word of God, and the promises of his Son; let sinful affections be removed, and the influence of a devout spirit be cherished; let intellect and reflection become the handmaids of piety; then we shall see God in all that is great and beautiful in creation, and feel him in all that is cheerful and happy in our own minds. The understanding thus employed, experiences a sensible enlargement of its own powers and the heart thus moved, draws nearer in its desires and affections, to that fountain of love, from which its joys proceed, and in which they will finally centre.

"I am aware that men, who have never been accustomed to those secret musings of the mind, which rise through

things that are seen and temporal, to things that are not seen and eternal,' are very apt to consider all this as the reverie of an enthusiastic fancy. But, if this were the time, it would be easy to shew, that such views, such feelings, such pleasures, are derived from the most rational exercise of our best powers, and that they are perfectly consistent with that sobriety of mind which Christianity recommends. They are congenial to a pure heart revolting to those hearts only, which are debased by worldly wisdom; perverted by pride and avarice;